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 Our Father, Yahweh, Messiah Jesus, Testimony, evangelism, Ron's Articles, monotheism, Baptism on February 27th, 2010 1 Comment »
Thirty yeas ago this June while attending summer church camp as young teen, I sat in the open-air tabernacle listening to the evening evangelist give a dynamic and passionate sermon about Jesus’ 2nd coming. The words he spoke, the Scripture verses he read aloud, the entire tone of his message struck a chord in my inner being. In fact his sermons each previous night of the week-long camp were just as good and weighed heavily in my mind progressively. But this final sermon of the week - on the final night of camp, seemed like God Himself was speaking through this man to give that particular sermon to ME. At the alter call at the end of that service this minister asked if anyone else there in attendance wanted to accept Christ as their Lord & Savior (many had the previous nights & were also baptized). A warmness overtook me and though at first my feet felt like they were nailed to the ground, the moment I decided I had to walk towards the front of the tabernacle, I could have sworn I floated like a feather down the aisle and up the front. With tears in my eyes I knelt and confessed with my words and every emotional fiber within me, that I believed in and accepted Jesus of Nazareth as my Savior. The next day before camp broke up, I was baptized in the same stream that my own grandmother had been baptized in some 50 years before.
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, Testimony, Ron's Articles on February 20th, 2010 1 Comment »
A couple of my recent weekly posts have been about people who made a journey from one set of Biblical beliefs to another because of their investigation of the literal truth of Scripture. This search for truth led one former trinitarian woman to see that her old beliefs in the trinity did not match up to what Scripture actually showed. Another long-time Oneness preacher/singer/songwriter was led to finally see that Jesus is not the same literal being as God, but is really His Son, the real human Messiah.
Now I wish to present a slightly different perspective of a Jewish man who rekindled his ancestral faith while realizing that Jesus (or using his preference - Yeshua) was/is the human Jewish Messiah.
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 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 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 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.
Posted in Messiah Jesus, The Trinity, holiday related, Angela's Articles on December 4th, 2009 62 Comments »
“The Christmas message rests on the staggering fact the child in the manger was—God.”—J. I. Packer, Knowing God (InterVarsity Press, 1993).
If you could be a little fly on the wall, in most churches spread across this great nation of ours, during the Advent Season, you might hear the Pastor speak words such as these: “Welcome to our church this morning! We are celebrating that Jesus humbled himself to be born a baby. Although Jesus was God, he took on the form of man, so that he could die for our sins, so that we might be saved.” If you heard this, you might not think anything about it, and just continue on your “merry” Christmas way, celebrating the season and the birth of the Christ-Child. But, I’d like you to take a moment to ponder what we are really celebrating at this time of year.
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