Yes it does.....the ones who fused Jesus and his Father into one god, did so over a long period of time and through many controversies. The first Christians did not believe in a triune God because they were all Jewish, and placing any god above Yahweh or even on equal footing with him, was blasphemy....a breach of the First Commandment.
I don't think so. The belief wasn't "quantified" or "made into a statement of belief" until later to prevent heresy, but it was written down by the very books we read from
But did
Jesus say that he was equal to God?.....are you taking the word of those who were trying to pin an accusation of blasphemy on him? They were trying to do away with him.....but the accusation failed. Claiming to be the son of God was not committing blasphemy, as Jesus himself acknowledged....
John 10:31-36...(NASB)
" The Jews picked up stones again to stone Him. 32 Jesus answered them, “I showed you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you stoning Me?” 33 The Jews answered Him, “For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy; and because You, being a man, make Yourself out to be God.” 34 Jesus answered them, “Has it not been written in your Law, ‘I said, you are gods’? 35 If he called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture cannot be broken), 36 do you say of Him, whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?"
There are two problems that you have presented here.
1) The Jews understood what he said in John 5. You can't erase what they understood in John 5. They explicitly said what they understood in John 5
2) You then "jumped" to John 10 as if it was connected when it was a different context and application. Here Jesus was talking about authority to do miracles, not who he was. As an all wisdom master in debate he moved the issue from "I and the Father are one" - to authority to do miracles.
No admission of being God there even though he had opportunity to make it known, if it was so.
As if they would believe differently? He already said who He was the first time. He isn't out to please us or isn't under the dictates of what "we" want him to say.
Angel: "Call him Imanuel, God with us"... seems like they had a different understanding
Exodus 3, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me ‘What is His name?’ Then what shall I tell them?” God replies to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.'” God has said that His own name, His personal name, is “I AM.”
John 8:56-58. “Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing My day; he saw it and was glad.” “You are not yet 50 years old,” they said to Him, “and
you have seen Abraham?” “I tell you the truth,” Jesus announced, “before Abraham was, I AM!” and then they wanted to stone him. The reason is quite clear
Why is it wrong to say "I am the Son of God?"
Just because he was a glorious spirit being in heaven, doesn't make him God.
In context, what was Jesus saying...?
John 17:1-5....
"Jesus spoke these things; and lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You, 2 even as You gave Him authority over all flesh, that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eternal life. 3 This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. 4 I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do. 5 Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was."
What was Jesus speaking about? He said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You" ...and he said..."This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent." This was a prayer of Jesus to his Father....how does one part of God pray to an equal part of himself?
Jesus glorified his Father on earth....how did he do that?...by doing all that his Father sent him to do. He glorified his Father and now he was asking his Father to restore his glory as a spirit being on his return to heaven....a place he has occupied with his Father from "the beginning"......but the beginning of what?
That, Deeje, is your interpretation and with great liberty. Not to mention what The Word was made flesh He no longer had the God attributes as Paul said.
Your interpretation is wrong for a very simple reason. If he glorified the Father by doing what His Father sent him to do, He would have said, "Now glorify me now for what I have accomplished", but He didn't say that. He said "
glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was." Which means He shared the glory of position BEFORE He accomplished what He did on earth.
Unfortunate translation that...."the LORD" is not a name....it is a title, and the Jews in their original Hebrew could see that God's name was
יְהֹוָ֖ה (Yahweh.....Jehovah.)
"I am יְהֹוָ֖ה (Yahweh) that is My Name; and My glory I will not give to another, nor My praise to the graven images.
חאֲנִ֥י יְהֹוָ֖ה ה֣וּא שְׁמִ֑י וּכְבוֹדִי֙ לְאַחֵ֣ר לֹֽא־אֶתֵּ֔ן וּתְהִלָּתִ֖י לַפְּסִילִֽים:(Tanakh)
Jesus was not asking for God's glory.....but to be given back the glory that he had alongside his Father in heaven before his earthly mission. All spirit beings are glorious.
Titles are names and names are Titles. Spirit beings may be glorious but they don't "share" God's glory. And the interpretation is correct -- a good translation. I have the title of Dad, husband, father, brother... these are names given to me because of who I am.
Its amazing to me what you see when you want to see it....
Take that scripture apart and you will see that it means the very opposite of what you think it does....
Philippians 2:5-11...
"Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. 8 Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."
Jesus existed in God's "form"....what is God's form? "God is a spirit" (
John 4:24). This means that Jesus was a spirit being before being sent to earth on his mission. And equality with God was NOT something he wanted to grasp.
He "became obedient to the point of death"...to whom was he "obedient"? To whom is God obedient?
"God highly exalted him and gave him a name that above every name"....How does God exalt an equal part of his "Almighty" self, and then give that part of himself a name that is above what he already has? (Psalm 83:18)
Why is the confession of Jesus' as "Lord" (another word for Master, not God) "to the glory of God the Father"?
If he was God then he could take that glory for himself.....but he never does.
Unfortunately, we can't just take one scripture and make a doctrine out of it.
- In Hebrews it was written that Jesus was not an angel
- Being in the form of God is not equality with God. Man was formed in His image and in His likeness.... but we weren't equal to God
- We are to judge angels and not visa versa