I so don't have time for this . . . it's like a bad addiction.
The Bible does not teach that we are all guilty of sin before we've sinned, and the only condemnation we inherit as a consequence of being in Adam is death (not guilt). We aren't held guilty for Adam's sin.
Actually, in the most technical sense, I agree with you, but for different reasons that you are asserting this. Note that I did not say that we are born guilty of sin. I said we are born
in sin. The language comes from Psalms 51, which says we are born in iniquity, or born sinful.
It is my belief that Jesus' death on the cross completely removed ALL sin from ALL people. He is the propitiation for our (Christians') sins, but also for the whole world's (unbelievers') sins. Thus, no man is condemned for sin. He is condemned for his status, that is, for being in Adam and not being in the Book of Life.
Keep thinking along those lines. No one goes to a burning underworld called 'hell'.
Considering the fact that "Hell" is an English word, I'd agree. There was also no man in the first century who died on a cross called "Jesus." He never prayed to a being called "Father." He had no "disciples." Blah, blah, blah.
What we do know is that there is a place called "Sheol," to which the dead went at death. Whereas that is the Hebrew name, the Greek name for it is Hades. John tells us that at the Great White Throne Judgment, Hades will give up the dead in it, and they all will be thrown into the Lake of Fire. So yes, fine, does that mean that the current Sheol/Hades is just a place of sleep for the wicked dead? No, because Jesus tells us that it is even now a place of "flame." (Luke 16:24)
Simple, John 1:1 says that the word was divine. I agree. No problem there. But John 1:1 says nothing about Jesus.
Oh please. Don't patronize me. You know exactly where this is going, so run out your line of thought.
- In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was with God in the beginning . . . 14The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us . . . 15John testifies concerning him. He cries out, saying, "This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.' "
The Word is Jesus. John attributes divinity to Jesus. Do you deny that or not?
That tells us what the Jews thought. It does not tell us what Jesus meant. Jesus explicitly denied that he was equal with God, on a number of occasions.
No, this does not tell us what the Jews thought. Look at the text again, Fortigurn.
- For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.
Notice that it does not say "they thought he was making Himself God." Did Jesus break the Sabbath? Yes. He broke their oral traditions concerning it, but of course, He is perfectly allowed to do such things. He is Lord of the Sabbath, which, for the record, is another explicit claim to deity.
Are you aware of the rabbinic background to this account? There had long been a debate over Gen 2:2. The Bible says that God rested from His work on the seventh day, but yet there was continuous evidence throughout Scripture that God Himself worked on the Sabbath. Jesus tapped into that debate in this very passage with the words, "My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working." Jesus was saying, "Look - God works on the Sabbath. He can do that. He is God. And I am working on the Sabbath, too. Why? Because I can do that, being God." The Jews understood
exactly what was going on here.
Now, beyond this, we have the fact that Jesus legally broke the Sabbath (so far as man's traditions are concerned), we now have the further that that He claimed God was His Father,
making Himself equal with God. There is absolutely
no exegetical reason to read this as the Jews' thoughts and not as John's explanation of what had happened. You said yourself that the Romans couldn't care less if some man claimed to be God. So you have this book in your hand, called the Gospel of John, and you are reading that this guy Jesus claimed God was His Father. Do you care? No. That isn't such a stretch. But yet, the Jews want to kill him for it? Why? Oh, the author tells you, because the claim to have God as Father is to make yourself equal with God.
Secondly, Jesus never denied He was equal with God. He challenged their reasoning on several occasions, but He never denied divinity. Against this, you have John 1 and Phil 2:6, "[Jesus], existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God a something worth clinging to" (my translation). I don't know much about your theology, but do you believe there are contradictions in Scripture? Were John and Paul wrong in attributing equality with God to Jesus?
I need to see evidence for this. It would have been a great charge for the Jews to bring against Christ, but they didn't - not even falsely. I don't believe that the emperor cared tuppence for any two bit wannabe running around and calling himself 'god'. What did concern Rome was any sign of political instability.
If Jesus had used the words, "I am God," then yes, it would have been a great charge to bring against Him. But He did not use those words for exactly that reason. He told the Jews in their language and culture that He was Yahweh.
Concerning the validity of making the charge:
1. Emperor worship had long before been instituted. It was common by this point in history to worship deceased emperors, though Augustus and Caligula had brought the practice over in some cases to refer to living emperors. To worship Jesus as God would have been to deny the emperor worship (consider His claims to divinity were exclusive!), and thus, qualify as treason.
2. Practically speaking, the worship of living emperors, while being practiced, was not broadly accepted. Quite the contrary, it was mocked by many critics. The idea, then, that Jesus would promote Himself to God while denying Caesar was God would have not only made Him Caesar's rival, but indeed his superior.
3. Under Roman Law, there were two categories of religion:
religio licita and
religio illicita (tolerated religion and illicit religion, respectively). R.L. included ONLY the Imperial Religion and Judaism. Anyone outside of Judaism, then, was required to submit to the Imperial Religion, and participation in an R.I. was punishable by law. Jesus' claim to divinity would have placed Him thoroughly outside the scope of classic Judaism, making Him the founder on an illicit religion (which, interestingly enough, is exactly what happened under Domitian in the 80's. He declared Christianity R.I.).
Now, when we turn to the historical account, we see that the Jews did not at first bring up Jesus' claim to divinity. Why? Because it simply could not be proven. Jesus never said "I am God." If He had said that, it would have been an open and shut case. So they tried to get Him on sedition. That didn't work with Pilate or Herod, so eventually they came out with it. He had blasphemed, and according to
their law, He should die. Pilate, wanting to avoid political turbulence, agreed to condemn Him on the charge that He claimed to be the King of the Jews.
Therefore, everything we see in my original argument is absolutely true. The Jews wanted Jesus dead because they understood His claim to divinity. Those claims were explicit, directed at the Jewish people. They were hidden from the Romans, exactly as Jesus intended.
Now, you tell me - since you so desperately want to see a Romanized claim to divinity (which I am showing cannot be sought), tell me this: if Jesus was NOT divine, then why did He not just say at His trial, "Guys -
ouk ego theos" (I am not God)? I don't see Him saying that anywhere, actually . . .
That's simply not true. Adam is clearly called the son of God by Luke, and I don't believe any Jew would have believed that Adam was equal with God.
Adam was
created by God. Jesus was claiming to be
born by God. Again, in Jewish thought, you receive the nature of your father. Have you noticed the fact that God is referred to as "Father" in the OT a mere 10 times, and in none of those 10 times is God considered the father of an individual (save one possible Messianic exception)? This is striking, because "father" is the way that most religions referred to their god. Now, against this, Jesus repeatedly refers to God as "father." Further, He repeatedly calls God "my Father."
There is a difference, then, in God as a Creator-Father and God as a Begetting-Father. God was Israel's Creator-Father. He was Adam's Creator-Father. Yet nowhere in the OT, not once, is He the Begetting-Father. Why? Because that would make that individual equal to Himself. And yet, Jesus says that is exactly that to Him!
For a modern illustration, look again to Islam. They have a semitic mindset much like the first century Jews had. They clearly recognize that for God to have a Son in the literal sense would make that Son divine. As they can accept no such idea, they reject Christianity. Nor could the Jews possibly accept that idea. It was simply outrageous!
That's not the trinity, that's bad exegesis. The fact that the trinity has to be constructed syllogistically is evidence that it is not taught explicitly. The fact that the syllogistic reasoning used to construct the trinity results in a logical contradiction is evidence that this is very bad reasoning. I mean honestly, John 1:1 doesn't even mention Jesus, and Hebrews 9:14 does not call the Holy Spirit 'God'. The Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of God. The fact that it is the Spirit of God means it cannot be God.
Forgive me for putting absolutely no stock in this. I couldn't care less what is taught explicitly and what is not. You can't possibly believe that we cannot compare Scripture with Scripture to understand its meaning. A syllogism is nothing more than putting truths together and looking at the necessary results. If you want to challenge the conclusion, you have to challenge the premises.
In fact, let's forget the Trinity. We are having enough a time talking about the Divinity of Jesus without talking about the Divinity of the Holy Spirit. The Bible clearly says that there is only one God. Do you disagree? The Bible clearly says that the Father is God. Do you disagree? The Bible clearly says that Jesus is God. I don't know HOW you can disagree . . . John 1:1,14; Phil 2:6; Col 2:9; etc. You've been through them all before. If the Father is God, and Jesus is God, and if there is only one God, then there is absolutely nothing self-contradictory in positing that God must be a being composed of multiple persons. You know as well as I do that "being" and "person" are not absolutely synonymous. There is nothing in the definition of "being" that says it can only be one "person."
As far as all your verses go on Jesus being a man, you can save them a docetic. I believe that Jesus was a man. I believe He was fully and completely a man. He was 100% human. I further believe that He is STILL a man, even now. I've already said I base my understanding of the propitiation on that fact, so you'll have to find some other line of thought with me.
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Pierac:
Your grammatical argument is, very simply, just factually wrong. "Logos" is masculine. The next two pronouns "houtos" and "autos" are also masculine. They are not neuter.
Here is a Greek Bible (NA27) complete with parsing for your convenience. Click the word you want to see parsed and it will bring it up. If you don't read Greek, here it is below, and the words you want to click are in bold:
- εν αρχη ην ο λογος και ο λογος ην προς τον θεον και θεος ην ο λογος
2ουτος ην εν αρχη προς τον θεον
3παντα δι αυτου εγενετο και χωρις αυτου εγενετο ουδε εν ο γεγονεν
Beyond this, notice verse 14: "The Logos became flesh and dwelt among us." Your interpretation cannot be right because it would mean that a "dream" became a man. The fact that this "dream" actually WAS God (not an idea had by Him) should be enough to demonstrate the flaw in your thinking here.
edit: Regardless of masculine or neuter, anyway, the gender of a noun has no direct bearing on its personality. That is simply a misunderstanding of the function of "gender", anyway. The only way you would have a case is if
Logos was neuter, but even then, it wouldn't matter, because just because a word itself is neuter doesn't mean it cannot be a referent to a person. "Demon" is a neuter term, and it refers to persons
Even more, "Autos" has three separate forms. It can be in the masculine form (autos), feminine form (aute), and neuter form (auton). They three forms are not to convey three different ideas regarding sexuality or personality. They are grammatical features. In Greek, a pronoun has to agree with its antecedent is number
and gender. It would be grammatically
incorrect, then, for John to have used the neuter form of autos to refer back to "Logos." Why? Because, again, "Logos" is a masculine form. Therefore, it requires a masculine pronoun. Hope that helps.
God bless