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Author Topic:   Jesus - Wholly Man - Wholly God
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 77 of 105 (862119)
09-01-2019 6:23 AM
Reply to: Message 76 by GDR
09-01-2019 2:14 AM


Re: Jesus' Earthly Limitations
Just to touch on a couple of things. The quotes you used from the OT were about the return of Yahweh.
But the return of God IS the coming of the Messiah, the Messiah IS God.
They were not messianic. Here is a wiki article that talks about Jewish belief about a messiah.
Messiah - Wikipedia
The messiah was only believed to be a human who would lead the presumably in battle but would be the anointed one of God to do that.
The Jews were wrong about the Messiah, as Jesus makes amply clear. He criticizes the Pharisees endlessly, because they were wrong in their understanding of the scriptures in all the ways He says. As Christians we are to understand the Old Testament through the New Testament, we are not to follow the Jewish understanding. The appearance of the Messiah in Jesus was anticipated rightly only by very few of the Jews who read the scriptures rightly: Anna and Simeon in the temple were two of those. The vast majority got it wrong and had to learn the truth from Jesus Himself. They had the Book of Daniel to tell them when it would be so most got the timing rightish, which is why there were so many would-be Messiahs popping up around that period of time, but the character of the Messiah, no. That He was to be God Himself in human flesh, that's all in the OT but they missed it.
Jesus wove together the two Jewish ideas, a human messiah to lead them and the return of Yahweh into Himself.
Jesus didn't do any weaving of these things, He simply fulfills the prophecies as written, to be the Suffering Servant of Isaiah in His first advent, as He explained in the synagogue when He read from the first part of Isaiah 61, stopping right before the line about God's vengeance, and then on His second coming to be the conquering hero of that line He left out, but not against Rome, against all of God's enemies.
Of course He wasn't the messiah that the Jews expected or wanted, and they missed completely the time of Yahweh's visitation.
OK.
Well, as you know I disagree with that. I don't believe at all that he authored them but I would have confidence that He had them memorized, but in the same way that other Jewish teachers of His day would have them memorized.
Yes we disagree about that. Do you know that the Greek for "inspired" where the scriptures are described as inspired literally means "God-breathed?"
For the Jews to be forgiven sins they brought sacrifices to the Temple and asked God for forgiveness. Jesus forgave sins on the spot and said that He desired mercy and not sacrifice.
Which as God He could say, since He'd said it before in Hosea 6:6:
For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.
And also, of course, He was going to be THE sacrifice for all sins in His own body, ending the need for animal sacrifices and heralding the destruction of the temple which was the only place they could be performed.
Yes, we'll disagree about how Jesus shows the Father through Himself.
Then there was where He says how He had wanted to comfort Jerusalem but "you wouldn't come to Me" He's clearly saying He's God, not a representation of God.
Not at all. Jesus wanted to lead the Jews in a direction that was peaceful instead of the revolutionary road they were headed down. It would have avoided the slaughter of many thousand Jews as well as the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple.
Maybe I wasn't clear that I was referring to this passage:
Matt 23:37 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!
When Jesus says this as directly as He did, how He Himself wanted to do this, He is clearly identifying Himself as God who wanted to gather Jerusalem to Himself to comfort them and they kept refusing Him.
Your answer seems to be addressing something else but I'm not sure:
Not at all. Jesus wanted to lead the Jews in a direction that was peaceful instead of the revolutionary road they were headed down. It would have avoided the slaughter of many thousand Jews as well as the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple.
I don't think I quite get your meaning here. Certainly He saw their revolutionary fervor as completely missing the boat, missing who He was and why He came, but you have a way of putting these things together that I'm not getting here.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 76 by GDR, posted 09-01-2019 2:14 AM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 79 by GDR, posted 09-01-2019 11:39 PM Faith has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 78 of 105 (862121)
09-01-2019 7:09 AM
Reply to: Message 75 by AZPaul3
09-01-2019 1:02 AM


Sorry I answered anything you said.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 80 of 105 (862146)
09-02-2019 2:37 AM
Reply to: Message 79 by GDR
09-01-2019 11:39 PM


Re: Jesus' Earthly Limitations
What sort of "return of Yahweh" could there be apart from the Messiah? What are you anticipating? When is it to happen, or has it happened?
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 79 by GDR, posted 09-01-2019 11:39 PM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 82 by GDR, posted 09-02-2019 11:11 AM Faith has replied
 Message 83 by GDR, posted 09-02-2019 11:31 AM Faith has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 81 of 105 (862147)
09-02-2019 2:56 AM
Reply to: Message 79 by GDR
09-01-2019 11:39 PM


Re: Jesus' Earthly Limitations
I don't see anything in Luke's account of Simeon and Anna that indicate that they thought the messiah was a deity. They certainly believed Him to be the messiah and that He would bring a renewal to the Israelites, but as the human messiah annointed by God. Even the term Son of God was essentially a messianic term and it was quite a bit later that the early Christians denoted and understood that the term meant more than simply being anointed by God but to actually claim Jesus as part of the godhead.
When Thomas is permitted by Jesus to touch His wounds after the resurrection he says "My Lord and my God" showing that His deity was known at least by that time. It's all through the Old Testament as I've learned from many different teachers, so those who got it right even in the early days did know that.
ABE: There is also that passage in Philippians where Jesus is described as "being in the form of God" and that's scripture, that's not a long time after.
Referring to Jesus' claiming of His first advent to be for comfort, leaving out the later coming in vengeance:
Yes, but that was Jesus' understanding and not the understanding held by the Jews in general.
Yes of course, but what is the point you are making? Jesus is the one we are to listen to, the Jews kept getting it all wrong.
"God-breathed" means authored by God, it is not the same kind of "inspiration" you are talking about.
The Messiah being both God and Man can come in the name of the Lord without having to be ONLY Man as you are implying.
I have learned the traditional understanding of all this which has come down the centuries through many theologians, and makes perfect sense, and all the new theology like Wright's is just a lot of human hot air to me. I think I've probably run out of anything more to say on this thread, or I'll just be repeating myself from now on.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

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 Message 79 by GDR, posted 09-01-2019 11:39 PM GDR has not replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 84 of 105 (862162)
09-02-2019 3:29 PM
Reply to: Message 82 by GDR
09-02-2019 11:11 AM


Re: Jesus' Earthly Limitations
I have no problem with "very human," GDR, what I have a problem with is what often sounds like you are saying "MERELY human" and completely ignoring His deity. And the idea that He had no consciousness of His deity during His earthly life is saying just about the same thing anyway.
I also can't take seriously anything written about "Abrahamic religions." That's a red flag that the writer is an unbeliever with a merely human focus. "Two strands of Jewish thought" is utterly meaningless to describe the Messiah who was promised by God and sent by God and IS God in human flesh. You reduce this supernatural phenomenon to the merely human and THAT's what I object to. Yes He's human, completely human, and acted only from His humanness while on Earth, but that's not the same thing as reducing Him the way your sources do to "merely" human as if He chose to unite some strands of Jewish thought. I guess you can't understand why I find this so offensively out of synch with Christianity.
Yes "Messiah" simply means "anointed one," and there are lots of anointed ones in the scripture, but that's just a way to distract from the main point that there is a Savior Messiah God promised from all the way back in Eden, to "save His people from their sins," which means He can't be merely human, He HAS to be God incarnate, and that particular Messiah can be traced up through the scriptures from era to era through many defining hints and references, up to Jesus. \\
So yes, Jesus did embody Yahweh's return but as a very human messiah. The "Word" became flesh, with the "Word" representing God's nature and His message for mankind.
This trivializes the gospels, shrivels them up into nothing really. Yes of course Jesus was human, always human, seen as human, acted as human, never stopped being human, and He is still human as He sits at the side of God the Father interceding for us, but He is not MERELY human and never was merely human.
And when you reduce His mission to "representing" God's nature plus bringing a "message to mankind" I guess you have no idea how paltry a definition that is. Pick any other great philosopher and leader, say Gandhi, you make Jesus no greater than they. You present a shriveled up little remnant of a grand truth. I can't even find words. You seem to have NO idea of the amazing transformation of human life Jesus promises believers, a transformation that reverses the Fall and creates a new universe in which demonic forces of evil are vanquished by a redeemed humanity; you'd roll your eyes at its supernatural implications I'm sure.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

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 Message 82 by GDR, posted 09-02-2019 11:11 AM GDR has not replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 85 of 105 (862168)
09-02-2019 4:11 PM
Reply to: Message 83 by GDR
09-02-2019 11:31 AM


Re: Jesus' Earthly Limitations
I wonder if you have considered this Faith. It seems to me that the views that you have expressed of Jesus’ divine knowledge actually diminishes what He was as a man, and what He did as a man. How many Christians, (and non-Christians for that matter), have over the centuries sacrificed their lives out of love for others. These people gave up their lives simply on the faith that this was the human, or the right thing to do.
I see that this is what concerns you but I think you are just stopping short of grasping that He "emptied Himself" of His divinity for that very purpose, so that He could live a fully human life as all the rest of us He came to redeem. He "put it aside," He refrained from using it apart from the direct guidance of God the Father and then only rarely. He showed it when He told the woman at the well about all her husbands and lovers for instance, and certainly showed His divinity during the incident called the Transfiguration. He did the miracles, however, according to the commentary I quoted, through God the Father's power rather than His own.
In all these things He was acting as a believing human being could act, which was His task. If He hadn't lived fully as a human being He couldn't qualify to be our Savior, our Mediator, our representative, He couldn't have died in our place to save us: so He HAD to be fully man and living the life of a man. And of course He went to the cross as a man. He COULD have called on "legions of angels" to spare Him but He didn't, He died the real death of a man and there is nothing in anything I've said that diminishes that. I think in a way it may enhance it to know that He chose to do all this without any dependence on His divine powers although they were always available. I can't even keep from sinning for five minutes but He had the moral and spiritual strength to resist the use of His powers.
If Jesus had the kind of supernatural knowledge that I think you believe He had, then He would have knowledge of His resurrection, which diminishes His sacrifice on the cross.
However if,( as I believe and also contend is consistent with the NT accounts), with faith and belief, not knowledge, that His Father was somehow going to redeem His torturous humiliating death, then it takes on a whole new and far more relevant meaning.
Two things: He could have kept such khowledge suppressed along with all the rest of His powers, but also I expect to die knowing I'll wake up in Jesus' presence and yet I may die in great pain for all I know, and He died in far greater pain. Knowledge of what is to be the result in the end isn't going to change that. And He also had to experience being abandoned by God during His suffering on the cross ("Why have You forsaken Me?") which would have been an immense suffering for one who had never been so deprived before. He had to go through it for us.
Yes He did endure it all as a human being would, through faith. I see no diminishing of His sacrifice in anything I've said. You are failing to grasp what it meant that He really did put aside His powers in order to live a fully human life. You think He would have to have been totally deprived of them. But scripture doesn't say that, it says He put them aside. And yet we know He died a completely human death. There is no diminishing of His sacrifice at all.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 83 by GDR, posted 09-02-2019 11:31 AM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 86 by GDR, posted 09-02-2019 4:55 PM Faith has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 87 of 105 (862178)
09-02-2019 5:56 PM
Reply to: Message 86 by GDR
09-02-2019 4:55 PM


Re: Jesus' Earthly Limitations
I'm about to take a break so I may have to come back to this later, but I have a few coments:
You have the timing of Gethsemane wrong. He had already ridden into Jerusalem on the donkey the week before, He did not go there from Gethsemane which is what you seem to be saying, and He'd already dealt with the moneychangers in the Temple too. Gethsemane follows the Last Supper, Judas has gone to get the authorities and they come to Gethsemane to arrest Him and crucify Him.
God DID forsake Him briefly on the cross, or He wouldn't have said that. This must mean that the Father withdrew His presence from Him for that period of time. It must have been a feeling of unimaginable desolation. He had to be forsaken to fulfill His mission as our Savior, we being the ones who deserve it and He taking our place. That's a messianic psalm, He was crying out to God, which is what the words actually say... MY GOD MY GOD... He's not crying out to the Jews but to God.
Most of what you say is no problem for me or other "fundamentalists" and I don't know why you think it is. We have just as strong a view of Jesus as human as you do, possibly even stronger, since you often sound rather iffy about His dying in our place for our salvation from our sins, or at least you treat it as a small thing you relegate to a sort of footnote. But we know it took God becoming a man to be able to do it for us and that in itself is an enormous sacrifice, just becoming human for our sake. You seem to think doing good works is far more important. But all religions teach good works, big deal. Only Jesus Christ came to die for us.
But I object strongly to such terms as "vocation" to describe Jesus, as if it's just a role He decided to take in life. Ho hum. It's like the intellectualizing idea that He somehow decided to embody "two strands of Jewish thought." Jesus could not care less about Jewish thought, that's a job for academicians not the Son of God.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 86 by GDR, posted 09-02-2019 4:55 PM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 88 by GDR, posted 09-02-2019 7:40 PM Faith has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 89 of 105 (862192)
09-02-2019 8:36 PM
Reply to: Message 88 by GDR
09-02-2019 7:40 PM


Re: Jesus' Earthly Limitations
Jesus cries out to GOD in Psalm 22, not to the Jews. Of course He wasn't permanently abandoned but He would not have cried out that way if it wasn't true.
Jesus had a human birth. What was He prior to that, and if you say that prior to that He was God then I have to ask who it was that He prayed to, and why would He even need to pray?
Do you deny the virgin birth, that God begot Him, not Joseph? If you say He is both wholly God and wholly man how COULD you say that and yet it sounds like that is what you are saying. He said "Before Abraham was, I AM," That's a direct claim to have existed before Abraham, and He uses the name of God for Himself. He also says He "came down from heaven." So yes of course prior to being born human He was God, and He stayed God throughout His human life though He did not live by His divine powers, He lived a human life as we all do, and He is still God AND man, glorified man, the firstborn from the dead unto the Kingdom of God and the new creation, which He opened to us by His life and death as a human being.
And again I can't understand how you could ask the question who He prayed to. He prayed AS A MAN, GDR, He did EVERYTHING as a man, and men pray to God. Even if He prayed as the Son of God, the Second Person of the Trinity, it would make good enough sense, but He didn't, He prayed as a man, just as He lived as a man, just as He died as a man. He needed to pray the same way He needed to do everything else human beings do, He came to live the life of a human being. He had put aside His divine powers in order to live as a man.
It was a vocation which He believed He was called to and had it vindicated by the resurrection. It wasn't about Jewish thought but about Jesus' understanding of the Hebrew Scriptures.
He was a man, He was wholly and fully man, but He wasn't MERELY man, He KNEW He was God and that He was called to live the human life for us and to die for us.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 88 by GDR, posted 09-02-2019 7:40 PM GDR has not replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 90 of 105 (862194)
09-02-2019 8:53 PM
Reply to: Message 88 by GDR
09-02-2019 7:40 PM


Re: Jesus' Earthly Limitations
You've many times said that the traditionalist/fundamentalist emphasis on our salvation is "selfish" while you think the "message" is far more important: to have a loving heart. You haven't said that yet here but I suppose eventually you will.
So apparently you think He came just to deliver this message to humanity, and I guess embody it as well.
So it seems you really have no explanation whatever for His incarnation. Why would such a messenger need to be God at all? Someone like Paul could have done the job, a mere human being strongly taught in the scriptures and living a blameless life as a Jewish teacher.
Is there any need at all for Jesus to have been "Wholly God" in your way of thinking?
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 88 by GDR, posted 09-02-2019 7:40 PM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 91 by GDR, posted 09-03-2019 10:44 AM Faith has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 92 of 105 (862255)
09-03-2019 11:19 AM
Reply to: Message 91 by GDR
09-03-2019 10:44 AM


Re: Jesus' Earthly Limitations
The before Abraham I Was quote simply goes back to John 1 where the Word that existed before time became flesh. Jesus embodied the Word of God.
But the Word exist4ed before Abraham, and that's a claim by Jesus to be God. Unless what you are saying is something more convoluted, such as that the Word is not even a person? That is, not the Second Persona of the Trinity?
When you say He came down from heaven are you also claiming that He remembered a life in heaven prior to His earthly existence?
Of course. But I'm not sure how God Himself would "remember" such a "life in heaven." So what I'd say is that He knew He was God who came down from heaven.
OK, you’re saying as a man who knew He was God, He prayed to God as any other man.
He was Wholly Man, remember? He prayed as a man would pray to God.
Why would He pray what He did in Gethsemane?
Why on earth wouldn't He? He was Wholly Man who had a completely human dread of suffering, especially such intense suffering as He knew was coming.
Got to come back for the rest.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 91 by GDR, posted 09-03-2019 10:44 AM GDR has not replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 93 of 105 (862310)
09-03-2019 9:27 PM
Reply to: Message 91 by GDR
09-03-2019 10:44 AM


Re: Jesus' Earthly Limitations
Faith writes:
You've many times said that the traditionalist/fundamentalist emphasis on our salvation is "selfish" while you think the "message" is far more important: to have a loving heart. You haven't said that yet here but I suppose eventually you will.
The fundamentalist message is essentially that you want to believe the tenants of the Christian faith in order to get yourself on the right side of things when you die.
You put this with maximum cynicism about the motives of your fellow Christians.
The Scriptural message is that you want to have a heart guided by the Holy Spirit because we have been called as humans to care for our neighbours and all of God’s good creation. When the focus is on personal salvation it is again, all about me which is just the opposite of the Gospel message.
Two things:
First, yes it is "all about me." All religions except Christianity require earning your way to whatever their version of salvation is, whether "paradise with 72 virgins" or "nirvana" (which is the cessation of the karma which condemns) or whatever. You get there by practicing their rules, moral rules or whatever rules they teach, usually moral, and most members of those religions know they can never succeed at the task and suffer guilt and anxiety as a result.
So some people who come from such religions to Christ are extremely grateful to find out that they can be saved without all that, which is very happy news ("good news" is what the word "gospel" means you know) since they know they could never accomplish it for themselves. What Jesus did is answer the longings of the human heart that have no satisfaction in any other human context, bringing relief from the burden of guilt and anxiety about our future state we all carry when it's all up to us. "Come ye who are heavy laden and I will give you rest" means rest from the burden of sin we carry. "Take my yoke upon you for my yoke is easy and my burden is light."
Also, that is what all the proscriptions on work on the sabbath mean and why it is so immensely important that they be carried out in order to assure people that salvation IS given by God: the sabbath is the day of rest from our work of saving ourselves, it stands for Jesus' whole mission of salvation, of taking our burden of sin off our backs and setting us free.
He frees us from the fear of death, and in that freedom we are freed to do all those good works from the heart-love you see described in the scriptures, that we could never do with love while we are under the burden of guilt and fear of death. That's the part you always consistently miss. You seem to think it's just a matter of doing good because it's good to do good, without recognizing that we are fallen and CAN'T do it until Christ liberates us. Then we happily do good for others because He has done such good for us. "We love Him because He first loved us." "Ye have been saved UNTO good works:" that is, the good works FOLLOW salvation and can't be done with joy and genuine love of neighbor until we are saved.
Remember how Luther struggled so mightily to confess all his sins? He knew that even a single unconfessed sin earned him an eternity of Hell. He piled on the confessions to his poor Confessor, always fearing he was missing something that would condemn him. The Confessor tried to convince him that God is merciful but Luther's knowledge of the scriptures told him that "God's windmills grind exceeding fine" and that God's holiness can't overlook a single sin, that the Law is inexorable. The Protestant Reformation began with his recognition that "The just shall live by faith," and that God's own righteousness is imputed to believers, and that that was the mission of the Savior. Until that recognition he said he could not love God at all, that he only hated Him, but with that recognition he finally had the rest and joy Christ brings us through His sacrifice.
Second point is that it is slighting Jesus Himself to trivialize His sacrifice as you do. And that sacrifice is huge. In saving individuals from all over the world He is "making for Himself a people" which otherwise we could not be. We couldn't belong to Him if we were not redeemed by His sacrifice and cleansed by His blood. We are a ruined creation and the only way we could be restored to purity is through His death for us. His crucifixion, resurrection and ascension reverses the Fall and inaugurates the New Creation which will come to fulfillment after His Second Coming, which is when He will come as conquering hero and the avenger of His people against the enemies of God.
"Don't you know you must be born again?" That is, we must be given the new heart God promises to believers in the OT, which is only given to us because of Jesus' sacrifice for us. DO you know that, GDR?
=========================
I'm sorry you think it's all just giving "pat answers" when the fact is that we tell what we've learned to be the truth. There is mystery enough in all these things to keep us learning for eternity, but your view of things somehow evades the core meaning of it all so that you end up with more "mysteries" than the scripture contains.
(In writing all this I feel my own guilt and how I don't deserve what Jesus did for me, and have to keep reminding myself that He came to save sinners like me. You think we all just take salvation as a Get out of Jail Free Card but a lot of us can't accept it that easily. There's something in us that feels we need to earn any goodness that comes to us, and some of us know we are such bad sinners it's hard to give up that feeling. Even though I know the gospel message I nevertheless fall back into my guilt and need to relearn it. That's true of a lot of us I think. Even though Jesus died to pay for our sins we know our sins are horrible affronts to Him and have to keep renewing our faith and asking His forgiveness and easily lose our assurance that we are saved. You seem to have confidence in your own personal ability to be good that a lot of us don't have, and maybe that's because you really are far less of a sinner than we are.)
Faith writes:
Is there any need at all for Jesus to have been "Wholly God" in your way of thinking?
Yes, as well as wholly man.
I asked because you've never said anything about why He needed to be God and you still aren't giving any explanation. According to your thinking it seems to me that there was no such need at all, it might as well have been a mere human being, like Paul as I suggested. So please explain just how He needed to be God according to your theology. Thanks.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 91 by GDR, posted 09-03-2019 10:44 AM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 94 by GDR, posted 09-05-2019 2:22 PM Faith has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 95 of 105 (862493)
09-05-2019 2:33 PM
Reply to: Message 94 by GDR
09-05-2019 2:22 PM


Re: Jesus' Earthly Limitations
The Word is God’s wisdom and nature with which He metaphorically spoke life into existence. Jesus, the 2nd member of the Trinity embodied that Word
Therefore, as I said, when Jesus says that "Before Abraham was, I AM" whether He means Himself as the Second Person of the Trinity or as The Word, He is saying He is God.
The theologians who embrace "Wholly God and Wholly Man" also say that Jesus was quite conscious of His divine nature, merely deciding to live by His human nature only, so you and Wright are at odds with the whole Christian tradition. Jesus lived entirely by His human nature so when He prayed to God He prayed as Wholly Man.
You seem to show up just when I'm about to fall asleep at the computer and have to leave for a while. Oh well. See you later.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 94 by GDR, posted 09-05-2019 2:22 PM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 96 by GDR, posted 09-05-2019 3:26 PM Faith has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 97 of 105 (862515)
09-05-2019 8:39 PM
Reply to: Message 96 by GDR
09-05-2019 3:26 PM


Re: Jesus' Earthly Limitations
No it simply means that He embodies God's nature, not God Himself.
"...And the Word was God."
I'll try this from another perspective. As you know Jesus often referred to Himself as the Son of Man. AS you've acknowledged before this is a clear reference to Daniel 7 where the Son of Man is presented to the Ancient of Days and then given authority This then gives a sense of time which shows the Ancient of Days, (obviously God), existing prior to the Son of Man. You keep saying that he prayed to God as wholly man but how does that work if Jesus understood Himself as God?
This isn't making any sense to me. I don't understand your problem. If He is Wholly Man what does such timing matter? As Wholly Man He is able to pray to God.
Just a thought. Why don's you try reading abook by Wright and seeing what you think. I try and read different perspectives including yours. This is a book I'd suggest. Simply Good News
You are only too clear about Wright's theology and it's contrary to traditional and Reformation theology so I really have no reason to spend time on it.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 96 by GDR, posted 09-05-2019 3:26 PM GDR has not replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 98 of 105 (862516)
09-05-2019 9:00 PM
Reply to: Message 94 by GDR
09-05-2019 2:22 PM


Re: Jesus' Earthly Limitations
Certainly but you understand Him as knowing that He came down from heaven as God so again, you have Him praying to Himself.
Generations of theologians from whom I get my basic views have no such idea. It's a really silly idea. I'm going with the generations of theologians.
After you call me cynical you then go on to exactly confirm my point in that Yes, it is all about Me.
Your version is cynical because you are accusing us of violating what Jesus taught, but mine is not cynical because I'm saying it's what the gospels teach and not a violation.
The "Me" shouldn't be capitalized.
That view of the Christian faith is 180 degrees from the message of Jesus. Just read the Gospels. What did Jesus say to the rich young man about inheriting eternal life. He didn’t say believe the right doctrine, He said give away your wealth. What are the two great commandments? Love God and neighbour, and Jesus tells us how to do love God and neighbour in the sheep and goats parable in Matthew 25, along with numerous other quotes in the Gospels. The whole Christian message is about sacrificial love not worrying about what’s going to happen to me when I die. God wants us to live life’s based on love of others and all of His creation and that He’ll look after what comes next.
I should look up a lot of Bible references to answer this so I may have to come back to it later. I gave lots of reasons why salvation is primary already, including Luther's hatred of God before He found out that God's own righteousness isn't a condemnation of him but a gift to him for his salvation. Jesus' death for us isn't something to compare with His commands to us since this is His work, not ours, and we are to receive it with gratitude. Being human we need God's salvation before we can do any good deeds in love. Then we have John's letter about how we can know we are saved, basically loving the brethren, a lot of emphasis on our salvation. Then Paul said somewhere that Jesus died as a "ransom for many." I also think of the "faith" chapter of Hebrews 11 where our salvation isn't the message but many people's personal concerns are fulfilled through faith, kind of selfish concerns to listen to you. Family members coming back to life, etc. "We love Him because He first loved us." God knows us, I get the impression you don't know us very well.
The problem as I see it is just the opposite. If Jesus knew He was God when He went to the cross then He would know that there is pain and suffering involved, but He would know that it would all have a happy ending. Compare that to the numerous people who have loved sacrificially by giving up their lives for others based simply on the fact that that was the right thing to do, However, Jesus went to the cross on the faith, not knowledge, that this was His calling and that God was somehow going to redeem what it was He was doing.
You sound like any old unbeliever with such accusations of Jesus. You really are trivializing Him. He died as a man, with human feelings.
I’ve given an explanation as to how and why I worship Jesus as a deity, but I have no explanation of why God did it the way He did. I’m more concerned about what He did and maybe in the next life I’ll know why.
Again everything you say sounds like there was no reason at all for Him to be God, that simply being a man like Paul should have been sufficient. Perhaps you accept that He is God based on scripture then without having any idea why it was necessary.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 94 by GDR, posted 09-05-2019 2:22 PM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 99 by GDR, posted 09-06-2019 1:01 PM Faith has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 100 of 105 (862556)
09-06-2019 1:57 PM
Reply to: Message 99 by GDR
09-06-2019 1:01 PM


Did Jesus know He was going to be resurrected?
But if He was wholly God from the beginning then He is praying to Himself.
Not if He's praying AS MAN, and since He did EVERYTHING as man while on Earth that is what He is doing. He is NOT praying as GOD, He is praying as MAN because that's how He did EVERYTHING while on Earth.
ABE: He had to learn how to live as a man just as we all do, and He had to be in subjection to God as a man as we all are. His nature as God was always with Him from eternity, but His manhood was new to Him and had to be learned. And humanity is subordinate to God, so he was subordinate to God, and prayed as a man does, as needing God's power and wisdom as we all do. He was facing extreme suffering for us, paying for the sins of all believers, facing the satanic powers of darkness, so in Gethsemane He asked God if there was any way He could be spared, and learned that there wasn't: we couldn't be saved without His sacrifice in our place, and that means dying AS A HUMAN BEING since that's the only way He could die in the place of human beings. Since He had no sin in Himself He had to take on all our sins even in order to die, since a sinless person cannot die. All this had to be done AS A MAN.
With all of the new scholarship, the dead sea scrolls, the interconnectedness we have with the internet etc, there is a much better understanding of what the Scriptures are about, with emphasis on what a first century Jew listening to Jesus, a first century Jew, would understand.
There was no lack of scholarship over the centuries that we should need any "new" scholarship. By the time of the Reformation everything needed was available. The Dead Sea Scrolls offer nothing new by the way: all the Old Testament texts found add up to the same identical OT text we already had. I've received lots of teaching from the Jewish perspective, there's nothing left out about that.
---------------------\
No there have not been "generations of theologians that would disagree" with me, sorry. There are heretics that disagree with the theology I follow and there are occasional theologians who disagree with the theology I follow, there are NOT "generations of theologians" who disagree with the theology I follow. I'm not even claiming to know everything about the traditional theology since I often have to look things up, but there always turn out to be traditional views that do stand out as shared by "generations of theologians."
I'm not saying that personal salvation isn't important but it isn't the main point. The point is to serve God's Kingdom and to take that love into His creation. Committing to Christ does make us more open to being guided by the Holy Spirit, but that has to do with the faith that we are to live lives based on sacrificial love. Remember also in Ephesians 1 Paul tells us that all things in Heaven and Earth will be brought together under Christ.
Salvation is transformation. We are changed. We are no longer "mere flesh" but our spirit is "quickened" as the KJV puts it, we are "made alive" in a way we weren't before. Before we were "dead in our sins," now we are "alive to God." We are "born again from above." We are made fit for an entirely new life than the one we live on earth from our first physical birth. We are a "new creation," etc etc etc. Salvation is absolutely fundamental, and in fact if we are not born again any good works we do are, in the words of Isaiah, nothing but "filthy rags," which refers to menstrual rags in case you don't know that, meaning good works are only of value if they are done in God's power, or through "impregnation" by God's Spirit as it were. (Scripture can get pretty earthy at times as it were, but all these figures are metaphors for spiritual things.) And that is not possible unless we are born again of the Spirit. Unsaved people can do lots of good works but they don't have any ultimate value in God's eyes because that requires being done by His Spirit.
You say on the one hand that He died like a man but then you say that He had supernatural knowledge that He would be resurrected. Those two ideas are not compatible.
Scripture shows Him predicting His death AND resurrection many times before the fact. When He says the only sign to be given is the "sign of Jonah" He is saying He will be resurrected. Then there is this:
From that time Jesus began to show to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day (Matthew 16:21).
He knew he was to suffer and die AND BE RAISED on the third day. It couldn't be clearer, GDR, and yet there is no trivialization in scripture of what He suffered.
I got the above from a Blue Letter Bible page, and here's another important point made there:
The predictions by Jesus of His resurrection were of such common knowledge that it led the religious rulers to ask Pontius Pilate to secure the tomb.
So if I happen to have an explanation that means I need to have an explanation so that's why I have one? Oh well.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : 1
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 99 by GDR, posted 09-06-2019 1:01 PM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 101 by GDR, posted 09-07-2019 11:36 PM Faith has replied

  
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