Would Jesus tell one of His people not to read the Bible? What did Jesus mean when he said that Satan, the prince of this world, had nothing in Him (John 14:30)? And I am intentionally trying to stir up opposition and persecution? Dr. Brown answers all these questions and more today on the Line of Fire!
Hour 1:
Dr. Brown’s Bottom Line: We are living in a day of increasing doctrinal confusion and moral insanity. Let’s put our roots down deep in God and plunge into the Word of God like never before and ask Him, “Help me, Lord, to live and walk this out in a way that brings glory to Your name, in a way that makes a difference.”
Hour 2:
Dr. Brown’s Bottom Line: Scripture calls us to be one body and bear one another’s burdens; if we see the church is asleep, if we see believers in need, or pastors under attack, let us cry out to God for courage and refreshing, and believe that God will bring about radical change, starting with you and me.
Featured Resources:
Jewish Objections (vol 2) AND “Deity of Messiah” Debate,
Other Resources:
The Revival Answer Book, including helpful keys to avoid deception,
by Dr. Michael Brown
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What is the Difference Between Holiness and Legalism?
VOR Article by Michael L. Brown
Holiness is beautiful; legalism is binding; holiness brings life; legalism brings death. They are as different as night and day, and yet at first glance, they can seem similar, because they both stand against sinful behavior and call for holy living. How can we distinguish between the two? Let me first present some thoughts on holiness before defining legalism and its dangers. […]
Stand with Israel [messages on mp3 CD] Dr. Michael Brown speaks on Israel–
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Jewish Roots Online Class: This 10 lecture class will open your eyes to God’s eternal purposes for Israel; give you a deeper burden for the salvation of the Jewish people; open up the Jewish background to the NT and show the prophetic importance of the biblical calendar.
Dr Brown
Thank you for your unequivocal statement that the word YHWH means the one God as triune but it also refers to each of the 3. With that statement you are proposing that if YHWH is X then 3Xs amount to 1X. This is precisely what Dr. White warns against, since it makes no sense [Forgotten Trinity, p 27.]
My complaint is that you are offering me a bewildering set of propositions. Even Millard Erickson, the trinitarian, points out that one cannot and ought not to affirm that YHWH means all 3 together as well as each 1 seperately. I think you are equivocating on the personal name YHWH.
Would you now agree that it is illogical to describe YHWH as 3 individuals and 1 individual at the same time?
Do you also agree with James White that God is “one What in three Whos”?
And in answer to John 12.41 you are making the assumption that “the glory of Jesus” was seen when Isaiah saw Adonai in Isa 6.1. However, the ESV Study Bible notes [on John 12.41] point out that the Apostle John is quoting two passages, not just one. And that “the wider context of both passages is probably in view”.
Isaiah did indeed see “the glory” of the Messiah but 2 verses, not 1, [and their wider context] are quoted by John 12 as a reference to glory.
Dr. Michael Brown,
1. He said that HIS Words are spirit and life — but that the Scriptures DID NOT contain the eternal life the Pharisees were looking for (John); they merely POINTED TO CHRIST. Those who have found Christ do not need words, as His love is ‘beyond knowledge’ (Ephesians). You saying that the Bible is life is even against Scripture, itself.
2. “…would be like to denigrate Jesus because He was in a Body.” It 100% is not; however, there is a Scripture that says ‘we ought not know ANY man by the flesh, though we ONCE did’ – even MEN we are not to know by the flesh, but THROUGH CHRIST (relating to the world through obedience to Christ; not by my understanding or volition).
3. Your understanding of what He said to me is inaccurate; I was WITH HIM, and my attention was being TAKEN AWAY from Him by my going to the Book.
4. Jesus’s Words DO NOT need to “get me into the Word” — the is preposterous; they should “get me into” ACTION: “getting me into the Word” falls tragically short of obedience. IF you say that I need to read the Book to know God’s will, I would point you to the fact that I CONTAIN the Author of that book (I can be told an infinite amount of commands DIRECTLY by God, apart from a book), and the Scripture itself (now that I know it, not that I needed to know it) says, “serve God after the newness of the Spirit, NOT the oldness of the letter” — the Romans in Romans 2 DID NOT know Scripture, but were serving God after the newness of the Spirit. IF you haven’t experienced this, haven’t seen Jesus, it is very strange.
5. Comparing someone’s ignorance and trusting in God’s supplementation of “what I lack”, to wanting to be an Olympic runner and chopping my legs off to cause God to supplement my ignorance is a totally incompatible argument: the latter (your argument) would be “tempting God”, and TAKING AWAY from what I already had when I met God; the former (my argument) is that God takes me as I am, makes Himself known to me, and makes His will known to me by the Spirit, and if I leave obedience to the Spirit (even to read a book), I am leaving God’s will.
The two circumstances presented are utterly and completely incompatible; your comparing of the two is strange.
6. I never NEEDED the Bible to know “let the weak say I am strong”; I only learned that after the fact.
Dr. Michael Brown,
The fact that you say you “question” whether Jesus told me this shows me that either
1) you didn’t hear from Jesus to tell me that
2) you don’t hear very much from Jesus
3) Jesus told you to tell me that to test me, or
4) Christ is (just like people who believe the rapture) ‘letting’ you believe the false utterance you pronounced, and it does not abate any dimension of your standing — either with Him, or as a leader in the Body of Christ.
Dan1el,
You asked, I did my best to answer before the Lord. His Word is eternal and unchangeable (and yes, He said that in His Word in a number of places). Other voices and experiences can be deceiving and misleading. I’m not saying that you have not met with Jesus; I am just saying that Jesus will never lead you AWAY from His written Word.
The fact that you find it necessary to post these things, even questioning whether I hear from the Lord, points to a deeper problem, and I do pray the Lord would give you the stability for which you crave. I’ve advised you from a distance, but I’d encourage you again to submit to local, godly leaders and learn and grow.
Sir Anthony,
Thanks for your post, but we’ve been through these questions many times before, and you’ve had the opportunity to debate me publicly on these issues on a few occasions now. May the Lord help you to embrace Yeshua for He is, the glorious, uncreated Lord.
Dr. Michael Brown,
I’ve seen the Lord; for you to call into question that Word of the Living God (to me), has proven to me (once again) that men are fallible, and not to be followed. Honestly, your opinion that the Lord didn’t speak means less than nothing, regardless of any merit you bring to the table (and you bring more than any other ‘christian’ i know of) — less than nothing, because as He says, “His Word” will not pass away, though all heaven and earth be removed; and every man is a liar, when they disagree. I am not moved in the slightest by your voicing of your opinion.
Christ is the One to Whom the Scripture points (the Scripture is nothing but a sign post, and He the destination); disobeying Him, and then leaving Him to read Scripture is what tripped me up in the first place (that you would be led astray from simplicity of devotion to christ), and to be ‘led away’ from eternal life through KNOWING Christ and led away from ALL the Scripture POINTS TO is an error far greater than being led away from Scripture to follow the Spirit.
Your calling into question my hearing from Jesus is alarming to me — as alarming, if not more alarming than my calling into question your hearing. However, I know you hear from the Lord; that is why I put all the possibilities. It is one of those. It might be a test. Also, the Lord lets people believe stuff that isn’t true, simply because the attitude/aim/direction is correct, even if the letters are incorrect.
The Romans were already serving according to the Spirit (without external instructions), being ruled from within, according to the ingraft Word issuing laws from their circumcised hearts, where Christ reigned. Don’t tell me believers in countries where there are no bibles are somehow at a disadvantage because they don’t have a bible — that would be an unfair advantage, and God is no respecter of persons.
God didn’t send bibles into men’s hearts; He sent His Spirit — the author of the Scripture — into men’s hearts. Abraham had the Word come to him, and made him “the father of those who put their faith in God”; but we have the INGRAFT and ABIDING Word, continuously leading us into ‘faith to faith’.
Dr. Michael Brown,
Actually, more than alarming — since I am NOT calling into question your godliness — it was stunning, to be honest; and I’ve learned a lesson: thanks.
Dr. Michael Brown,
It was NOT “alarming”; the word I was searching for was “stunning” — there’s no ‘alarm’ needs to go off, with you.
I didn’t mean to say that, nor to call into question your trustworthiness/integrity — there’s no need for that — however, men can have 100% integrity, and still be wrong, or used to present a test (as when Jeremiah offered wine to the Rechabites).
About John 14:30,
What is in Jesus?
Truth
Righteousness
Justice
Kindness
Mercy
Wisdom
Grace
And the list goes on.
How about the word of God?
Faith, well it just keeps on going.
Now let’s suppose someone comes toward you and they have none of those things.
Anthony,
Do you believe that Jesus and God are one, as God is one?
Dan1el, I do pray that God will help you find stability in the Lord, and I write this as one who cares for you without knowing you personally. I also write this based on some of the other comments you have posted here and other questions you have asked.
Dr. Brown,
Thanks.
Only my obedience will get that for me; only my disobedience to Him got me where I am. Reading the Bible for 8 years has done nothing for me — He gave me to my idol. I know lots, but am dry, and ready to burn with even a small cinder. I am not lying right now to save my face; however, what I know, I know — that will never change, whether it has the life of God in it, or whether the glory has faded. I don’t understand these things; no one understands me, either — its all on me.
Thanks, again.
Insights on Colossians 2:16-17
In modern English, we often hear the phrase, ‘Don’t judge me’, which means don’t:
1. look down on me.
2. make me feel bad for what I’m doing, and.
3. tell me what to do.
But it’s primary meaning in the Bible is 3.
To let someone judge you, is to accept someone as the judge of your life, to submit to their authority and follow their decrees. With that in mind, consider:
If this was written to a Gentile, I’d understand it as, if people (apart from your elders and leaders in the assembly) try and interfere with your walk, with your process of sanctification, ignore them.
If it was written to a Jew, I’d understand it as:
1. So let no one judge (instruct) you in food or in drink – don’t let vegetarians and the anti-alcohol club judge you for eating meat and drinking wine during the Passover Seder.
2. regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths – don’t let cults with false calendars tell you when to observe the mo’eidhim.
No matter, which way I read it, I see it as don’t let outsiders tell you how to live. Submit to the legitimate Jewish authorities, the apostles of Christ and not to strange cults and/or outside groups.
Dan1el,
He who began the good work in you will bring it to completion. Phil 1:6
Gift and prize.
The way I balance assurance in Yeshua with the fact that people can lose their salvation is this.
Imagine there is a boxing match, and whoever stands the longest without giving up and lying down on the ground, wins a great prize, but in order to enter the fight, you need to pay an entry fee that you could never pay. But someone pays that entry fee on your behalf for you (gift), something that you could never do, but you still have to get into the ring and fight and remain standing till the end (prize).
No matter how much good works we do, nothing would be enough to enter us into the race, but after Yeshua enters us into the race, we must remain firm, holding on, with our eye on the prize.
Dr. Brown,
Obviously, that is not a consolation, since it is He Who creates vessels for wrath, and vessels for destruction — I am certain He will finish the job He started; WHICH job He is doing, I cannot say with certainty.
Obviously, if “He Who began” verse applied in the way you mean it to be understood, then “once-saved-always-saved” would be legitimate; and, ofcourse, this is an impossibility.
thanks, anyways dr b
Without Faith it is impossible to please God.
Question what is Faith?
Could it be….
The Word Of God
Father, Son, Holy Spirit
Salvation
Heaven
Healing
Authority over Satan
Hell
Hope
etc
etc
Daniel,
Such verses that give us a divine hope and an expected end in which we shall live and be with Christ are for those such as shall be saved by him.
Sometimes all we can do is ask that we be one of those by the grace of God that is in Christ Jesus and be willing to suffer the sufferings of Christ who saw the enemy coming and suffered through it faithfully unto God the Father, resisting temptations and enduring all the suffering unto the end.
The enemy will try to use us to tarnish, mar, smear, disfigure, or otherwise darken the reputation of God.
If ever we should notice such things come through us, we may come to the cross with a bit of salt and be healed.
Ray,
There is NO certainty [to put ‘trust’ in] that a “vessel of mercy” cannot be a “vessel of wrath” again — if you read Romans 11 (I believe), it talks about “if you, being non-native, were grafted in and the natural branches were cut off, do not boast, but FEAR, for if he did not spare the natural branches, HOW MUCH MORE is He willing to cut the non-natural branches off? The natural branches were cut off for not abiding in faith, and so will you if you do not abide in faith!”.
So, how can I say “I trust God” when I am not truly sure WHAT to trust God about? I can trust that there is NO certainty of whether I am a vessel of mercy or vessel of destruction.
So, since it is possible for “vessels of mercy” to become “vessels of wrath” again, it is an incorrect assumption that all “apparent” “vessels of mercy” are TRULY “vessels of mercy” — the question isn’t whether they are ‘christians’ AND the question isn’t whether they ‘know Jesus’ [Matt 7], either: some who ‘turned away from the Holy Command’ (Peter), as also Hebrews says, ‘righteous lives by faith, but if he draw back, My Soul will have no pleasure in him [leaving room for vessels of mercy to become vessels of wrath]’,or whether they ‘never knew God'[Matt] (these are all varying classifications of people who ‘attempt to enter, and [are not able to]’, according to Luke).
I always thought of trust as not being certain, but simply trusting anyway.
My dictionary says that trust is “a firm belief or confidence in the honesty, integrity, reliability, justice, etc. of another person or thing…”
My Bible says that in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth and when I look around it certainly looks like a heaven and earth to me.
Dr Brown
I fully embrace the Son of God, the Christ.
You said very clearly on radio that “Jesus is YHVH”. You said that all three together are YHVH.
This is just non-sense, and equivocates on the word YHVH.
No one can believe that 1X is 3X’s.
Dr. White says that God is one WHAT! No text is given. He then goes on to call God a HE!
I feel you are playing language tricks with the public.
I suggest that Jews have cause for concern when their own abandon the Shema.
The creed of Jesus is very easy and Trinitarianism a hopeless jumble.
I will keep reading your blog.
I am hoping for the Kingdom and the Messiah.
Anthony
Anthony Buzzard,
What of the One referred to as the Holy Spirit then? Is the Holy Spirit God? Is the Holy Spirit fully YHWH?
Is the Holy Spirit the Father?
I need help understanding how Scripture can be true in what Moses said and where it says, “No man shall see Me and live” but then we have Moses, Aaron and the elders communing with the One who told them to come up, YHWH, and “they saw the God of Israel” and then we have Gideon:
Jdg 6:10 ‘Also I said to you, “I [am] the LORD your God; do not fear the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell.” But you have not obeyed My voice.’ ”
Jdg 6:11 Now the Angel of the LORD came and sat under the terebinth tree which [was] in Ophrah, which [belonged] to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon threshed wheat in the winepress, in order to hide [it] from the Midianites.
Jdg 6:12 And the Angel of the LORD appeared to him, and said to him, “The LORD [is] with you, you mighty man of valor!”
Jdg 6:13 Gideon said to Him, “O my lord, [fn] if the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where [are] all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, ‘Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the LORD has forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites.”
Jdg 6:14 Then the LORD turned to him and said, “Go in this might of yours, and you shall save Israel from the hand of the Midianites. Have I not sent you?”
Jdg 6:15 So he said to Him, “O my Lord, [fn] how can I save Israel? Indeed my clan [is] the weakest in Manasseh, and I [am] the least in my father’s house.”
Jdg 6:16 And the LORD said to him, “Surely I will be with you, and you shall defeat the Midianites as one man.”
Jdg 6:17 Then he said to Him, “If now I have found favor in Your sight, then show me a sign that it is You (We are lead to understand the “You” as YHWH)who talk with me.
Jdg 6:18 “Do not depart from here, I pray, until I come to You and bring out my offering and set [it] before You.” And He said, “I will wait until you come back.”
Jdg 6:19 So Gideon went in and prepared a young goat, and unleavened bread from an ephah of flour. The meat he put in a basket, and he put the broth in a pot; and he brought [them] out to Him under the terebinth tree and presented [them].
Jdg 6:20 The Angel of God said to him, “Take the meat and the unleavened bread and lay [them] on this rock, and pour out the broth.” And he did so.
Jdg 6:21 Then the Angel of the LORD put out the end of the staff that [was] in His hand, and touched the meat and the unleavened bread; and fire rose out of the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened bread. And the Angel of the LORD departed out of his sight.
Jdg 6:22 Now Gideon perceived that He [was] the Angel of the LORD. So Gideon said, “Alas, O Lord GOD! For I have seen the Angel of the LORD face to face.”
Jdg 6:23 Then the LORD said to him, “Peace [be] with you; do not fear, you shall not die.”
Jdg 6:24 So Gideon built an altar there to the LORD, and called it The-LORD-[Is]-Peace. [fn] To this day it [is] still in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.
Chag Sameach! 🙂 You are a blessing.
Sir Anthony,
I would really like to know your exegesis of John 12:41 in light of Isaiah 6:10. According to John Isaiah saw Jesus, but according to Isaiah he saw YHVH. How do you see exegete this passage as to NOT come to the conclusion that Jesus is not YHVH?
Also I would like to know how you read Hebrews 1:10-12 in light of Psalm 102:24-26. According to the text in Hebrews Jesus is the one that laid the foundations of the earth and rolls up the heavens like a garnment, but according to Psalm 102 it is YHVH that does this.
Can you please explain how you see these?
Anthony,
I believe that Jesus is one Lord, and that he is Lord. I also believe that God is the Lord and that he is one and that this is only a part of what the scripture teaches.
When I look at all the scripture together that I know of, it looks to me that God and Jesus together are one.
That’s how it adds up to me.
I don’t think it’s so odd that Jesus and God together are viewed as one Lord in our worship.
I think it’s important that we view the Son and the Father as one Lord over us at times even though there is distinction between them shown to us from the scriptures that we may find.
Is the Holy Spirit God? Well he certainly has the same nature as the Father and the Son doesn’t he?
Is there anything in the Spirit of God that is not of God? I don’t know of anything. I trust that all of that which is in the Spirit of God is of God and according to his nature and character, just as the same is true about Jesus.
Sir Anthony, you’ve had a radio show, a two-hour televised debate, and several threads here numbering thousands of posts to make your points, and to this moment, your denial of the pre-existence of the Son of God remains dramatically unbiblical. Repeating the same few points over and again won’t help your cause.
May the Lord restore you to the truth for His glory and the glory of His Son and the good of His people. You can worship a created being; I will worship the One True God only.
Sheila,
Wasn’t Jesus the God of Israel? So many times when I read from Isaiah, I read things that seemed to be speaking of Jesus which also were speaking of God the Father, the Lord and maker of Israel.
Anthony,
Do you find Psalm 102:24-27 of interest, not only compared to Heb 1:10-12, but also compared to what Thomas said to the Lord when we was told to examine the Lord’s wounds? I say this because Psalm 102:24 says David said, “O my God,”.
Yes, Ray, I understand things as you do, I was trying to ferret out how there could be “two” considered as YHWH, yet to be a trinity is out of the question…and either “they saw the God of Israel” or something is amiss.
And the imagery from Isaiah 25, 34, 63 and so forth and Revelation 19 together with the other prophesies speaking of the Day of the Lord are speaking of Messiah.
Dr. Brown
My point to you is that only now you have made it clear. In answer to a caller’s question regarding “Is Jesus YHWH?”
When you say YHWH you mean both the triune God AND each member individually. This is exactly the equivocation against which Dr. White warns in his book [The Forgotten Trinity, pp.25-27].
Secondly, you are treating me as a lone soul denying the LITERAL pre-existence of the Son. There is a VAST contemporary literature on my side. As well as the writings of MANY earlier unitarians.
You are not making any sense to me when you say, ‘Jesus is YHWH, the Father is YHWH and that makes 1 YHWH’. It evidently does not! So THAT is the point in your argument that needs to be tackled head on. And it does take some time to sort these issues out.
Thanks,
Anthony
PS: I fully confess Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God. I know of no ‘God the Son’.
Ray,
Thanks.
Of interest?!! Perhaps you will explain how the Septuagint version differs RADICALLY from the MT [Hebrew Masoretic Text]…then we can discuss it.
You make like to note the article by Bacon in 1902 in the ZNW.
Anthony,
I found Psalm 102:24 of speacial interest when I read it this morning because it reminded me of something Thomas said when he saw the Lord after his resurrection.
It seems to me that both David and Thomas referred to him as “My God”.
How do you explain differing versions pertaining to this?
Anthony,
When you say that Jesus and God together don’t add up to one, that doesn’t make any sense to me at all.
I don’t know what you’re talking about. Can you explain what you mean?
Are you saying that they can not be one… as if to say that they are not in agreement or what?
Sir Anthony,
I’ve answered you directly in the past, and if things don’t make sense to you, your issue is with God and His Word, not me. Again, may the Lord restore you to His glorious truth.
Sir Anthony,
Speaking of Psalm 102, it your extraordinarily gratuitous treatment of this passage in Hebrews 1, not to mention the “exegesis” of Ps 45 there as well, that made clear to me that there could be no fruitful dialog. I’m sorry to say it, but I’m simply being honest.
Since the topic came up on the air, it’s completely appropriate for the discussion to continue to here should others want to engage, but I’ll be dropping out again at this point.
There seems to be two versions of the gospel going on today, one being that Jesus was sent by God sometime after he was born into this world as no man ever has been sent for any purpose who hasn’t first existed.
Simply put one must first exist before he can be sent, and Jesus’ sending by God into the world was likely sometime after his baptism by John, and in no way, shape, manner, or form could he have been sent by God (or even have had some spiritual influence upon this world in the heavenly realm for that matter, or even to have been able to contact the consciences of men in some spiritual way, nor could he have been able to touch the hearts of men, even though we see things pertaining to him in the writings of the prophets) into this world at any time prior even though some individuals might think that his conception in the womb of his mother was an example of his being sent into this world, well, it simply isn’t so, for he did not exist in any way prior to his conception.
His Father’s house (see John 14) became his house sometime after his sending by God after his baptism by John, not having been before his as some Christians might think, they having been influenced by pagan cultures into thinking of a Godhead consisting of more than one individual, a centralized heavenly government, small but powerful, with three present above all other things, namely the Father, the Son (Jesus) and the Holy Spirit, (or holy Spirit if you prefer).
But all of this likely evolved out of pagan influence, certainly not by any recognition of things as they simply are, nor by any revelation given by scripture.
That’s one version of the gospel that goes on today, though most Christians have bought into it. There’s a larger group of Christians that don’t see the gospel that way.
Correction: Last paragraph. Should read “Most Christians have not bought into it.”
Sir Anthony,
What do you mean exactly when you say that the Septuagint version differs RADICALLY from the MT in Psalm 102?
Nakdimon
In Hebrews 1:10, there is a complication due to the fact that the writer quotes Psalm 102 from the Greek version (LXX) of the Old Testament and not the Hebrew version. The LXX has a different sense entirely in Psalm 102:23-25. The LXX says “He [God] answered him [the suppliant]…Tell me…[God speaking to the suppliant]…Thou, lord…[God addressing someone else called ‘lord’].” But the Hebrew (English) text has “He [God] weakened me…I [the suppliant] say, ‘O my God…’”
Thus the LXX introduces a second lord who is addressed by God and told that he (the second lord) “at the beginning founded the earth and the heavens.” The writer to the Hebrews had open before him the LXX reading and not the Hebrew reading.
F.F. Bruce in the New International Commentary on Hebrews explains:
There is a footnote to B.W. Bacon’s discussion in 1902:
Bruce continues:
Reading the LXX the Hebrews writer sees an obvious reference to the new heavens and earth of the future Kingdom and he sees God addressing the Messianic Lord in connection with the prophecies of the rest of Psalm 102 which speak of “the generation to come” and of the set time for Yahweh to build up Zion and appear in His glory: This is a vision of the coming Kingdom.
There is an important article in the Zeitschrift fur Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft of 1902 (B.W. Bacon, Yale University, alluded to by Bruce above) where the author makes the fundamental point:
Here in Revelation 11:15 we can see that “he” may be referring to the Lord God, the Father, or it may be referring to the Lord Jesus Christ. We can also see that in this, what goes for one, goes the same for the other also. As one’s reign is forever, so is the other, yet we see that “he” singular will reign forever.
Rev 11:15
And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices imn heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.
There are a lot of times in scripture that things pertaining to God the Father go for Jesus the same.
I trust that Psalm 102:12 is one of those verses that go for the Lord Jesus the same as it goes for God the Father.
There are so many of these kind of verses in the Bible. I trust that the substance of Psalm 102:25-28 go for the Son as well as for the Father also since God created all through Jesus Christ and he is the head of all the things of God which God has put in his power.
The pattern we see in the gospels is that Jesus only did what he saw the Father do. Jesus did the same as the Father by the power of God, according to what the Father revealed to him, and gave God the glory for the works.
Why should we think it was any different from the foundation of the world? Why should we think that things were done any other way? Didn’t we get the scripture by the spirit of Christ which was in the old testament prophets?
God healed the lame and the blind through Jesus Christ. God turned the water into wine by Jesus Christ. Everything Jesus did was done by God working through him. God did it all through Jesus.
Jesus did it all by the power of God.
That’s what it looks like to me. Or, does anyone here think that idea flows at cross purposes to the teaching of scripture?
Anthony Buzzard–“The writer to the Hebrews had open before him the LXX reading and not the Hebrew reading.”
Personally, I’m not sure the writer had to have had anything open in front of him, he more likely quoted from memory what he was taught. And as the LXX was completed several hundred years before the NT period, having received the stamp of the Holy Spirit, the scholars who worked on it preserved the original meaning and translation of Psalm 102. In my mind, that is the more likely reason for the author of Hebrews to quote as he was moved by the Holy Spirit.
There are worthy scholars of the opinion that the Masoretic Texts (MT) were the subject of a great deal of recension most likely in opposition to the rise of Christianity and that many revisions took place over 100’s of years, some say deliberately writing out any reference to the trinity. The most logical reason being that the Christian use of the LXX as the standard for the Hebrew Bible, that is the Law, the Writings and the Prophets having been translated into the Greek in the 3rd century BC and in use during the time of the writing of the New Testament, effectively carried the Word of God throughout the Greek speaking Roman Empire. And in doing so the trinity went with it. New discoveries have brought to light those verses that the unitarians tried to erase.
With the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, DSS, scholars are finding that the LXX is much more reliable than the MT, agreeing more often than not.
But don’t take my word for it, start with this link and read up on it for yourselves. Google is a great resource too.
http://orthodoxwiki.org/Septuagint
Dr. Brown, the issue of Socinianism is the unfortunate refusal to accept the meaning of a singular personal pronoun, the word beget (to cause to exist).
I think Trinitarianism is asking us to believe what is language-wise impossible! Yahweh is a single Person, and never more than one Person.
If thousands of singular personal pronouns cannot convince you that God is one Person, what can?
Your colleague Jews are rightly scandalized.
You simply don’t discuss, and therefore do not admit the amazing difficulties of making one into Three.
Many TrInitarians are more forthright! Erickson admits that you and he must say “HE ARE THREE” and ‘’THEY IS ONE”.
I reject this intellectual suicide.
Heb 1:10 is expressly about the “economy to come “ (2:5) and so is Ps 102!
Your Jesus is not a human being and your God is still not the God of Israel and Jesus in the Shema.
Anthony
I like the analogy of Debbie’s egg.
It seems to me that the “Holy One of Israel” could be Jesus. Why isn’t that true? Dr. Brown says the “Lord, GOD” is His title, but, it seems at times in those verses, that Holy One could also be Jesus.
In fact, it seems so many times it is more than difficult to tell THEM apart from One another and for that reason the TRINITY makes the most sense to me!
I do know this is true:
Isa 55:8 “For My thoughts [are] not your thoughts, Nor [are] your ways My ways,” says the LORD.
Isa 55:9 “For [as] the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.
Sheila
One is the LORD [YHWH] God, the other the lord Messiah. One is the Father, the other the Son. If we do not understand these biblical statements at FACE VALUE, in what other language or in what other ways can God possibly communicate with you and me if not via our simple understanding of language and mathematics?