back to kingdomready.org http://kingdomready.org/blog promoting the gospel of the kingdom and the creed of Jesus Sun, 14 Mar 2010 06:58:44 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.4 en 2010 Theological Conference - an Invitation http://kingdomready.org/blog/2010/03/13/2010-theological-conference-an-invitation/ http://kingdomready.org/blog/2010/03/13/2010-theological-conference-an-invitation/#comments Sun, 14 Mar 2010 03:56:17 +0000 Ron S. Doctrine Ron's Articles Theological Conference Kingdom of God monotheism http://kingdomready.org/blog/2010/03/13/2010-theological-conference-an-invitation/ If you subscribe to Anthony Buzzard’s excellent monthly newsletter “Focus on the Kingdom“, you probably are aware this year’s version of his annual Theological Conference (the 19th) is coming up at the end of next month.  KingdomReady’s very own Sean Finnegan has attended in year’s past, though his busy Masters school schedule will keep him away this time around.  However I’m planning on attending for the first time, and I wanted to invite all of you to attend if you have the opportunity.  There are so few chances for fellow truth-seekers like ourselves to get together in person and learn from one-another, fellowship, and hopefully build lasting friendships in our all-too-small (but hopefully growing) faith. Below is a nice overview from Anthony’s last newsletter.  Hope to see you there!

2010 THEOLOGICAL CONFERENCE

4/25/10 - 4/28/10

Norcross, GA

The 19th annual “Theological Conference” sponsored by Atlanta Bible College and Restoration Fellowship will be held in Atlanta at Simpsonwood Retreat Center from April 25-28th, 2010.

We are hoping to bring together a sizeable group of keen students of the Bible who are impassioned about the Kingdom of God Gospel and the great issues of the identity of God and Jesus. Christians obviously want to take fellowship seriously as part of our mutual responsibility to each other. All are welcome, and interaction with the speakers by way of questions and comments is a feature of our meetings.

These three days together in a beautiful Georgia setting are invigorating and life-changing. Believers in the human Jesus are often scattered and isolated. Do please seriously consider spending these precious days with believers of like mind. Your presence there will be an enormous encouragement and blessing to others. You may want to give your own faith story, a brief account of your faith journey so far. These “stories” are often amongst the most gripping and memorable parts of our time together. Participants report on their (often long) search for good biblical sense and thus a closer knowledge of God and Jesus.

The power of the internet, websites and publication and week by week distribution via Amazon, etc, of existing and brand new books about Jesus and his relationship to the One God have vastly widened the availability of truth. Within a few years, multitudes of the nearly seven billion people on earth will be reachable via the Internet. Already more than 1 1/2 billion are! Do come and celebrate these advances and the vital importance of truth with us, and learn of the recent appearance of very significant biblical unitarian sites. The impact on the world for the Gospel of the Kingdom is becoming limitless (Matt. 24:14). The world of communication is unlike anything our forebears would have imagined. We are all part of the Great Commission, as servants of Jesus the Messiah. Several leaders of the One God movement will speak and exhort us to faithful and instructed discipleship.

For MORE details, costs, and how to attend, please visit the following link - http://focusonthekingdom.org/conf2010.htm.

]]> http://kingdomready.org/blog/2010/03/13/2010-theological-conference-an-invitation/feed/ Just Lip Service http://kingdomready.org/blog/2010/03/12/just-lip-service/ http://kingdomready.org/blog/2010/03/12/just-lip-service/#comments Fri, 12 Mar 2010 05:17:54 +0000 Angela Obedience to Christ sin Angela's Articles http://kingdomready.org/blog/2010/03/12/just-lip-service/ Some verses are just ‘refrigerator verses,’ you know?  I mean the kind like John 3:16 which gives a great message, makes you feel good, and you’re not afraid to post it for all to see.  People post verses on bumper stickers, t-shirts, refrigerator magnets, Facebook statuses, and I even have some stenciled on my walls.  I love the reminder of God’s words being everywhere my eyes might happen to fall.  Deuteronomy 6:6-9 comes to mind, which says, “And these words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up.  And you shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead.  And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”

But what do you do with a verse like this one: “You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin.”  Hebrews 12:4.

Pow.  That simple sentence carries a lot of punch, doesn’t it?  That verse hit me between the eyes this morning like ice water (or gatorade) dumped over the football coach on a cold winter day.  It just seems like lately that there are all these little things that God seems to be chipping away at me, all at once, and it’s not been pleasant.  At all.  I like to think that I’m somewhat of a mature (yet humble!) Christian, who has worked through some of my junk and gotten passed some of these things that the Bible would call ‘sin.’  Yet, here I am, still struggling with things, and God is making it more and more clear that it’s time that this junk leaves and makes it’s home somewhere else.  He seems to be bringing out all kinds of stuff that I didn’t even know I had a problem with.  Wow.  I wonder, how could I not see that?  Did I have some huge plank in my eye, or what?

I know humility, brokenness, and repentance leads to revival, healing and righteousness.  It’s just not my idea of fun as Hebrews 12:11 tells us: “All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.”  You aren’t kidding me.  It is definitely not joyful.  The reason being is, we’re crucifying ourselves, dying to our own will and instead, submitting to God’s will for us.  Death to one’s flesh & will is not going to be a joy ride, but rather a painful ordeal.  Romans 8:13 says, “For if you are living according to the flesh, you must DIE; but if by the Spirit you are putting to DEATH the deeds of the body, you will live.”  When we can see the end result of what we can be when God is completing us, it’s worth it. When God works on me, I am still ‘me,’ just a better me, that more people will enjoy being around!   When we read in Romans 8 that if we are led by the Spirit of God, then we are ‘sons of God’ and if children of God, then heirs of God, and fellow heirs with Christ, to inherit the world (Romans 4:13), then that hope of our future reward can also pull us through the painful cutting off of one’s eye or arm that has caused us to sin or the elimination of some habit or stronghold that we are having problems saying ‘goodbye’ to.

Today’s Scripture of Hebrews 12:4 is a great reminder, without beating around the bush, that maybe we aren’t striving against sin enough, if we aren’t sweating out drops of blood.  Perhaps we are too accommodating and accepting of sin in ourselves, overlooking it, allowing it to move in and take up permanent residence, when we should be instead, battling it with a fierceness and determination that proves that we really don’t want that sin in our lives.  Otherwise, our actions contradict what we say, and instead reveal the truth that maybe we like that sin and want to keep doing it.

Jesus said it well in John 14:15, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”  Obedience to Jesus is not easy, but if we truly love Him, we will obey Him.  If we are having difficulty obeying, then it is becomes a heart issue and we need to wrestle that out.  “Then the LORD said, ‘Because this people draw near in their words, and honor me with their lip service, but they remove their hearts far from Me, and their reverence for Me consists of tradition learned by rote,” Isaiah 29:13.  The more I love the LORD, the more I have a desire to obey Him, not only in my words, but in my heart, thoughts and behavior.  I must remove that sin and quit wallowing around with it, like a pig in the mud pit, and claw my way out if I have to.  Otherwise, I’m just giving Him lip service.

I don’t know about you, but maybe Hebrews 12:4 needs to become my refrigerator verse and a daily reminder that I need to constantly be striving against any sin in my life, and focus on my obedience to my Heavenly Father and my Lord Messiah, to know that my love is in my heart, and not just on my lips.  It’s easy to talk the talk, but it takes a lot more effort to walk the walk.  I have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in my striving against sin.  Today, I will resist sin a little harder and fight the battle, as if my life (both my life now and my future eternal life in the age to come) might depend upon it.

]]> http://kingdomready.org/blog/2010/03/12/just-lip-service/feed/ The Pronunciation of the Name http://kingdomready.org/blog/2010/03/11/the-pronunciation-of-the-name/ http://kingdomready.org/blog/2010/03/11/the-pronunciation-of-the-name/#comments Thu, 11 Mar 2010 12:10:18 +0000 Guest Author monotheism http://kingdomready.org/blog/2010/03/11/the-pronunciation-of-the-name/ This post below is from one of our frequent visitors Jaco.  It is an article by Nehemia Gordon.

One of the effects of the ban on the name is that the exact pronunciation has become obscured. For nearly a thousand years the name was not used in daily worship and today we are faced with the question of how to pronounce it. Some of the better-known suggestions are Yahweh and Jehovah. But why the confusion and what is the truepronunciation of the name? The problem with the pronunciation of the name stems from the fact that the Hebrew language records vowels and consonants with two separate and distinct sets of symbols. The consonants are written as letters and the vowels as dots and dashes. When it comes to the name it is widely believed that the vowels were systematically replaced with the vowels of the word Adonai (Lord). So modern scholars deliberately ignore the vowels of YHVH which are actually written in the Hebrew text of Scripture and attempt to reconstruct what the “original” vowels were based on all kinds of external arguments and speculations. As a result, scholars arrive at different conclusions as to how the name was originally pronounced. One of the most popular theories is that the name was pronounced Yahweh and there is a virtual scholarly consensus concerning this name. However, this consensus is not based on decisive proof. The Anchor Bible Dictionary explains: “The pronunciation of yhwh as Yahweh is a scholarly guess.” a  If  “Yahweh” is a wild guess, what do we really know about how the name was pronounced? And what of the argument that the vowels of YHVH in the Hebrew text are really the vowels of Adonai as scholars universally claim? Contrary to popular belief the name YHVH itself has not been suppressed from the written text of Scripture. In fact, the consonants of the name YHVH appear some 6828 times in the Hebrew text of Scripture. But what of the vowels? Are they really the vowels of Adonai? 

To understand this problem we must consider an ancient Hebrew scribal practice called Kere-Qetiv, “the read (Qere) and the written (Ketiv)”. 

a “Yahweh”, Anchor Bible Dictionary, D.N. Freedman, et al, (eds.), New York 1992, vol. 6, p.1011

Qere-Ketiv occurs when a certain word is written in Scripture one way (Ketiv), but a note in the margin of the biblical text indicates that it is to be read as if it were written another way (Qere). Apparently, many of the Qere-Ketivs were formed when the Temple scribes compared two or three ancient manuscripts of Scripture. The scribes found slight differences between the manuscripts and left one form of the word in the body of Scripture while the other they recorded in the margin. The significance of Qere-Ketiv for the question of the divine name is that the Ketiv, the form written in the body of Scripture, is always written with the vowels of the Qere, the way the word is read.  The argument concerning the name is that YHVH has the consonants of the name but the vowels of Adonai and this is presented as fact in every introduction to Biblical Hebrew and every scholarly discussion of the name. There are two problems with this scholarly consensus. The first is that in all the other instances of Qere-Ketiv, the word which is read differently than the way it is written is marked by a circle in the biblical manuscripts. The circle refers the reader to a marginal note that says “read it such and such”. So in the instance of the name we would expect there to be a circle over the word YHVH with a marginal note instructing us “read it Adonai” But no such note exists! YHVH appears 6828 times in the Hebrew text of Scripture but it is never identified as a Qere-Ketiv by either a scribal circle or a marginal note. The second problem with the claim that YHVH has the vowels of Adonai is quite simplythat it does not! The vowels of Adonai are A-O-A (hataf patach - cholam - kamats). In contrast, the name YHVH is written with the vowels e—A (sheva - no vowel -kamats). The vowels of YHVH are clearly different from the vowels of Adonai! YHVH is written YeHVaH but with the vowels of Adonai it should have been Yahovah! How is it that the scholarly consensus missed this factual evidence? Up until recently printers of the text of Scripture have freely modified the name YHVH. In many printings of the Hebrew Scriptures YHVH is written with no vowels at all while in other printings it is in fact written as Yahovah with the vowels of Adonai. However, when we check the earliest complete manuscripts of Scripture we find that YHVH is written YeHVaH. This is how YHVH is written in the Ben Asher manuscripts (Aleppo Codex and the Leningrad Codex b) which preserve the most accurate complete text of Scripture.  In these photographs it is clear that the name YHVH is written repeatedly as YeHVaH and not with the vowels of Adonai as YaHoVaH. 

b Leningrad Codex is also known as LB19a, and is now available as, The Leningrad Codex; A Facsimile Edition, D.N. Freedman (editor), Wm B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 1998.

Before considering the vowels of YeHVaH actually documented in the text of Scripture, we must briefly consider the scholarly consensus concerning Yahweh. As already mentioned, scholars disregarded the vowels of YHVH in the biblical manuscripts and look to outside sources to try and recover the original pronunciation of the name. The primary source for this reconstruction is the writings of Theodoret of Cyrus, a so-called Church Father who lived in the 5th Century CE. Theodoret writes concerning the nameYHVH: “The Samaritans call it IABE while the Jews AIA.” The form AIA (pronounced A-Yah) indicates that the Jews called God by the abbreviated form of His name Yah which appears numerous times throughout Scripture. The form Yah follows an ancient practice of taking the first and last letter of a word to express an abbreviation. So the first and last letters of YHVH produce the abbreviation Yah. But how did the Jews get AIA from Yah? One of the characteristics of late Hebrew is the increase of prosthetic Aleph. Prosthetic Aleph is an aleph added to the beginning of a word in order to ease pronunciation. The prosthetic Aleph existed in Biblical times and thus theforms *rba (four) and *tsba (finger) were pronounced arba and etsba even in the time of the Bible. But in post-biblical times prosthetic Aleph became rampant and could be added to almost any word. So AIA is simply Yah with a prosthetic Aleph added to the beginning of the word to ease pronunciation. Theodoret of Cyrus is telling us that the Jews of his day called God by the name A-Yah. By Theodoret’s time the pronunciation of the name was supposedly suppressed among Jews by the ban of Abba Saul. Because of this scholars give more weight to the pronunciation of the Samaritans reported by Theodoret. Theodoret says that the Samaritans pronounce the name YHVH as IABE (pronounced Ya-be). Now if we were to translate this directly back into Hebrew we would get something like Yabeh. This example highlights some of the problems with using Greek transcriptions to precisely reconstruct Hebrew pronunciation. First, we must observe that ancient Greek did not have an H sound in the middle of words. So the first H in YHVH, whatever the vowels attached to it, would be dropped by the Greek. Secondly, Greek did not have a W or a V sound. So the third letter of the divine name must also be dropped or distorted by the Greek. Finally the vowels of ancient Greek were much different than the Hebrew vowels system. Biblical Hebrew had 9 vowels which do not have exact correspondents vowels in Greek. So whatever Theodoret of Cyrus heard from the Samaritans, his mission of transcribing the name in Greek was hopeless. What of the form IABE? Most scholars claim that the B in IABE is a distortion of a Hebrew Vav and that the first He of YHVH dropped because Greek does not have a H sound in the middle of a word. As a result most scholars translate the Samaritan IABE back into Hebrew as Yahweh. This is the “scholarly guess” of which the Anchor Bible Dictionary spoke. The reason this pronunciation is given so much credence is that it is assumed that the Samaritans were not yet under the ban of the Rabbis and still remembered how to pronounce the name in the time of Theodoret. But is this the best explanation of the Samaritan IABE? It turns out that the ancient Samaritans called God Yafeh meaning, the beautiful one. Now in Samaritan Hebrew the letter Pe is often replaced by B. So what probably happened is the Samaritans told Theodoret that God is called Yafeh, “the beautiful one”, but in their corrupt pronunciation of Hebrew it came out as Yabe. This seems supported by the fact that the Samaritans did in fact adopt the ban on the name, perhaps even before the Jews. Instead of pronouncing the name YHVH the Samaritans call God shema. Now shema is usually understood as an Aramaic form of hashem meaning “the name”, but we cannot help but observe the similarity between the Samaritan shema and the pagan ashema, which according to 2Ki 17:30 was one of the gods worshipped by the Samaritans when they first came to the Land of Israel in the 8th century BCE. So already c.700 BCE the Samaritans called upon Ashema and not YHWH. The scholarly consensus adds a second proof to support the alleged Samaritan pronunciation of Yahweh/ IABE. They point out the connection between the name of YHVH and the root HYH, to be. This connection is explicitly made in Ex 3:13-14, where we read, “(13) And Moses said to God, Behold when I am coming to the children of Israel and say ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you’, and they say to me, ‘What is His name?’, what should I tell them? (14) And God said to Moses, Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh (I am that which I am), and He said, thus shall you say to the children of Israel, ‘Ehyeh has sent me to you’.” (Ex 3:13-14) So Moses asks YHWH what name he should give the Israelites when they asked about God. YHWH replies that Moses should say that he was sent by Ehyeh which is a verb from the root HYH, to be, meaning “I am”. Immediately after declaring Himself to be Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh, YHVH further explains that His eternal name is YHVH: “(15) And God said further to Moses, thus shall you say to the Children of Israel: ‘YHWH the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob has sent me to you, this is my name forever, this is my mention for every generation’” (Ex 3:15) But how can YHVH be related to HYH, to be? In Hebrew the letters Vav and Yod are weak letters which are sometimes interchangeable with one another. For example, the word yeled (child) has a variant form valad in which the usual Yod is replaced with a Vav. We find a similar replacement in the root HYH to be. The present tense of the verb HYH, to be, is hoveh (Ecc 2:22) with the Yod being replaced with a Vav. This replacement seems to happen especially in names. So linguistically there is no problem with YHVH being derived from HYH to be. This is why YHVH presents Himself to Moses as Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh (I am that which I am), which is a veiled allusion to His name YHVH presented in the following verse. It is a rule of biblical Hebrew that when a verb is incorporated into a name its vowels are freely modified.  Indeed, it is the norm for verbs to be modified when incorporated into names. So the name YHVH could easily contain the verbal root HYH without this dictating its vowels. The attempt to force a grammatical verb-form on a name goes against the rules of the Hebrew language. We have seen that the scholarly consensus concerning Yahweh is really just a wild guess. At the same time we saw that the universally accepted “fact” that YHVH has the vowels of Adonai is factually untrue. The actual vocalization of the name YHVH in the ancient Hebrew manuscripts is YeHVaH. Clearly YeHVaH does not have the vowels of Adonai. But are these the actual vowels of the divine name? The first thing we may observe about the vowels of YeHVaH is that the vowel following the first H is missing. A fundamental rule of the Hebrew language is that a consonant in the middle of a word must be followed by either a vowel or a silent sheva. Now there are sometimes silent letters in the middle of a word that have no vowel or sheva. But this is never the case with an H in the middle of a word. In Biblical Hebrew, it is common for H to be silent at the end of a word, but there is no such thing as a silent H in the middle of a word. This means that by the rules of the Hebrew language the first H in YHVH must have some vowel. So what happened to this missing vowel? When the biblical scribes wanted to omit a word they would remove its vowels. The medieval reader knew that when he came across a word without vowels that this was a word that was not to be read. It is possible that the medieval scribes omitted the vowel in the first H of YeHVaH to prevent the readers from reading the name out loud.  Another point worth noting is that in the Aleppo Codex, the most precise manuscript of the biblical text, the name YHVH gets the vowels Yehovih when it is juxtaposed to the word Adonai. It seems that the “i” (chiriq) in Yehovih is a reminder to the reader to read this word as Elohim (God), since reading it Adonai would result in Adonai twice in a row. However, this is not a genuine Qere-Ketiv in which the “written” form has all the vowels of the “read” form. This seems to be a unique scribal practice which consists of changing a single vowel in order to remind the reader how to read the name YHVH. Now when YHVH stands by itself, it has the vowels Yeh?vah, the solitary change to the vowels being that the vowel after H is dropped after the He. This prevents the reader from accidentally reading the name is it is written. In contrast, when YHVH stands next to Adonai the “a” (kamats) is changed to an “i” (chiriq) to remind the reader to read it Elohim. What is significant about the form Yehovih is that there is nothing to prevent the reader from accidentally reading the name Yehovih. This form of the name has a full set of vowels and can be read like any other word in the Hebrew language. Now, for some reason the “Masoretic” scribes who copied Scripture in the Middle Ages were concerned about their readers pronouncing the word Yeh?vah but not concerned at all about them accidentally pronouncing the name Yehovih. This must be connected to the ban on the name which the Masoretic scribes clearly accepted. The only reason the Masoretic scribes would have left the form Yehovih without dropping the vowel after the H is because they knew this was not the true pronunciation of the divine name. In contrast,when they saw Yeh?vah they knew this to be the true pronunciation of the name and therefore suppressed the middle vowel. But what is the missing middle vowel in Yehvah? Comparing the two forms Yeh?vah and Yehowih it appears that the missing vowel was “o” (cholam). This means that the Masoretic scribes knew the name to be Yehovah and suppressed its pronunciation by omitting the “o”. This is confirmed by the fact that the scribes actually forgot to suppress the vowel “o” in a number of instances. The way scribes copied ancient writings was to read the words either out loud or under their breath. The scribe sometimes made a mistake and wrote what he heard from his own lips, even if this differed from what he read with his eyes. In the case of the divine name the scribe knew that the word YHVH sounded like Yehovah and even though he was supposed to suppress the vowel “o” he left it in, in a few dozen instances. In the LenB19a Masoretic manuscript, the earliest complete Masoretic manuscript and the basis of renowned BHS edition c , the name is written Yehovah 50 times out of a total of 6828. It is significant that no other vowel besides “o” was “accidentally” inserted into the divine name. There is other evidence that points to the missing vowel in Yeh?vah being “o”. Many Hebrew names incorporate part of the divine name as part of a compound name. For example, Yehoshua (Joshua) means “YHVH saves” while Yeshayahu (Isaiah) also means “YHVH saves”. We can see that the divine name when incorporated into other names is Yeho- when it appears at the beginning of a name and -yahu at the end of the name. Proponents of the name as Yahweh often cite the ending form -yahu as proof of their pronunciation. There are two problems with this. Firstly, the divine element -yahu is not consistent with the pronunciation Yahweh. 

c BHS stands for Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (edited by K. Elliger and W. Rudolph, et al, DeutscheBibelgesellschaft Stuttgart 1967/77, 1983). To date BHS is the most precise printing of the Hebrew Scriptures only rarely deviating from the Leningrad Codex. The Leningrad Codex is also the basis for the Biblical Hebraica Leningradensia (edited A. Dotan, Hendrickson Publishers 2001) and is used in many other editions to fill in the missing portions of the Aleppo Codex (e.g. Keter Yerushalayim, edited Y. Ofer and M. Broyer, N. Ben-Zvi Printing Enterprises 2001). 

Instead it might suggest such pronunciation as Yahuvah but not Yahweh. In Hebrew there is even less similarity between Yahweh and  -yahu. Yahweh  is spelled with a Hebrew vowel called chataf patach while -yahu has the vowel kamats. These are two entirely differently vowels which in ancient times were pronounced completely different. This is only a mistake that an English or German speaker could make! Secondly, in the name YHVH, the letters YHW- are actually at the beginning of the name not the end. So if we look to names such as Joshua/ Isaiah as our model of reconstructing the pronunciation of the divine name we must choose the pattern Yeho- which is at the beginning of these compound names, not the end. If we combine this piece of information with the form Yeh?vah documented in the biblical text we get the form Yehovah. It is worth noting that the English Jehovah is quite simply an Anglicized form of Yehovah. The main difference is that the English letter J has crept its way into the divine name. Of course, Hebrew does not have a J sound and the letter in Hebrew is Yod which is pronounced like English “Y”. Another difference is that in the Masoretic text the name has the accent on the end of the word. So the name is really pronounced Yehovah with the emphasis on “vah”. Pronouncing the name Yehovah with the emphasis on “ho” (as in English Jehovah) would quite simply be a mistake. One question we must consider is how the Masoretes, the medieval scribes who copied the text of Scripture and suppressed the “o” in Yehovah, could have known the true pronunciation of the name. After all, the ban on the name was supposedly in full force since the time of Abba Saul in the 2nd century CE. One of the things we know about the Masoretic scribes is that they were Karaites. We also know that there were two factions of Karaites, those that required the pronunciation of the name and those that forbade it. It is clear that the Masoretes belonged to the group that forbade the pronunciation of the name and this was why they suppressed the middle vowel from Yehovah. At the same time they heard how the other Karaites pronounced the name so they knew how it was properly pronounced. The 10th century Karaite sage Kirkisani reports that the Karaites who pronounced the name were based in Persia (Khorasan). Persia had been a major Jewish center ever since the 10 Tribes were exiled to the “cities of Media” (2Ki 17:6) and remained so up until the Mongol invasion in the 13th century. Because Persia was so far from the Rabbinical centers of Galilee and Babylonia, the Jews of Persia were protected from the Rabbinical innovations in the Mishnah and Talmud up until the 7th century CE. It was only when the Rabbis attempted to impose these innovations on the Jews of Persia in the 7th-8th centuries that the Karaite Movement rose up to ensure the preservation of the old ways. So it is not surprising that the Karaites of Persia preserved the correct pronunciation of the name from ancient times. It seems that the Masoretes suppressed the vowel “o” from the divine name to prevent their fellow Karaites from simply reading the name as it was written. Now when these Karaites read the Biblical text, they had to provide the vowel missing from the name themselves.

]]> http://kingdomready.org/blog/2010/03/11/the-pronunciation-of-the-name/feed/ Who Is Messiah? (Part 5) http://kingdomready.org/blog/2010/03/08/who-is-messiah-part-5/ http://kingdomready.org/blog/2010/03/08/who-is-messiah-part-5/#comments Mon, 08 Mar 2010 19:34:07 +0000 Mark C. Messiah Jesus Doctrine The Trinity Primitive Christianity Church History Christology http://kingdomready.org/blog/2010/03/08/who-is-messiah-part-5/ 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.

Mark 12:
28 And one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, and perceiving that he had answered them well, asked him, Which is the first commandment of all?
29 And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord:
30 And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.
31 And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.
32 And the scribe said unto him, Well, Master, thou hast said the truth: for there is one God; and there is none other but he:
33 And to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbour as himself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.
34 And when Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, he said unto him, Thou art not far from the kingdom of God. And no man after that durst ask him any question.

Jesus quoted the Shema in this passage. When he did, the scribe readily agreed with him. Was Jesus a Trinitarian or did he affirm the Jewish unitarian monotheistic creed? Jesus and the scribe both agreed that YHWH was the One True God and there was no other. The scribes, and indeed all Jews from Old Testament times on, held that God was one, and never considered it in a Trinitarian sense. The word “discreetly” in verse 34 is translated “wisely” or “intelligently” in other versions. Jesus concluded their discourse with the statement, “Thou art not far from the kingdom of God.” If Jesus was a Trinitarian, he’d have been dishonest to agree with the scribe.

Had Jesus believed that God was one essence, but existing in three persons, it would have constituted a major departure from traditional Jewish doctrine. Such a departure on the part of Jesus or his disciples would have been met with questions and controversy as well. But no such controversy ever occurred in the first century Church. There was controversy about the need for Messiah to be crucified, about the need to keep the letter of the Law, and especially about the inclusion of Gentiles in the Church. But no controversy ever arose in the first century concerning the definition of God as more than one person.

None of the apostles subscribed to the notion that Jesus was God. The first century Church (who were mostly converted Jews) believed that Jesus was the Messiah promised to Israel. However, when more and more Gentiles became Christians, Gentile thinking came to dominate the Church, replacing Hebrew thinking, as discussed in the article about the Hebrew Origins of the Bible. With the loss of Hebrew understanding, the terms “Son of God” and “Son of Man” lost much of their meaning and eventually took on new meaning, based on Greek philosophical ideas. Similarly, words like “Lord,” “God,” “person” and “Word” acquired new meaning when the Hebrew understanding was lost. Confusion arose as to the exact relationship between God and Jesus.

Gnosticism was a philosophical movement that predated Christianity, and stemmed from a variety of sources. There are a number of variations, but the basic theme that they have in common is that the spiritual is good, and matter is evil. Escape from the evil of matter was considered to be dependent on gnosis or special knowledge available to those who are fully initiated. Christians who embraced gnosticism began to develop a different interpretation of Jesus. He could not be fully human to them, since matter is evil, so they began to theorize that he was either a spiritual being who inhabited a body, or else only “appeared” to be human (a belief known as “docetism”).

Those who considered him a spiritual being considered him to be a “lesser god” created by God some time after the beginning, but still many years before his birth. But if that were the case, he would not have been entirely human. Likewise, if he only “appeared” to be human, he did not truly come in the flesh. John refuted these ideas in his epistles.

I John 4:
2 Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God:
3 And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.

II John
7 For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist.

In addition, Greek philosophy, particularly stoicism, spoke of a supreme rational principal, which they called logos. It also taught that “hypostases” were realities which derived from higher essentials. The highest principle was called “the One” and from that was derived the second hypostasis, called Mind. From this came the third, or the Soul. Such ideas were incorporated into Christian doctrine as early as the second century Apologists, after the Hebrew understanding of the Messiah was largely lost. They began to describe the Word as a pre-existent person, created by God, but inferior to Him. This shift from the historical coming of the Messiah in the flesh to the incarnation of a pre-existent being, provided the foundation for the doctrine of the Trinity.

Historian Paul Schrodt, in his book The Problem of the Beginning of Dogma in Recent Theology, writes the following:

The world of the second century was marked in its philosophy and religion by a strong syncretism [mixing of alien systems of thought]. The highest expression of this tendency was, of course, Gnosticism. Within its dualism between spirit and matter, cosmological speculations and progressive emanations (Aions) from the highest God linking via these aions to matter, there was found also a place for a revised Gospel of salvation through Christ.

With the Church this hellenization has remained and is to be found first amongst the apologists of the second century…The Church’s monotheism always retained a certain heathen, philosophical pluralistic coloring. This strange coloring of the doctrine of God began with the taking over of the heathen-philosophical notion of Logos, which in the heathen background had a different meaning. In John’s gospel the Logos is tied to the notion of “teacher” and “teaching.” In the philosophy of that time it was, on the contrary, only one Aion of the Most High God. It was in this last meaning that the apologists [Justin Martyr and others] read Philo’s doctrine of the Logos into Scripture.

Thus the Logos, or Word, was changed from God’s preexisting purpose to a preexisting person. Justin Martyr (mid 2nd century) proposed that it was the Son of God, rather than the word of God, which existed before, and appeared as an angel in the Old Testament. Still, the Son was not yet “co-eternal” or “co-equal” with the Father, as later developments described him.

Tertullian was the first Christian writer to use the term “trinity” to describe three “persons” having “one substance,” around the end of the 2nd century. But he still considered the second and third persons to have proceeded from the first to fulfill a specific function. Origen (early-to-mid 3rd century), on the other hand, considered them to have always existed. He coined the term “eternally begotten” or “eternally generated” which is actually a meaningless contradiction in terms, since “begotten” means someone is brought into existence. But “three persons in one substance” means “God” is now a “substance” or an “essence” rather than a person.

Such language, which is essential to the doctrine of the Trinity, was coined to explain the apparent contradiction between Jesus being deity (in whatever sense) and the belief in only one God. Had these Christian writers simply maintained the original Jewish understanding of God and Lord, along with the understanding of Messiah being God’s Son and thus His ultimate representative, there would have been no contradiction. There would therefore have been no need to coin new language which, in addition to being illogical and self-contradictory, is found nowhere in the Bible. Instead they believed that Greek philosophy provided a way to explain the complex nature of God. They then took these foreign concepts and read them back into the Scriptures, in an attempt to prove that the concepts were Biblical.

As time went on, differences in the nature of the Son and of his relationship with the Father grew more contentious. Athanasius taught that Jesus was co-equal with God, while the Arians believed he was inferior to the Father (though they still believed he preexisted his birth). The heated division over these questions necessitated the Council of Nicea in 325. Under the leadership of the Emperor Constantine, it was officially declared that Jesus was God. The Nicene creed states that he was “begotten of the Father before all ages; God from God; Light from Light; True God from True God; begotten, not made; being of one substance with the Father; by whom all things were made.” In 381, the Council of Constantinople added the designation that the Holy Ghost was “the Lord and Giver of Life; who proceeds from the Father and the Son; who together with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified; and who spoke through the prophets.”

The doctrine was further developed in the middle ages, as witnessed by the Athanasian Creed of the fifth century. It states that “Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic Faith; which faith except every one do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly. And the Catholic Faith is this: that we worship One God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the substance. For there is one person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost is all one; the glory equal, the majesty co-eternal.”

However, complete equality with regards to their origins was still not claimed for all three, but rather it states, “The Father is neither made, created, nor begotten. The Son of the Father alone, not made, nor created, but begotten. The Holy Ghost is of the Father and the Son, neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding.” After the Reformation, this distinction was dropped and the definition of the Trinity was fully developed into three persons in one God, completely equal in origin as well as substance, power, and glory.

Since the first introduction of these doctrines, there were always individuals or small groups that opposed the “orthodox” teaching. They were generally excommunicated, exiled, and often persecuted and even killed. Yet there have always been small pockets of Biblical Unitarians throughout history. The 16th century Anabaptists and the Radical Reformation brought it more into the open, and during the 1800s many more people came to an understanding of this view of Jesus. Today, many Biblical scholars recognize that the Scriptures present Jesus Christ as the only-begotten Son of God, and not God the Son. However, they are in the minority and often ridiculed or berated. Nevertheless, they present a sound case that doctrine of the Trinity cannot be shown from the Bible, and in fact is refuted by it.

To Be Continued…

]]> http://kingdomready.org/blog/2010/03/08/who-is-messiah-part-5/feed/ Tolerance among Unitarians http://kingdomready.org/blog/2010/03/07/tolerance-among-unitarians/ http://kingdomready.org/blog/2010/03/07/tolerance-among-unitarians/#comments Mon, 08 Mar 2010 00:00:53 +0000 Brian Keating Random Brian Keating's Articles http://kingdomready.org/blog/2010/03/07/tolerance-among-unitarians/ As most of us are probably aware, there are very, very few “Unitarian Christians” in the world; i.e., Christians who recognize that Almighty God is only one person - our heavenly Father, Yahweh. In fact, the only belief that almost all mainstream churches agree on is that God is not one person, but rather that He is “three persons in one Godhead”.

As a result, the number of Unitarian Christians around the world is extremely limited - Unitarians presumably account for (much) less than 1% of all Christians. Therefore, in my opinion, it is very important for Unitarians to be able to fellowship with each other; even if we have disagreements about other issues.

For me, there are only three “vital” issues: God is one person - Yahweh; Jesus is the Son of God (not God the Son); and Jesus will establish the kingdom of God, on the earth. I would hope that everyone who holds those beliefs would be able to fellowship gladly with each other; regardless of other issues.

Sadly, from my experience, some other issues have caused severe divisions, and hard feelings, among Unitarians. Some of those issues are as follows:

- Following elements of the Mosaic law (Sabbath keeping, Kosher laws, etc).

- The personal pre-existence of Christ (as opposed to his “ideal” pre-existence).

- And, most notably, Speaking in Tongues.

I don’t have any problems fellowshipping with people who hold the above beliefs. However, in some cases, people who hold the above beliefs have had problems fellowshipping with me!

From what I have seen, the issue that has caused the most discord is Speaking in Tongues. What I mean by that is the following doctrine:

“All Christians have the ability to do legitimate speaking in tongues, whenever they decide to.”

From my experience, some people who do hold that belief tend to “look down” on Christians who do not - regardless of any other issue! In other words, that particular doctrine seems to be the “test of a true Christian” for some people. In my opinion, this should not be the case; Christians should not cause divisions - and certainly should not form “cliques” - based upon that one specific belief.

So, I’d like to solicit information from all of you. In particular, I would like to ask you all the following questions:

1. Have any of you seen the above issues cause divisions, in any of your fellowships?

2. Do you think that the above issues should cause divisions? In other words, are those issues important enough to risk destroying a fellowship?

Please let me know what you think!

]]> http://kingdomready.org/blog/2010/03/07/tolerance-among-unitarians/feed/ Who Me? http://kingdomready.org/blog/2010/03/05/who-me/ http://kingdomready.org/blog/2010/03/05/who-me/#comments Fri, 05 Mar 2010 05:52:11 +0000 Angela Obedience to Christ evangelism Angela's Articles http://kingdomready.org/blog/2010/03/05/who-me/ (Facing God’s Calling Upon Your Life)

Most everyone is familiar with the story of Jonah in the Bible.  He even has his own book in the Old Testament named after him.  He was made famous for running away from God, getting swallowed by a big fish, then spewed out, so he could be obedient to God and go preach to Nineveh.  Jonah sometimes gets the bad rap because he didn’t really want to do what God asked, was disobedient, and had a bad attitude.  We, Sunday School teachers, shake our fingers at him, and say, ‘tsk tsk. See what happens when you don’t do what God has called you to do?’ Yet, how many times does God ask us to do much smaller, easier, insignificant things, and we turn away as if we didn’t hear Him ask?

I confess, I am a Jonah.  Everything God has ever asked me to do, I’ve either said ‘no way! You’ve got the WRONG person!’ or “Not now.  I’m not ready!’ or “That’s impossible.  It can’t be done.”  And thankfully, God hasn’t given up on me yet.  My Heavenly Father pursues me, just like He did Jonah.  Oh, there’s no giant fish to swallow me up to teach me a lesson.  That’s not going to happen when I avoid water and boats like the plague.  No, God pursues me in other ways.  One major tactic that He uses on me, is that He takes away my peace.  I just never have a peace about something, until I cave in and do it His way.  Sometimes, He orchestrates the scene, until it is so obvious what I am supposed to do, I realize it would be disobedient of me to NOT follow His will.  Then I do it, only because I have to.  My attitude isn’t always the best.  Who am I kidding?  Have you heard of the saying, “dragging their feet” when someone is asked to do something that they don’t want to do?  Well, that phrase can sometimes apply to me.  I can usually have a cazillion excuses ready, of why I am hesitating or not giving it my all.

Sometimes, it’s not really that obvious what God wants me to do, and some might think that’s a good time to wait.  When does God want you to wait on Him, and when does He want you to take a step of faith and get out of the boat, trusting Him ahead of time in a situation?  It can be different in every situation.  Only when you’re finely in tune with God’s Spirit will one really be able to answer that question.  (Let me refer you to Romans 12:2 if this is something you struggle with).  But, let me confess a little more while I’m on a roll.  I mean, why not?  I doubt if you’ll want to stop me.  Maybe you’re shaking your head, saying “that’s me, too.”  You see,  I’m not a big risk taker.  I don’t like change.  I don’t really enjoy meeting new people.  People don’t believe I’m ‘shy’ but I am.  I am not bold. Or confident.  Or looking to be an example for others.  Here’s a little secret of mine:  I carry a book everywhere I go, so if I get stuck in some sort of awkward social situation that I’d rather not be in, I can pull my book out, stick my nose in it, and feel a little more comfortable.  See?  It’s tough being me!  Some days, I’d just rather go climb in a hole and live my life alone.  But, God would be terribly disappointed in me, wouldn’t He, if that’s the life I chose to live for Him?

God has plans for me, just like He does you.  He has a calling on my life, just like He does on yours, and just like He did on Jonah’s.  Sometimes, we think we must be ‘called’ to become a ‘minister,’ but my belief is, that we are all called to be one in our little corner of the world that God has placed us in.  We are all called to live out and share the Gospel of the Kingdom and Jesus Christ with those around us.  This responsibility isn’t just saved for the person in your midst called “Pastor” or “Reverend.”  And that’s the “Great Commission” that God will use to pull us out of our comfort zones; Put us into new situations; Make us meet new people; Open our mouths and share something, when we’d rather stay silent; or when we’re cursed with shyness.  Yes, God will definitely force us out of our comfort zone, if we are really listening and obeying the voice and the calling of God in our lives.  And that’s when we most feel like running, like Jonah did.

The beautiful thing about the story of Jonah that I like the best, is the amount of time God invested in Jonah, pursuing him, listening to his complaining (doesn’t David encourage us to do so in Psalm 142:2?  “I pour out my complaint before Him; I declare my trouble before him.”), and giving him a second chance.  Despite Jonah’s unwillingness to jump into His calling the first time, God still guided him, protected him, loved him, and understood him.  He used Jonah to spread His word, to be His hands and feet for Him.  Jonah wasn’t perfect, but obedient.  Okay, maybe he was a little slow in his obedience, and had a huge chip on his shoulder, but God used him nevertheless, and God still loves and uses us, too.  Even when we aren’t quite the top of the litter, or the best cookie in the dozen.  The story of Jonah helps us to face up to our calling.  It encourages us that we might not be jumping up and down like Isaiah did in Isaiah 6, shouting, “Here I am!  Send ME!  Send ME!!” yet, most of us do desire to be obedient to what God is calling us to do, and we are willing to step out of our comfort zone to do so.  Some of us just need a little push, is all.

Okay.  Ready?…I’ll push you a little, if you give me a little boost… Okay….here we go……….!!!!!!!!!!!!

]]> http://kingdomready.org/blog/2010/03/05/who-me/feed/ Trip to Ephesos http://kingdomready.org/blog/2010/03/04/trip-to-ephesos/ http://kingdomready.org/blog/2010/03/04/trip-to-ephesos/#comments Thu, 04 Mar 2010 19:57:15 +0000 Sean archeology http://kingdomready.org/blog/2010/03/04/trip-to-ephesos/ I am leaving for Turkey today. As many of you know I’m working towards a master’s degree at Boston University. As part of that program, a class is being offered where I am able to travel to ancient Ephesos (near modern Selçuk in Turkey) to study ancient Roman culture. One of the major benefits of studying these ancient ruins is to become acquainted with the kind of world that was present when Paul first preached the gospel there. Furthermore, since Epehesos was a major metropolis, the capital of the Roman province of Asia, it is representative of other imperial cities.

We will be spending ten days in Turkey, and our time will be spent primarily among the ancient ruins of Ephesos, but we will also make short day trips to other locations (including Miletus, cf. Acts 20).

Please pray for me, especially for safety while traveling.

]]> http://kingdomready.org/blog/2010/03/04/trip-to-ephesos/feed/ A Preacher’s Desire for Rebaptism to the REAL Christ http://kingdomready.org/blog/2010/02/27/a-preachers-desire-for-rebaptism-to-the-real-christ/ http://kingdomready.org/blog/2010/02/27/a-preachers-desire-for-rebaptism-to-the-real-christ/#comments Sat, 27 Feb 2010 21:24:41 +0000 Ron S. Our Father, Yahweh Messiah Jesus Testimony evangelism Ron's Articles monotheism Baptism http://kingdomready.org/blog/2010/02/27/a-preachers-desire-for-rebaptism-to-the-real-christ/ 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.

That minister was brother Z.B. Duncan of Lenoir, North Carolina.  He was a former Advent Christian minister and at that time and until his death was the preacher of the Resurrection Hope Church of God (Abrahamic Faith) of Lenoir, NC.

Brother Z.B. Duncan strongly believed in the importance of correctly choosing to follow the real Jesus Christ and to accept the truth that Scripture tells us about the one God of the universe and His Son the Messiah. Here in his own words, I present the story of why Z.B. had himself re-baptized as an adult - even though he been preaching for years.

.

Why I Was Rebaptized
 

By:  Z. B. Duncan

Why I, Z. B. Duncan, was rebaptized after having been baptized at the age of 14. This will be brief, yet long, but it would take a book to write all I would like.

(Mark 16:15) “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature; he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.“  The first condition for being saved is to believe the Gospel.  Suppose one is baptized and does not believe the Gospel?

At the age of 14 I was baptized by a Methodist minister.  Did I believe the Gospel?  (Oh I believed that Jesus Christ was some kind of Saviour who had gone to heaven to prepare a place for me. He had somehow gone to Calvary and let his earthly tabernacle (the body) die while he, the real Jesus, slipped away for 72 hours for a visit, and to preach to spirits in prison; that he came back 72 hours later and picked up the body; and then after 40 days, in which he spent with his disciples, he went to heaven.  I believed that Jesus did all this to save my never dying, immortal, soul from an everlasting, never ending, ever conscious, torture pit of sulfur fumes, fire, and brimstone, flames in a place called hell.  This mysterious saviour, who really was as old as God, was probably God.  In some unknown and mysterious way he came to earth, spent 9 months in a woman’s womb, and incarnated himself into a little human body so he could save me from a devil’s hell.)  If this was the gospel, I was baptized into it as the truth of the Almighty God.  The first qualification for saving baptism is found in Acts 8:35, “Then Philip opened his mouth and began at the same scripture, and preached unto him Jesus.”  The thoughts which above had been preached unto me were in the name of Jesus.  This Jesus above had redeemed me from the Devil’s hell and had given me a home beyond the starry sky.

The Pit-fall

Matt. 24:24, “There shall arise false Christs.“  Was the Christ I believed in and was baptized into false or was he the Bible Christ?  I must examine in the light of the Bible who is the true Christ of the Bible.  Was the Christ preached unto me the creator of the world?  Was he of a non-dying nature?  Was he God-incarnate?  Was he truly God and man?  Was he part of a Trinity?  Did he save my soul from an everlasting Devil’s hell?  Has he gone to heaven to build me a mansion beyond the starry sky?

Eunuch’s Confession

What doth hinder me to be baptized?  Was it not answered by Philip?  If thou believest with all thine heart.  The answer, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.”  Had I truly believed this confession when I was baptized at age 14?  In some mysterious way I believed that Jesus Christ was the Son of God but not with all my heart for I believed that he was the father too. Yes, that he was his own father, his own son, and his own holy ghost, while there are actually three and yet not three but only one.  How confusing for a 14 year old.  Mystery of mysteries I confessed him to be the Son of God, but only in pretense, while he was God incarnate.

The Word of Religions or the Word of God

Gal. 1:8, “But though we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached let him be, (justified, excused, or accursed)?“  By this scripture I must examine what has been preached to me. This I began to do.  I Corin. 16:22, “If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, Let him be Anathema (accursed)”.

But when I found that the Lord Jesus Christ was the being who had died and not the one who had slipped out of the body and went off to preach to spirits in prison; when I discovered that the Lord Jesus was the one who had been crucified and buried, not the one who had transmigrated to hell to preach; when I realized that what lay in the tomb was the Lord; I found I had not been loving the Lord Jesus Christ and this classified me under the accursed.  If I love not the true Christ I am accursed with even angels from heaven who preach any other gospel than the one Paul preached in truth.

The Test

I John 5:5, “Who is he that overcometh the world but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?  This is he that came by water and blood, not by water only, but by water and blood.“  The Jesus I knew at age 14 did not come by water and blood but as an immortal never dying entity incarnated into a little babe made in a human body.  Without this little body he had, millions of years before, created the entire universe.  Now to save me he inhabits a body of clay long enough to save me from hell.  When Solomon built the temple he said, “But will God indeed dwell on the earth?  Behold the heaven of heavens cannot contain him how much less this house I have builded.“  I Kings 8:27.  If God could not get into the house which Solomon built; if the heaven of heavens could not contain him; then how could he get into an infant?  (I John 4:1)  “Believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God, because many false prophets are gone out into the world.  Hereby know we the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God.“  (Note: Is come (not came): A state of being in the present tense.)  How do we come in the flesh?  By blood and water.  Everyone who is come in the flesh comes to life by blood and water and is flesh and bones.  This is the Son of God.  This is mortal and can die for my sins.  This one, God can raise from the dead because he [a mortal human] can die.  This one fills the scriptures.  The other cannot.  (Ver. 3) “Every spirit which confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come (not came) in the flesh is not of God and this is that spirit of anti-christ whereof ye have heard that it should come and even now already is in the world.“  (2 John 7)  “For many deceivers are entered into the world who confess not that Jesus Christ is come (not came) in the flesh.  This is a deceiver and an anti-christ.“  Let me ask, Can a deceiver or an anti-christ baptize one into Christ?  (Ver. 10)  “If there come any unto you and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house,” (but you may let him baptize you into Christ if you believe in Christ).   Thank God this is not what it says but rather, “Neither bid him God-speed for he that biddeth him God-speed is partaker of his evil deeds.“  How much more are we partakers of his evil deeds if we are baptized by one who denies the true Lord?  The only way for forgiveness is to repent, be converted, believe the true gospel, and be baptized into Christ by a believer in Christ.

False Prophets

(II Peter 2:1)  “But there were false prophets among the people as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them and bring upon themselves swift destruction; and many shall follow their pernicious ways by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.“  I found that if the word of God is true, then there will be some false prophets among the people and so I must examine.

I found that, true to the word of God, there are damnable heresies which deny the Lord that bought us. I found in the examination that many believed the Lord that bought them was an immaterial entity, a pre-existent one, or God himself incarnated into a body of flesh.  But in Acts 20:28 I found that the Lord who had bought us purchased us with his own blood.  Neither the pre-existent or the incarnated Christ ever had any blood, with which to purchase me.  I found that the one who was made of the seed of David, made of a woman, made under the Law, came by blood and water, could buy me with his own blood.

The Only True God

Jude 4, “For there are certain men crept in unawares who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of God into lasciviousness and denying the only Lord God“! Let me point out that in my childhood I was taught that there was no such thing as an only Lord God but there were actually three which together make one.  I found that I denied the only Lord God as long as I believed in three.  I found that the devil had preached a sermon in the Garden quoting from what God said only adding one word.  (”Ye shall not surely die.”)  Since Satan is a liar and the father of it, would it be legitimate for him to baptize anyone into Christ?  How many would let Satan baptize them?  If we wouldn’t let him, then how about his ministers?

Satan’s Ministers

Fact: (2 Corin. 11:13)  “For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ and no marvel, Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light; Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness.”  Whose end shall be according to their works.“  Note “whose end”: but the righteous shall have no end and part of their work is baptizing.  (I Tim. 6:3, “If any man teach otherwise and consent not to wholesome words even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ and to the doctrine which is according to Godliness he is proud knowing nothing.“) (Isaiah 8:20, “To the law and to the testimony if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.“)  (2 Corin. 6:14, “What communion hath light with darkness?  What concord hath Christ with Belial or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?“)  Let me answer.  The infidel baptized me.  I do not believe that an infidel can baptize anyone into Christ, neither do I believe that anyone who is in darkness can do the work of light.

Let’s get back to my baptism.  After a revival meeting about 30 people were to be baptized.  The Sunday for the baptism all were sprinkled but me, I refused.  I had read the Bible as a child and had come to believe immersion was the true mode of baptism.  Of course I had been informed that joining this particular group I could be baptized either way.  But it seemed that my refusal to be sprinkled sparked a bit of trouble. It seems that the pastor would have to go to the river to baptize just one; he would get wet and have to change clothes.  With this undesirable situation before him he reminded me that sprinkling was good enough for the rest of them and did I not believe that this made them good enough for heaven?  I said No and was accused of judging.  After a week of discussion he finally took me to a riverside where he dipped me in a manner in which I was terribly disappointed, the only ones being present were his father and my mother.

With this background I began my long search for Real Truth.  By the time I was 17 I had begun to see the truth of conditional immortality or life only through Christ.  I began to talk this in the church.  Suddenly like an angry bear robbed of her young the pastor charged into me with fury.  Life-long friends looked at me sadly and turned away.  I had become an infidel, a heretic for believing the truth.  Because I had looked for the Kingdom of God instead of going to heaven.  In seeking a place of refuge I found the Advent Christians a people who are able to preach much of the truth but also have men who advocate the gods of this world namely the trinity.  When I joined this Advent Christian Church I was asked if I had ever been immersed.  I was admitted.  Then the war, in which I had many opportunities to witness for Christ.  After the war I came home to teach Sunday School and fill in occasionally for the pastor.  Then I was called to pastor a church.  As I pastored in my mind and heart I wondered about my baptism but could not find the answer.  I often wondered why I felt this way.  By much prayer and fasting I sat one night in my living room at two in the morning with an humble man who had come to talk about the Kingdom of God.  This man told me that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, that there was only one true and living God.  He said that man was mortal and God’s son died for us, that life hereafter depends on his coming again seeing that God did raise him from the dead and cause him to ascend to heaven, that heaven and hell are not rewards at death.  In short, this man preached what I knew to be the same gospel that Paul preached.  Yet as he spoke of baptism I had for twelve years counted my baptism valid which consecrated me to another Christ and another gospel which I had long renounced as error and which had been administered to me by a minister who got his feet wet against his will.  It had hit me like a thunderbolt from above.  Brother C. F. Pryor looked at me and said, “Bro. Duncan, how about your baptism?”  I now had believed the true gospel.  I now had believed in the true God and his son.  I now believed and had been preaching for 10 years just the opposite of what I had been originally baptized into.  Had I not been preaching for ten years?  What would my congregation say?  Brethren it is not what the congregation has to say and feel about me, that is my salvation.  It is not what my wife, children, or friends think but what my Lord would have me to do. If there is anyone on the earth who wants to be saved and delivered into the Kingdom of God at the appearing of Christ and who desires to go all the way with the Lord it is this humble servant.  After a pause I answered, “This will not be a problem, for I will pray and God will lead me as to what to do!  As I prayed the matter became firmly fixed that I now believed the truth with all my heart and that I needed to be baptized into the Lord whom I had learned to love so much.

My Life From That Day

My life from that day has been much richer by far.  In (Acts 19)  I find a people who were baptized a second time in the name of our wonderful Lord.  All of this I have done in sincerity and in truth and in the Spirit of the Lord.  Romans 6:3, “Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?“  Had I never been baptized a second time would I have been baptized into his death?  At my first baptism I did not believe he could die neither could I.

Galatians 3:27 “For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.“  Today I know that I have put on the blessing of Christ and his death, burial, and resurrection for my justification.  I live daily rejoicing in the Lord and witnessing to both small and great where ever I go that this Jesus of Nazareth is both Lord and Christ.  I have suffered many things and many friends lost for this Lord and truth.  I count them but dung.  May God help each of you to realize that the way of truth and of truth alone leads to the eternal age of our God, and life eternal in Christ.

May his grace and mercy and peace be multiplied to you all.  Amen.

]]> http://kingdomready.org/blog/2010/02/27/a-preachers-desire-for-rebaptism-to-the-real-christ/feed/ All the Fulness of God dwells in ME?? http://kingdomready.org/blog/2010/02/26/all-the-fulness-of-god-dwells-in-me/ http://kingdomready.org/blog/2010/02/26/all-the-fulness-of-god-dwells-in-me/#comments Fri, 26 Feb 2010 05:38:30 +0000 Angela The Trinity Angela's Articles http://kingdomready.org/blog/2010/02/26/all-the-fulness-of-god-dwells-in-me/ In recent months, I have been examining more closely what it really means to be a follower of Jesus. Many people profess to be “Christians,” yet their words and deeds seem so far from Jesus’ example for us. When we do not truly reflect the image of Christ to others, we become stumbling blocks for other believers and for those who have not yet chosen to believe in Him and His coming Kingdom to the earth. 2 Corinthians 5:20 says, “Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were entreating through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.” I yearn to be an ambassador for Christ, effective in persuading people to get right with God (repent, believe in the Gospel of the Kingdom, and be baptized, then choose to live an obedient life to God)! Yet, it begs the question, how can I represent Jesus in a better light? How can I see more of God’s Spirit dwelling in me? How can I have an increase in love for others?

I think part of the answer to those questions lies in Ephesians 3:19, “to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fulness of God.” I strongly believe that we, as believers in Christ Jesus, have a difficult time grasping the reality of ‘the fulness of God” dwelling inside of us, mortal men and women, made of dust! The idea of it seems too lofty and incomprehensible. Yet, Jesus speaks of this concept, also in John 15:4, “Abide in me and I in you.” Jesus is telling us here that he, too, will dwell in us. YHWH and Jesus, both wish to dwell inside of us. Can our finite minds grasp this Scriptural and supernatural truth?

The Greek word for ‘fulness’ is pleroma, which means completion, what fills or what is filled; which is put in to fill up, piece that filled up, fulfilling, full, fulness. This same word is used of God dwelling in Jesus in Colossians 1:19, “For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fulness (pleroma) to dwell in him,” and Colossians 2:9-10 “For in him (Jesus) all the fulness (pleroma) of Deity dwells in bodily form and in him, you have been made full (pleroo – which pleroma is derived from) and he is the head over all rule and authority.”

When Trinitarians use these Scriptures to prove that Jesus was merely a ‘second person of God dwelling in the flesh’ it distorts and diminishes the amazing truth of what God was able to do through an obedient man, and what is available to us, as adopted sons and daughters of God. When we can understand that God dwelled in Jesus, and God also dwells in us, we can begin to grasp how it is possible for us to be conformed to Christ’s image and live a new life as a new creature or new being, with a new heart, filled up with love for others, that was not possible before we became Christ’s. We begin to somewhat understand the power and fruit of what is available to us, when God and Jesus reside in us through God’s Spirit, and we in them.

How does God dwell in us? Through His Spirit. How did God dwell in Jesus? Through His Spirit. The Spirit of God can be defined as “the mind and energy behind the works and word of God,” or synonymous with the power, mind, presence and word of God. It’s this anointing of God’s Spirit that was given to various kings, judges and prophets of God of the Old Testament times, and the same Spirit that was given to us believers, on the Day of Pentecost. When we begin to walk and live by allowing God’s Spirit to guide and counsel us, we are filled up with more understanding, wisdom, and love. 2 Corinthians 6:16 teaches us that “we are the temple of the living God” and in I Corinthians 3:16, “Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” I Corinthians 6:19 explains it even further: “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which you have from God and that you are not your own?”

God’s Spirit (or Holy Spirit) is our proof that we are abiding in God and He in us (I John 4:13). We will have the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) and his love for others; and we have access to His Spirit, if we “confess that Jesus is the Son of God” (I John 4:15) and keep his commandments (John 15:10; I John 3:24).
When we are of one mind, one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord Messiah, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all, we are united. (Ephesians 4:4-6). We are one with one another and one with God and His Son, the Lord Messiah Jesus. Just as Jesus prayed to God, recorded in John 17:11, “that they may be one, even as we are,” and “that they may all be one; even as Thou Father, art in me, and I in Thee, that they also be in us” (v.21) “that they be one, just as we are one,” (v. 22) “I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be perfected in unity.” (v. 23).  When Trinitarians change this to mean that Jesus and the Father and God’s Spirit are one essence, rather than the beautiful truth of us being one with him and our Heavenly Father through the indwelling of God’s Spirit, we miss what Jesus had intended for us to enjoy: pleroma! ~ all the power of the fulness of God dwelling inside each believer.

The spiritual walk of a follower of Jesus Christ is a journey with multiple levels of maturity and growth that takes time. It takes time to increase in your knowledge and understanding of God and His plan; time to develop a relationship of faith and trust in our living God; and time to be transformed by the renewing of your mind with the inspired word of God, that will bring you into the same mind and word as your Heavenly Father, and His Son, Jesus. As your old bad habits and old ways of thinking and behaving move out, it provides room for God’s Spirit and His way to move in. It’s a submission thing, to give up your control, your fleshly desires to trusting God’s Spirit to take control of your mind and actions. It’s a supernatural thing, but it’s also a conscious decision on our part, that we want this. We want to be that Holy Temple in which God and Jesus will want to abide in us and that comes from believing, listening and obeying the words and commands of our God.  Pleroma! All the fulness of God dwelled in Jesus; All the fulness of God dwells in me; and all the fulness of God can dwell in you, too!  Incredible!

]]> http://kingdomready.org/blog/2010/02/26/all-the-fulness-of-god-dwells-in-me/feed/ Who Is Messiah? (Part 4) http://kingdomready.org/blog/2010/02/22/who-is-messiah-part-4/ http://kingdomready.org/blog/2010/02/22/who-is-messiah-part-4/#comments Mon, 22 Feb 2010 07:31:49 +0000 Mark C. Messiah Jesus Doctrine The Trinity Christology http://kingdomready.org/blog/2010/02/22/who-is-messiah-part-4/ 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.”

Compare this to the Trinity. While the word “Trinity” (as well as other Trinitarian language such as “three persons in one God,” “triune,” “one substance,” “eternally begotten,” etc.) is absent from Scripture, it is claimed that such language was coined after the Canon of Scripture was completed to describe concepts that are in the Bible. This should send up a red flag for any Bible student. It suggests that God didn’t do a good enough job communicating His nature in the Scriptures inspired by Him. If God were indeed “one essence existing in three persons” surely in His infinite wisdom He could have come up with words to describe it in the Scriptures He inspired. But there is nothing that suggests such a concept in the Bible. Why would the full communication of the nature of God be left up to people writing two hundred or more years after the New Testament was completed?

Nevertheless, Trinitarians claim that the concept, if not the language, of the Trinity is in the Bible. But when they are asked to show where it appears, they don’t point to any Scripture that directly says God is three persons. They can’t, because there is no such passage of Scripture. What they point to for proof is the verses that clearly state that the Father is God, then to verses that seem to say Jesus is God and the Holy Spirit is God. The notion is inferred logically from the fact that these three persons are called God. There is only one God, yet three persons are called God, so logically they must be three persons in one God.

The problem with this logic is that, first of all, it directly contradicts the clear Scriptures which state that the Father is the one and only true God (John 17:1-3; I Corinthians 8:6; Ephesians 4:6). Secondly, there are better ways to understand the few verses which call Jesus and the Holy Spirit “God.” We saw in what sense Jesus is called God (in only two verses for sure) above. I deal with how the Bible presents the Holy Spirit as God’s operational presence and power, in a separate article. So just the fact that they are all thought to be called God does not in itself prove the Trinity.

Furthermore, there is no Scripture anywhere that presents God as more than one person. Quite the contrary, the Bible declares God to be “one” and presents Him as a single personal being, while Jesus Christ is declared to be the “only-begotten Son of God” and not “God the Son.” In all of the thousands of references to God in the Bible, not one can be demonstrated to mean a plurality. He is always one.

But then the error is compounded by reading it back into the Scriptures. The Trinity was not formulated as a doctrine until much later, so any reference to it in the Bible would be an anachronism. The proof texts that are thought to substantiate the Trinity must be looked at more closely, and without a preconceived Trinitarian mindset.

Only a few verses refer to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit together (Matthew 28:19; I Corinthians 12:3-6; II Corinthians 13:14; I Peter 1:2). But they all just list the three. From other Scriptures we know that the Father is God, the Creator. Jesus Christ is the Son of God, not God the Son, and only ever called God in a secondary, representational sense. And the Holy Spirit refers to God’s power and presence in action, especially as concentrated in the risen Christ. Nowhere does it say that they are “three persons in one God,” co-equal, co-eternal, or of the same substance.

The only verse in the Bible that says anything resembling “three persons in one God” is I John 5:7-8. This passage has been one of the most hotly contested passages in the Bible, due to its lack of textual evidence. The majority of scholars consider it to be an interpolation.

The KJV reads, “For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.” But the words in bold, referred to as the Johannine Comma by theologians, are not found in the vast majority of Greek manuscripts. For this reason most modern versions omit it. For example, the NASB words it as, “For there are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement.”

There are some who maintain the passage’s validity, however. (See a discussion of this in a Closer Look article.) But even if it were in the original, the fact is that these verses, as written, do not prove the Trinity any more than John 10:30. The Father, His Word, and His Spirit are all one in purpose and function just as Jesus said he and the Father were. The verse does not say they are “one substance” nor are they called “three persons in one God.”

One verse that is supposed to imply plurality in God is Genesis 1:26, “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” The fact that He says “Let us…” is supposed by some to mean He was speaking to the Son. But there are two other possibilities. It may be an example of the “plural of majesty” as when a king uses the royal “we.” Or, God may have been addressing His angels, as Job 38:6-7 describes the angels rejoicing at the time of God’s creation. Either way, the next verse (verse 27) strongly suggests that He worked alone when it says, “So God created man in his own image.” It would be illogical to claim that the use of “us” in this and only three other verses (Genesis 3:22; 11:7; Isaiah 6:8) means that God is plural, when references to God are used with singular verbs and pronouns some twelve thousand times throughout the Bible. God stressed that He created the universe by Himself in Isaiah 44:24.

The word elohim is said by some to be a plural word, because it has a plural ending (-im) in Hebrew. If that were the case, though, it should be translated “gods” in every case. Merely having a plural ending does not necessarily mean it is plural in meaning. There are other words in Hebrew that have plural endings but are actually singular in meaning, such as chayyim (life), panim (face), and mayim (water). Elohim is sometimes used to refer to plural people (Psalm 82:6) or plural gods (Judges 11:24; I Samuel 5:7) but is also used of singular people who are obviously not plural (for example, Moses in Exodus 7:1 and the king in Psalm 45:6). The context must determine whether plurality is actually intended.

When used of God, Elohim is used with singular verbs and pronouns in the approximately 2300 places where it occurs. In addition, other names for God, such as YHVH (some 7000 occurrences) and Adonai, (some 449 occurrences), as well as the Greek New Testament name, (about 1317 occurrences), all take singular pronouns and verbs (except for the four verses mentioned above). Not one reference to God in the Bible can be shown to represent Him as a multipersonal being, as “uni-plural” or as “triune.” God is emphatically declared to be one person.

Some have tried to suggest that the Hebrew word for “one,” echad, carries with it a plural meaning, and can refer to a “compound unity.” They refer to two becoming “one flesh” in Genesis 2:24, but this is another way of saying “one in purpose” (see below). One still means one. They also refer to verses in which “one” is defining a compound element, such as “one people” (Genesis 11:6, 34:16), “one (single) cluster of grapes” (Numbers 13:23), or “one (whole) assembly” (Ezra 2:64). But in all these cases, it is the noun that echad modifies which gives it the compound quality, not the word echad itself. The words “cluster,” “people,” and “assembly” are words that have a compound meaning. But echad still means “one.” It is one cluster, one people, one assembly. One always means one.

Another misunderstanding of the word “one” is the frequently quoted saying of Jesus, “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30). But we saw from the context that when the Jews accused him of blasphemy, he responded with his clarification that he was the son of God. He could not have been saying that He was God. The word for “one” is the same word used a few chapters later, when Jesus prays that “all may be one.”

John 17:
20 Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;
21 That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.
22 And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:
23 I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.

Jesus could not have meant in John 10:30 that he was “one substance” with the Father, for in his prayer in chapter 17 he prayed that all may be one in the same way, “as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee,” and he could not pray that all people may be “one substance, co-equal, and co-eternal.” In both cases “one” is used in the sense of one in purpose, one heart, the same as when a married couple becomes “one flesh” (Matthew 19:5,6; Mark 10:8). Jesus and his Father are one in heart and purpose, and he prayed that all may be one in the same way.

There are a few other “proof texts” that are commonly used to prove that Jesus is God from the Scriptures. Colossians 2:9 says that in Jesus “dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” This verse says that the fullness of God dwells in Christ. It does not say that he is God in a human body. II Corinthians 5:19 says that “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself.” There is a big difference between having God in you and being God yourself.

Another “proof text” is John 8:58, “Before Abraham was, I am.” This is used to prove that Jesus existed before he was born. But could he contradict what he has clearly said elsewhere? He said he was not God but the Son of God in John 10:36, and that His Father was the only true God in John 17:3. In his discourse with the Jews here in chapter 8, he had not said, as the Jews thought, that he had seen Abraham (v. 57), but rather that Abraham rejoiced to see his day (v. 56). Jesus was the center of God’s plan, and his day was the subject of God’s promises to Abraham. The lamb was “crucified before the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8; I Peter 1:20).

When Jesus said “I am” in this context, it is thought to be a quote of God’s reference to Himself as I AM in Exodus 3:14. In that verse, when Moses asked what God’s name was and whom he should say sent him, God replied, “I AM THAT I AM” and then said, “Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.” The Septuagint (Greek translation of the Old Testament) renders “I AM THAT I AM” as ego eimi o on and then the second “I AM” as simply o on. God was not just saying “I AM I AM.” The phrase “I AM THAT I AM” literally means “I am the being” or “I am the self-existent one.” The phrase o on means “The Being” or “The Self-existent One.” God told Moses to say that “The Self-existent One” sent him.

However, Jesus did not claim this title. “I am” in John is not ego eimi o on, but just ego eimi. It is a common phrase which simply means “I am he” or “I am the one.” The blind man used the same phrase when he said “I am he” in John 9:9. Jesus used it twice before in the same chapter in which he said, “Before Abraham was, I am.”

John 8:
24 I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins.
25 Then said they unto him, Who art thou? And Jesus saith unto them, Even the same that I said unto you from the beginning.
26 I have many things to say and to judge of you: but he that sent me is true; and I speak to the world those things which I have heard of him.
27 They understood not that he spake to them of the Father.
28 Then said Jesus unto them, When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am he, and that I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things.
29 And he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him.

Jesus wasn’t saying he was “the Great I AM” or the “Self-existent One” as God is. He was simply saying “I am he,” which he defined in v.25 as “I am who I have been saying I am all along.” He’d been saying all along that he was the Son of God, not God in the flesh. And verse 28 says as plain as can be, “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He.” The Son of Man is a title for the Messiah that originated in Daniel, and was a title that Jesus often used of himself. He uses it here, adding “I am he” (ego eimi). He also used the phrase “I (that speak to you) am he” in John 4:26, when he identifies himself as the Messiah to come. Son of Man and Son of God are Messianic titles, as well as “Messiah” itself, all of which refer to the One who was to come and declare God’s will, judge the world, and rule on God’s behalf, as well as offer himself as the ultimate sacrifice. This is who and what Jesus claimed to be.

Because this was all part of God’s plan, it is said that Jesus “came from God” (John 8:42). It also says he “came down from heaven” (John 6:38,41,42,51,58). Does that mean he existed as the Eternal Son before he came to earth? To “come down from heaven” is a Hebrew idiomatic expression that means something or someone came from God. In John 6:49-50 he said that the manna in the wilderness was bread which “came down from heaven.” Did that make the manna God? Did the bread pre-exist in heaven? Jesus came from God and was part of God’s eternal plan. That’s why he is said to have had glory with the Father before (John 17:5).

Another “proof” is in Philippians.

Philippians 2:
4 Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.
5 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:
7 But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:
8 And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
9 Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name:
10 That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;
11 And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

I mentioned in Part 2 that verse 6 does not say that he was God, but that he was in the form of God. The word for “form” is the Greek word morphe, meaning the external appearance. The word for “robbery” is harpagmos, meaning something to be seized. He did not think being equal (isos, same as in John 5:18, above) with God was something to be seized or grasped at. The Trinitarian slant on this is that Jesus, being God, chose to empty himself of his divinity and humbled himself as a servant. This is not stated in this verse, however, but is read into it. He was the visible representation of his Father, not his Father in human form. If he had been God, how could we “let this mind be in [us] which was also in Christ Jesus”?

Colossians 1 is a section that has several “proof texts” in it.

Colossians 1:
14 In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins:
15 Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:
16 For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:
17 And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.
18 And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.
19 For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell;

This section is misunderstood largely because of the poorly translated prepositions, as well as the failure to understand the exalted position of Christ. I mentioned before how “the image of the invisible God” refers to his being the perfect representation of God. He is also the firstborn of every creature in the new creation, which will be completed when he returns. Then verse 16 refers to creation. The first word “by” (in the beginning of the verse) is actually en or “in.” The second word “by” (near the end of the verse) is dia meaning “through” or “for the sake of” and the word “for” is eis, which can be translated “unto” or “for.” The verse literally says, “In him were all things created that are in heaven and that are on earth…all things were created through or for the sake of him, and for him.”

The next verse continues with the prepositions. “Before” is pro and can refer to rank or importance as well as time. The word “by” in this verse is again en. He is before all things in rank and importance, and it is in him that all things consist. All these things describe the most highly exalted person in all of creation except for God himself, and that is exactly what Jesus Christ is.

There are other verses that are sometimes used to try to prove that Jesus is God, and that God consists of three persons. This is intended to be only a starting point. I exhort the reader to examine what Trinitarians say about them, and also examine what Unitarians say about them, and determine what the Bible says. All of the “proof texts” are reading the later doctrine of the Trinity back into the Scriptures. The fact is that it did not even exist as a doctrine until hundreds of years after the Canon of Scripture was closed.

To Be Continued…

]]> http://kingdomready.org/blog/2010/02/22/who-is-messiah-part-4/feed/