Jesus as Christ

[Redemptionsong]

So you'd need to prove a negative. Is this even possible?

I don't think you've done this for Jesus. I mean, to prove that someone was completely sinless, you'd need to know every detail of their actions and thoughts over their entire life. You don't have that for Jesus.

Why are you asking that Haille Selassie meet a standard that you haven't asked Jesus to meet?

... or do you really believe that the Bible (which, even if we assume that every word is true, says nothing at all about Jesus's life between about 13 and 30) actually establishes that Jesus was sinless?

Yes, I believe that the testimony of the Bible is true, and demonstrates that Jesus was sinless. The resurrection would not have taken place had Jesus not been an acceptable, spotless, sacrifice for sin.

What you doubt is the objectivity of God, who knows the heart of man. Can God, who is omniscient, not know whether a man is sinless? Of course He can.

 

[Altfish]

The way in which one is able to come to a personal knowledge of God is through His Son, the one who came to declare the truth by dwelling on earth amongst men. Who else can make a legitimate claim to being the one and only Messiah? Certainly not Zeus, Woden or the FSM. IMO.

What light do you claim to have seen since rejecting Jesus Christ as 'the light of men' [John 1:4]?

I'm pleased that you have found happiness in Christ. That's great.

I'm not sure 'Light' is the word I'd use. But I can now lie in on Sunday mornings or go walking, go see the family, do some DIY.
I didn't reject JC, I just learnt more science and he and the god he claims to be seemed irrelevant.

BTW quoting Bible verses to a non-believer is a waste of time. I wouldn't quote Richard Dawking or Sam Harris to you.

 

[Redemptionsong]

None of the required terminology can be found anywhere in the Bible (god-man, hypostatic union, incarnation, God the son, two natures, two-in-one)
Not one conversion that took place in the New Testament, ever invoked a 'god man' requirement for one's faith.
Whenever Jesus was referred to after his death, by either Christ himself or the apostles, he was titled as 'Jesus of Nazareth', never God.
Peter, Stephen or Paul before the Sanhedrin, never accused them of killing God, but the man Jesus.
Paul explaining the logistics of the Atonement in Romans 5, demands that only a man must redeem what another man had lost. There is no requirement of a god-man in order to effectuate man's salvation.
Christ emphatically and incessantly claimed that he was impotent without the Father's bestowed power and authority, and he denied that he was God when pressed (John 10:33-36)
It's an ontological impossibility - everything that defines divinity, is antithetical to that which defines humanity.
It is an ontological redundancy to have more than one all-powerful person, or entity, within the Godhead.
....

If you do not believe that Jesus Christ came from God then you are not a Christian!

The orthodox Christian believes that Jesus Christ (during ministry) was fully God and fully man. Only through this belief is it possible to explain ALL of scripture. Any other approach leaves one cherry-picking scripture. IMO.

John 10:33-36 shows us that people with God's spirit in them can be described as 'gods', and that Jesus claimed to be the Son of God. Who is the Son of God, if not the one who faithfully does the works of his Father?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Yes, I believe that the testimony of the Bible is true, and demonstrates that Jesus was sinless.

You think that a book that says nothing at all about Jesus's life between 13 and 30 tells you that he conmitted no sins at all between 13 and 30?

The resurrection would not have taken place had Jesus not been an acceptable, spotless, sacrifice for sin.

Wait... so:

- if someone comes back from the dead, this means they were sinless.
- if someone is sinless, this means they're God incarnate.

Do I understand you correctly?

What you doubt is the objectivity of God, who knows the heart of man. Can God, who is omniscient, not know whether a man is sinless? Of course He can.

No, what I doubt is the mere possibility of God's existence. IMO, presuming that God exists - or even that God might exist - assumes facts not in evidence.

 

[Redemptionsong]

I'm pleased that you have found happiness in Christ. That's great.

I'm not sure 'Light' is the word I'd use. But I can now lie in on Sunday mornings or go walking, go see the family, do some DIY.
I didn't reject JC, I just learnt more science and he and the god he claims to be seemed irrelevant.

BTW quoting Bible verses to a non-believer is a waste of time. I wouldn't quote Richard Dawking or Sam Harris to you.

You must have belonged to some weird cult if you couldn't, as a Christian, lie in on Sundays, go walking, see family or do some DIY. I have the freedom to do all these things, as I see fit. Christians live under grace, not law! Our calling is to live in love, in Spirit and in truth.

Truth is truth, whether quoted by Richard Dawkins or the Pink Panther! The point about science is that it can only claim to explain the created world. Science does not claim to explain that which is eternal and invisible.

 

[Redemptionsong]

You think that a book that says nothing at all about Jesus's life between 13 and 30 tells you that he conmitted no sins at all between 13 and 30?


Wait... so:

- if someone comes back from the dead, this means they were sinless.
- if someone is sinless, this means they're God incarnate.

Do I understand you correctly?


No, what I doubt is the mere possibility of God's existence. IMO, presuming that God exists - or even that God might exist - assumes facts not in evidence.

Do you know why there is very little written about Jesus between his birth and the time he was thirty? It's revealed clearly in Galatians 4:4, which states, 'But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.'

Jesus was made under the law. He was born under the law, and lived until thirty under the law. He was, if you like, an orthodox Jew, living righteously under the law of Moses. Then, at the time of Jesus' baptism, God said, 'This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased' [Matthew 3:17]. Clearly, God was pleased with the life that Jesus had led up until he was thirty! So God considered Jesus righteous under the law. This was how God viewed Jesus before he started his ministry in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Righteousness under the law is the righteousness of man.

Righteousness by the Holy Spirit is the righteousness of God.

The other point, on resurrection.
Jesus Christ said, 'I am the resurrection, and the life' [John 11:25], so no one gets eternal life except through Christ Jesus. Jesus Christ was the only sinless man, so unless you have the sinlessness of Christ in you (the Holy Spirit) you are none of His. Believers are accounted righteous through faith in Christ, who was sinless. It has nothing to do with their own sinlessness.

 

[Polymath257]

How does one apply proof to God? According to scripture it is faith that provides the substance. As it says in Galatians, 'Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham'.

IMO, there is one God, one Truth, one Christ, revealed prophetically through one people, lsrael. Why waste your time on half truths and lies?

If a statement needs to be believed *before* there is evidence for it, then any confirmation is tainted by confirmation bias. In my mind, faith is a dereliction of our duty to think for ourselves and weigh the evidence.

But you have actually made *my* point: that there is NO way to prove that God exists. That alone makes it reasonable to not believe in such an entity.

And I agree with you: why waste your time with unjustified assertions and confirmation bias? As far as I can see, religions offer the half-truths and lies while skepticism offers the road to knowledge and understanding.

 

[Clara Tea]

What reasons do you have for NOT believing that Jesus lived as God amongst men on earth?

What reasons do you have for BELIEVING that Jesus lived as God amongst men on earth?

Performing miracles is not a common thing for people to do today. Why, then, believe that Jesus performed miracles when people were ignorant and gullible? People believed that knights fought dragons, and believed that there were sea monsters (so avoided the sea). People believed that you could sail off the edge of the world (a world held up by Atlas). But what holds up Atlas? Atlas stands on a giant tortoise (oh...that explains it).

There are some miracle workers today....faith healers, etc. But, many of them have been exposed as frauds, and some of them arrested.

Peter Popoff - Wikipedia

Wikipedia (Popoff): "Reverend Peter Popoff was exposed in 1986 for using a concealed earpiece to receive radio messages from his wife, who gave him the names, addresses, and ailments of audience members during Popoff-led religious services. Popoff falsely claimed God revealed this information to him so that Popoff could pretend to cure them through faith healing.".........."Popoff was collecting almost $4 million per year in the late 1980s, according to Randi.[43] In 2003, his ministry received over $9.6 million, and in 2005, over $23 million. In that year, he and his wife were paid a combined salary of nearly $1 million, while two of his children received over $180,000 each."

It is about mammon (money). Some love mammon which detracts from their love of God, and leads people away from God into lives of sin or poverty. It misdirects funds that could be used for purposes that God directs (food for the poor, hungry, and homeless).

Of course, other religious leaders lead us down the path of war...also sinful.

Many religious leaders lead us to hell.

 

[Polymath257]

Actually, since you said superstitious, maybe the world is still the same as it was 2000 years ago. I maybe wrong but I am sure you are saying superstitions to all religions and they are still alive today.

Well, people today are *less* likely to see the supernatural hiding around every corner. So we are *less* superstitious than in the past.

But yes, I do feel that a belief in the supernatural is a form of superstition.

 

[Clara Tea]

When he was directly accused of claiming deifying himself he responded; "You say that I am". Not, "I am". He also pointed out several times that he was not "his father".

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=lyrics+own+grandpa

Song: Own grandpa?

 

[Polymath257]

You appear to have a special liking for the Flying Spagetti Monster. The Bible is, however, not a book of fairytales but a book that reveals Christ, the Saviour of the world. IMO.

The Bible is only a fairytale to those who reject personal sinfulness, and reject Jesus as the righteousness of God. IMO.

And that is *your* belief. I do not share that belief. I see the Bible as a collection of different writings from different time periods: some of it is propaganda and nationalistic stories, some of it is the wisdom literature of that culture, some is a collection of pretty bad poetry, and some is just superstitious fairy tales.

I don't see the Bible as any more reliable than any other writings from that era.

 

[Clara Tea]

The Bible cannot be a book of superstition if it actively discourages superstition....which it does. Note in Daniel 2:27,28 that true prophecy is not accessible to wise men, astrologers, magicians, or soothsayers.

In other words, "don't listen to those superstitions....listen to my superstitions."

 

[Clara Tea]

Because Jesus by default was a man. Creation, not creator.

Jesus was Jewish on mom's side, and perhaps Jewish on dad's side, as well.

 

[Polymath257]

Truth is truth, whether quoted by Richard Dawkins or the Pink Panther! The point about science is that it can only claim to explain the created world. Science does not claim to explain that which is eternal and invisible.

Science explains a great many things that are invisible and eternal. Protons and electrons for example. Both invisible to the human eye and both seem to be stable particles.

Since I don't think there *is* anything other than the material world (ultimately), science explaining it is quite sufficient.

 

[ElishaElijah]

[

2. I think you should look into the biblical scholarship, done primarily by Christians. The consensus is that none of the gospels were authored by their namesakes. These scholars also agree that the Epistles of Peter were almost certainly not written by Peter, for example, and it's basically the same case for the rest of the New Testament except for some of the writings attributed to Paul. The bible is anonymous propaganda based on decades of dynamic oral tradition. This is why so many people lose their faith during Seminary, because ministers and preachers withhold this information from their lay congregations. But all the information is there and it makes many dig even deeper once they hear about it, wondering what else has been hidden from them.

This is a misleading statement that is made, some scholars is what you should say and by “Christian” some of those are actually apostates and not following Christ at all. Some contemporary scholars make assumptions and believe they have “all” the information surrounding the content, dates that the letters ex. 2Peter are written and make a judgement.
My thoughts about a person losing their faith is that they never had it to begin with and it was never based on knowing God and being born again.
There is a big difference between people who know Jesus and have made a covenant with Him and people who are just religious.

 

[Clara Tea]

Objectivity comes from observation. There have been no observations of deities by reliable witnesses, so deities are (in my view) not objective.

Beer was very popular around the time of Jesus. Many observed deities, some in the form of pink elephants.

 

[Clara Tea]

1. I've done an examination of how every other religion seems to have started from later exaggerations or fables about an initial mundane set of events. The same goes for folk legends like Paul Bunyan, King Arthur, or Baba Yaga, as well as exaggerated supernatural feats of the founders of martial arts schools, like Morihei Ueshiba who founded Aikido. This is something humans do, with countless confirmed examples illustrating this tendency. By contrast, we have zero examples of confirmed miracles. Simple induction indicates that the Jesus stories arose from such legendary development. Biblical scholarship also tends to confirm that conclusion.

2. There is a lack of supporting evidence for any of the specific claims about Jesus. In particular, there are no first hand accounts of anything Jesus said or did. The NT is a set of third-hand or many-hand, usually anonymous accounts, usually contradicted by other accounts in the NT, and unsubstantiated by any writings outside of the bible itself. Again, we have many other examples of religious zealots pushing false propaganda, or openly admitting that lying to promote their faith is acceptable, and zero examples of miracles actually occurring.

3. I would have to sustain an incoherent worldview if the evidence provided was sufficient for me to accept the claims about Jesus. I would of course have to believe in Mormonism, since the accounts and circumstances are much better attested to. The evidence is far, far better for Mormonism (although still terrible). Islam also has better evidence. So do UFO sightings. All of them also make many mutually contradictory claims. So I would have to accept contradictions, and believe in all sorts of strange things.

4. Separately, everything we've discovered by examining objective reality has yielded explanations that have no need for any god existing. Gods are beyond the realm of demonstration or confirmation, and claims about them are evidently indistinguishable from anything anyone could imagine or post hoc rationalize. Such belief has no justification, and no explanatory utility.

5. As an internal critique, Christianity is incoherent. Yaweh and Jesus seem like opposite personalities with different goals and values. Free will cannot exist under an omnipotent, omniscient being who created us, nor would such a being derive any utility from our worship and subservience. A being that created a scenario containing hell cannot be omnibenevolent, and should be considered omnimalevolent. The theology is awash in contradictions, tensions, and incoherence that requires a cognitive dissonance I could not sustain. Nor have I heard apologetics that come close to harmonizing these clear problems.

6. People who argue for "Jesus living as God" consistently make fallacious arguments, structuring their reasoning in a way that we've confirmed does not reliably lead to true conclusions. Given continuous Christian efforts over thousands of years to produce evidence or a good argument, this is a good indication that no valid, sound arguments for these claims currently exist. Belief is therefore not warranted.

One could make the circular argument....bible says God is right, and God says the bible is right (hmm....a miracle).

 

[Redemptionsong]

If a statement needs to be believed *before* there is evidence for it, then any confirmation is tainted by confirmation bias. In my mind, faith is a dereliction of our duty to think for ourselves and weigh the evidence.

But you have actually made *my* point: that there is NO way to prove that God exists. That alone makes it reasonable to not believe in such an entity.

And I agree with you: why waste your time with unjustified assertions and confirmation bias? As far as I can see, religions offer the half-truths and lies while skepticism offers the road to knowledge and understanding.

I think you underestimate faith. Faith is how one lives when one discovers that man's reasoning and logic are weak in comparison with God's omniscience.

In Genesis 12 we have the story of Abra(ha)m. God made a promise to Abram, saying, 'And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:'

Could logic or reasoning have brought these promises to fruition? Clearly not. In fact, as the reality of barrenness took hold of Sarai, Abram's wife, it became ever clearer, according to man's reasoning, that God's blessing was not going to happen. Yet it did, because throughout the hopeless years, Abraham remained faithful that God's Word was true. Time and time again, Abraham listened to God and followed his commandments, even when the action made little sense (taking his son Isaac as a sacrifice).

In fact, if people do not have faith, they usually fail at the first hurdle. As I watched Emma Raducanu play tennis, I was impressed by her faith in doing what she believed was possible. Without that faith you can have all the talent and intellect in the world, and still fail.

A Christian places their faith in a God who has made himself known at a personal level. The friendship becomes real and trustworthy; to the point where one is happy to trust Jesus Christ above the word of man.

IMO.

 

[Redemptionsong]

Performing miracles is not a common thing for people to do today. Why, then, believe that Jesus performed miracles when people were ignorant and gullible? People believed that knights fought dragons, and believed that there were sea monsters (so avoided the sea). People believed that you could sail off the edge of the world (a world held up by Atlas). But what holds up Atlas? Atlas stands on a giant tortoise (oh...that explains it).

There are some miracle workers today....faith healers, etc. But, many of them have been exposed as frauds, and some of them arrested.

Peter Popoff - Wikipedia

Wikipedia (Popoff): "Reverend Peter Popoff was exposed in 1986 for using a concealed earpiece to receive radio messages from his wife, who gave him the names, addresses, and ailments of audience members during Popoff-led religious services. Popoff falsely claimed God revealed this information to him so that Popoff could pretend to cure them through faith healing.".........."Popoff was collecting almost $4 million per year in the late 1980s, according to Randi.[43] In 2003, his ministry received over $9.6 million, and in 2005, over $23 million. In that year, he and his wife were paid a combined salary of nearly $1 million, while two of his children received over $180,000 each."

It is about mammon (money). Some love mammon which detracts from their love of God, and leads people away from God into lives of sin or poverty. It misdirects funds that could be used for purposes that God directs (food for the poor, hungry, and homeless).

Of course, other religious leaders lead us down the path of war...also sinful.

Many religious leaders lead us to hell.

What you argue here is something that the Bible warns us about! There will be false teachers and false miracle workers. There will be people who claim to be of the flock, when, in fact, they are wolves. That does not, however, mean that the genuine article is not out there.

I can speak personally of God's power, because I was healed instantaneously through Christian prayer. I have also prayed for others who have been healed, and I know the power to heal is not my power!

 

[Redemptionsong]

In other words, "don't listen to those superstitions....listen to my superstitions."

If you follow the Biblical narrative, you'll discover that prophets do not bear witness to themselves. True witness, or prophecy, is supported by other prophets.