Re: More Trinity stuff
Posted: Sun Aug 12, 2007 8:04 pm
Easy, Jesus is the agent of God, through whom God wrought salvation. As early as Genesis 3:15 we find that the salvic process will involve the seed of the woman - it would be through a mortal man that God would work salvation.B. W. wrote:For those of you who do not think the bible teaches the concept of the Trinity? Who was Jesus if only God can save unless the Messiah is God himself?
God gave the same message to Moses - that He would raise up a from among his brethren:
This passage provides three important details:Deuteronomy
18 I will raise up a prophet like you for them from among their fellow Israelites. I will put my words in his mouth and he will speak to them whatever I command.
19 I will personally hold responsible anyone who then pays no attention to the words that prophet speaks in my name.
- That this prophet would be like Moses - he would be a man, and he would act as God's agent and representative, just as Moses had (note that God told Moses that He had made Moses 'God' to Pharoah, Exodus 7:1)
- That the prophet would be a man, he would be raised up from among his brethren, he wouldn't descend from heaven like an angel, and he would be of the same nature as those among whom he was raised up
- That this prophet, despite being a mortal man, would act as God's agent and representative, being Divinely authorised to do so by God Himself - what he spoke would be considered as the words of God Himself
Christ was the greatest in this line of prophets, and many of the Jews recognised this:
Peter declared the same:John 6:
14 Now when the people saw the miraculous sign that Jesus performed, they began to say to one another, “This is certainly the Prophet who is to come into the world.”
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.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.'
The prophet Isaiah makes it clear that the Messiah would be God's servant (not God Himself), who would be Divinely authorised to act on God's behalf, and would be Divinely empowered to do so:
This makes no sense if Christ is God (not the servant of God), because he would already have both authority and power by virtue of being God. He would not need to be authorised or empowered by God. Nor would he need to be protected by God, if he was already God.Isaiah 42:
11 “Here is my servant whom I support, my chosen one in whom I take pleasure. I have placed my spirit on him; he will make just decrees for the nations.
6 “I, the Lord, officially commission you;I take hold of your hand. I protect you and make you a covenant mediator for people, and a light to the nations,
7 to open blind eyes, to release prisoners18 from dungeons, those who live in darkness from prisons.
The fact that he is also appointed mediator by God is especially important, since this requires that he be a man (not a Divine being), as we shall see later.
Other Old Testament passages could be quoted which describe the Messiah as a man authorised by God as His agent and representative, but these will do for now.
Now we come to the New Testament. Christ himself declares that the Father is the only true God, that he was sent by the Father, that he was both empowered and authorised by the Father, and that the Father was greater than he.
Note that Christ distinguishes himself from the Father (one person, whom he describes as 'the only true God'), and declares himself repeatedly to have been given all the had by God (including his authority).John 17:
1 When Jesus had finished saying these things, he looked upward to heaven and said, “Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, so that your Son may glorify you—
2 just as you have given him authority over all humanity, so that he may give eternal life to everyone you have given him.
3 Now this is eternal life—that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you sent.
4 I glorified you on earth by completing the work you gave me to do.
Note also that Christ declares that completing the work he was given by God was the way he glorifies the Father. There is no room here for co-equality.
This was not the first time in his ministry that Christ had made these matters clear:
Here Christ tells us that:John 5:
26 For just as the Father has life in himself, thus he has granted the Son to have life in himself,
27 and he has granted the Son authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man.
30 I can do nothing on my own initiative. Just as I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I do not seek my own will, but the will of the one who sent me.
- He was granted life in himself by the Father (he did not have it in himself before)
- He was granted authority to execute judgment by the Father (he did not have it before), as His agent
- He was granted that authority to judge, not because he was 'God the Son', but because he was mortal - the Son of man
Here again Christ tells us that the miracles he performed were not of himself, but performed because the Father was working through him:
This is significant, because this is precisely the same as is said for the works of faith which we humans perform - they are the works of God in us, not works we initiated ourselves independent of the Father. That Christ's works were of this nature proves that he was identical to us.John 14:
10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you, I do not speak on my own initiative, but the Father residing in me performs his miraculous deeds.
In the same chapter, Christ affirms that his Father is greater than he:
This makes no sense if the are co-equal, co-eternal, and co-existent members of the 'triune godhead'.John 14:
28 You heard me say to you, 'I am going away and I am coming back to you.' If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I am.
When Christ said 'I and the Father are one', the Jews picked up stones, ready to kill him. They believed that he was declaring himself to be God:
Modern trinitarians believe that the Jews were right, that Jesus had claimed he was God. But Jesus corrected the Jews, informing them clearly that he had only claimed to be the son of God:John 10:
32 Jesus said to them, “I have shown you many good deeds from the Father. For which one of them are you going to stone me?”
33 The Jewish leaders replied, “We are not going to stone you for a good deed but for blasphemy, because you, a man, are claiming to be God.”
Christ's own explanation of his words is unmistakable - he was not claiming to be God, he was claiming to be the son of God. But he goes further than this, and declares yet again his dependence on the Father. He also points out that in the Old Testament God Himself referred to the judges of Israel as 'Elohim', one of the Hebrew words for God, and that if it is not blasphemy to call the judges of Israel 'Elohim' (one of the Hebrew words for God), then it certainly cannot be blasphemy for him to call himself the son of God.John 10:
34 Jesus answered, “Is it not written in your law, 'I said, you are gods'?
35 If those people to whom the word of God came were called 'gods' (and the scripture cannot be broken),
36 do you say about the one whom the Father set apart and sent into the world, 'You are blaspheming,' because I said, 'I am the Son of God'?
He goes on to explain that the unity he has with the Father is not ontological in nature, and that his deeds are merely the deeds of the Father in him (just as ours are):
This again reinforces the point that he is the son of God, not that he is God Himself.John 10:
37 If I do not perform the deeds of my Father, do not believe me.
38 But if I do them, even if you do not believe me, believe the deeds, so that you may come to know and understand that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.”
Now we come to the public preaching campaigns of the apostles. Incredibly, we find that they preach consistently that Jesus is a man. Not once do they refer to him as 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:
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.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.
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:
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.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.'
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:
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.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.
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:
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.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.”
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:
Here we have God on one side, and humans on the other. In between we have Christ - a man, not God.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.
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:
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 synomously with the Father (not in the generic trinitarian sense of 'the triune godhead').[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.
So we can see that Jesus both was and still is a man. A human being. Nothing at all strange about that. It's very clear. But we also know that he is a man with special power, and special authority, and special qualities, which he received from God.