Is Jesus Yahweh?

Rebmilc · August 28, 2007

Hi Mutzrein.
As a matter of interest I have pasted a snip from a sermon preached by Ephrem the Syrian around the 4th century AD.
It gives you some idea of what the early church believed and taught about the Deity of Christ.

14. And the Father cried out,

WayneB · August 28, 2007

So, basically you are saying that the church in the 4th century had the same doctrine that todays church has.
Only questin is, are they right?

I'd say they have a better shot at being right than a belief system that is only 150 years old and based on one man's teaching and his self-proclaimed inspiration.

Be like the Bereans! Test the spirits!!! God gave us His written WORD and the Holy Spirit to guide our understanding in TRUTH. They BOTH go together... a piece of God's Armor, which is the "sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God." [Ephesians 6:17b] When anyone tells you NOT to think but to just be "spiritual", they underestimate the power of the Enemy who is a prowling lion out to deceive and trap.

August 28, 2007

In our human

Mutzrein · August 29, 2007

Hi Mutzrein.
As a matter of interest I have pasted a snip from a sermon preached by Ephrem the Syrian around the 4th century AD.
It gives you some idea of what the early church believed and taught about the Deity of Christ.

14. And the Father cried out,

MrLuke · August 29, 2007

I didn't realize that they've had the word godhead in the 4th century.

Well.. the word translated as "godhead" in our Bibles simply means "divine character or nature, deity, divinity" according to the NT Greek Dictionary (Trenchard, W.C)

So I guess you could read Col 2: 9 as "Because in Him dwells all the fullness of deity bodily." or "...the fullness of divine nature bodily" etc.

Sounds like God.. in Jesus fully.. hm, looks like Jesus is deity.

Yahweh is salvation · August 29, 2007

So, basically you are saying that the church in the 4th century had the same doctrine that todays church has.

Only questin is, are they right?

I'd say they have a better shot at being right than a belief system that is only 150 years old and based on one man's teaching and his self-proclaimed inspiration.

Be like the Bereans! Test the spirits!!! God gave us His written WORD and the Holy Spirit to guide our understanding in TRUTH. They BOTH go together... a piece of God's Armor, which is the "sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God." [Ephesians 6:17b] When anyone tells you NOT to think but to just be "spiritual", they underestimate the power of the Enemy who is a prowling lion out to deceive and trap.

150 years old? Please explain.

Mutzrein · August 29, 2007

Now I am not denying that those who accept OR reject this doctrine are necessarily lost or

August 29, 2007

It is filthy rags not because a person has a faith & trust in God and His Christ. It is filthy rags because man has said that in order to have a relationship with God (through faith in Christ) he must apply intellectual assent and accept (and you call it trust) that Jesus is God.

No, "filthy rags" the way it is used by Isaiah refers to works man does to earn God's favor. What Isaiah says is that our "works of righteousness" done in our flesh is filthy rags. He is demonstrating that before God, those good deeds in which we boast not only do not bring us into God's favor, but in fact, are tainted with sin so much so that our best efforts are still an object of contempt His eyes.

Your attempt to claim that expecting people to believe the Bible and actually accept the Bible's definition of who Jesus is as "filthy rags" is just another demonstration of the level of absurdity to which you are willing to descend. The truth is that you cannot have a proper relationship with God the Father or Jesus so long as you continue to reject how they have chosen to present themselves in Scripture. You cannot have a relationship with them on your terms according to how YOU define them.

This is man's effort and nothing to do with the righteousness that I have in Christ Jesus. There is huge divide between the faith I have (which is the gift of God) and the TRUST you have.

Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. Faith is based on the truth of God's Word which you reject where the true identity of Jesus is concerned. IF you possessed true biblical faith, you would believe the Bible when it calls Jesus the creator of the universe, the Mighty God, the Father of eternity, when it presents Him as sinless and eternally preexistant with the Father.

WayneB · August 29, 2007

So, basically you are saying that the church in the 4th century had the same doctrine that todays church has.

Only questin is, are they right?

I'd say they have a better shot at being right than a belief system that is only 150 years old and based on one man's teaching and his self-proclaimed inspiration.

Be like the Bereans! Test the spirits!!! God gave us His written WORD and the Holy Spirit to guide our understanding in TRUTH. They BOTH go together... a piece of God's Armor, which is the "sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God." [Ephesians 6:17b] When anyone tells you NOT to think but to just be "spiritual", they underestimate the power of the Enemy who is a prowling lion out to deceive and trap.

150 years old? Please explain.

Although there have been many who have denied the deity of Jesus over the years, it wasn't until the mid-1800's that it took root with two movements that stated a belief in Jesus Christ as Savior but not as God. One of those movements was the Jehovah's Witnesses originally known as Bible Students, which was founded in the late 1870s by Charles Taze Russell. It wasn't until 1882 that he began rejecting the concept of the Trinity and subsequently taught that Jesus was not God contradicting the claims of Christ. The organization has even gone as far to publish their own translation of the Bible known as the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures (NWT)...and in doing so rewrote John 1:1 to read, ""In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a God." The source they used was Philo of Alexandria who was a Hellenized Jewish philosopher... not a source I would use. ...and yes, some early Christians believed Philio but it never took hold in the early Church.