So, here I am :). Your last statement: ""Cut and dry"? Again, yes Jesus said he and the Father were one ("hen"), and he continued to say to the Father at John 17:21,22 in regards to his apostles "that they may be one as we are one." Is Jesus saying the apostles should share the same essence, being 12 parts of the same Apostle? Cut and dry? The same Greek word is used at 1 Corinthians 3:6,8 to describe Paul and Apollos as "one" ("hen"). Are they in the same relationship as a Trinue God? "One" in purpose and unity. It's simple - Jesus is not God and there are no contradictions in the Bible about it. It's a dangerous thing to take lightly. --Oscillate 15:54, 30 May 2006 (UTC)"
1. Jesus didn't need to say "I am the Father", that's what "I and the Father are one" means, its a mere stylistic difference. Now, i'll give you this, if the context of the verse truly proved to be deeply metaphorical i'd say you'd have a case here, but the disciples of Jesus literally are a part of the body of Christ spiritually speaking, so I just don't see the problem here. And im not sure if you remember, but all men have eternal souls, Jesus's body died but His soul certainly didn't, I mean, you'd have a problem there since the OT says...somewhere that our souls were created to exist forever. And yes, i've kept in mind what you said about it similar to Greek Philosophy, but if I may be so bold, as User:King Vegita has pointed out and started several edit wars and I think a mediation request over, the ancient Egyptians had some sort of odd thing going on with Osiris which apparently people enjoy arguing was somehow a directly related precurser to Jesus's ressurection, but similarities do not make religions false. Many religions have methods to deal with sin, does that mean Christianity is wrong to elaborate on Sin because other religions have done it? Many philosophical questions have sprung up over the whole "Problem of Evil" thing, does this mean Christianity cannot answer this question because "other people" have maybe tried answering it first? And more importantly, many religions before Christianity were theistic in nature. Does this mean Christianity is paganistiand false for believing in a creator? I just don't see how bringing up how different philosophies and religions have similarities is a necessarily legitimate aregument.
3. Power from God is one thing, infinite power to withstand infinite judgement multiplied by the many, many sins of mankind is quite another. While God may be love, God also is a being of justice. As for that Peter verse, well, if Jesus is also a man, then I see no problems with His soul being made alive again in heaven.
4. God approved of Jesus, whether it was for Jesus's obedience, Jesus's perfection, or Jesus's all around awesomeness, the verse doesn't seem that specific. I suspect this sort of deal was where alot of motivation for development of the trinity doctrine came from, so people could more clearly rationalize God approving of Jesus without making it seem too much like God was somehow being redundant, so at the end of the day, God approved of Jesus, and the specifics apparently wern't elaborated on.
LORD
appears in the Bible, YHWH is actually there, but has been removed. Psalm 83:18 says (
KJV) That men may know that thou, whose name alone is JEHOVAH, art the most high over all the earth. But newer versions just say LORD now. God's name is supposed to appear 7,000 times in the Bible, but each and every one of those has been removed and replaced with a title. Do you think that's the way God wanted his word to be? If he wanted people to replace his name in the Bible, he wouldn't have revealed it or had his people use it all the time. It was even in the Greek manuscripts the apostles and Jesus had available to them, and so it's more than likely Jesus also spoke God's name when reading from the Old Testament. There are many verses that can have multiple translations depending on how you approach the verse. I would prefer to not put my trust in translators who have removed God's name from where it rightfully belongs. 7,000 times! Don't you think God was placing some importance on his name? Trinitarians and others have removed it completely and replace it with just a title. Everyone who calls on the name of LORD? You, whose name is LORD? I don't think that's what God had in mind.5. Ok, really now, I was only speculating there. I mean it's not like the Bible says that it wasn't personal monologue, just that Jesus was praying. And the positions wouldn't be His to give if Jesus was speaking as a man, its not like He was speaking as both God and a man at the same time every time Jesus said a word, that's be sort of confusing i'd think.
6. What was ressurected was Jesus in the flesh of course, is there any other way? :). Being in a position of subjectivity doesn't mean Jesus can't have dual natures, they don't have to express themself at the same time. Besides, Jesus doesn't just stop having two natures at any one time, it seems compleatly sensable to me that at most times Jesus would seem to be in a position of inferiority to the Father because Jesus is also a man. I've looked up the collosians verse you keep referring to, and I see "The firstborn over all creation", followed by the "All things created through Him" (Jesus) verse and then of course the "He is before all things, and in him all things hold together" verse, which certainly together doesn't seem like a "God created Jesus" kind of moment. And Jesus's unique nature certainly does require distinction, but distinction alone does not mean that Paul was trying to shout to the masses that Jesus wasn't God. Homestarmy 04:37, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
1. Well our souls do literally exist, literally just means that its factual, (And yes, I did dictionary.com that) and I would say it is quite factual that souls are quite real. Don't tell me we need to argue over that please :). And I don't know what traditional trinity teaching your referring to, but who says Jesus didn't mean the Father as in God as this verse? The Catholic church? Because really, it's not like I hate the Catholic church or nothing, but I don't really listen to them too much, honestly, it always looks to me like they just think too hard about how to separate God as much as possible yet keep Him equal, yeesh. So then, if its not deeply methaphorical, it seems to me you've got it, Jesus is one with the Father just as the apostles are one with Jesus, though considering you seem to be carrying on your argument steadfastly, I doubt that what I think you say you think is really what you think here heh. Nextly, seriously, are you a Jehovah's witness? Because it really looks like your at least leaning towared their theology quite a good deal here. So the dead might know nothing, people who have gone brain dead don't know anything either, does that mean they've stopped existing? And sure Adam was made with a soul, but the eternal existance goes forwards, not backwards. We started existing because God made us start existing, and we will continue to exist forever and ever, whether it be in heaven....or hell. Now on the historian type people, on the first guy, before I start royally blasting that Deism comment, do you happen to know what exactly he means by that, because if it means the type of Deism I'm thinking about, then that just looks to me like a man who either hasn't read much of the Bible or read it and doesn't care at all somehow. The second guy is just like I said, pointing out similarities and trying to connect the dots, and if we did that with many things in Christianity, then pretty much all of it from head to toe except maybe salvation by faith alone is gonezored, and thats not right! On the third guy, how did all ancient pagan religions get the trinity when Greece was not the first of civilization, nor the founder of the world's first pagan religion? The inference of developing the trinity straight from the Greeks seems just more pointing of fingers at various religions and saying that since they had common ideas, that the only possiblity is that they took them all from each other. Humans do not need to copy each other to learn stuff, I mean China sure seemed to develop a whole lot of similar stuff without Europe's help for one thing. On Christmas, im pretty sure the Church put that date there on purpose to try and lure people away from that pagan thing they were doing, sure one could argue it might seem cheap on the outside, but hey, it apparently converted people, did the Church start by worshipping the tree or something and then wean people off of it?
3. No, Jesus's soul. I mean He was a man, how does one be a man without a soul anyway? Matthew 28:18 seems quite clear Jesus was omnipotent, all authority in heaven and earth seems to sum it up quite nicely there. And where is this "Soul for soul" verse you speak of, I seem to recall many verses of the Bible about God's infinite justice being sort of, well, infinite, not just stopping at a single soul. And I sure hope that Jesus didn't come just for Adam's soul, what about the rest of us? Adam may of introduced sin but how could Adam possibly commit every single possible sin, including all the differen degrees of all sins, that's like an infinite variety of Sin, come on now. Why would God instruct the Israelites to sacrifice animals for their sins if Adam's personal sins were the only one God cared about? And where does that leave Eve, it would seem to me Eve commited the first sin, what with commiting idolatry for believing the snake when the snake basically said that God could not be trusted. Finally, what im getting at is that Jesus was sacrificing Himself for an infinite amount of Justice to be inflicted upon Him instead of man, not just a limited amount of justice that He would be able to withstand if He wasn't God, and being perfect doesn't immedietly translate into the ability to withstand an onslaught of infinitly punishment. It would take something like, say, infinite power as well, much like God has..... Homestarmy 04:15, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
4. Seriously, when im talking about the hypostatic union, im not kidding when im telling ya that it's supposed to be 1. Jesus is God and 2. Jesus is also a man, that also part isn't just thrown in there because I want more syllables in my sentences, God approved of Jesus. How is it not rational that God cannot approve of His son? And I really think the "Mysteriously unexplainable" type of crowd really kind of overblows that, because you really can explain it to a point, there's no need to just say "Its a mystery" and then give up. We don't need to know everything about something to know it is rational, take Quantum theory for example, it is quite a mystery indeed how electrons literally move around the atom because we can't literally see the things in motion, yet logically we know they must be moving around those atoms alright, all the VSPER theory and stuff sort of hinges on this motion. Humans do not have to have infinite knowladge for things to be rational. On Roman Catholicism, once again, I sort of don't tend to listen to that church much, so I don't know what to tell ya. Now, im not sure where the whole name thing entered into this discussion, but i'd like to point out the KJV seems to have it right in that verse, and im fairly certain the NIV specifically mentions in its introduction that it has replaced all instances of "YHWH" and "Jehovah" with Lord, the reason I can't remember, but the mention is there, so Satan must of dropped the ball to do such a shoddy coverup. Besides, didn't the ancient Jews remove God's real name from all manuscripts anyway so that people could never ever burn it, so that we can only make a guesstimate about the real name? And finally, if God is not the Lord, then what is He, a prince? A Grand Mufti? A Sultan? Im pretty sure its a title for "Lord of everything" if you get my drift.
5. This is sort of how the hypostatic union works, Jesus has a nature as God and a nature as man, and Jesus's nature as a man didn't have the authority to give those positions. Now if I believed the thing that you're debating against here then sure, i'd be in pretty big trouble, but what your trying to debate against isn't what I believe....the 2 natures aren't separate, but there's a very large difference between concieving of Jesus's nature in separate terms and His nature actually being separate literally.
6. Im saying ressurected in the flesh as in His body was sort of sitting there in the tomb all, well, you know, corpse-y, and then when Jesus came back He was ressurected physically there. and what's this "spirit creature" stuff, you means things like demons and angels? And remember, I do think Jesus is God, so why can't Jesus pass material objects through walls, especially His own body? And you say that Jesus has merely been given authority from God, so even then, i'd certainly think that's enough power to do a little teleportation/transmutation hovever-Jesus-did-it-ification to go through that wall. I'd also think that's more than enough power to stop people from recognizing Jesus as well, that's mostly like a thought pattern anyway, just suspend the neurons or something, I dunno how God did it. And as for poor interpretations, are you using the KJV here or what, and I don't see what evidence there is that the word underlying "Over" or whatever it is in the original languages doesn't actually mean "over". And to conclude this, I don't see how it is so simple that an infinitly just God could somehow deliver infinite justice upon one person and that person still be quite alive spiritually and existing, not undergoing eternal torment of any kind, thusly symbolizing that He had the power to pay the debt instantly, and yet somehow not have infinite power. There's such a thing as being so simple that it is wrong, learned that the hard way on the SATs, ruddy later-in-the-test math questions and their trick answers, hmph. Homestarmy 04:15, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
1. It seems we disagree over what exactly death means in this sense. I don't supposed you've ever watched The Colbert Report by any chance? On the show, he has a rather interesting list used to quite humerous effect, called his "Dead to me" list, as I recall, the number one spot goes to bears, a recurring joke in which Colbert is afraid of bears for some reason. Yet the things on his list aren't actually dead in a "cease to exist" sense; their dead to Colbert. The theme of death to sin is most certainly a recurring one throughout the Bible, but let me ask you this, of all the verses you've quoted, do any of them actually say that the actual souls themselves cease to exist, or that they simply die/know nothing/etc. etc.? Ephesians 2 for one shows us how that through our sins, we are certainly "dead", but before anyone is saved, are our souls non-existant? Souls certainly do "Die", and from the moment we are born, they are indeed already "dead", so then, how could something be born again if there is nothing there to be born at all? Furthermore, if as you say the death of our souls causes them to stop existing, then how do you explain Revelation 20:14 and the second death, do we stop existing twice? Of course, the context of these verses alone seems to hardly assure that they must cooperate with the verses you've already provided, so let's dig a little deeper into Eccelsiates with the help of this little gem of a website I found. Ecclesiates 12:7 seems to indicate a belief that the dust that our bodies turn into makes the soul return to God, as opposed to it suddenly ceasing to exist. So then, it would seem the Old Testament does not only contain references which can be used to try and support the idea that souls are not eternal, hmm....Next, on Eccleiates 3:18-21, im sorry, but I recommend you find a new favorite verse. Ecclesiates is all about this teacher guy trying to think up things about God and morality and whatnot and his progressing thought train, the verse begins "I also thought...." indicating the past tense; in other words, the author no longer believes one of your favorite verses. The book goes on to detail how the author is looking upon various aspects of creation and the situation going on around him, even making new declarations from time to time on various things, so im afraid that your verse was never meant to mean what you say it means. On the Adam thing and the "Living Soul" part, well, that's not hard at all, our souls are eternal in that they were created and will continue to exist forever, but their not pre-existant. Besides, Genesis 2:7 says that God formed the man And breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, not then breathed, I see no problems here. Nextly, on the Greeks, which Greeks are we even talking about, because of course the Greeks who were converted to Christianity would think up the exact idea of the hypostatic union concerning Christ, I mean, they were Christians thinking up this particular belief. It still doesn't change that borrowing ideas from other philosophies and religions doesn't make new religious ideas false, I suppose they were simply taking what they knew and using it to reconcile difficult to understand parts of the Bible taking into account things that the Bible would support. And finally, enough with the Catholic church bashing, really now, im not Catholic. All your really doing is giving me constant +1's on my mental "Reason's why I am not a Catholic" list, most of which I already knew already and don't generally use myself as main reasons to not be a Catholic since I normally keep in mind more powerful ones. I don't know whether the claims you make about the church are true, but even if they are, I don't see how they apply to me, I mean, I don't go out and buy that Christmas tree every year and then sing songs to Norse gods while getting presents either.....And while the Church certainly does seem to of mis-read parts of the Bible many times in history concerning, well, alot of things, their frequent mistakes throughout history doesn't mean that everything they say must of been a mistake, including the trinity.
3. Some of this i've answered mostly already in number one. However, after the Adam bit, if Jesus has all authority in heaven and isn't God, then where does that actually leave God? Are they sharing authority or what, and if they truly are compleatly separate beings, how can they each have all of the authority for themselves at the same time? Of course, Jesus was indeed "granted" the authority, but then how could this be if God is suppose to be Lord, and the Son is supposed to be compleatly inferior in all ways? Maybe...just maybe....Jesus is also God in addition to being a man, hmm, yes, that might just work out fine logically...... :D . Nextly, if Jesus is appointed Judge, and does not judge by an infinitly just standard, then on judgement day, what will God say, something like "Well, i'd sure like to be infinitly just, but i'll just let my Son, whom I love of course, give a sort of...incompleate rendition of justice, I mean come on, justice sure is hard to give out these days, what with all these people constantly whining to me about being "cruel" or other nonsense in the old testament whenever I condemn people, yeesh, I need a break!". If God is infinitly just, then how can He stand by and see justice not be done against those who have not accepted the gift of eternal life and recieved forgiveness through the Son? Sin can't just be swept under the rug after all and left there for all eternity. Nextly, if there was an infinite amount of people the problem would simply be compounded, for the infinite amount of sins that an infinite amount of people would commit would need like, what, infinite^3 amount of judgement from God? His infinite justice works when, as the Bible points out in numerous places, (And please, don't suddenly become a universalist) sinners are sent to Hell for all eternity, and the punishment thereof is therefore infinitly just by continuing for such a span. Nextly, Jesus having to be God in order to be a sacrifice isn't simply a matter to me of ceremonial differences, im saying that it is impossible for Jesus to of not been God yet somehow bear the sins of the entire world, not out of differences in signifigance, but simply because it would not literally be possible for Jesus to bear infinite judgement for the entire world without being God. It's a matter of logic, not of signifigance. And note how the problems seem to dissapear when Jesus's dual nature is accepted, hmm, yes, I can totally see Jesus dying if Jesus was a man as well as God, good thing too that souls are eternal so that His soul doesn't cease to exist or something, yeeees.....
4. The question, whether you believe that Jesus has 2 natures or not that can be conceived of in separate terms yet are not separate, is how is it not logical that God can approve of Jesus. If you really want to get all formal about it, it appears that the idea of the hypostatic union more precisely states that Jesus's duel nature acts as one unit which sort of makes sense considering Jesus never spazzed into split-personality episodes or anything, and therefore, I see no reason why God could not approve of Jesus, I mean, God doesn't have a duel nature while Jesus does. Nextly, im still not sure how this name discussion got started, but if I may be so bold, when God was telling Moses about all sorts of stuff including God's name, was it "Jehovah" or "Yahweh", and how exactly does "YHWH" have to be pronounced "Yahweh" anyway when 2 letters are missing? And how did "Yahweh" turn into "Jehovah", was it translated from Hebrew to an English sort of equivalent? Because if it was, well then, it would seem to me that on judgement day when we're both standing up in front of Jesus for being naughty name-of-God mis-pronouncers, we'll both be getting an earful for sure.....And lastly, I didn't see your question, but if Jesus wasn't a preist, then it'd be a bit hard for Him to be descended from that house or preists or whatever it was, bit hard to be the Messiah when you wouldn't fulfill the prophecies and all, but no worries, Jesus has a nature of being a man, no reason He can't be a preist.... Homestarmy 07:05, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
5. You know, you keep mentioning "No holy spirit again" a whole lot, itching to turn the conversation towards the trinity are we? :D Anyway, their not separate in the sense that Jesus couldn't be just a man for 30 minutes, then 30 minutes later be only God, but conceptually Jesus's 2 natures can be looked at separatly even when they aren't literally separated compleatly. So once again, Jesus's nature as a man didn't have the authority that only God has.
6. The spirit didn't turn into a flesh-spirit combo, the flesh was already sitting there in a cave with a rock in front of it. Why should the spirit make new flesh when Jesus's flesh is still right there? And in conclusion, all this philosophy made by man that im using is, as far as I can tell, supported by the Bible, it just takes a little thinking to put it all together. But technically sure, nobody literally had to come up with the idea of the trinity or the hypostatic union, the church could of just stopped itself from asking those questions, so thousands of years later when we're all trying to witness to Atheists and they ask "So, how did Jesus appear submissive yet Timothy call Him "My Lord and my God"?" all we can answer is "Uhhh, well, see, i'd tell you the answer, but um.....God is love! Yea! That answers it for sure! Answers everything! Accept Jesus into your heart and you'll, err, stop caring about that question my Atheist friend....." Homestarmy 07:05, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
1. "This teacher guy" isn't a pointless designation, he's called a teacher in the very beginning in verse 1:12. And yes, it was past tense in the sense of no longer believing something, as Ecclesiates 1:17 shows while referring to the thoughts you are depending upon, the "understanding of wisdom" the teacher undertakes is something the teacher learns is "a chasing after the wind" sounds like fruitlessness to me. Much of the first part of the entire book is discussing the things he believed that he figured out were wrong later on. And in Ecclesiates 12:7, I must of missed the word "All" in that verse; because it doesn't sound like he's defining which spirits, just "The spirit", definition of which spirit/s these are doesn't seem to be included. And if the spirit isn't the soul, then what is it? Just life-force? Then where does that leave the spirit of God, for God is certainly not limited by the same standards of life that our lives (or spirits) all have, and using your perspective, is most certainly not limited by annihilationism. And as for your testimony that the Old Testament never says the soul lives on, that doesn't necessarily surprise me, after all, our salvation was not yet even outlined specifically, so how could anyone even know how to obtain eternal life in the first place? Simply not being mentioned doesn't make it start falling towards the "Souls stop existing" idea, which is still separate from souls "dying", and most certainly separate from the verses you've given showing that the soul can get hungry and thirsty and so on. (Remember, "Thirst for righteousness"?) For Jesus giving His soul, well, men have souls, and Jesus was the sacrifice for our sins, so I would think Jesus would have to be giving His soul. Is there a problem with this? People "give" their souls to Christ all the time, does that mean their souls stopped existing and they all turned into hollow shells? For revelations, my take on this does admittedly depend entirely on my above argument concerning souls existing forever, however, it does nonetheless mean that a person's soul would have to be punished forever to take the infinite justice of God. And what makes you think the lake of fire is symbolic, or that in order to ressurect something from the dead, it has to cease existing first? When Lazarus died, did he stop existing, and if so, what was left to bring back? When something stops existing, it doesn't tend to come back, and if it does, that's probably a sure sign it didn't stop existing in the first place.
3. If someone gains the same authority as someone else, how is this not saying that Jesus was as powerful as God? On my judging speech, what im trying to say is that God is, of course, infinitly just. He will not ignore Sin; this isn't Islam where if you get a 60/40 ratio of goodness to badness you're okay. (Unless your a Jew, Christian, Atheist, or Polytheist, then you're in for it or something) Therefore, because God's justice is infinitly just, and Jesus payed the price for our sins, then Jesus would of needed to be able to pay an infinite price. A man alone cannot pay an infinite price for something, having special authority alone doesn't give one the power to survive paying such a price, there has to be infinite power to be able to survive an infinite punishment, or an infinite amount of time for someone to suffer such a punishment. Considering Jesus came back, the former must be true, therefore Jesus simply had to have infinite power, which is only exibited by God. The reason Jesus had to be God isn't simply because that one thing Timothy said and that one verse in the book of Titus say so, its because if Jesus wasn't God, then what can make the payment? It's one thing to not have to pay anything yourself, it's quite another to then pay the price for everyone else, the price didn't simply get ignored by Jesus being perfect, Jesus had to pay and have the capacity to continue existing throughout in order to actually pay the full price. Nextly, if Jesus's body wasn't resurrected, where are the bones, and why did the Bible say Jesus rose from the dead if the body never actually came back to life? And why did the stone have to be moved, why did Jesus still have holes in His hands and feet from the crucifixion, and why do you suppose so many people would get the impression that the Bible says that Jesus rose bodily? Finally, whether you agree with me or not, I see nothing here that the duel nature has not "closed", nor do I see a single "problem" which the duel nature doesn't get around, so im afraid simply declaring your points won doesn't convince me of anything.
4. Jesus's 2 natures are not simply mixed together into one super God-man fusion, nor are they separated with Jesus's nature as man standing to one side while Jesus's nature as a God stands on the other, but His natures have to be conceived of separatly even when their not literally compleatly separated. As a man, Jesus did not have the authority to do these things, once again, this is sort of how the whole Hypostatic union thing works, whether you insist that it should be a mixture or not. On translation, so what your telling me, is if a word is translated into another language and retains the original meaning, then its fine? So then why do you suppose Isaiah 26:4 specifically refers to "Jehovah" (Not in the NIV for some weird reason, its in the KJV though) as "LORD"? Is Jehovah Lord or not? It's both God's name and a title. And I would argue that, from your perspective, this really shouldn't be very funny at all; by your perspective, I should be heading for Hell :(. I mean, I don't think Jesus is whom you say He is, so in your perspective, I see absolutly no reason why you should regard me as saved; we don't believe in the same Jesus.
5. Actually, I was under the impression this was just about the Hypostatic union. The thing of it is, for all the importance the Trinity gets, if you look at something like Oneness Pentecostals, they say that Jesus is God, God is God, and the Holy Spirit? Also God. It's just to them, there's no one idea that separates them, no concept like the trinity which will actually envelop the idea of their relationship, so therefore, they simply renounce trying to figure it out. Of course, i've heard many times that they take it way too far and say that Jesus is only God and not a man at all, but their perspective doesn't necessarily scream to me "Must be believing that Jesus isn't whom the Bible says He is.", and in the end, that's the bigger thing that matters. Surely if our salvation depended upon acknowladgement of the Trinity in modern understanding, then Jesus would of told us. But rather, Jesus simply told us that whosoever believes in Him is saved and that we must be born again, rationalizing as much as we can about how Jesus, God, and the Holy Spirit fit together isn't a pre-requisite to salvation, though it certainly does make things make a whole lot more sense. If you were simply a non-trinitarian yet believed Jesus to be both God and a man and didn't have any really odd beliefs besides being a non-trinitarian, I probably wouldn't of brought this to your talk page at all; I simply would of assumed there wasn't a good reason you wouldn't be saved. Many times of course, non-trinitarianism ends up being rooted into some deeper heresy, like the aforementioned "Jesus is God alone" thing I mentioned or other oddities, but it doesn't necessarily have to be. However, in your case, when I saw that you did not believe Jesus to be both God and a man, that's what made me care; it's because I am commanded to seek and save the lost that im here and because you don't seem to agree on whom Jesus actually is, and I don't think either of us wants the other to go to the Hell that must await one of our perspectives :(. If I were to convince you to be a trinitarian, so be it. But I don't see why I must convince you to be a trinitarian for you to know salvation, all I see is that I have to convince you that Jesus is both God and a man, maybe I have to figure out how to debate with you on the annihilationism thing or the name thing to do it, maybe I don't. But my main objective is to somehow convince you of Jesus's true nature, the other things you're arguing for are pretty wrong, but I don't see why you would go to Hell for believing that souls stop existing or that God's true name should never be rendered as "Lord" in almost all circumstances, it's not like you're calling God a liar or anything like that, you simply believe something......very odd about what the Bible means. But there's a difference between believing something odd and something that leads to Hell. Now that im done with discussing that, on the Fully this and fully that thing, that should be in my answer concerning number 4.
6. I've seen many quotes from you regarding what certain scholars believe the Bible should "actually" say, but as for what it really means I would say we are still in heated dispute. Homestarmy 06:20, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
1. So if it was not in the past tense as in not believing something and everything after that is what he really believes then is life meaningless or not? Because Ecclesiates 9:9 seems to say that life is meaningless, and verse 7 seems to be an exoration to drunkeness and gluttony, (It might not be gluttony though, it doesn't actually say that the gladness isn't from appreciation of recieving it from God or not). But if life has no meaning, then what was up with all that "Be fruitful and multiply" stuff concering Noah? No, the author has to be recounting the vanity (Or meaninglessness as the NIV puts it) of beliefs he previously held. And it still states that "I said in my heart", and that's still past tense. With the spirit thing, the verse still doesn't say specifically which spirit, I fail to see how it must apply to man in general when he's talking about almond trees and grasshoppers in the previous verses. And your right, the Bible does talk about all those things literally; but something doesn't have to exist in a material sense that can be seen or detected by our senses for it to be literal, it only has to have reality. Matthew 5:6, straight out of Jesus's mouth in the Beatitudes, says "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled", that doesn't sound like you have to hunger and thirst for mere material things like ordinary food and water to me, so I don't see how souls eat ordinary food or drink ordinary drinks. And remember Deuteronomy 8:3, "Man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord"? (And yes, before you start berating me over Jehovah, I recognize that other translations say "Jehovah" here) I don't recall our physical bodies typically feeding on the words of God, just hearing them or seeing them, unless it means like eating the pages of the Bible, I dunno what that would taste like....Nextly, what do you mean by "spirit life"? Life is life, unless you mean life here without a body, and it's quite simple to ressurect something that is dead and still exists, even modern medicine can do that to an extent, (You know, resucitation and all that) so why can't God do the same thing with something that exists? The soul dies and is still there, all dead and stuff, and then God makes it start living again, simple. God's will is pretty powerful. Flesh does not enter the kingdom of heaven, but then if the soul is just our bodies, then how exactly do we inherit the kingdom of heaven and yet not inherit it through faith in Christ if our souls are the flesh? And sure thoughts may perish, but as I think i've showed, there's no reason that perishing in a Biblical sense here or concerning our souls or spirits or whatever means they must stop existing. My question right back at you is how can God ressurect something that doesn't exist anymore at all, does He just sort of reach back in time to the last point that it existed and haul it to the present? I don't mean simply piecing back together the body from the molecules as they decay into the earth and putting them back onto the bones, if the parts of the body still exist, then the body still exists even if its not all in one place, just because man chooses to define things restrictively for reasons of legality and whatnot does not retroactively make the words of the Bible conform to man's modern, technical definitions. When you tell me "Does not exist" I don't think rotting in the ground, I think that the stuff making up the object in question no longer exists inside the universe or outside, which is quite a different way of not existing. Nextly, once again on literal objects, they don't have to be recognizeable by our senses for things to be literal, death literally exists for sure, and Hell is just the kind of place to throw death into, where does the Bible say that Hell conforms to all the limitations of our universe? And Hell is not thrown into itself, rather, the temporary hell of a lake of fire is thrown into a new Hell for pretty much forever. Nextly, your right, it does match well with Ecclesiates; but how can a person who doesn't exist sleep, and once again, not knowing things doesn't mean you aren't inside existance. Finally, God does have the power to rejenerate all of those things, but if the body compleatly decays, the individual parts that make up the body still exist, its just not considered a body by man's definition because we can't look at it and say "Oh look, all these molecules together are one body" and legal stuff would get weird, I mean think about it, we all would legally be cannibalizing people because we could be using molecules once in their bodies....on second thought, don't think about that too much, its very creepy.
3. A father can give less authority to a son over something, but not when the son is given "All" authority over it. And remember, Jesus is His own unit by being both God and a man, so of course He can come back to things. And its true that the Bible doesn't say that "The Father" rose Jesus, But it does say that Jesus rose Himself too, John 2:19-22 says that He will "raise it again in three days", referring to His body, (Mirrored in Matthew 27:40) and Jesus says that He has the authority to take up His life again because of the command He recieved from His Father. So which is it, did Jesus raise Himself, did God, or did both....hmmm....Nextly, your question over animal sacrifices is quite a good one, as it deals with how God displays His justice. You are right to say that the sacrifices were temporary coverups for our sins, they did certainly do something....but they didn't do everything, not yet. God is infinitly just, but also patient and forgiving, He often holds off on delivering justice due to His great mercy, and certainly does so in the Old Testament many times despite all the skeptics you may hear going on about "It wasn't nice for God to kill those people because God shouldn't do that because I say so!!11!!11111oneone!!1". The temporary nature of animal sacrifices was not to actually fulfill the requirements of infinite justice, it was just to temporarily absolve God's people from their sins. The temporary nature of it came from it not actually paying the price, just staving it off. All of that judgement was still stored up, and Jesus had to take all of it because only He, being God, would be capable of actually being powerful enough to take it all. Adam lost human perfection, but Jesus didn't gain perfection back for us, I certainly can't say that I don't sin anymore, just that when I do sin and repent of it that I am forgiven. The sacrifice didn't pay for Adam's crimes alone and then mean that our sinful nature was now somehow an ok thing to have. Sin is still evil, we can just be truly saved from it now if we so choose it. Nextly, it of course wouldn't of been impossible for God to of removed the flesh and bones, but the Bible doesn't say that God removed the flesh and bones, so I don't see a reason to believe that God did this. And if Jesus didn't exist for those days, What made Him stop existing, could He not take the price for the sins of man or could he? If He could, then why would He stop existing, and if as you claim the soul is just the body, then how did the body stay up there after Jesus's death and how was it entombed? What's wrong with materializing the clothes and not dematerializing the body to put said clothes on? I am listening to God's word, and that's how I know the Bible never says Jesus's body was vanished away when it was entombed. Why did the stone get rolled back if nothing was in there?
4. They are seen separatly because Jesus is His own unit as God and a man. When Jesus died, only His nature as man could die, but as i've argued, a man dying doesn't make them stop existing, a soul is not merely the body, and Jesus's soul didn't simply vanish. He matched the infinite price because it was not merely Jesus's body which was inflicted with punishment, all of Himself had to withstand it, including His nature as God, but since God of course cannot die, Jesus's body was the only thing which ended up dying. That's what makes what God did so special, He sacrificed His Son and in a way Himself at the same time because that's what it had to take. As i've tried to explain several times, with Jesus being His own unit, then He can not know things that God can, but if you won't accept this explanation I cannot force you to understand that I do not believe Jesus was lying. For "Jehovah", it appears from what i've seen that the word comes from the Jews replacing the consonents of "Yahveh" with the vowels on "Adonai", which apparently formed the pronunciation of the word "Jehovah", which seems to have never really existed and just got rendered into the KJV simply because they didn't know about this. Do you have any explanations for this theory?
5. And that is, of course, precisely why I am here, because our knowladge does not agree. I admit, I didn't think about annihilationism coupling up with canceling out infinite justice like that, but whether one of us stops existing or goes to Hell, i'd hardly think either of those situations would be considered good. And of course the Bible does not teach that Jesus is just God, like I said earlier, heresy much? But still, Thomas must of been pretty delusional to think Jesus to be God then and Jesus must of been pretty un-caring to just let Thomas go without any admonition there. And while the Bible doesn't specifically say "Jesus has 2 natures", it also doesn't specifically say "Jesus's body was eradicated from existance", each one of those conclusions has to be done by drawing conclusions from other verses, of which we each seem to be attempting to do. The Jehovah thing I don't know about, because im waiting for your answer on the above section.
6. Erm, all the content of this number seems to of been absorbed by other sections.... Homestarmy 02:49, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
If titles or descriptive phrases are used in one place in the Bible, it shouldn't be assumed that they always refer to the same person. For example:
None of these references mean that they are the same person. There are several verses that can change depending on the context and the reading of the rest of the scriptures, and so it's important to get the full view.
Err, I know that Isaiah 43:11 refers to God, I mean, that is where I talked about how God is called "Savior", I don't see the problem there...? I don't know what the apostles thing is for either, but I didn't just pick and choose verses willy nilly to find this whole argument, this came from something called "Christ before the Manger" by one Ron Rhodes, I didn't just randomly look up the words to see how many times I could find a match, I think I even excluded some of the verses because they seemed stretches to me, so I was indeed paying attention to context for each individual instance. "Apostle" im pretty sure wasn't part of my rant there....
On the exodus verse, often translated that way by whom may I ask? Ditto with John, which unfortunently makes it hard for me to answer part of what your asking me to pay attention to :/. However I can answer the later part, considering Jesus answered in the present tense format that seems a bit odd to me that Jesus would choose the wording "I am" rather than "I was", which certainly seems to stick out. Bit awkward way to simply answer a question. And if Jehovah isn't a title, then why do alot of translations try to translate it as "Lord" anyway, I mean seriously, beyond the whole "Because their being influenced by Satan" thing you believe, they've got to of had a reason for that.
On the through thing, I don't think I have time tonight to answer both halves of all this, so I'll have to wait to see what you've written and think about it up above this later. I mean really, do you realize how long this is getting, it takes a good bit of thought and effort to debate all this :/. On Titus, once again I find myself asking, "Translated that way by whom"? I mean it's not that im calling you a liar or something but i'd really like to know. I am not familiar with the intricacies of Koine Greek and in my experience such debates really do lose their focus on what really matters and turns into a debate over grammer rules, and surely if our salvation depended on learning grammer rules for languages thousands of years old, Jesus would have told us :). Perhaps it would be easier to tell me which Bible you prefer in all this alternate translation business, otherwise I might have to drag CTSW into this cus he seems the only guy who's been to collage and whatnot and would be much more likely to know stuff about Koine Greek debates.
So then what about all that stuff in the OT about God doing the judging, where does that leave poor old Isaiah? Both of those verses seem to fit well with a hypostatic understanding of things, for if Jesus was alone, then He certainly couldn't even be God to begin with, and the first one just looks like a relegation of roles, seems downright, well, trinitarian if I do say so myself.
Uhh, im not really sure where this comes from because I don't recall mentioning it as a similarity or anything, but im fairly certain Jesus will be King after all that revelations stuff is done with anyway, what's the problem?
Man, I really dislike these scholar arguments, really gets things far, far away from salvation and into grammer rules. Do I need to drag Slrubstein in here or something? :D Anyway, on Revelation 1:8, who exactly are these "scholars", and why does it matter, of course that one is referring to Jehovah, I mean im looking at the page here in the Evidence Bible right now and it clearly shows up in the "Father" Column, so I dunno what the problem here is. On Revelation 22:12, it may or may not appear in Greek, but does it appear in the Hebrew or Aramic I ask you? Just because translators didn't come out with the verse you think is good doesn't mean their out to convert you to Satanism, often times they have good reasons for whatever their translating. On verse Now On Revelation 1:17, Im not sure there if your talking about verses applying to people here or in the other part, but for 1:16-18 I don't see anything that leads me to conclude that a change in subject between verse 16 and 17 has taken place at all, unless John omitted some long pause or something, it seems to flow right along without any indication of subject change at all. On verse 22:12 and whatnot, considering so much of Revelations cconcerns Jesus "Coming again", I see no reason for me to believe that this must apply to God and not Jesus, I mean think about it, im not the one assuming that He isn't God, so I don't just jump onto all verses automatically that have God-like characteristics and simply assume that it can't be Jesus. I mean Jesus was always talking about and talked about about as "Coming quickly" and especially "like a theif in the night", and if God speaks of Himself as coming to give judgement, well, that works out quite well then if Jesus is God, then they both are coming at the same time, and everything works out fine. See, this whole trinity stuff ain't so confusing after all, is it? Im not sure what you meant by "Verse 18", but if it's 1:18, that just has "Living One" in it, where's the first and last comparison? On 2:8, why must the two characteristics be inter-twined, Jesus most certainly died on the cross and came to life again, but where in this verse or the surrounding context does "first in terms of death and last in ressurection" come into play, it looks like just mention of two of Christ's traits, what makes them be referring to each other in the terms your speaking of? Simply placing them side by side doesn't force them to be referring to each other.
Err, I can't seem to recall any reason to debate for this, which verse was it? I mean its not in this list of similiarites here that I can tell and since you removed alot of text to shorten this page I can't see my original rant anymore :/.
That ought to cover this first part, please tell me if I missed discussing any verses. Homestarmy 05:06, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
Back to "Lord": I meant that since you seemed to be on a bit of a roll trying to make my verses say nearly the exact opposite of what I was saying I say, that it would seem to me entirely feasible for your perspective to be that I am merely picking and choosing verses to find similarities. However, on to the objection, what contextual evidence do you have that God as Lord in Isaiah 45:23 was not synonimous with the title's in Matthew 12:8, Acts 7:59-60, etc. etc., besides your perspective that Jesus could not possibly be God and that all scripture must somehow point to this conclusion?
"I AM" Ok, so all the different versions of the Bible render the Exodus verse and John verse differently. The meaning of "I AM" generally in both senses refers to existing before basically everything else (Especially Isaiah 43:10) or something deity-related and that's sort of the point, even if you somehow disqualify Exodus or that one John verse with those varying ways of rendering it, you've still got Deuterononmy and Isaiah there and the 2 remaining John verses, and the verses concerning Jesus still contain clear parallels on pre-existance, which is sort of a big point here. Though I think we may already be discussing that above someplace? Also, it seems there is a good bit of dispute over "Jehovah" as well, especially considering God is also called "Adonai", "Elohim", "El Shaddai", "Eloah" in Isaiah 44:8, and "Yahveh", there seems to be something about it on This webpage, but whether whoever wrote this is trustworthy or not, im fairly certain anyway that at least some of those names are definently in the Bible somewhere without being translated through like 5 languages, so how does "Jehovah" take precendence over them all again?
On "Savior": Ok, those aren't grammer rules, that's just what the sentences means, I mean grammer rules like how Koine Greek somehow transliterates into English and stuff people go to collage and study manuscripts for like 4 years just to get started on really learning about. But if Jesus is His own unit of sorts, then I see no reason why the authority can't be relegated to the Father alone, and think about it, if Jesus is both God and a man, then by simply having a nature as man He would be lesser than the Father that way, and of course the Son can't do anything by His own intiative when He is also God by nature, it would be like God taking the initiative and yet not taking the initiative, they can't both be true at once.
On "Judge": So what about Psalm 9, where David must be referring to God since he is referring to God as the being responsible for upholding David's "right and my cause", and where it then says He will judge the world in righteousness, was there a convienent switch to prophecy mode there between verses 7 and 8, or will God somehow judge and yet at the same time not judge? And how about Revelation 20:11-15 where the dead, small and great, stand before God specifically (Waaaait a minute, how can non-existant "dead" souls stand in front of anyone, suspiiiciooous.... :D ), is Jesus convienently standing to one side doing the judgement and John just never writes this down?
On "no part of this world": Doesn't Earth simply become part of God's kingdom after all is said and done anyway, and besides, why would Jesus need to even interact with politics anyway to change things, I mean if He can overcome death, then I don't think bypassing the morass of today's political system is beyond His power.
On "First and last": I've seen you give many quotes from scholarly looking type people who seem to generally follow a thread of "This is not quite certain" or "This grammer rule might not of been formalized" and so on and so forth, but I don't see any stirring condemnations of the majority of these verses for how they are translated today, just some vauge sounding doubts. Considering the vaugness that supposedly exists in these verses, it would seem the only NPOV thing to do would be to simply make them say nothing at all, and especially in Revelations case, that's really not an option. However, something must of made these Bible versions translate the verses they way they do, and I don't see how only seeing a side of "Erm, well, it could of, maybe it would of, perhaps it should of..." gives a full perspective on everything you could possibly know about these verses.
And finally, on "Exact representation": Well, if Jesus was the exact representation of God, then He must of represented at the very least infinite power. Either things get Bitheistic from here and I think we can both agree that would be just, well, pretty insane, or Jesus is God, unless im missing some hidden third option which allows Jesus to represent infinite power without actually, you know, representing infinite power? Or infinite knowladge, or infinite wisdom, etc. etc..
Ok, I think that got everything. If I may, I'd like to say something though about my whole argument here, see, the way this argument works isn't that every single verse in the list must correlate exactly for this point to me made, the point is in the extensive list of similarities between Jesus and God. If only a few general sorts of traits applied to both Jesus and God in just plain looking sort of situations, (I.E. They both exist and the like) then this sort of argument wouldn't hold much, however, when you look at everything in this argument together the pattern is unmistakeable. And thusly, you may be able to get around a few verses here and there with translation things which, quite frankly, I am not really qualified or experienced much in to debate about, (Unless, you know, I spend a couple hours or something reaserching scholar people or ask CTSW or Slrubstein to help me or something) but remember, there's still many important categories in my argument we haven't even talked about compleatly, such as reciever of worship especially, "who gets the glory", Giver of Life, (Though I think we did touch on several of these verses already), and other categories including all the "Eternal", "Immutable", "Omnipresent" etc. etc. verses, and then there were even more after that which wern't quite as major, but it is the strength of all the verses together that really gives this argument its kick, so even if you are able to get by a few of the verses, (And I even made your job easier, some of the verses I threw out myself at the beginning because even I thought they didn't quite demonstrate a link adequatly) there will still be more than enough verses left to draw a pretty clear connection to the idea that Jesus was God. It's a very extensive argument :D Homestarmy 06:51, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
And here we go again! On "Lord": Our conversation seems to of gotten off-track on this one. As we were saying, the context of Jesus being Lord and God being Lord are hardly as radically different as one referring to Lord of the universe and the other referring to like king Nebuchadnezzer, that guy's authority pales in comparison to Christ's. Matthew 12:8 for one says that Jesus is the lord of the Saabath, not merely a lord as if God had delegated the authority but retained it for Himself, but The Lord. Now, if God's authority is absolute, then how can He possibly have absolute authority and yet not be the Lord of everything? Unless of course, Jesus is God. You see, it is how these pieces of the puzzle fit together which truly makes the argument for Christ's divinity strong. Homestarmy 03:16, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
On "Savior": Because as a separate unit, Jesus can act subordinate to God while still being God by nature.
On "Judge": And here's the heart of it, you can be dead without ceasing to exist, and that's exactly what happens. People will be ressurected from the dead, not re-created again after not existing.
On "First and last": The reason I say the same thing over and over about my support is because you don't seem to be understanding this whole thing.
On "Exact representation": The situation you describe is where someone is like someone else, not as so someone else, and an exact representation has to be as something else, or else its not exact. For instance, an exact model of something would have to be like something in every way, to the point where they would be as if they were identical. And once again, Jesus could not know things because, having the nature of a man, He did not know all things as a man.
Finally, I still maintain that I have showed plenty of ways that Jesus can both be God and a man at once, you just simply call them all problematic despite my apparent lack of problem in eventually coming up with reasons for what I believe. Jesus is both God and a man :) Homestarmy 02:36, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
Just a note, I apologize for any excessive exclamation points or any side-comments or edit summaries I made that might have been written in haste or in the passion of a response. I appreciate the opportunity to have a very wide and deep discussion about important Biblical topics that certainly affect the both of us. -- Oscillate 01:21, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
Err, im afraid I won't be able to answer anything for a few days probably, i'll be off on a trip and I don't know if i'll have internet. Homestarmy 02:49, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
So, here I am :). Your last statement: ""Cut and dry"? Again, yes Jesus said he and the Father were one ("hen"), and he continued to say to the Father at John 17:21,22 in regards to his apostles "that they may be one as we are one." Is Jesus saying the apostles should share the same essence, being 12 parts of the same Apostle? Cut and dry? The same Greek word is used at 1 Corinthians 3:6,8 to describe Paul and Apollos as "one" ("hen"). Are they in the same relationship as a Trinue God? "One" in purpose and unity. It's simple - Jesus is not God and there are no contradictions in the Bible about it. It's a dangerous thing to take lightly. --Oscillate 15:54, 30 May 2006 (UTC)"
1. Jesus didn't need to say "I am the Father", that's what "I and the Father are one" means, its a mere stylistic difference. Now, i'll give you this, if the context of the verse truly proved to be deeply metaphorical i'd say you'd have a case here, but the disciples of Jesus literally are a part of the body of Christ spiritually speaking, so I just don't see the problem here. And im not sure if you remember, but all men have eternal souls, Jesus's body died but His soul certainly didn't, I mean, you'd have a problem there since the OT says...somewhere that our souls were created to exist forever. And yes, i've kept in mind what you said about it similar to Greek Philosophy, but if I may be so bold, as User:King Vegita has pointed out and started several edit wars and I think a mediation request over, the ancient Egyptians had some sort of odd thing going on with Osiris which apparently people enjoy arguing was somehow a directly related precurser to Jesus's ressurection, but similarities do not make religions false. Many religions have methods to deal with sin, does that mean Christianity is wrong to elaborate on Sin because other religions have done it? Many philosophical questions have sprung up over the whole "Problem of Evil" thing, does this mean Christianity cannot answer this question because "other people" have maybe tried answering it first? And more importantly, many religions before Christianity were theistic in nature. Does this mean Christianity is paganistiand false for believing in a creator? I just don't see how bringing up how different philosophies and religions have similarities is a necessarily legitimate aregument.
3. Power from God is one thing, infinite power to withstand infinite judgement multiplied by the many, many sins of mankind is quite another. While God may be love, God also is a being of justice. As for that Peter verse, well, if Jesus is also a man, then I see no problems with His soul being made alive again in heaven.
4. God approved of Jesus, whether it was for Jesus's obedience, Jesus's perfection, or Jesus's all around awesomeness, the verse doesn't seem that specific. I suspect this sort of deal was where alot of motivation for development of the trinity doctrine came from, so people could more clearly rationalize God approving of Jesus without making it seem too much like God was somehow being redundant, so at the end of the day, God approved of Jesus, and the specifics apparently wern't elaborated on.
LORD
appears in the Bible, YHWH is actually there, but has been removed. Psalm 83:18 says (
KJV) That men may know that thou, whose name alone is JEHOVAH, art the most high over all the earth. But newer versions just say LORD now. God's name is supposed to appear 7,000 times in the Bible, but each and every one of those has been removed and replaced with a title. Do you think that's the way God wanted his word to be? If he wanted people to replace his name in the Bible, he wouldn't have revealed it or had his people use it all the time. It was even in the Greek manuscripts the apostles and Jesus had available to them, and so it's more than likely Jesus also spoke God's name when reading from the Old Testament. There are many verses that can have multiple translations depending on how you approach the verse. I would prefer to not put my trust in translators who have removed God's name from where it rightfully belongs. 7,000 times! Don't you think God was placing some importance on his name? Trinitarians and others have removed it completely and replace it with just a title. Everyone who calls on the name of LORD? You, whose name is LORD? I don't think that's what God had in mind.5. Ok, really now, I was only speculating there. I mean it's not like the Bible says that it wasn't personal monologue, just that Jesus was praying. And the positions wouldn't be His to give if Jesus was speaking as a man, its not like He was speaking as both God and a man at the same time every time Jesus said a word, that's be sort of confusing i'd think.
6. What was ressurected was Jesus in the flesh of course, is there any other way? :). Being in a position of subjectivity doesn't mean Jesus can't have dual natures, they don't have to express themself at the same time. Besides, Jesus doesn't just stop having two natures at any one time, it seems compleatly sensable to me that at most times Jesus would seem to be in a position of inferiority to the Father because Jesus is also a man. I've looked up the collosians verse you keep referring to, and I see "The firstborn over all creation", followed by the "All things created through Him" (Jesus) verse and then of course the "He is before all things, and in him all things hold together" verse, which certainly together doesn't seem like a "God created Jesus" kind of moment. And Jesus's unique nature certainly does require distinction, but distinction alone does not mean that Paul was trying to shout to the masses that Jesus wasn't God. Homestarmy 04:37, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
1. Well our souls do literally exist, literally just means that its factual, (And yes, I did dictionary.com that) and I would say it is quite factual that souls are quite real. Don't tell me we need to argue over that please :). And I don't know what traditional trinity teaching your referring to, but who says Jesus didn't mean the Father as in God as this verse? The Catholic church? Because really, it's not like I hate the Catholic church or nothing, but I don't really listen to them too much, honestly, it always looks to me like they just think too hard about how to separate God as much as possible yet keep Him equal, yeesh. So then, if its not deeply methaphorical, it seems to me you've got it, Jesus is one with the Father just as the apostles are one with Jesus, though considering you seem to be carrying on your argument steadfastly, I doubt that what I think you say you think is really what you think here heh. Nextly, seriously, are you a Jehovah's witness? Because it really looks like your at least leaning towared their theology quite a good deal here. So the dead might know nothing, people who have gone brain dead don't know anything either, does that mean they've stopped existing? And sure Adam was made with a soul, but the eternal existance goes forwards, not backwards. We started existing because God made us start existing, and we will continue to exist forever and ever, whether it be in heaven....or hell. Now on the historian type people, on the first guy, before I start royally blasting that Deism comment, do you happen to know what exactly he means by that, because if it means the type of Deism I'm thinking about, then that just looks to me like a man who either hasn't read much of the Bible or read it and doesn't care at all somehow. The second guy is just like I said, pointing out similarities and trying to connect the dots, and if we did that with many things in Christianity, then pretty much all of it from head to toe except maybe salvation by faith alone is gonezored, and thats not right! On the third guy, how did all ancient pagan religions get the trinity when Greece was not the first of civilization, nor the founder of the world's first pagan religion? The inference of developing the trinity straight from the Greeks seems just more pointing of fingers at various religions and saying that since they had common ideas, that the only possiblity is that they took them all from each other. Humans do not need to copy each other to learn stuff, I mean China sure seemed to develop a whole lot of similar stuff without Europe's help for one thing. On Christmas, im pretty sure the Church put that date there on purpose to try and lure people away from that pagan thing they were doing, sure one could argue it might seem cheap on the outside, but hey, it apparently converted people, did the Church start by worshipping the tree or something and then wean people off of it?
3. No, Jesus's soul. I mean He was a man, how does one be a man without a soul anyway? Matthew 28:18 seems quite clear Jesus was omnipotent, all authority in heaven and earth seems to sum it up quite nicely there. And where is this "Soul for soul" verse you speak of, I seem to recall many verses of the Bible about God's infinite justice being sort of, well, infinite, not just stopping at a single soul. And I sure hope that Jesus didn't come just for Adam's soul, what about the rest of us? Adam may of introduced sin but how could Adam possibly commit every single possible sin, including all the differen degrees of all sins, that's like an infinite variety of Sin, come on now. Why would God instruct the Israelites to sacrifice animals for their sins if Adam's personal sins were the only one God cared about? And where does that leave Eve, it would seem to me Eve commited the first sin, what with commiting idolatry for believing the snake when the snake basically said that God could not be trusted. Finally, what im getting at is that Jesus was sacrificing Himself for an infinite amount of Justice to be inflicted upon Him instead of man, not just a limited amount of justice that He would be able to withstand if He wasn't God, and being perfect doesn't immedietly translate into the ability to withstand an onslaught of infinitly punishment. It would take something like, say, infinite power as well, much like God has..... Homestarmy 04:15, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
4. Seriously, when im talking about the hypostatic union, im not kidding when im telling ya that it's supposed to be 1. Jesus is God and 2. Jesus is also a man, that also part isn't just thrown in there because I want more syllables in my sentences, God approved of Jesus. How is it not rational that God cannot approve of His son? And I really think the "Mysteriously unexplainable" type of crowd really kind of overblows that, because you really can explain it to a point, there's no need to just say "Its a mystery" and then give up. We don't need to know everything about something to know it is rational, take Quantum theory for example, it is quite a mystery indeed how electrons literally move around the atom because we can't literally see the things in motion, yet logically we know they must be moving around those atoms alright, all the VSPER theory and stuff sort of hinges on this motion. Humans do not have to have infinite knowladge for things to be rational. On Roman Catholicism, once again, I sort of don't tend to listen to that church much, so I don't know what to tell ya. Now, im not sure where the whole name thing entered into this discussion, but i'd like to point out the KJV seems to have it right in that verse, and im fairly certain the NIV specifically mentions in its introduction that it has replaced all instances of "YHWH" and "Jehovah" with Lord, the reason I can't remember, but the mention is there, so Satan must of dropped the ball to do such a shoddy coverup. Besides, didn't the ancient Jews remove God's real name from all manuscripts anyway so that people could never ever burn it, so that we can only make a guesstimate about the real name? And finally, if God is not the Lord, then what is He, a prince? A Grand Mufti? A Sultan? Im pretty sure its a title for "Lord of everything" if you get my drift.
5. This is sort of how the hypostatic union works, Jesus has a nature as God and a nature as man, and Jesus's nature as a man didn't have the authority to give those positions. Now if I believed the thing that you're debating against here then sure, i'd be in pretty big trouble, but what your trying to debate against isn't what I believe....the 2 natures aren't separate, but there's a very large difference between concieving of Jesus's nature in separate terms and His nature actually being separate literally.
6. Im saying ressurected in the flesh as in His body was sort of sitting there in the tomb all, well, you know, corpse-y, and then when Jesus came back He was ressurected physically there. and what's this "spirit creature" stuff, you means things like demons and angels? And remember, I do think Jesus is God, so why can't Jesus pass material objects through walls, especially His own body? And you say that Jesus has merely been given authority from God, so even then, i'd certainly think that's enough power to do a little teleportation/transmutation hovever-Jesus-did-it-ification to go through that wall. I'd also think that's more than enough power to stop people from recognizing Jesus as well, that's mostly like a thought pattern anyway, just suspend the neurons or something, I dunno how God did it. And as for poor interpretations, are you using the KJV here or what, and I don't see what evidence there is that the word underlying "Over" or whatever it is in the original languages doesn't actually mean "over". And to conclude this, I don't see how it is so simple that an infinitly just God could somehow deliver infinite justice upon one person and that person still be quite alive spiritually and existing, not undergoing eternal torment of any kind, thusly symbolizing that He had the power to pay the debt instantly, and yet somehow not have infinite power. There's such a thing as being so simple that it is wrong, learned that the hard way on the SATs, ruddy later-in-the-test math questions and their trick answers, hmph. Homestarmy 04:15, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
1. It seems we disagree over what exactly death means in this sense. I don't supposed you've ever watched The Colbert Report by any chance? On the show, he has a rather interesting list used to quite humerous effect, called his "Dead to me" list, as I recall, the number one spot goes to bears, a recurring joke in which Colbert is afraid of bears for some reason. Yet the things on his list aren't actually dead in a "cease to exist" sense; their dead to Colbert. The theme of death to sin is most certainly a recurring one throughout the Bible, but let me ask you this, of all the verses you've quoted, do any of them actually say that the actual souls themselves cease to exist, or that they simply die/know nothing/etc. etc.? Ephesians 2 for one shows us how that through our sins, we are certainly "dead", but before anyone is saved, are our souls non-existant? Souls certainly do "Die", and from the moment we are born, they are indeed already "dead", so then, how could something be born again if there is nothing there to be born at all? Furthermore, if as you say the death of our souls causes them to stop existing, then how do you explain Revelation 20:14 and the second death, do we stop existing twice? Of course, the context of these verses alone seems to hardly assure that they must cooperate with the verses you've already provided, so let's dig a little deeper into Eccelsiates with the help of this little gem of a website I found. Ecclesiates 12:7 seems to indicate a belief that the dust that our bodies turn into makes the soul return to God, as opposed to it suddenly ceasing to exist. So then, it would seem the Old Testament does not only contain references which can be used to try and support the idea that souls are not eternal, hmm....Next, on Eccleiates 3:18-21, im sorry, but I recommend you find a new favorite verse. Ecclesiates is all about this teacher guy trying to think up things about God and morality and whatnot and his progressing thought train, the verse begins "I also thought...." indicating the past tense; in other words, the author no longer believes one of your favorite verses. The book goes on to detail how the author is looking upon various aspects of creation and the situation going on around him, even making new declarations from time to time on various things, so im afraid that your verse was never meant to mean what you say it means. On the Adam thing and the "Living Soul" part, well, that's not hard at all, our souls are eternal in that they were created and will continue to exist forever, but their not pre-existant. Besides, Genesis 2:7 says that God formed the man And breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, not then breathed, I see no problems here. Nextly, on the Greeks, which Greeks are we even talking about, because of course the Greeks who were converted to Christianity would think up the exact idea of the hypostatic union concerning Christ, I mean, they were Christians thinking up this particular belief. It still doesn't change that borrowing ideas from other philosophies and religions doesn't make new religious ideas false, I suppose they were simply taking what they knew and using it to reconcile difficult to understand parts of the Bible taking into account things that the Bible would support. And finally, enough with the Catholic church bashing, really now, im not Catholic. All your really doing is giving me constant +1's on my mental "Reason's why I am not a Catholic" list, most of which I already knew already and don't generally use myself as main reasons to not be a Catholic since I normally keep in mind more powerful ones. I don't know whether the claims you make about the church are true, but even if they are, I don't see how they apply to me, I mean, I don't go out and buy that Christmas tree every year and then sing songs to Norse gods while getting presents either.....And while the Church certainly does seem to of mis-read parts of the Bible many times in history concerning, well, alot of things, their frequent mistakes throughout history doesn't mean that everything they say must of been a mistake, including the trinity.
3. Some of this i've answered mostly already in number one. However, after the Adam bit, if Jesus has all authority in heaven and isn't God, then where does that actually leave God? Are they sharing authority or what, and if they truly are compleatly separate beings, how can they each have all of the authority for themselves at the same time? Of course, Jesus was indeed "granted" the authority, but then how could this be if God is suppose to be Lord, and the Son is supposed to be compleatly inferior in all ways? Maybe...just maybe....Jesus is also God in addition to being a man, hmm, yes, that might just work out fine logically...... :D . Nextly, if Jesus is appointed Judge, and does not judge by an infinitly just standard, then on judgement day, what will God say, something like "Well, i'd sure like to be infinitly just, but i'll just let my Son, whom I love of course, give a sort of...incompleate rendition of justice, I mean come on, justice sure is hard to give out these days, what with all these people constantly whining to me about being "cruel" or other nonsense in the old testament whenever I condemn people, yeesh, I need a break!". If God is infinitly just, then how can He stand by and see justice not be done against those who have not accepted the gift of eternal life and recieved forgiveness through the Son? Sin can't just be swept under the rug after all and left there for all eternity. Nextly, if there was an infinite amount of people the problem would simply be compounded, for the infinite amount of sins that an infinite amount of people would commit would need like, what, infinite^3 amount of judgement from God? His infinite justice works when, as the Bible points out in numerous places, (And please, don't suddenly become a universalist) sinners are sent to Hell for all eternity, and the punishment thereof is therefore infinitly just by continuing for such a span. Nextly, Jesus having to be God in order to be a sacrifice isn't simply a matter to me of ceremonial differences, im saying that it is impossible for Jesus to of not been God yet somehow bear the sins of the entire world, not out of differences in signifigance, but simply because it would not literally be possible for Jesus to bear infinite judgement for the entire world without being God. It's a matter of logic, not of signifigance. And note how the problems seem to dissapear when Jesus's dual nature is accepted, hmm, yes, I can totally see Jesus dying if Jesus was a man as well as God, good thing too that souls are eternal so that His soul doesn't cease to exist or something, yeeees.....
4. The question, whether you believe that Jesus has 2 natures or not that can be conceived of in separate terms yet are not separate, is how is it not logical that God can approve of Jesus. If you really want to get all formal about it, it appears that the idea of the hypostatic union more precisely states that Jesus's duel nature acts as one unit which sort of makes sense considering Jesus never spazzed into split-personality episodes or anything, and therefore, I see no reason why God could not approve of Jesus, I mean, God doesn't have a duel nature while Jesus does. Nextly, im still not sure how this name discussion got started, but if I may be so bold, when God was telling Moses about all sorts of stuff including God's name, was it "Jehovah" or "Yahweh", and how exactly does "YHWH" have to be pronounced "Yahweh" anyway when 2 letters are missing? And how did "Yahweh" turn into "Jehovah", was it translated from Hebrew to an English sort of equivalent? Because if it was, well then, it would seem to me that on judgement day when we're both standing up in front of Jesus for being naughty name-of-God mis-pronouncers, we'll both be getting an earful for sure.....And lastly, I didn't see your question, but if Jesus wasn't a preist, then it'd be a bit hard for Him to be descended from that house or preists or whatever it was, bit hard to be the Messiah when you wouldn't fulfill the prophecies and all, but no worries, Jesus has a nature of being a man, no reason He can't be a preist.... Homestarmy 07:05, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
5. You know, you keep mentioning "No holy spirit again" a whole lot, itching to turn the conversation towards the trinity are we? :D Anyway, their not separate in the sense that Jesus couldn't be just a man for 30 minutes, then 30 minutes later be only God, but conceptually Jesus's 2 natures can be looked at separatly even when they aren't literally separated compleatly. So once again, Jesus's nature as a man didn't have the authority that only God has.
6. The spirit didn't turn into a flesh-spirit combo, the flesh was already sitting there in a cave with a rock in front of it. Why should the spirit make new flesh when Jesus's flesh is still right there? And in conclusion, all this philosophy made by man that im using is, as far as I can tell, supported by the Bible, it just takes a little thinking to put it all together. But technically sure, nobody literally had to come up with the idea of the trinity or the hypostatic union, the church could of just stopped itself from asking those questions, so thousands of years later when we're all trying to witness to Atheists and they ask "So, how did Jesus appear submissive yet Timothy call Him "My Lord and my God"?" all we can answer is "Uhhh, well, see, i'd tell you the answer, but um.....God is love! Yea! That answers it for sure! Answers everything! Accept Jesus into your heart and you'll, err, stop caring about that question my Atheist friend....." Homestarmy 07:05, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
1. "This teacher guy" isn't a pointless designation, he's called a teacher in the very beginning in verse 1:12. And yes, it was past tense in the sense of no longer believing something, as Ecclesiates 1:17 shows while referring to the thoughts you are depending upon, the "understanding of wisdom" the teacher undertakes is something the teacher learns is "a chasing after the wind" sounds like fruitlessness to me. Much of the first part of the entire book is discussing the things he believed that he figured out were wrong later on. And in Ecclesiates 12:7, I must of missed the word "All" in that verse; because it doesn't sound like he's defining which spirits, just "The spirit", definition of which spirit/s these are doesn't seem to be included. And if the spirit isn't the soul, then what is it? Just life-force? Then where does that leave the spirit of God, for God is certainly not limited by the same standards of life that our lives (or spirits) all have, and using your perspective, is most certainly not limited by annihilationism. And as for your testimony that the Old Testament never says the soul lives on, that doesn't necessarily surprise me, after all, our salvation was not yet even outlined specifically, so how could anyone even know how to obtain eternal life in the first place? Simply not being mentioned doesn't make it start falling towards the "Souls stop existing" idea, which is still separate from souls "dying", and most certainly separate from the verses you've given showing that the soul can get hungry and thirsty and so on. (Remember, "Thirst for righteousness"?) For Jesus giving His soul, well, men have souls, and Jesus was the sacrifice for our sins, so I would think Jesus would have to be giving His soul. Is there a problem with this? People "give" their souls to Christ all the time, does that mean their souls stopped existing and they all turned into hollow shells? For revelations, my take on this does admittedly depend entirely on my above argument concerning souls existing forever, however, it does nonetheless mean that a person's soul would have to be punished forever to take the infinite justice of God. And what makes you think the lake of fire is symbolic, or that in order to ressurect something from the dead, it has to cease existing first? When Lazarus died, did he stop existing, and if so, what was left to bring back? When something stops existing, it doesn't tend to come back, and if it does, that's probably a sure sign it didn't stop existing in the first place.
3. If someone gains the same authority as someone else, how is this not saying that Jesus was as powerful as God? On my judging speech, what im trying to say is that God is, of course, infinitly just. He will not ignore Sin; this isn't Islam where if you get a 60/40 ratio of goodness to badness you're okay. (Unless your a Jew, Christian, Atheist, or Polytheist, then you're in for it or something) Therefore, because God's justice is infinitly just, and Jesus payed the price for our sins, then Jesus would of needed to be able to pay an infinite price. A man alone cannot pay an infinite price for something, having special authority alone doesn't give one the power to survive paying such a price, there has to be infinite power to be able to survive an infinite punishment, or an infinite amount of time for someone to suffer such a punishment. Considering Jesus came back, the former must be true, therefore Jesus simply had to have infinite power, which is only exibited by God. The reason Jesus had to be God isn't simply because that one thing Timothy said and that one verse in the book of Titus say so, its because if Jesus wasn't God, then what can make the payment? It's one thing to not have to pay anything yourself, it's quite another to then pay the price for everyone else, the price didn't simply get ignored by Jesus being perfect, Jesus had to pay and have the capacity to continue existing throughout in order to actually pay the full price. Nextly, if Jesus's body wasn't resurrected, where are the bones, and why did the Bible say Jesus rose from the dead if the body never actually came back to life? And why did the stone have to be moved, why did Jesus still have holes in His hands and feet from the crucifixion, and why do you suppose so many people would get the impression that the Bible says that Jesus rose bodily? Finally, whether you agree with me or not, I see nothing here that the duel nature has not "closed", nor do I see a single "problem" which the duel nature doesn't get around, so im afraid simply declaring your points won doesn't convince me of anything.
4. Jesus's 2 natures are not simply mixed together into one super God-man fusion, nor are they separated with Jesus's nature as man standing to one side while Jesus's nature as a God stands on the other, but His natures have to be conceived of separatly even when their not literally compleatly separated. As a man, Jesus did not have the authority to do these things, once again, this is sort of how the whole Hypostatic union thing works, whether you insist that it should be a mixture or not. On translation, so what your telling me, is if a word is translated into another language and retains the original meaning, then its fine? So then why do you suppose Isaiah 26:4 specifically refers to "Jehovah" (Not in the NIV for some weird reason, its in the KJV though) as "LORD"? Is Jehovah Lord or not? It's both God's name and a title. And I would argue that, from your perspective, this really shouldn't be very funny at all; by your perspective, I should be heading for Hell :(. I mean, I don't think Jesus is whom you say He is, so in your perspective, I see absolutly no reason why you should regard me as saved; we don't believe in the same Jesus.
5. Actually, I was under the impression this was just about the Hypostatic union. The thing of it is, for all the importance the Trinity gets, if you look at something like Oneness Pentecostals, they say that Jesus is God, God is God, and the Holy Spirit? Also God. It's just to them, there's no one idea that separates them, no concept like the trinity which will actually envelop the idea of their relationship, so therefore, they simply renounce trying to figure it out. Of course, i've heard many times that they take it way too far and say that Jesus is only God and not a man at all, but their perspective doesn't necessarily scream to me "Must be believing that Jesus isn't whom the Bible says He is.", and in the end, that's the bigger thing that matters. Surely if our salvation depended upon acknowladgement of the Trinity in modern understanding, then Jesus would of told us. But rather, Jesus simply told us that whosoever believes in Him is saved and that we must be born again, rationalizing as much as we can about how Jesus, God, and the Holy Spirit fit together isn't a pre-requisite to salvation, though it certainly does make things make a whole lot more sense. If you were simply a non-trinitarian yet believed Jesus to be both God and a man and didn't have any really odd beliefs besides being a non-trinitarian, I probably wouldn't of brought this to your talk page at all; I simply would of assumed there wasn't a good reason you wouldn't be saved. Many times of course, non-trinitarianism ends up being rooted into some deeper heresy, like the aforementioned "Jesus is God alone" thing I mentioned or other oddities, but it doesn't necessarily have to be. However, in your case, when I saw that you did not believe Jesus to be both God and a man, that's what made me care; it's because I am commanded to seek and save the lost that im here and because you don't seem to agree on whom Jesus actually is, and I don't think either of us wants the other to go to the Hell that must await one of our perspectives :(. If I were to convince you to be a trinitarian, so be it. But I don't see why I must convince you to be a trinitarian for you to know salvation, all I see is that I have to convince you that Jesus is both God and a man, maybe I have to figure out how to debate with you on the annihilationism thing or the name thing to do it, maybe I don't. But my main objective is to somehow convince you of Jesus's true nature, the other things you're arguing for are pretty wrong, but I don't see why you would go to Hell for believing that souls stop existing or that God's true name should never be rendered as "Lord" in almost all circumstances, it's not like you're calling God a liar or anything like that, you simply believe something......very odd about what the Bible means. But there's a difference between believing something odd and something that leads to Hell. Now that im done with discussing that, on the Fully this and fully that thing, that should be in my answer concerning number 4.
6. I've seen many quotes from you regarding what certain scholars believe the Bible should "actually" say, but as for what it really means I would say we are still in heated dispute. Homestarmy 06:20, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
1. So if it was not in the past tense as in not believing something and everything after that is what he really believes then is life meaningless or not? Because Ecclesiates 9:9 seems to say that life is meaningless, and verse 7 seems to be an exoration to drunkeness and gluttony, (It might not be gluttony though, it doesn't actually say that the gladness isn't from appreciation of recieving it from God or not). But if life has no meaning, then what was up with all that "Be fruitful and multiply" stuff concering Noah? No, the author has to be recounting the vanity (Or meaninglessness as the NIV puts it) of beliefs he previously held. And it still states that "I said in my heart", and that's still past tense. With the spirit thing, the verse still doesn't say specifically which spirit, I fail to see how it must apply to man in general when he's talking about almond trees and grasshoppers in the previous verses. And your right, the Bible does talk about all those things literally; but something doesn't have to exist in a material sense that can be seen or detected by our senses for it to be literal, it only has to have reality. Matthew 5:6, straight out of Jesus's mouth in the Beatitudes, says "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled", that doesn't sound like you have to hunger and thirst for mere material things like ordinary food and water to me, so I don't see how souls eat ordinary food or drink ordinary drinks. And remember Deuteronomy 8:3, "Man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord"? (And yes, before you start berating me over Jehovah, I recognize that other translations say "Jehovah" here) I don't recall our physical bodies typically feeding on the words of God, just hearing them or seeing them, unless it means like eating the pages of the Bible, I dunno what that would taste like....Nextly, what do you mean by "spirit life"? Life is life, unless you mean life here without a body, and it's quite simple to ressurect something that is dead and still exists, even modern medicine can do that to an extent, (You know, resucitation and all that) so why can't God do the same thing with something that exists? The soul dies and is still there, all dead and stuff, and then God makes it start living again, simple. God's will is pretty powerful. Flesh does not enter the kingdom of heaven, but then if the soul is just our bodies, then how exactly do we inherit the kingdom of heaven and yet not inherit it through faith in Christ if our souls are the flesh? And sure thoughts may perish, but as I think i've showed, there's no reason that perishing in a Biblical sense here or concerning our souls or spirits or whatever means they must stop existing. My question right back at you is how can God ressurect something that doesn't exist anymore at all, does He just sort of reach back in time to the last point that it existed and haul it to the present? I don't mean simply piecing back together the body from the molecules as they decay into the earth and putting them back onto the bones, if the parts of the body still exist, then the body still exists even if its not all in one place, just because man chooses to define things restrictively for reasons of legality and whatnot does not retroactively make the words of the Bible conform to man's modern, technical definitions. When you tell me "Does not exist" I don't think rotting in the ground, I think that the stuff making up the object in question no longer exists inside the universe or outside, which is quite a different way of not existing. Nextly, once again on literal objects, they don't have to be recognizeable by our senses for things to be literal, death literally exists for sure, and Hell is just the kind of place to throw death into, where does the Bible say that Hell conforms to all the limitations of our universe? And Hell is not thrown into itself, rather, the temporary hell of a lake of fire is thrown into a new Hell for pretty much forever. Nextly, your right, it does match well with Ecclesiates; but how can a person who doesn't exist sleep, and once again, not knowing things doesn't mean you aren't inside existance. Finally, God does have the power to rejenerate all of those things, but if the body compleatly decays, the individual parts that make up the body still exist, its just not considered a body by man's definition because we can't look at it and say "Oh look, all these molecules together are one body" and legal stuff would get weird, I mean think about it, we all would legally be cannibalizing people because we could be using molecules once in their bodies....on second thought, don't think about that too much, its very creepy.
3. A father can give less authority to a son over something, but not when the son is given "All" authority over it. And remember, Jesus is His own unit by being both God and a man, so of course He can come back to things. And its true that the Bible doesn't say that "The Father" rose Jesus, But it does say that Jesus rose Himself too, John 2:19-22 says that He will "raise it again in three days", referring to His body, (Mirrored in Matthew 27:40) and Jesus says that He has the authority to take up His life again because of the command He recieved from His Father. So which is it, did Jesus raise Himself, did God, or did both....hmmm....Nextly, your question over animal sacrifices is quite a good one, as it deals with how God displays His justice. You are right to say that the sacrifices were temporary coverups for our sins, they did certainly do something....but they didn't do everything, not yet. God is infinitly just, but also patient and forgiving, He often holds off on delivering justice due to His great mercy, and certainly does so in the Old Testament many times despite all the skeptics you may hear going on about "It wasn't nice for God to kill those people because God shouldn't do that because I say so!!11!!11111oneone!!1". The temporary nature of animal sacrifices was not to actually fulfill the requirements of infinite justice, it was just to temporarily absolve God's people from their sins. The temporary nature of it came from it not actually paying the price, just staving it off. All of that judgement was still stored up, and Jesus had to take all of it because only He, being God, would be capable of actually being powerful enough to take it all. Adam lost human perfection, but Jesus didn't gain perfection back for us, I certainly can't say that I don't sin anymore, just that when I do sin and repent of it that I am forgiven. The sacrifice didn't pay for Adam's crimes alone and then mean that our sinful nature was now somehow an ok thing to have. Sin is still evil, we can just be truly saved from it now if we so choose it. Nextly, it of course wouldn't of been impossible for God to of removed the flesh and bones, but the Bible doesn't say that God removed the flesh and bones, so I don't see a reason to believe that God did this. And if Jesus didn't exist for those days, What made Him stop existing, could He not take the price for the sins of man or could he? If He could, then why would He stop existing, and if as you claim the soul is just the body, then how did the body stay up there after Jesus's death and how was it entombed? What's wrong with materializing the clothes and not dematerializing the body to put said clothes on? I am listening to God's word, and that's how I know the Bible never says Jesus's body was vanished away when it was entombed. Why did the stone get rolled back if nothing was in there?
4. They are seen separatly because Jesus is His own unit as God and a man. When Jesus died, only His nature as man could die, but as i've argued, a man dying doesn't make them stop existing, a soul is not merely the body, and Jesus's soul didn't simply vanish. He matched the infinite price because it was not merely Jesus's body which was inflicted with punishment, all of Himself had to withstand it, including His nature as God, but since God of course cannot die, Jesus's body was the only thing which ended up dying. That's what makes what God did so special, He sacrificed His Son and in a way Himself at the same time because that's what it had to take. As i've tried to explain several times, with Jesus being His own unit, then He can not know things that God can, but if you won't accept this explanation I cannot force you to understand that I do not believe Jesus was lying. For "Jehovah", it appears from what i've seen that the word comes from the Jews replacing the consonents of "Yahveh" with the vowels on "Adonai", which apparently formed the pronunciation of the word "Jehovah", which seems to have never really existed and just got rendered into the KJV simply because they didn't know about this. Do you have any explanations for this theory?
5. And that is, of course, precisely why I am here, because our knowladge does not agree. I admit, I didn't think about annihilationism coupling up with canceling out infinite justice like that, but whether one of us stops existing or goes to Hell, i'd hardly think either of those situations would be considered good. And of course the Bible does not teach that Jesus is just God, like I said earlier, heresy much? But still, Thomas must of been pretty delusional to think Jesus to be God then and Jesus must of been pretty un-caring to just let Thomas go without any admonition there. And while the Bible doesn't specifically say "Jesus has 2 natures", it also doesn't specifically say "Jesus's body was eradicated from existance", each one of those conclusions has to be done by drawing conclusions from other verses, of which we each seem to be attempting to do. The Jehovah thing I don't know about, because im waiting for your answer on the above section.
6. Erm, all the content of this number seems to of been absorbed by other sections.... Homestarmy 02:49, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
If titles or descriptive phrases are used in one place in the Bible, it shouldn't be assumed that they always refer to the same person. For example:
None of these references mean that they are the same person. There are several verses that can change depending on the context and the reading of the rest of the scriptures, and so it's important to get the full view.
Err, I know that Isaiah 43:11 refers to God, I mean, that is where I talked about how God is called "Savior", I don't see the problem there...? I don't know what the apostles thing is for either, but I didn't just pick and choose verses willy nilly to find this whole argument, this came from something called "Christ before the Manger" by one Ron Rhodes, I didn't just randomly look up the words to see how many times I could find a match, I think I even excluded some of the verses because they seemed stretches to me, so I was indeed paying attention to context for each individual instance. "Apostle" im pretty sure wasn't part of my rant there....
On the exodus verse, often translated that way by whom may I ask? Ditto with John, which unfortunently makes it hard for me to answer part of what your asking me to pay attention to :/. However I can answer the later part, considering Jesus answered in the present tense format that seems a bit odd to me that Jesus would choose the wording "I am" rather than "I was", which certainly seems to stick out. Bit awkward way to simply answer a question. And if Jehovah isn't a title, then why do alot of translations try to translate it as "Lord" anyway, I mean seriously, beyond the whole "Because their being influenced by Satan" thing you believe, they've got to of had a reason for that.
On the through thing, I don't think I have time tonight to answer both halves of all this, so I'll have to wait to see what you've written and think about it up above this later. I mean really, do you realize how long this is getting, it takes a good bit of thought and effort to debate all this :/. On Titus, once again I find myself asking, "Translated that way by whom"? I mean it's not that im calling you a liar or something but i'd really like to know. I am not familiar with the intricacies of Koine Greek and in my experience such debates really do lose their focus on what really matters and turns into a debate over grammer rules, and surely if our salvation depended on learning grammer rules for languages thousands of years old, Jesus would have told us :). Perhaps it would be easier to tell me which Bible you prefer in all this alternate translation business, otherwise I might have to drag CTSW into this cus he seems the only guy who's been to collage and whatnot and would be much more likely to know stuff about Koine Greek debates.
So then what about all that stuff in the OT about God doing the judging, where does that leave poor old Isaiah? Both of those verses seem to fit well with a hypostatic understanding of things, for if Jesus was alone, then He certainly couldn't even be God to begin with, and the first one just looks like a relegation of roles, seems downright, well, trinitarian if I do say so myself.
Uhh, im not really sure where this comes from because I don't recall mentioning it as a similarity or anything, but im fairly certain Jesus will be King after all that revelations stuff is done with anyway, what's the problem?
Man, I really dislike these scholar arguments, really gets things far, far away from salvation and into grammer rules. Do I need to drag Slrubstein in here or something? :D Anyway, on Revelation 1:8, who exactly are these "scholars", and why does it matter, of course that one is referring to Jehovah, I mean im looking at the page here in the Evidence Bible right now and it clearly shows up in the "Father" Column, so I dunno what the problem here is. On Revelation 22:12, it may or may not appear in Greek, but does it appear in the Hebrew or Aramic I ask you? Just because translators didn't come out with the verse you think is good doesn't mean their out to convert you to Satanism, often times they have good reasons for whatever their translating. On verse Now On Revelation 1:17, Im not sure there if your talking about verses applying to people here or in the other part, but for 1:16-18 I don't see anything that leads me to conclude that a change in subject between verse 16 and 17 has taken place at all, unless John omitted some long pause or something, it seems to flow right along without any indication of subject change at all. On verse 22:12 and whatnot, considering so much of Revelations cconcerns Jesus "Coming again", I see no reason for me to believe that this must apply to God and not Jesus, I mean think about it, im not the one assuming that He isn't God, so I don't just jump onto all verses automatically that have God-like characteristics and simply assume that it can't be Jesus. I mean Jesus was always talking about and talked about about as "Coming quickly" and especially "like a theif in the night", and if God speaks of Himself as coming to give judgement, well, that works out quite well then if Jesus is God, then they both are coming at the same time, and everything works out fine. See, this whole trinity stuff ain't so confusing after all, is it? Im not sure what you meant by "Verse 18", but if it's 1:18, that just has "Living One" in it, where's the first and last comparison? On 2:8, why must the two characteristics be inter-twined, Jesus most certainly died on the cross and came to life again, but where in this verse or the surrounding context does "first in terms of death and last in ressurection" come into play, it looks like just mention of two of Christ's traits, what makes them be referring to each other in the terms your speaking of? Simply placing them side by side doesn't force them to be referring to each other.
Err, I can't seem to recall any reason to debate for this, which verse was it? I mean its not in this list of similiarites here that I can tell and since you removed alot of text to shorten this page I can't see my original rant anymore :/.
That ought to cover this first part, please tell me if I missed discussing any verses. Homestarmy 05:06, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
Back to "Lord": I meant that since you seemed to be on a bit of a roll trying to make my verses say nearly the exact opposite of what I was saying I say, that it would seem to me entirely feasible for your perspective to be that I am merely picking and choosing verses to find similarities. However, on to the objection, what contextual evidence do you have that God as Lord in Isaiah 45:23 was not synonimous with the title's in Matthew 12:8, Acts 7:59-60, etc. etc., besides your perspective that Jesus could not possibly be God and that all scripture must somehow point to this conclusion?
"I AM" Ok, so all the different versions of the Bible render the Exodus verse and John verse differently. The meaning of "I AM" generally in both senses refers to existing before basically everything else (Especially Isaiah 43:10) or something deity-related and that's sort of the point, even if you somehow disqualify Exodus or that one John verse with those varying ways of rendering it, you've still got Deuterononmy and Isaiah there and the 2 remaining John verses, and the verses concerning Jesus still contain clear parallels on pre-existance, which is sort of a big point here. Though I think we may already be discussing that above someplace? Also, it seems there is a good bit of dispute over "Jehovah" as well, especially considering God is also called "Adonai", "Elohim", "El Shaddai", "Eloah" in Isaiah 44:8, and "Yahveh", there seems to be something about it on This webpage, but whether whoever wrote this is trustworthy or not, im fairly certain anyway that at least some of those names are definently in the Bible somewhere without being translated through like 5 languages, so how does "Jehovah" take precendence over them all again?
On "Savior": Ok, those aren't grammer rules, that's just what the sentences means, I mean grammer rules like how Koine Greek somehow transliterates into English and stuff people go to collage and study manuscripts for like 4 years just to get started on really learning about. But if Jesus is His own unit of sorts, then I see no reason why the authority can't be relegated to the Father alone, and think about it, if Jesus is both God and a man, then by simply having a nature as man He would be lesser than the Father that way, and of course the Son can't do anything by His own intiative when He is also God by nature, it would be like God taking the initiative and yet not taking the initiative, they can't both be true at once.
On "Judge": So what about Psalm 9, where David must be referring to God since he is referring to God as the being responsible for upholding David's "right and my cause", and where it then says He will judge the world in righteousness, was there a convienent switch to prophecy mode there between verses 7 and 8, or will God somehow judge and yet at the same time not judge? And how about Revelation 20:11-15 where the dead, small and great, stand before God specifically (Waaaait a minute, how can non-existant "dead" souls stand in front of anyone, suspiiiciooous.... :D ), is Jesus convienently standing to one side doing the judgement and John just never writes this down?
On "no part of this world": Doesn't Earth simply become part of God's kingdom after all is said and done anyway, and besides, why would Jesus need to even interact with politics anyway to change things, I mean if He can overcome death, then I don't think bypassing the morass of today's political system is beyond His power.
On "First and last": I've seen you give many quotes from scholarly looking type people who seem to generally follow a thread of "This is not quite certain" or "This grammer rule might not of been formalized" and so on and so forth, but I don't see any stirring condemnations of the majority of these verses for how they are translated today, just some vauge sounding doubts. Considering the vaugness that supposedly exists in these verses, it would seem the only NPOV thing to do would be to simply make them say nothing at all, and especially in Revelations case, that's really not an option. However, something must of made these Bible versions translate the verses they way they do, and I don't see how only seeing a side of "Erm, well, it could of, maybe it would of, perhaps it should of..." gives a full perspective on everything you could possibly know about these verses.
And finally, on "Exact representation": Well, if Jesus was the exact representation of God, then He must of represented at the very least infinite power. Either things get Bitheistic from here and I think we can both agree that would be just, well, pretty insane, or Jesus is God, unless im missing some hidden third option which allows Jesus to represent infinite power without actually, you know, representing infinite power? Or infinite knowladge, or infinite wisdom, etc. etc..
Ok, I think that got everything. If I may, I'd like to say something though about my whole argument here, see, the way this argument works isn't that every single verse in the list must correlate exactly for this point to me made, the point is in the extensive list of similarities between Jesus and God. If only a few general sorts of traits applied to both Jesus and God in just plain looking sort of situations, (I.E. They both exist and the like) then this sort of argument wouldn't hold much, however, when you look at everything in this argument together the pattern is unmistakeable. And thusly, you may be able to get around a few verses here and there with translation things which, quite frankly, I am not really qualified or experienced much in to debate about, (Unless, you know, I spend a couple hours or something reaserching scholar people or ask CTSW or Slrubstein to help me or something) but remember, there's still many important categories in my argument we haven't even talked about compleatly, such as reciever of worship especially, "who gets the glory", Giver of Life, (Though I think we did touch on several of these verses already), and other categories including all the "Eternal", "Immutable", "Omnipresent" etc. etc. verses, and then there were even more after that which wern't quite as major, but it is the strength of all the verses together that really gives this argument its kick, so even if you are able to get by a few of the verses, (And I even made your job easier, some of the verses I threw out myself at the beginning because even I thought they didn't quite demonstrate a link adequatly) there will still be more than enough verses left to draw a pretty clear connection to the idea that Jesus was God. It's a very extensive argument :D Homestarmy 06:51, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
And here we go again! On "Lord": Our conversation seems to of gotten off-track on this one. As we were saying, the context of Jesus being Lord and God being Lord are hardly as radically different as one referring to Lord of the universe and the other referring to like king Nebuchadnezzer, that guy's authority pales in comparison to Christ's. Matthew 12:8 for one says that Jesus is the lord of the Saabath, not merely a lord as if God had delegated the authority but retained it for Himself, but The Lord. Now, if God's authority is absolute, then how can He possibly have absolute authority and yet not be the Lord of everything? Unless of course, Jesus is God. You see, it is how these pieces of the puzzle fit together which truly makes the argument for Christ's divinity strong. Homestarmy 03:16, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
On "Savior": Because as a separate unit, Jesus can act subordinate to God while still being God by nature.
On "Judge": And here's the heart of it, you can be dead without ceasing to exist, and that's exactly what happens. People will be ressurected from the dead, not re-created again after not existing.
On "First and last": The reason I say the same thing over and over about my support is because you don't seem to be understanding this whole thing.
On "Exact representation": The situation you describe is where someone is like someone else, not as so someone else, and an exact representation has to be as something else, or else its not exact. For instance, an exact model of something would have to be like something in every way, to the point where they would be as if they were identical. And once again, Jesus could not know things because, having the nature of a man, He did not know all things as a man.
Finally, I still maintain that I have showed plenty of ways that Jesus can both be God and a man at once, you just simply call them all problematic despite my apparent lack of problem in eventually coming up with reasons for what I believe. Jesus is both God and a man :) Homestarmy 02:36, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
Just a note, I apologize for any excessive exclamation points or any side-comments or edit summaries I made that might have been written in haste or in the passion of a response. I appreciate the opportunity to have a very wide and deep discussion about important Biblical topics that certainly affect the both of us. -- Oscillate 01:21, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
Err, im afraid I won't be able to answer anything for a few days probably, i'll be off on a trip and I don't know if i'll have internet. Homestarmy 02:49, 22 June 2006 (UTC)