Posted in Messiah Jesus, Doctrine, The Trinity, Primitive Christianity, Church History, Christology on March 8th, 2010 5 Comments »
History and Development
Jesus claimed to be the Son of God and not God the Son. His belief about God reflected the central tenet of Jewish faith, that God is One.
Posted in Messiah Jesus, Doctrine, The Trinity, Christology on February 22nd, 2010 28 Comments »
Where is the Proof?
Trinitarians know that the word Trinity does not appear in the Bible. When this is pointed out, they will sometimes respond that this doesn’t prove anything because, “The word ‘Bible’ isn’t in the Bible either!” But in fact the word Bible is from the Greek word biblos meaning ‘book’ and does in fact appear in the Bible, referring to the written Scriptures. Yet, even if that word weren’t used, the idea of written Scriptures is certainly present, and described by other good words, such as “scripture,” “writing,” and the oft-repeated phrase, “It is written.”
Posted in Messiah Jesus, Doctrine, The Trinity, Christology on February 15th, 2010 84 Comments »
God’s Agent
Part of the reason westerners don’t understand the relationship between God and His Son is because they don’t understand the Hebrew concept of agency. In that culture, when an agent represented a principal, the agent was viewed as, and even addressed as, the principal. An agent speaking on behalf of another was looked on as if he were the person whom he represented. This is especially true of the Angel of the Lord representing God.
Exodus 23:
20 Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared.
21 Beware of him, and obey his voice, provoke him not; for he will not pardon your transgressions: for my name is in him.
22 But if thou shalt indeed obey his voice, and do all that I speak; then I will be an enemy unto thine enemies, and an adversary unto thine adversaries.
Posted in Messiah Jesus, Ron's Articles, Jesus Only, Oneness, Christology on February 13th, 2010 41 Comments »
A few weeks ago I posted an article (”From Trinitarian to Unitarian“) that was a faith story of a woman that had been a long-term main-stream trinitarian Christian who came to take a long hard look at her beliefs versus the truth of Scripture. After doing so, she changed her beliefs to align with what she actually found in Scripture.
Posted in Sean's Articles, Christology on February 10th, 2010 8 Comments »
Is Paul quoting Isaiah 45 in Philippians 2? I have often heard people make this claim and it seems to be uncontroversial. However, I’m not really sure. Below is a table comparing these texts. Note, especially, the underlined words.
| Isaiah 45:21, 23 21 “Declare and set forth your case; Indeed, let them consult together. Who has announced this from of old? Who has long since declared it? Is it not I, the LORD [Yahweh]? And there is no other God besides Me, A righteous God and a Savior; There is none except Me…. 23 “I have sworn by Myself, The word has gone forth from My mouth in righteousness And will not turn back, That to Me every knee will bow, every tongue will swear allegiance. |
Philippians 2:9-11 9 For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. |
Posted in Messiah Jesus, Doctrine, The Trinity, dificult texts, Christology on February 8th, 2010 4 Comments »
Is Jesus Called God?
Time after time in the Scriptures, Jesus is referred to as the Messiah, the Son of God. There are only a handfull of verses that even seem to call Jesus God, and most of those are questionable on textual and grammatical grounds. Only two verses unquestionably call Jesus God, and we shall see in what sense they do so. The vast amount of Scriptures refer to Jesus as the Son of God, though.
Posted in Doctrine, The Trinity, Christology on February 1st, 2010 1 Comment »
Lately the old arguments about the Trinity have surfaced once again. In light of that I will be posting a series from my website. Topics to be covered will be:
Part 1 - Overview
Part 2 - Is Jesus Called God?
Part 3 - God’s Agent
Part 4 - Where is the Proof?
Part 5 - History and Development
Part 6 - Jesus Had To Be A Man
Overview
Throughout the Old Testament, there were prophecies and promises of One who was to come. When Jesus of Nazareth came preaching the Gospel, he declared that he was that Messiah. The word Messiah comes from the Hebrew word mashiyach, while the word Christ comes from the Greek word christos. Both words mean the same thing: the anointed one. How ironic that many people who call themselves “Christian” don’t know the meaning of the word “Christ.”
Posted in Our Father, Yahweh, Messiah Jesus, The Trinity, Ron's Articles, dificult texts, monotheism, Abraham, Impossible Verses?, Christology on January 21st, 2010 10 Comments »
Many of us here at Kingdomready have talked about “Agency” in Scripture before and how much it is a part of the Hebrew thought world & the culture of the biblical writers. A “shaliach” or agent/emissary represented someone and was treated as that individual because legally they were. In our modern society, the closest we get to that is to appoint “Power of Attorney” to someone. They can make legally binding decisions for us because we have designated them to serve in that capacity for us. But in ancient Hebrew culture, the shaliach (or sheliah) wasn’t just that person in a legal sense only. They were also respected, treated, and thought of AS THE ONE THEY REPRESENTED. Back in 2005 a man by the name of David Burge of New Zealand wrote a terrific article about how much this Hebrew ”law of agency” plays out in God’s dealing with man throughout Scripture and how vital it is to understand the concept in order to prevent a host of biblical errors. Here’s the article in its entirety. It is long, but extremely well done!
Posted in Victor's Articles, The Trinity, events, Christology on January 12th, 2010 14 Comments »
We want to welcome anyone who might be logging on to our blog and website after listening to Servetus the Evangelical on “The Line of Fire.” We want to welcome you to engage with us and check out our resources. Please check out Christian Monotheism a site with hundreds of resources - video, audio & articles - on this subject.
Sean Finnegan’s Truth Matters Radio Show interview with Kermit Zarley can be found here.
Posted in Our Father, Yahweh, Messiah Jesus, Sean's Articles, Doctrine, The Trinity, holiday related, monotheism, pre-existence, Christology, Birth of Christ on December 9th, 2009 17 Comments »
Interpretation #1:
From eternity past the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit existed as a community of one, perfect in love, harmony, and joy. In the enternal counsels of this triune God the plan of salvation for the yet-to-be-created human race was decreed. The only question was who would go. Overwhelmed with self-sacrificial love, the Son volunteered to humble himself by uniting humanity to his divinity, veiling his deity by taking on human flesh. Two thousand years ago, this salvation plan was carried out by the second person of the Trinity. He entered the virgin womb of Mary and suddenly she became pregnant with God the Son. He was perfect God and perfect man, not half divine and half human like Hercules, but fully God and fully man in a totally unique way. This incredible event is called the incarnation—the moment when God became man for our salvation. In fact, the cross is not really the most important event for redemption, the incarnation is. For without the humbling act of God giving up his divine prerogatives to condescend to the lowly state of a first century Palestinian Jew, the cross would mean nothing. Thus, in the grand scheme of things, the incarnation is the premier event that brought God to man so that man could be reconciled with God.
- Next »