YLTYLT wrote:Fortigurn wrote:You call that 'logical'? So now Jesus is the God of the Father and Holy Spirit, the Father is the God of Jesus and the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is the God of the Father and Jesus?
I REPEAT! It is logical in a sense that if God recognizes someone is equal to Him then this person would also be God.
Well no, not necessarily. If a king views me as his equal, that does not necessarily mean that I am also the king. But in any case, Christ made it clear that he is not equal with God, and so do the apostles.
You cannot compare our relationship to God to the Son's relationship to the Father. Their relationship to each other is different than our relationship to Our God. Their relationship is perfect. Ours is flawed. Their relationship is eternal. Ours is only eternal in the future (if we are saved) but not eternal in the past. They have perfect continual communication with each other. We do not have that with God because of our Sin.
None of this actually addresses anything I wrote.
But man's logic is irrelevant. Scripture is the final determination.
This is a flawed statement. Logic is important, and it's so important that you're actually appealing to it. You are appealing to a standard logical syllogism in order to argue for the trinity. But then you turn around and say that 'man's logic is irrelevant'. You can't have it both ways.
Titus 1
3 But hath in due times manifested his word through preaching, which is committed unto me according to the commandment of God our Saviour; 4 To Titus, mine own son after the common faith: Grace, mercy, and peace, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ our Saviour.
Titus 2:13
Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;
Titus 3:3-6
3 For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another.
4 But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared,
5 Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;
6 Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour
Paul most assuredly considered Jesus Christ God.
Titus 1:3 and 3:4 - Saviour = God
Titus 1:4 and 3:6 - Jesus Christ = Saviour
Titus 2:13 God = Saviour = Jesus Christ
From these 3 verses there is no ambiguity at all that could question that Jesus Christ = God.
Actually there's far more ambiguity than you realise. First let's listen to Wallace:
Few today would take issue with Rudolf Bultmann's oft-quoted line that “In describing Christ as 'God' the New Testament still exercises great restraint.”
The list of passages which seem explicitly to identify Christ with God varies from scholar to scholar, but the number is almost never more than a half dozen or so.
As is well known, almost all of the texts are disputed as to their affirmation—due to textual or grammatical glitches—John 1:1 and 20:28 being the only two which are usually conceded without discussion.
Daniel Wallace, 'Sharp Redivivus? A Reexamination of the Granville Sharp Rule'
So out of the half a dozen verses you could use, only two are undisputed on textual or grammatical grounds. So let's look at what you've given me:
* Titus 1:3: Clearly distinguishes Jesus as separate from God. God is 'the Father' (not 'the Father, the son and the Holy Spirit'), and Jesus is 'the Christ'. Both are called 'our saviour', which is perfectly legitimate because both are involved in saving us. To claim that Jesus is God from this passage commits the logical fallacy of the
undistributed middle.
* Titus 2:13: The reading you have given me is disputed on grammatical grounds, since the Greek can read 'God, and our saviour Jesus Christ'. If the odd verse containing grammatical ambiguity is all you can give me in support of the trinity, please pardon me for not being convinced.
* Titus 3:3-6: Again we find Jesus and God distinguished as separate. God is described as one person, who is a person other than Jesus. Both are called saviouwr, which is perfectly legitimate because both are involved in saving us. To claim that Jesus is God from this passage commits the logical fallacy of the
undistributed middle.
I could see how you might argue against any one verse. But you are still not taking the whole of scripture into account.
On the contrary, I am taking the whole of Scripture into account. For a start, I'm looking at the Old Testament, which consistently teaches that God is one person. I don't know of any trinitarian at all who would dare say that the Jews believed in the trinity. Secondly, I'm looking at the teaching of the apostles - what they taught as gospel before they baptized people - and I'm seeing exactly the same (God is one person, Jesus is a man who is the son of God and the mediator between God and men). You on the other hand are picking out verses here and there and trying to overturn entire chapters of explicit Biblical teaching. You're trying to interpret the explicit with the inferred, rather than deriving the inferred from the explicit. That's Biblical exegesis backwards.
And you cannot argue that in 2:13 that it is referring to both God the father and Jesus Christ, or else the verse would say we are waiting for both the Father and the son to appear. And we both know that the rest of scripture does not teach this in any way.
I wouldn't argue that it refers to both God the Father and Jesus Christ.
So to finish, we still have no explanation for why the apostles didn't preach the trinity, and why when they taught people the gospel and baptized people, they always taught that Jesus is a man, not that he is God.
In his speech to the Jews on the day of Pentecost, the apostle Peter tells them that Jesus is
a man attested by God:
Acts 2:
22 “Men of Israel, listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man clearly attested to you by God with powerful deeds, wonders, and miraculous signs that God performed among you through him, just as you yourselves know—
23 this man, who was handed over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you executed by nailing him to a cross at the hands of Gentiles.
The apostle Peter taught that Jesus is
a man, not God, or even a God, or even on the same level as God. Three thousand people were baptized into Christ that day, with the understanding that he was
a man. True Christians therefore are baptized with the belief that Jesus is a man.
Note also that Peter distinguishes Christ from God, and says that Christ was
a man through whom God worked, not that he was God who became man.
In his speech to the people after he had healed the lame mand, the apostle Peter tells them that Jesus was the fulfillment of the prophecy given by Moses, that God would send them a Messiah who was
a man like them:
Acts 3:
22 Moses said, 'The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers. You must obey him in everything he tells you.
23 Every person who does not obey that prophet will be destroyed and thus removed from the people.'
Note that Peter tells the crowd that Jesus was a prophet
like Moses, from among
their brothers. He does not tell them that Jesus is God, or that he came down from heaven.
In his speech to a law court, the apostle Stephen likewise tells them that Jesus was the fulfillment of the prophecy given by Moses, that God would send them a Messiah who was a man like them:
Acts 7:
37 This is the Moses who said to the Israelites, 'God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers.
He uses the same quote as the apostle Peter had used, telling them that the prophet God would send (the Messiah), would be '
of your brethren, like unto me' - in other words,
a man, a human being.
When he was in Athens, the apostle Paul was speaking to some people about who Jesus was. In his speech, he told them clearly that Jesus was
a man who received authority from God:
Acts 17:
30 Therefore, although God has overlooked such times of ignorance, he now commands all people everywhere to repent,
31 because he has set a day on which he is going to judge the world in righteousness, by a man whom he designated, having provided proof to everyone by raising him from the dead.”
Here Paul says that Jesus is
a man appointed by God to judge the world. Paul does not preach that Christ is God. He preaches that Christ is a man
authorised by God, a
man whom
God has appointed.
In his first letter to Timothy, the apostle Paul says that there is
one God, and that there is
one mediator between
God and
men, and that is
Jesus Christ, who he says
is a man:
1 Timothy 2:
5 For there is one God and one intermediary between God and humanity, Christ Jesus, himself human,
6 who gave himself as a ransom for all, revealing God's purpose at his appointed time.
Here we have God on one side, and humans on the other. In between we have Christ - a
man, not God.
It couldn't be any clearer. The apostles all taught time and time and time again that Jesus was a man at his birth, and was still a man after his resurrection and going to the Father.
Note also how the apostles repeatedly distinguished God and Christ from each other in their public preaching:
[Acts 2:
24 Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it.
Acts 2:
32 This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses.
Acts 3:
15 And killed the Prince of life, whom God hath raised from the dead; whereof we are witnesses.
Acts 3:
26 Unto you first God, having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities.
Acts 4:
10 Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you whole.
Acts 5:
30 The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree.
Acts 13:
33 God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that he hath raised up Jesus again; as it is also written in the second psalm, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee.
Again and again we see it - God and Jesus, God and Christ, Jesus Christ whom God raised from the dead, God and His son Jesus. The two are clearly distinguished, and the term 'God' is used synonymously with the Father (not in the generic trinitarian sense of 'the triune godhead').
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