Join Dr. Brown today to discuss some of the reasons Jews don’t believe that the Messiah can also be God, and more objections to Jesus as the Jewish Messiah!
Hour 1:
Dr. Brown’s Bottom Line: Our glorious God has revealed Himself to us, in various ways at different times, but most fully, most wonderfully in Jesus the Messiah; the one and only, unique Son of God. As we recognize Jesus, Yeshua, we bow down and worship the One True God. There is nothing idolatrous about it.
Hour 2:
Dr. Brown’s Bottom Line: Hebrews chapter 1: Long ago, at many times, and in many ways, God has spoken to us by the prophets. But in these last days, He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed the heir of all things, and through whom He created the world. He is the radiance of the Glory of God, and the exact imprint of His nature, and He upholds the universe with the word of His power. After making purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name He has inherited is more excellent than theirs.
Featured Resources:
Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus vol. 2 by Dr. Brown and The Deity of Messiah: Son of God or Chosen Man? (debate)
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Prophets & Prophetic Ministry [MP3 Series]
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Essential Israel Resources!
Answering Jewish Objections To Jesus – Volume 1
Other Resources:
Previous LOF Shows:
Dr. Brown Answers the Rabbis (Part 1): Dr. Brown answers challenges given him by traditional rabbis as to why Jesus is not the Jewish Messiah, focusing today on challenges from his friend, Rabbi Yisroel Blumenthal.
Dr. Brown Answers the Rabbis (Part 2): Dr. Brown responds to objections from Rabbi Michael Skobac from Jews for Judaism.
Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus vol. 3 by Dr. Brown: This third installment of Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus looks specifically at questions raised about messianic prophecies in Isaiah, Daniel, Psalms, Haggai, and Zechariah.
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Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus vol. 4 by Dr. Brown: In this volume of the Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus series, Dr. Brown counters the arguments that the New Testament mistranslates, misuses, and misunderstands the Hebrew Scriptures, also addressing the objections that Jesus or Paul abolished the Law.
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Who Is Jesus? Dr. Brown/Blumhofe Debate [DVD]: If you could travel 2,000 years back in time and be an eyewitness to a debate between Paul the Apostle and the most outstanding Pharisee over the Messiahship of Jesus, it could not be more exciting than this debate.
Sheila
You lost me.
Benei,
First, what’s your position on the deity and preexistence of the Son?
Second, I have never made a statement about the eternal begetting of the Son, as I do not see anything explicit in Scripture addressing this. The Son comes down from heaven for His earthly mission and returns to His Father afterwards (John 13 among other passages), and He was with God in the beginning and Himself God. But as for the creeds, they have may insight on this or they may not; again, I see nothing in Scripture that explicitly addresses this.
Dr Brown
I am currently evaluating the issue hence my querie to you.
So to be clear, you side with the non-eternal generation side represented by Driscoll? Or do you have your own take on it?
Benei,
I don’t know what Oneness is so I can’t answer that.
I’ll have to read again what I wrote. In a lot of ways I’m only working things out right here and now, so, I may indeed get some things wrong. Try on this and that, if they don’t fit–take them back off. I know what I know, I don’t know yet what I don’t yet know. Something…like… 🙂
I’ve learned humility so many times I’m just waiting on the Lord to slap me upside the head again! Could be any minute now. For real.
Apparently I didn’t learn it very well!
Benei,
In answer to your other statement——“Sheila You lost me.”
You wrote: “Ad what do you mean by God being a “who and what”? Both a thing and a being?”
I replied “As in being “what” His Name means. That’s a mystery.”
Not that God is a what if that’s how it came across. I meant that He embodies His Name. His Name being a “what.” As in, “and when they ask me what is His Name, what shall I tell them?”
Sheila
So God is a He not a What?
I’m confused because many define God as 1 What in 3 Who’s.
Benei,
I like that; 1 what in 3 Who’s. I’ll try that on and see if I agree. Maybe 3 Who’s in 1 what. I certainly understand what they’re getting at though.
Benei,
I would have to say God is a who and a what and a was and a am and a will be and much more. How do you describe Him?
Sheila, Thanks.
Where are you reading that the Messiah RETURNED to God?
Then tell me about “the Lord our God is one Lord”.
You say there are two Lords, below. Jesus very cleverly and helpfully DID speak of two lords in Ps. 110:1. And how many of them is YHVH? One or Two?
The Father is YHVH we all know that BUT now you come and say the Messiah is YHVH. That makes two YHVH’s.
Please don’t play any “mystery” cards!
How come you believe in two YHVH’s?
Sheila
The one God of Israel is described as a Personal God Whose name is YHWH. For example, when Moses asked Who He was the reply was “I AM WHO I AM”. I dont see a Who and What Being there. How do you?
Sheila
The one God of Israel is described as a Personal God Whose name is YHWH. For example, when Moses asked Who He was the reply was “I AM WHO I AM”. I dont see a Who and What Being there. How do you? Can you provide some scriptural evidence for what your suggesting?
Sir Anthony,
How can you read of the person of YHWH before he brought the children of Israel out of Egypt and “not” read of YHWH on earth? If there are not three, you could exclude the Holy Spirit as God if you choose, but there are at least “two” who are both YHWH.
Otherwise God didn’t mean for the first few books of the Bible to be understood as they are written? Because that’s the only other alternative.
Benei,
Personally, I think you’re running that who and what into the ground. If you have more to say about it please lay it out for us.
Is a name a who or is it a what? It’s a matter of correct usage of the English language. We don’t ask, “Who is his name?” We ask “What is his name?”
Does God embody His Name or not? Yet Moses asked “What is your name?” to which God answered, “I am that I am” which I understand is found in the Name, YHWH. Aren’t you wholely Benei. Is there any part of you, say an arm or a leg that’s not part of Benei? You embody your name as well. Your name is both a who and a what.
Sheila
You lost me again.
Can you talk to me according to what scripture has to say about Who God is?
Sheila, You say “there are “two”??? What do you mean with the quotation marks, please? In my understanding of English “two” has no meaning at all. Two is quite clear. We must stay with clear definitions for good discussion, I think.
I do not follow your point. There was YHVH from the beginning and there was no SON in the OT times (Heb 1.2 fixes that point).
What do you mean by YHVH on earth? I am not sure of your point? Jesus was on the earth of course after he began to exist.
Sheila, You say “there are “two”??? What do you mean with the quotation marks, please? In my understanding of English “two” has no meaning at all. Two is quite clear. We must stay with clear definitions for good discussion, I think.
I do not follow your point. There was YHVH from the beginning and there was no SON in the OT times (Heb 1.2 fixes that point).
What do you mean by YHVH on earth? I am not sure of your point? Jesus was on the earth of course after he began to exist.
Benei,
Can you answer some of the questions I put forth to you already?
What does Scripture say to you? If it’s important to you please elaborate as you may cause me to change my mind. 🙂 I’ve done it more than a few times already.
Sir Anthony,
A quick question. When you use “Lord” you are interchanging it with LORD?
Btw, I’ve not touched Segal’s book yet. I can’t even find it right now. Have you had occasion to read it? No matter let me work on the Scripture to support what I understand it to say.
Another question so I know where you stand. What of the Holy Spirit? God; not God?
Sheila,
You can’t experience a glorified condition before you exist! But you can have it as a promise of course. Paul says that Christians “have been glorified” but you know they have not yet.
Glory is the promise of glory and you can HAVE it now meaning you will have it.
You know that Paul says you HAVE a new body now in 1 Cor 5 but you have not got it.
You know that Jesus said that you HAVE a reward, or not, in Matt 6:1. But rewards come in the future.
This is typical Hebrew thinking; Rewards are stored up with God.
It is very obvious from John 17.22, 24 that Jesus said he had already given glory to those who were not even born when he spoke those words.
Thus in order not to make nonsense of the rest of Scripture, Jesus prayed to receive the glory which he HAD– God had given it to him before the foundation of the world.
There is actually a MSS variation which tries to help with this “the glory which WAS with you…”
The great issue here is not to remove Jesus from the human race: he is the MAN Messiah Jesus.
The Trinitarian camp believes that Jesus had no HUMAN personality and that his core personality was GOD.
Michael,
As you know these issues are extensively dealt with in unitarian works over the centuries and in my two full books.
Heb 1 is not so hard once one believes the context! It is the “society to come” about which we are speaking! (2:5) That Is the statement of the Hebrews writer about what he meant.
Ps 102 quoted from the LXX, which shows God speaking to another who is his agent, is all about the age to come! Exactly as Isa 51:16.
Nothing at all to do with the Genesis creation in which the Son took no part (God rested on the 7th day!) , for after all God did not speak in a SON at all in the ancient times; it is necessary to take on board Heb. 1:2.
John in John 12 has two quotes from isa and this means that the glory of Messiah was indeed seen in other Isa passages. But not in Jn’s ref. the glory of ADONAI in ch 6.
But no monotheist will believe that there are TWO who are the LORD of HOSTS!
Again, we challenge the idea that Judaism and the Tanach ever imagined a Trinitarian Godhead.
That it the big issue.
I know that Jesus affirmed the Shema and then argued cleverly that he was the second lord of Ps 110:1 (adoni).
We surely all now that the Lord God is never ADONI! The Lord God (YHVH) is never KURIOS MOU, my lord, but the king and other superiors are.
Where in the Hebrew Bible is kurios (=YHVH) ever rendered as kurios MOU?
We are asking you for a single occurrence of the words for GOD in either testament which plainly mean the TRIUNE God. Where?
Harold Brown’s challenge to you stands:
Dr. Harold O. J. Brown, Heresies, 1984, p. 431.
What do you say, and do you agree at least with Trinitarian Dr. Harold Brown that the Shema and Nicea are different creeds?
Sir Anthony,
The answers you provided are completely unsatisfactory and utterly refuted by the context, as was demonstrated clearly when we debated. You can keep repeating the same points or you can acknowledge the error of your ways in exalting a glorified man. I, for my part, will worship God alone.
Sheila,
YHVH is LORD in the text of most Bibles. Adonai is the Lord. This is the God of Israel.
YHVH is the God of Israel and He is THE Lord adonai (440+ or so).
I asked you why you wrote that YHWH consists in “two”–what does “two” mean. I understand two but what is “two”?
Long years in the classroom have taught me that participants must make their definitions clear.
The spirit of God is well known to be the operational presence of God or of Jesus in the NT.
Certainly not a THIRD Person. The spirit never sends greetings and is never prayed to or worshiped.
Sir Anthony@ number 60,
“Where are you reading that the Messiah RETURNED to God?”
I’m reading that here:
ESV – Jhn 16:28 –
I came from the Father and have come into the world, and now I am leaving the world and going to the Father.”
Jhn 7:28 Then cried Jesus in the temple as he taught, saying, Ye both know me, and ye know whence I am: and I am not come of myself, but he that sent me is true, whom ye know not.
Jhn 7:29 But I know him: for I am from him, and he hath sent me.
Pretty much all of John 8.
Jhn 8:14 Jesus answered, “Even if I do bear witness about myself, my testimony is true, for I know where I came from and where I am going, but you do not know where I come from or where I am going.
ESV – Jhn 8:42 –
Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me.
Jhn 8:23 He said to them, “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world.
Jhn 8:24 I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins.”
Jhn 8:41 You are doing the works your father did.” They said to him, “We were not born of sexual immorality. We have one Father–even God.”
Jhn 8:42 Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me.
Jhn 8:56 Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.”
Jhn 8:57 So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?” [fn]
Jhn 8:58 Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”
Jhn 8:59 So they picked up stones to throw at him…
Why did they pick up stones to throw at Him? What was He saying in verse 58 that even the first century Jews understood the same way I do?
ESV – Jhn 17:8 –
For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me.
ESV – Jhn 17:11 –
And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.
Jesus says He is going to the Father. He came from the Father and is “returning” to the Father.
Jhn 17:13 But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves.
Do you accept that Jesus is now in Heaven? Has He ascended to God, the Father? I’ve given the verses that establish the fact that He came “down” from Heaven, not of His own accord, but by the will of the Father. Yes, according to Scripture He returned “from whence He came” as you asked me.
Jhn 16:5 But now I am going to him who sent me, and none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’
ESV – Jhn 16:28 –
I came from the Father and have come into the world, and now I am leaving the world and going to the Father.”
Jhn 13:1 Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.
Jhn 13:3 Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God,.
How do you understand those verses? He is RETURNING from whence He came is what they all say.
“You can’t experience a glorified condition before you exist!”
That’s what I’m saying too. Jesus “put off” His glory for a time in order to save us from our sins, as Scripture says. The Father gave it back to Him.
Jhn 17:5 And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.
There are other places that do state future promises as being already in the present but all the corroborating verses the Lord spoke are testimonial evidence that is contrary to what you believe. He came from the Father in Heaven and is returning to the Father in Heaven. You can’t read the many verses at face value that unequivacably say exactly that and hold to your point of view. Come over to our side, Sir Anthony. There’s plenty of room for everyone!
I’ve not gotten that far on the other questions but I must not be a strict trinitarian then, because I don’t see why Jesus wouldn’t have a personality. Being in human likeness I think would mean He experienced what all mankind does. He needed to eat and sleep and do all the things mankind does. He wept, and no doubt laughed as well. I don’t have a problem with Him having a personality. Why, do you think He did? He has an identity unique in all the world.
Sir Anthony @ 71–
“The spirit of God is well known to be the operational presence of God or of Jesus in the NT.
Certainly not a THIRD Person. The spirit never sends greetings and is never prayed to or worshiped.”
I don’t quite understand the Holy Spirit as a person myself. I accept the trinity because the “Spirit of the Lord” is one with God in my mind but He must have substance of a sort, His “being sent” I guess evokes that thought. I used to think that the Holy Spirit was the union of the Father and the Son. That was taken from discourse in the verses from John 14:around 16- 26, and John 15: around verse 26. It was John 16:7 that had me thinking of the union of the two, but you’re right, we don’t pray “to” the Holy Spirit, we pray “in” the Spirit. But, I’m certainly not as well versed in the trinity as those who’ve studied it much further than an individual student of Scripture. I finally settled on the conclusion that the Holy Spirit was One with God and that would make three I knew of who were with God and from God and of the same essense as God. I don’t know the words to explain it thoroughly and I don’t really care to for now if that’s alright with you?
What do I mean by “two?” I mean that in many places in the first books of the Bible, the longest discourse being in Gen. 18 and 19, there is a YHWH on earth who appears as an Angel and/or a Man and who is believed and said to be God, the LORD, and there is also a YHWH in heaven at the same time and that makes “two” who are both referenced as being YHWH. The Angel of the LORD is said by Jacob to be God. (Gen. 48:15-16)
Jacob calls the place where he wrestled with a Man, “Peniel” because, he says, “I have seen God face to face and my life is spared.” Yet we know he wrestled a Man. This Man is the one who changed his name to Israel saying he has striven with God and prevailed. (Gen. 32:30-32)
Moses is said to have spoken with the Angel, who is referenced as being God also, standing in the burning bush. (Ex. 3:2-4) In fact Moses has all kinds of encounters with the LORD that are far out of the ordinary.
We see the same occurance in the pillar of smoke and fire. At one time it is the LORD in the pillar of cloud and fire (Ex. 13:21) and another time it is the Angel who is with them. (Ex. 14:19-20).
There are many references to be told.
I’d like to hear another explanation that makes sense of the plain language of the texts.
All this arguing sola scriptura has no end to it. But everything will fall into place when Christians–Trinitarian, Arian, and Unitarian–come to terms with the fact that their unanimous acceptance of the 27 book canon of the New Testament (the interpretation of which they tirelessly debate amongst themselves as a house divided) rests upon their acceptance (whether explicit or tacit) of the teaching authority of the Church that finalized it (i.e in councils late 4th to early 5th century). It was NOT the pre-Nicene Fathers that finalized the 27 book canon but the POST-Nicene Fathers. By accepting the 27 book canon as the absolute, beyond a doubt, infallible Word of God, you are–whether you like it or not–tacitly accepting the teaching authority of the Church that gave it to you. For heretics–whether Arian or unitarian–to reject the Trinitarian doctrine based upon their supposed adherence to sola scriptura, is to undercut their entire position. Without the divine teaching authority which gave us the Nicene Creed, we would, at best, have a different New Testament canon, and, at worst, no sure canon at all. This is the dilemma that Luther faced following his repudiation of the Magisterium–he tore James from his Bible, and contemplated doing the same to Hebrews and Revelation; only the conservatism of other Reformers saved Protestant Christendom from a severely truncated New Testament. If Luther had gotten his way, you’d all have several fewer books to argue over in your theological family feuds..
The time has come to accept that without certain knowledge of what constitutes “Scriptura” you cannot even begin to practice “sola scriptura.” This is not to mention that sola scriptura is never mentioned in the New Testament, but even if it were, by practicing it you would still be resting upon the authority of the Church that gave you that 27 book canon–a canon that was not finalized until after the Nicene Creed.
Sheila,
Is it perhaps a bit unnecessary to ask whether we believe that Jesus is in heaven now. Why do you ask that? Of course he is there.
You will establish nothing by quoting Jn 16:28. Where does it say anything about RETURNING there?
Thanks for other verses, but please deal with John 16:28 first. Thanks.
Dr. Brown, this is bluster and attack, not argument!
You wrote the following (below) and agreed with me, and I rejoice in our agreement. In your book on Answering Jews p. 136, you said correctly.
I too worship God alone, as God, but you as a Hebraist know that worship is offered to others than God. It is quite naïve to equivocate on the word worship. David was worshiped and so is the Messiah but neither is the One God of Israel.
Above you say, “No one would have thought that Jesus was claiming to be Yahweh”.
That is absolutely right and just leave it at that! Jesus never claimed to BE YHVH.
That is exactly the anti-Trinitarian point which you concede in your statement.
James Dunn has it right too: “The NT does not claim that Jesus IS YHVH, or the God of Israel.”
Anthony
Dunn, “Early Christian and Jewish Monotheism:’ (p. 109)
Sir Anthony,
First, I hardly ever get into debates and discussions here because of schedule and because this is mainly the place for others to interact.
Second, and more germane in this regard, I had you on my radio show, I participated in a two-hour televised debate, and I did engage you here, and your arguments have proven utterly vacuous. Anyone interested can listen to or watch or read our various past interactions and see for themselves where the truth lies. And the fact you have you to quote other scholars (quite selectively at that) rather than let the biblical text speak for itself is also quite revealing.
So, to anyone who might have the slightest thought that Sir Anthony has any scriptural case in denying the preexistence and divine nature of the Son, take a few minutes to watch the debate and decide for yourself: http://askdrbrown.org/resources/store?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage_new.tpl&product_id=330&category_id=8
Finally, while you call my responses to you bluster, I can call your posts baiting. So, let’s refrain from this kind of rhetoric and point to the debates that have already taken place.
@Sir Anthony,
Does that mean you reject the gospel of the Nazarenes?
Jerome: in the Gospel written in the Hebrew script that the Nazarenes read… we find the following written,
and Origen who said the Gospel of the Hebrews says:
here the Savior says
Jerome also testifies to this:
In the Gospel of the Hebrews that the Nazarenes read, it says,
Sheila,
It surely is time to show that being “sent” by God or “coming from God” says absolutely nothing about being alive before you are born!
It is sad that John’s Gospel is being used to produce a strange hybrid Jesus who is not originally a human being.
All the prophets were sent by God, and so to be sent by God means you are commissioned
To be sent FROM God is true of John the Baptist (Jn 1:6). We all know that John was older than Jesus and so in John 1:15, 30 the translators have misled us.
Some translations and some good commentaries get it right. John said that Jesus was his superior, not that he “existed before me” “He was always my superior”.
To ascend to heaven and “come down from heaven”. will mislead us if we read as English speakers. James said twice that “every good gift comes down from heaven.”
Jesus said in Jn 6 that his FLESH, the human person, came down from GOD. Are we to believe that Jesus was a human being in heaven before he was born!
The bottom line is that readers are using John to contradict Matt and Luke who explain very simply how the Son of God originated in Mary.
John tried to warn us too– he said that he wrote his WHOLE book to prove that Jesus was the Christ and Son of God.
Everyone ought to know that this could not possibly mean “to prove that Jesus was GOD”
As for the I AM statement in 8:58, all one has to do is give John the honor of explaining as he does in Jn 4:24 what this “I am HE” means.
It means that Jesus is the Messiah. “I am HE” = does not mean I am [a second] GOD!(contradicting flat Jn 17:3!). It means I am the Messiah.
Remember too that Jesus was “slain before the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:8) So are we now going to say that he died before he was born?
In John 17 Jesus in vv. 22, 24 says that glory has been give to people who were not yet born! That is glory in promise.
It is so sad to read John in a western ENGLISH frame of mind! John was a Hebrew writing in Greek.
Watch out for some grand mistranslations especially in the NIV. John 16:28 is classic, since NIV makes Jesus say what he did not say.
He never said he was going BACK to God! Not once.
As for John 1:1 it says nothing about “In the beginning was the SON”!
The word is word not Word.
Sir Anthony,
John 1:1 says “In the beginning ‘God’ created…” It doesn’t tell us anything concerning who God is.
Let’s leave off the NT then and we’ll look at the issues I posed to you early on that have gone unanswered.
Who, then, is the Person we see in the First Testament wielding the Power and Might of God and who speaks as God, acts as God and who Scripture says is God? Which makes two who are equal and working in concert with each other and who are indistinguishable except that one is walking and talking, dining and working on earth and the other is in Heaven. It certainly smacks of: “He who has seen me has seen the Father.” And “on earth as it is in Heaven.” With, “I tell you the truth, before Abraham was, I am.” Every translation of John 8:58 says the same thing. Even if we have it say, “I am (he)” (which it doesn’t) it makes no difference because it still reads that He was “before” Abraham ever was. Apparently He was much more than a twinkle in God’s eye.
Abraham had no problem with God interacting with mankind on earth.
Isaac had no problem understanding the ultimate sacrifice to be made for our sins, nor did he have a problem with the Angel being God and he said as much.
Jacob had no problem realizing his father’s fear and He knew God because he’d wrestled Him as a Man and had the limp to prove it.
Yet all of their lives were spared and they lived to tell it to their descendants. At no time did they recant. They entertained God as a Man and as an Angel and Scripture plainly tells us that.
I have no problem reading and understanding that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob interacted with them just as each of them tells us He did.
You’ve not given any explanation for the First Testament appearance of YHWH as a Man and an Angel who is God.
I’ll wait on that please.
oops,
Gen. rather tells us: “In the beginning ‘God’ created…” It doesn’t tell us anything concerning who God is.
John should have left it at: “In the beginning was the word. (period)
He then personifies “the word” (deliberately?) using the language of Gen. It’s not necessary for him to do that if we’re talking about “speech.” as in a word spoken.
Sheila
Thanks, There is YHVH, always one Person 11,000 times in the OT, ie singular personal pronouns,
Then there is an angel of YHVH in whom the name of YHVH dwells He speaks for YHVH.
But the one GOD is never compromised.
In the NT once the Messiah, Son of God is procreated by miracle in Mary, there is still and always the ONE LORD GOD.
The spirit of God is God in action, not another person from God. The spirit of Elijah is not another person from God.
The translations keep putting masculine pronouns for the spirit trying to promote a THIRD person!
You must discard that mistranslation.
Then look at the Paraclete in John (4 times) and then look that the same Paraklete in I John 2:1: who is this?
The solution to all this is that an agent is as his sponsor’s person, so you can fight with an angel and this is equivalent to fighting with GOD.
Would you consider reading Greg Deuble’s They Never Told me THIS in Church? It is all very clear I think.
The main thing is to start by saying yes to the creed. The Lord our God is one Lord. Yahweh is one Person! That is easy. Work the rest around this.
Do you see now how the NIV misleads you in Jn 16:28?
David Roberts
Thanks, but whoever said that was Scripture!
It is not.
If the statement about the hs means that the Father said those words then it aligns with NT.
The HS as mother is not anywhere in the Bible.
Sheila
Genesis and the rest of the OT tell us lots about God. Firstly that HE is one Person. This is shown by thousands of singular pronouns.
That settled, we know that His wisdom and word are personified (not personalized) tools of God.
That wisdom/word eventually lived in a human being, who was procreated in Mary.
Jesus is the best expression of God we have, and uniquely so.
The creed of Jesus in Mk 12:29 ensures (or ought to) that we continue with Deut. 6. That is easy.
But the Church did not do this: with typical love of philosophy and antisemitism, the Church early set Jesus and his creed aside for another creed.
It is a fallacy to say that Jesus was saying I AM GOD (Exod.).
You have rejected the accounts of the origin of the Son in Matthew and Luke and Heb 1:2 explains that the Son was not there in the OT.
The creed of Israel and Jesus has been interfered with once you speak of TWO who are God.
Yes, angels acted for God and God spoke in prophets but never through the begotten SON until Matt. Heb 1:2.
“I am HE” is the translation of Ego eimi in all the occs in John.
John insisted on the unitary monotheism of his creed and of Jesus in Jn 17:3. There is only one who is God and this is the Father and this proposition is repeated 1300 times in the NT.
Why derail is all with Jn 8:58!
You have not given us any account of the “begotten SON” in the OT. Yes, there are angels and you know angels can show up as men. Jesus was never ever an angel (Heb 1).
But why are you so insistent on the unique SON of God being there before he was begotten?
You are proposing: “I believe that the Son was there in the OT before he began to exist”.
I think this is not coherent. All the difficulties disappear if we hang on to the unitarian creed of Jesus?
Otherwise what do YOU believe when you hear “The Lord our God is one Lord”?
You see, Jesus said that is the most important command of all. He did not say work out Jn 8:58 and then you are OK.
What is so hard about “You, Father, are the only one who is true God”? Do we argue about “You, Obama, are the only one who is currently pres of the USA”.
That is exactly a lingistic parallel to Jn 17:3.
Why not be a child and accept easy language?
Why is that so hard?
Sir Anthony,
I owe you many answers yet and they may be slow in coming but I’ll get to them.
Sir Anthony–“The creed of Jesus in Mk 12:29 ensures (or ought to) that we continue with Deut. 6. That is easy.”
I don’t see where it’s all that easy myself. And no one needs to be offended by myself or others trying to work it out. I know what the Shema says, as we all do. It wasn’t clear to me why God said it the way He did. It struck me as unclear the first 20+ times I re-read it. I tried to come at it from every angle, running backwards and forwards again, but I couldn’t get the image of Moses, Aaron and the 70 Elders dining with the LORD shortly before the LORD decended on Mt. Sinai out of my mind. That image led me back to Abraham’s tent and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Unfortunately there was also an incident concerning the LORD’s representative, His Angel/Man and the LORD Himself working together to overthrow Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities of the plain, both at the same time. I had to somehow work all that information into the Shema.
I have to say, I thought it was more than odd that the LORD would give His Name to an angel. But there doesn’t seem to be any problem as far as you can see. I have a problem with an ordinary Angel having the same Name. If he was only a representative for God, why not have him saying something like, “This is what the LORD says,” or “Thus says the LORD” which would make it very clear that he wasn’t working as God, Himself. But He doesn’t.
The fact remains that we can’t be leaving out the testimony of entire chapters and verses because they don’t fit what we want to believe or perhaps were taught to believe or for some reason need to believe. At the end of the day it has to all make sense as being comprehensible. I didn’t go rushing to judgment about what it meant. In fact, I eventually just left the Shema alone and went on with reading the rest of the Bible. I truly want my understanding to be well reasoned and consistent with all of Scripture.
It has to be answered better than you’ve provided before I’ll change my mind about it.
Sheila, we have this proposition in the Greek reporting Jesus: “the Lord our God is one Lord”.
Is this hard? Are you willing to say that the whole Jewish faith has been unclear on its creed.
What is the meaning of ONE YHVH?
Are you impressed with 1300 occs., of GOD which mean the Father.
In hope.
Sir Anthony,
I should have more time shortly to pick up our conversation. I hope you’re still with me.
Sheila,
More importantly, we should hope that Sir Anthony is truly opening to abandoning his God-insulting view that Yeshua, the King of kings and Lord of lords whom we worship, is just a glorified man.
Dr. Brown,
Yes, that’s the reason for engaging him. It’s not me making these Scripture verses and chapters up, they’re in our Bible. I don’t promote any particular doctrine I just stand on the word of God as it’s written and then adjust my thinking to accommodate what it says.
I do pray he will soon be converted! 🙂
Sir Anthony,
It would help me to know what your thoughts are concerning “the times of the gentiles.” It’s my opinion that we’re given to understand that there were those Jews of the first century who accepted Jesus as Messiah and the rest “were blinded until the fulness of the gentiles has come in.” If we consider the broader implications of that pronouncement we can extrapolate that the Lord had covered their eyes and blinded the remainder of the unbelieving Jews as Scripture says. Are we in agreement on that? If God has covered someone’s eyes I don’t see where they’d be able to comprehend the truth until such time as their veil is lifted. I believe we are living in the time of the lifting of the veil right now. I feel we should all be reading the Scriptures again with new eyes.
My understanding of “the times of the gentiles” would answer, in part, your heavily laden question which I’ll approach from a much more reasonable angle.
This is how I’ve come to understand the statement of the Shema. Keep in mind that I’m not anyone’s student and I’ve never attended any Bible college. What I have done is to think very long and hard, while running backwards and forwards in Scripture, on the seeming contradictory statement given to us at Mt. Sinai in light of all the previous and varied encounters the patriarch’s had with God not to mention the encounters yet to come.
YHWH is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and we have their testimony concerning Him preserved for us in Scripture. That’s not even considering the incredible relationship that Moses had with YHWH. That could become a book in and of itself. I’d like to soon look at that special relationship a little deeper.
There was no way I could leave out all that was previously written in order to hold to the belief that “echad” in the statement of the Shema meant only one. If it wasn’t meant to be plural and to assure them that the One who worked on earth from the beginning is One with God in Heaven then I would have to ask myself which One was God; the God that communed with Abraham and so forth, or the God in Heaven who is unseen ? I had to believe that the “I AM” who dined with Abraham is One with the “I AM” who inhabits eternity. To say there is YHWH who was manifested as a Man and an Angel and as God, who works the will of the Father on earth and who is “echad” with Him is the only understanding that makes sense to me. They are at once both God and therefore there is no contradiction in understanding the Shema as it is written.
If you could elaborate on how you interpret the various manifestations of God as outlined in the First Testament we could perhaps find some common ground to build on.
Concerning the 1300 occurances of God, the Father, I have no idea how many there are but of course I’m impressed with the entirety of Scripture, yet my answer would depend on which verses you’re attributing to whom. That’s quite a few to get through. 🙂
“David was worshiped and so is the Messiah but neither is the One God of Israel.”
I should tear the top of my shirt for this blasphemy against the Panim (face) YHWH.
Mr. Buzzard, rachamim aleichem, eifo ha yirat Shamayim shelcha? You better be convinced of your Greek and Hebrew knowledge to speak so lowly of the Memra YHWH….I just tore my shirt, like any Pharisee Jew would to perceived blasphemy against the Memra YHWH.
Once again, PHD’s and Doctor degrees mean nothing to me anymore.
Iesus Kristos Kurios kai Theos, Panim YHWH. Dawid HaMelech hu ben Adam, Iesus Kristos is the Memra YHWH, the Memra YHWH and YHWH Echad Lenatzeach.
It seems to me that in the beginning was the Word and that the Word had communion with God, that God communicated his word with the Word, that the Word fully received the word of God he was given,
that he also created all things that were created for the glory of the Word who have the word to the Word, and that both the Father and the Son are the Word that I am referring to.
It also seems to me that God created all things for the Word who created all things for the Father, that God created all things by the power of the Word that God gave him, and that the Word created all by the power of God he had received.
It also seems to me that God did all of this by himself, that is, that he needed no help from any other source, that he was by himself sufficient in all things as he still is today.
Correction, typo, 5th line down, 1st word, “have” should be “gave”.
When I read John 1:1,2, sometimes I’m not sure how I should read it.
Is John saying that Jesus is God in verse one, by way of comparison, or is he doing so in the next verse by use of the word “same”?
Or, is the use of the word “same” in verse 2, simply used for identification purposes only?
At any rate, no matter how I slice it, (II Tim 2:15) it comes up that Jesus was with God in the beginning, being as he really is, even as God the Father himself.
It seems that only if I wanted to avoid the Word could I miss this.
Sir Anthony–“It is a fallacy to say that Jesus was saying I AM GOD (Exod.).”
I don’t need Jesus to be saying that, although I believe there are scholars who tell us the Greek language implies it. It’s no matter to me as there’s ample evidence without it. For Him to say “I am he (Messiah) works just as well for me.
Sir Anthony–“But why are you so insistent on the unique SON of God being there before he was begotten?
“You are proposing: “I believe that the Son was there in the OT before he began to exist”.”
I’m only insistent because Scripture tells us the same. Reason should have us all looking again in the First Testament when we run into the chapters, verses and statements made in the New to see if He’s there or not. Therefore we need to go back as He would have us do. We need to reevaluate and ruminate on those things that struck us as a bit strange and incomprehensible in the First Testament Scriptures (struck me as strange if no one else). It takes some work to investigate the claims of the New Testament concerning the eternal Son. It’s fantabulous and hard to accept that the same YHWH, the Son, who was there front and center in the beginning would be the same who would save us just as the prophets said He would. He put off His glory and put on flesh as the Son of Man who was the Son of God who was the only One able to save us from our sins as Scripture testifies to. I can give the verses if you’d rather.
If there wasn’t something completely and utterly out of sorts about Jesus wearing flesh there wouldn’t be anything said about it at all in the New Testament and we wouldn’t be talking about it. There is something preternatural going on, something inexplicable for the writers to even mention a Son of Man wearing flesh! Of course men wear flesh so why are they even mentioning it–and often? That fact alone is so peculiar that it would’ve had me re-reading everything just to figure it out (His wearing of flesh). I’m thinking it’s because it’s so far beyond what we would ever imagine and contemplate, let alone comprehend, on our own. It needed a lot of explaning and apparently still does. Obviously God does a whole lot more than to just think on mankind, He acts on our behalf in a way that’s supernaturally hard to understand and accept. I pray we all come to accept it and to look on Him and be saved!
Does that answer to your question?
Sir Anthony, don’t worry in the least about your future when you come to have that major epiphany and we find you among us; you’ll be a wonderfully great teacher concerning the eternal Son! 😮 You’d be infamous, I’d say! (OK, well, you’ll be even “more” infamous then)
This question is for anyone at all who can read the Biblical Greek. It’s important to me to have the correct translation. Eliyahu maybe? It’s from Romans 9:
Rom 9:5 To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.
TR – Rom 9:5 –
ὧν οἱ πατέρες καὶ ἐξ ὧν ὁ Χριστὸς τὸ κατὰ σάρκα ὁ ὢν ἐπὶ πάντων θεὸς εὐλογητὸς εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας ἀμήν
mGNT – Rom 9:5 –
ὧν οἱ πατέρες καὶ ἐξ ὧν ὁ Χριστὸς τὸ κατὰ σάρκα ὁ ὢν ἐπὶ πάντων θεὸς εὐλογητὸς εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας ἀμήν
Thanks.