The second writer actually quoted my
first response in full!! (Although the writer did not include
the links I added from my own blog).
So I in kind, responded to the
writer's eight points. Alas! My entire response was deleted.
Jesus: God Almighty or Just An Anointed
Man?
I recently received a comment ... and would like
to share the comment and my response with everyone. This is a great discussion and I think
it is very important that we understand what we believe. As our belief in One God has been
challenged as pagan and not being scriptural, I’d like to share a few notes on
why I believe what I do and why Jesus is undeniably
God.
Here’s the post one of our readers
shared:
Greetings
***
Oneness or Trinity: Which is it?
Answer: NEITHER!!
Sadly,
both Oneness and trinity doctrines try to make Jesus of Nazareth, the
Messiah our Lord, into Almighty GOD!!
And both
doctrines state that you must believe that the Lord Jesus is Almighty GOD to
be saved!!
In
this regard, both doctrines do err and are scripturally wrong.
IMHO!
Both
doctrines appeared hundreds of years after the ascension of Christ. Both
doctrines try to explain how Jesus can be
both God and man at the same
time!! The Godman!!
But the
original faith which was once delivered unto the saints [Jude 3] did not suffer
from this problem.
The
original faith has always been
that there is solely ONE GOD,
the Father.
And Jesus of Nazareth, is the one man, the one human
being
whom Almighty GOD raised from the dead,
made him, both Lord and Christ,
and exalted him to His right hand.
Hence, Jesus of Nazareth is the Lord Jesus Christ,
a
man approved of Almighty GOD, who is currently at the
right hand of the ONE GOD in the
heavens.
Whom we await for his return.
(1 Cor 8:4) ...
there is none other God but one.
(1 Cor 8:6) But to us there is but one God, the Father,
of whom are all things, and we in him;
and one Lord, Jesus
Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him.
(1 Tim
2:5) For there is one
God, and one mediator between God and men,
the man Christ
Jesus;
(1 Th 1:9-10) For they themselves show of us what
manner of entering in we had unto you, and how ye turned to God from
idols
to serve the
living and true God;
10 And to wait
for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even
Jesus,
which delivered us from the wrath to come.
Hundreds of
years after the pure, true, apostolic faith was propagated;
Greek,
Hellenistic and pagan philosophy/doctrines changed the human Jesus
into a demigod then into a godman.
And in response, both
the doctrines of the trinity and Oneness tried to solve this
self-inflicted problem!
The solution therefore, is to return to
the pure faith and doctrine as taught in the
Scriptures:
that there is
solely ONE GOD, the Father.
And there is solely one man, one human,
whom the ONE GOD
has made
"Lord of all", the man Messiah
Jesus.
And indeed the day is coming where
...
(Phil 2:11) And that every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God
the Father.
Here’s Just a Few Notes On Why I Believe that Jesus is God
Almighty, Manifest in the Flesh:
Dear
Brother,
I admire your passion and
belief in the oneness of God. I do
differ with you, however, in the belief of who that God is. You see, there can be no doubt that
Jesus is the Almighty God incarnate.
So that you can better understand why I believe this, I’ve jotted
down a few questions for you:
1) First, what shall we do with
John 8:19? "Then said they unto him, Where is thy Father? Jesus answered, Ye
neither know me, nor my Father: if ye had known me, ye should have known my
Father also."
2) What shall we do with John
14:7? "If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from
henceforth ye know him, and have seen him." Neither you nor I can say the same about
our fathers. If you have seen me,
you have not seen my father. If I
have seen you, I might see a man who looks similar to his father but I have not
seen your father. Jesus was trying
to explain to his followers who he truly was.
3) What shall we do with the
bold statement of Jesus in John 10:30, saying "I and my Father are one." In this sense, the flesh is terming its
Creator as its father.
4) What shall we do with
John 14:8-9? "Philip saith unto
him, Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto him, Have I
been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath
seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the
Father?" Jesus is asking in
disbelief. In essence, he is asking
‘You mean you’ve seen the works that I do and you don’t know that I am Almighty
God?’ In the next few verses, Jesus
even expounds on the works being done as not having been done by a fleshly
person but by deity. He says,
"whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be
glorified in the Son." Essentially,
he is saying, I will perform the miraculous if you call on the name of Jesus
because I want you to see that this is God Almighty at work.
5) What shall we do with Isaiah
9:6? "For unto us a child is born,
unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his
name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting
Father, The Prince of Peace." How
is it that this baby Jesus, born in a stable, is called the Everlasting Father
and the Mighty God by Isaiah and yet you say that Jesus was just a man and was
not God or the Father of Creation?
Hmm, I think your disagreement is not with me or with oneness
believers. It is with Isaiah and
Jesus so far.
6) What shall we do with the
entire first chapter of John?
Verse 1: "In the beginning was the Word, and the
Word was with God, and the Word was God."
Here, we find that the Word is God the Creator of all
things.
Word=God the Creator or Father
of Creation
Verse 3: "All things were made
by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made." There isn’t another creator. The Word is it!
Verse 4: "In him was life; and
the life was the light of men." So
the Word is the Light!
Verse 6: We learn here about
John the Baptist. "There was a man
sent from God, whose name was John.
The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men
through him might believe. He was
not that Light-" So John bears
witness of the Light-who is the Creator!
Who does John introduce?
Jesus!
Verse 10: The scripture begins
describing this Light, who is the Word from verse 1: "He was in the world, and the world was
made by him [Creator], and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own
received him not." The Creator came
to his own-to live amongst his creation-and they rejected him-sounds strangely
reminiscent of Calvary, right?
Verse 14: This scripture
reveals that the Word, which is the Creator, which is the Light-.is Jesus
Christ.
Word = Creator = Father = Light
= Jesus
"And the Word was made flesh,
and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten
of the Father,) full of grace and truth."
Notice, the Word or Almighty
God became flesh. Only by becoming
flesh could we see the glory, grace, and truth of who God is. The term ‘begotten’ is often
misunderstood. Yes, it can mean
giving birth to but it also means created by. The flesh was a created vessel, made
specifically for God to indwell.
Verse 18: "No man hath seen God
at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath
declared him." Let us understand
this passage:
* No one has seen the spirit of
God. Why? As John 4:24 says, "God is spirit." Spirits cannot be seen as they lack
properties such as flesh and blood.
* Jesus became the vehicle
through which we could see God. He
was ‘declared’ by the bodily presence.
Declare does not just mean to state or say something; it also means to
"make manifest or visible" or "to reveal."
Check your dictionary!
* Otherwise, if God were not
manifest in the flesh, how could Acts 20:28 be true? The text says that God "hath purchased
[the Church] with his own blood."
Where could a spirit get blood from?
7) Moving on in our study
here. What shall we do with John the Baptist’s
introduction of Jesus in John 1:30, "This is he of whom I said, After me
cometh a man which is preferred before me: for he was
before me." How could
Jesus be before John?
John’s mother, Elizabeth, was
pregnant and gave birth to John before Mary gave birth to Jesus so, physically,
John came before Jesus-.but supernaturally, Jesus was before all flesh as the
Creator!
As Jesus stated in John 8:23,
"Ye are from beneath; I am from above: ye are of this world; I am not of this
world." If he was simply a human
being-how could he not be of this world.
The word ‘of’ means to come from.
Furthermore, God in the Old
Testament was known as the ‘I Am.’
You can see Exodus 3:14 for an example. Jesus repeatedly identified himself as
the ‘I Am’ in the New Testament.
For instance, in John 8:24,
Jesus said, "if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your
sins."
Bible scholars often add "he"
after the words "I am" to assist with readability; this is why the word "he" is
italicized in these versions. This
means that the original translation would have read, "If ye believe not that I
AM, ye shall die in your sins."
John 8:28 is another
example. Our versions state "Then
said Jesus unto them, When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know
that I am he."
The words "that" and "he" are
italicized, meaning they were added for readability. What the phrase actually states is "When
ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know I AM." In essence, when Jesus gave His life on
the cross and was ascended up into glory, then they would understand He was God
Almighty.
The examples go on and on. But I would be remiss not to add this
conversation between Jesus and the Jews who were asking who he truly
was.
In John 8:56-58, Jesus
says, "Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad.
Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou
seen Abraham? Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before
Abraham was, I AM."
Why didn’t Jesus say, "Before
Abraham was, I was?" Because He is
eternal God-He always IS!
7) Having discussed John 1, now
what shall we do with the prophecies foretelling of Jesus’ birth? What shall we do with Isaiah
9:6?
"For unto us a child is born,
unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his
name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting
Father, The Prince of Peace."
This infant, born in a stable,
is called the Mighty God and the Everlasting Father. Apparently, those who do not believe that
Jesus is the Eternal and Only God are not disagreeing with me or with other
oneness believers. They are simply
disagreeing with Isaiah and Jesus himself.
How much simpler can God say it?
8) Final question: What shall
we do with 1 Timothy 3:16?
Scholars denote that when
Timothy referenced "God," he was certainly speaking of the same God referred to
in the Old Testament.
"And without controversy great
is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles,
believed on in the world, received up into glory."
That sounds an awful lot like my Jesus! I’m so glad that I know
Him!
Isn’t it time we lifted Him up
in praise as the God he truly is and won the lost?
Jesus said, "And I, if I be
lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me."
* He was lifted up on a cross
from the earth once so that His blood could redeem us.
* Now, it’s time to lift Him up
with our belief and our praise as God-rather than man-so that our world can be
turned upside down and brought back into reconciliation with
Him!