Trinity claims that the Jews believed that a Son is equal to his Father

[1213]

Are you a unitarian Christian?

I am a person who believes what is said in the Bible. According to the Bible, there is only one true God that is greater than Jesus and I believe it.

For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,
1 Timothy 2:5

If believing that is Unitarian, then maybe I can be called Unitarian.

 

[firedragon]

I am a person who believes what is said in the Bible. According to the Bible, there is only one true God that is greater than Jesus and I believe it.

For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,
1 Timothy 2:5

If believing that is Unitarian, then maybe I can be called Unitarian.

So you dont believe Jesus is God?

 

[Soapy]

Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God. (John 5:18)

Notice that the last part is a commentary… it is things like this that are easily used to make unsubstantiated claims.

Indeed, it was one of the crux elements of the thread post: ‘Who decided / who wrote that claim that calling ‘God’ his Father meant making Jesus equal to God? Afterall, do even Jews not call God ‘their Father’?

It seems suspicious that such an incredibly out of sync statement should be made given that Jesus told the disciples that when they pray they should address God as ‘Father’… and that they should call no one on earth ‘Father’ (obviously not to do with parentage!) because they have only one Father: God in Heaven!!!

Therefore, are we and they all EQUAL TO GOD since we are to call God our Father???

Trinitarian translators, I believe… did not think anyone would notice the false claim…. Remember that these translations were made at times when few people could read or write…. So hearing such a claim would cause the majority to believe WITHOUT scrutiny….. Still, common sense should prevails!!! …. Ha! But punishment may well be the result: remember that the ‘Holy’ Roman Catholic Church dictate that anyone who did not believe [the lie] would be doomed to hell!!! It in their creed…. Fear… kept true belief under a lid which is today being lifted!!

 

[Soapy]

Yes Isaiah literally names his child.

Crazy stuff.

Isaiah is prophesying about the coming messiah.

The coming messiah will be mighty ‘in power’ like a God. Notice that the wording does not state that it will be Almighty God who is to come. ‘Mighty God’ is not a reference to YHWH. You know this because the coming messiah is SENT by YHWH - indeed is the mighty SERVANT of YHWH as shown in Isaiah 42:1. Here GOD (aka YHWH) states:

• ““Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him, and he will bring justice to the nations.” (Isaiah 42:1)

It is this act, YHWH inspiriting the messiah, that makes Jesus like a mighty God.

LIKE is not IS….

Furthermore, ‘Everlasting Father’. What do you think?

That God BECOMES?

No! God everlastingly IS! YHWH is IMMUTABLE.

So, it is the messiah who BECOMES the everlasting Father.

‘Father’ means: ‘He who gives life to…’

At the end of time, at the judgement seat (which YHWH GRANTS to the son) it is the messiah who decides whom and whom will receive EVERLASTING LIFE. It is he who grants life to those whom he chooses as worthy of the kingdom of God and that of Paradise. Therefore, and since this grant will be eternal, the life that the messiah grants will be eternal and therefore since he granted them that life, he, the messiah, WILL BE their ‘eternal Father’.

‘Eternal Father’ is not ‘God, the Father’: Jesus is not YHWH.

 

[74x12]

Notice that the last part is a commentary… it is things like this that are easily used to make unsubstantiated claims.

Indeed, it was one of the crux elements of the thread post: ‘Who decided / who wrote that claim that calling ‘God’ his Father meant making Jesus equal to God? Afterall, do even Jews not call God ‘their Father’?

It seems suspicious that such an incredibly out of sync statement should be made given that Jesus told the disciples that when they pray they should address God as ‘Father’… and that they should call no one on earth ‘Father’ (obviously not to do with parentage!) because they have only one Father: God in Heaven!!!

Therefore, are we and they all EQUAL TO GOD since we are to call God our Father???

Trinitarian translators, I believe… did not think anyone would notice the false claim…. Remember that these translations were made at times when few people could read or write…. So hearing such a claim would cause the majority to believe WITHOUT scrutiny….. Still, common sense should prevails!!! …. Ha! But punishment may well be the result: remember that the ‘Holy’ Roman Catholic Church dictate that anyone who did not believe [the lie] would be doomed to hell!!! It in their creed…. Fear… kept true belief under a lid which is today being lifted!!

Well in those days if someone claimed Zeus (for example) was their father then that would be a claim to divine nature. Like Hercules for example. He was (supposedly) fathered by Zeus and eventually he is even accepted into Olympus as a "god". So I can see why the Jews would have thought that Jesus' claim to be the Son of God would be making himself "divine" and therefore "equal with God" in a sense.

Because there is a difference between the Jewish belief that God is their Father (because he made them) than Jesus claim; that God is his Father because he's begotten by the holy Spirit in the womb of a virgin and he doesn't even have an actual human father.

As far as I know enone of the newer Bible versions that i know of take out "making himself equal with God". For what it's worth; not even the Jehovah's Witnesses translation NWT takes it out.

NWT:
This is why the Jews began seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath but he was also calling God his own Father, making himself equal to God. (John 5:18)

 

[Soapy]

Well in those days if someone claimed Zeus (for example) was their father then that would be a claim to divine nature. Like Hercules for example. He was (supposedly) fathered by Zeus and eventually he is even accepted into Olympus as a "god". So I can see why the Jews would have thought that Jesus' claim to be the Son of God would be making himself "divine" and therefore "equal with God" in a sense.

Because there is a difference between the Jewish belief that God is their Father (because he made them) than Jesus claim; that God is his Father because he's begotten by the holy Spirit in the womb of a virgin and he doesn't even have an actual human father.

As far as I know enone of the newer Bible versions that i know of take out "making himself equal with God". For what it's worth; not even the Jehovah's Witnesses translation NWT takes it out.

NWT:
This is why the Jews began seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath but he was also calling God his own Father, making himself equal to God. (John 5:18)

I would not measure truth of scriptures by what Jehovah witnesses say. They say that Jesus was an Angel before coming as man…. Which flies in the face of : ‘To which of the angels did God ever say: “You are my Son, this day I have begotten you!”’

And Hercules did not become EQUAL to Zeus…

But we are speaking of the Jewish belief. A man birthed by a God is not a part of Jewish belief nor even entertained as such.

And, ‘Son of God’ has nothing to do with being birthed by the Holy Spirit OF GOD in that exact way. Jesus used ‘Son of’ meaning that he was ‘Doing the works of the Father’. Adam was also (prior to Jesus) given life by means of the Spirit of God. Luke 3:38 shows him as ‘Son of God’. Anyone BORN OF THE SPIRIT OF GOD is holy, sinless, and righteous… but still has free-Will to sin… Adam sinned: Jesus didn’t!

‘Son of God’ : Adam completely followed the spirit of God up until the day he sinned. Jesus (read of the Angel and Mary the Virgin) was born sinless, holy and righteous and all his life FOLLOWED THE SPIRIT OF HIS FATHER GOD. Read the scriptures: ‘All who are led by the spirit of God are children of God’ - and a child of God does the works of God.

This is clear from when Jesus remonstrated with the Jews when they accused him of blasphemy. Jesus told them that he deserved the title BECAUSE HE WAS INDEED DOING THE WORKS OF THE FATHER. There was no other explanation given by Jesus as to why he said: ‘God is my Father’.

Of course, the Jews TOOK THE WRONG MEANING and claimed Jesus blasphemed BECAUSE they were expecting a WARRIOR MESSIAH. Jesus, in contrast, was meek and mild, which would not inspire them as someone who would rid them of their Roman overlords.

Do you not read that they asked him: ‘Tell is plainly: are you the messiah?’

Many of these Jews were scholars of the Torah, etc. they knew the then scriptures inside out… their whole adult life was devoted to seeking the coming messiah and they knew the stars, the times, and the tides were showing it to be now (Many say it still hasn’t come but that’s on another path!)

These were the times of rebels like Barabbas (I hear his name was Jesus Barabbas!! … the name Jesus is really Joshua!) who was more like what the Jews desired but even they could see that the likes of Barabbas were ineffective.

Jesus [the] Christ pointed out that the miracles he was performing were indeed WORKS OF THE FATHER and that he was FREEING them from the law…. He showed them that healing could be performed on the sabbath… that a man CAN forgive his neighbour… that people are not harmed by sin by itself and could be healed by the power of FAITH.

He told them that baking bread on the sabbath for the hungry was not a sin since even their ancestral king, David, ate bread sacrificed in the temple because he and his troop were starving.

HE WAS INDEED FREEING THEM… that it was THE LAW (not the Romans) that was their real adversary - it was they themselves that were holding themselves in bondage and God had SENT HIM to free them…..

But they failed to understand.

 

[Kenny]

Could you explain more what "the government shall be upon his shoulder" means, and if that applies to any of the governments in our world today?

That is to come, when Jesus comes back. In the interim, it remains man's domain whether to let God be the King of their government or not:

1 Sam 8:"5 And said unto him, Behold, thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways: now make us a king to judge us like all the nations. 6 But the thing displeased Samuel, when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed unto the Lord. 7 And the Lord said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them.

We still are in that time when we can reject God.

 

[Soapy]

The Trinity doctrine is not found in or supported by the New Testament, where all five versions of Jesus expressly deny that they're God and never claim to be God.

I'm not aware of any claim anywhere in the bible that sons are equal to their fathers / children are equal to their parents. It seems to contradict the Decalogue commandment, "Honor thy father and thy mother" ─ and indeed the power of Jewish parents to sell their daughters under the slavery provisions. And I seem to recall parents can put their children to death under some circumstances, though correct me if that's wrong.

The Trinity doctrine is not invented till the 4th century, where it's the result of political pressure to raise Christianity's principal figure to god status. It makes the incoherent claim that there is only one God but that God exists as three distinct persons, each of which is 100% of God. (The churches also admit the claim is incoherent, though they use the words "a mystery in the strict sense".)

I agree with your post. So how do you think it came to be that Jesus stating that God is his Father should have resulted in a commentary stating that God being Jesus’ Father made him “Equal to God”?

Certainly, that claim does not run true for anything elsewhere written in the scriptures … even by trinitarian mistranslations and misinterpretations.

Indeed, Trinitarians claim:

• Jesus IS GOD
• Jesus is EQUAL to God
• Jesus is the SON of God
• Jesus is man

Being EQUAL to God necessitates that the compared person IS NOT GOD but is only SO MUCH LIKE GOD!

CANNOT BE GOD if he is LIKE GOD!

And also that would mean there are TWO GODS… (one who is and another who is like!) which trinity would obviously deny …

Then again, if Jesus is man, he CANNOT BE ALSO GOD!

Trinity will not explain how he can be God in one moment, knowing all things and doing all things good, and in another moment unable to know things or do things straight off.

Jesus also gets angry - raging angry - with the men in the temple. God would not need to get angry because He holds the life of these profiteers in his hands - Notice that Jesus says that his anger is towards those who devils his Father’s house…. The house of God!! Did Jesus say the men were defining his (Jesus’) house? Is this not a clear differentiation of ownership of persons?

Trinitarians are well aware of their fallacies and go to great lengths to seek to not answer uncomfortable questions …

Why, oh why, when they realise there is no support for their taught ideology do they not just admit it??? INSTEAD OF SINNING AGAINST GOD by inventing or regurgitating wholly wrongful responses?

 

[Ehav4Ever]

Soapy does not seem to be suggesting a Jewish trinity. He just wants to know from Jews if a son can be equal to his father. If he can, in which ways can he be equal to his father.

The answer to that is simple. A son is not equal to his father in Jewish culture.

 

[Ehav4Ever]

From what I listened to from your video, Ehav4Ever, you seem to either not know about or excluded the Ugarit archaeological evidence related to ancient Judaism. Could you comment on this RFB video?

Yes, I can definitely comment on the video you provided. First, the video you provided didn’t address any particular points that are sourced in ancient Jewish or Samaritan texts. I.e. he didn’t actually take a known Jewish text and compare the concepts that the Caananites had with ones that are found in ancient Jewish sources. He also didn't explain what the Caananite vowels were based on ancient Caananite descriptions of their language. Another important issue. He didn't deal with the etymology of certain words the way I did in my video.

Also, given that ancient "Judaism" as term didn't exist in the time frame his video is even talking about you can't conclude that anything in that time frame can be definately connected to any form of a Judaism, which he himself did not cover. I.e. prior to the kingdom of Yehudah there was no term called (יהדות). Also, the author of the video did not address Torath Mosheh anywhere in his video.

If you go to time stamp 5:30 to 5:42 he explains what “western scholars” propose. I.e. he explain that they are not certain if the two inscriptions they he shows should be considered “Hebrew” or if they should be considered “Proto-Caananite”.

Further, his video does not include any data of how ancient Israelis defined themselves in comparison to the Caananites. He also doesn’t address the fact that the early Israeli sources claim that early Ivrim were living among the Caananites and that there common elements of the language that existed during that time. I.e. from about Avraham ben-Terah to about Ya'aqov ben-Yitzhaq.

At about 6:32 of the video he uses the statements, possibly and maybe, quite a bit making the point that what he was describing right before that was uncertain. At 6:43 he states that, from his perspective, again using the word “maybe” that literacy was higher during the kingdom of Yehudah’s reign.

Further, what he states at 7:47 was already addressed more than 2,000 years ago in the Talmud. I.e. that there was more than one script used in ancient Israel. One for the Torah called Ketav Ashuri and one for regular business and commerce called Ketav Ivri. Ketav Ashuri coming about during the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai and Ketav Ivri being in use before and after, as well as by other local cultures. Again, the person who made the video didn’t bring up ancient Jewish sources in his discussion.

Further, he completely neglected the Samaritan Torah and Samaritan perspectives on ancient Israel of the region.

 

[Ehav4Ever]

Probably not because it doesn't appear that Soapy looks at videos.

Whether they do or don't it is there as a reference for them or anyone else.

Also, Ehav4Ever, Jews seems to say that if you have a question about Judaism, then ask a Jew,

Actually, we say something completely different. We say if a person wants to know "historically" what those who can indentified as a Jews have historically held by w/o the maybe this or probably that a good start pointing are the people have the longest history reading, writing, living in, etc. Jewish languages and Jewish culture. Otherwise you can easily end up with some answers that someone just made up yesterday or some information that actually isn't Jewish at all.

however, like any other religion, I would think that there would be bias in their point of view.

Actually, given that the question is about Jews have held by there is more chance of bias when one receives answers from people who can't even read for themselves ancient Jewish sources. Given that we Jews have no missionary goals, i.e. we historically don't go out and try to convince people to be Jewish, we don't gain anything from the person taking our word for it. Also, given the fact that I provide actual sources that I can read and explain bit by bit what the source actually says then the person can go back and research what I give them and they determine if the source is actually "Jewish" or not.

Plus, like many Jews do, your video seemed to exclude Hellenistic influence on ancient Judaism in addition to influence from Jewish apocrypha such as the book of Enoch.

Of course a Torath Mosheh answer would exclude "Hellenistic" concepts because Torath Mosheh is not Hellenisism and Torath Mosheh Jews have a long history of fighting against Hellenist. If someone wants a Hellenist Jewish perspective then they will need to ask a Hellenist Jew what they hold by - if you can find one. For example, enoch was never accepted in Torath Mosheh communities - thus it was not found in ancient Yemenite, Iraqi, Syrian, Maghrebi, Kaifeng, Afgastani, Ashkenaz, etc. Jewish communities.

However, I find Dr. Andrew M. Henry of the ReligionForBreakfast YouTube channel to be very knowledgeable and unbiased about the topic of religion:

Yeah, I have seen his videos. Nothing he has presented cotradicts what I presented. Just look up his video on Torath Mosheh and compare it with mine.

or with this one

 

[blü 2]

I agree with your post. So how do you think it came to be that Jesus stating that God is his Father should have resulted in a commentary stating that God being Jesus’ Father made him “Equal to God”?

The starting point is frequently Paul's "Kenosis Hymn" ("Emptying Hymn"):

Philippians 2:5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,
6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,
7 but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.
8 And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.
9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
​

which says that though (in Paul and John, but not in the synoptics) he pre-existed in heaven with God, implicitly as a favored kind of angelic being, put aside his divine / heavenly aspect and by an unspecified process was born on earth as a mortal. And later God restored his angelic / divine status. (It also says his name wasn't Jesus in his lifetime, which is at the least curious.)

Why, oh why, when they realise there is no support for their taught ideology do they not just admit it??? INSTEAD OF SINNING AGAINST GOD by inventing or regurgitating wholly wrongful responses?

The same reason Putin has invaded Ukraine ─ politics.

 

[Soapy]

The starting point is frequently Paul's "Kenosis Hymn" ("Emptying Hymn"):

Philippians 2:5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,
6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,
7 but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.
8 And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.
9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
​

which says that though (in Paul and John, but not in the synoptics) he pre-existed in heaven with God, implicitly as a favored kind of angelic being, put aside his divine / heavenly aspect and by an unspecified process was born on earth as a mortal. And later God restored his angelic / divine status. (It also says his name wasn't Jesus in his lifetime, which is at the least curious.)
The same reason Putin has invaded Ukraine ─ politics.

Excellent. I’m impressed.

Oh, except the jehovah witness element of pre-existent Jesus being some kind of privileged angel in heaven. I’m not sure if you are simply expressing a JW claim or you are endorsing it.

I’d like to explore Phil 2 and why the ridiculous idea of Jesus being in a form of God meant Jesus WAS GOD!

And how, if Jesus WAS GOD he certainly was not THE GOD (aka: YHWH) since it says that Jesus was ONLY equal to YHWH.

A thing that is equal to another thing cannot be that thing it is being equated to…. Nor is there any comparison between an eternal God and an equal that can become LESS THAN equal.

But notice that though the verse is trinity-claimed to be saying that Jesus EMPTIED his ‘deity’ or ‘divinity’ trinity continues to say that Jesus DID NOT empty himself of his deity/divinity but remained 100% God all the time…

They cannot have it both ways: If Jesus WAS GOD who was EQUAL TO GOD but was able to empty himself of being God then he cannot have been GOD (THE ONE IMMORTAL IMMUTABLE EVERLASTING GOD) since Jesus BECAME MORTAL and therefore was MUTABLE)

Trinity only exists in my opinion by continually isolating parts of text in verses and books of the scriptures from others that clearly deny their claim.

When Jesus declares the Father as being the only true God it seems the their response is that Jesus did not want to promote himself as ALSO being one true God!!!

But this is them - trinity - who equate ONE as being TWO; TWO as being THREE; and THREE being ONE!

Christian politics…. This is as bad as our prime minister, Boris Johnson, trying to hold on to his premiership by disputing every issue in the case against him despite the overwhelming wealth of evidence against him:
‘It’s for the police to prove I was attendant at a party that every evidence proves I was at and even I say I was there because the authenticated photo shows me there….. please wait for the police report and I will show you all the reports that are sent to me!’
Of course not the WHOLE report is sent to him (and I wouldn’t put it passed him to have had something to do with that in the background…. He was too smug and actually smirked in saying he would publish EXACTLY what was sent to him as though he knew what would be sent already was not the WHOLE thing!!! I get this often from Trinitarians as they reply to a question they know is against them… E.g. in asking how Jesus states only YHWH is God, they smugly reply: ‘Is Jesus our only Lord?’. Not only has this response a misdirection on the question but it shows the trini is ready to short-change the truth of the scriptural report: I.e. ‘Lord’ has nothing to do with GOD. ‘Lord’ is merely a title that applies to anyone of great leadership or authority and factorally God APPOINTS Jesus to the position of power and authority: ‘The Father was pleased that all the power of God should [come to ] dwell in him [Jesus]’ (paraphrased). Indeed, Jesus HANDS BACK this power and authority to God - who gave it to him! Whag then is Jesus after he does so??? Still ‘Lord”? What’s the purpose of the entitlement if the recipient is the same before, during, and after the power and authoratyship?

 

[blü 2]

Excellent. I’m impressed.

Oh, except the jehovah witness element of pre-existent Jesus being some kind of privileged angel in heaven. I’m not sure if you are simply expressing a JW claim or you are endorsing it.

The pre-existing-in-heaven Jesus in Paul and John comes from gnosticism, with Jesus in the role of the gnostic demiurge ("craftsman"), who creates the material universe (1 Corinthians 8:6, John 1:3). The gnostic god is absolutely pure and immensely remote, so it would never occur to [him] to create anything so dirty as the material world; hence the demiurge must do it and there must afterwards be a mediator between God and Man. None of that is found in the synoptics, of course.

I’d like to explore Phil 2 and why the ridiculous idea of Jesus being in a form of God meant Jesus WAS GOD!

He wasn't a god in gnosticism, hence he wasn't a god in Paul or John. In fact all five versions of Jesus say out loud that they're God and don't claim to be God.

But notice that though the verse is trinity-claimed to be saying that Jesus EMPTIED his ‘deity’ or ‘divinity’

Think of it as his archangel status or something like that. As Bart Ehrman points out, the idea of being divine back in those days was a spectrum, which gods like Caesar at the low end (I imagine a cut about river gods and so on, but that's a guess) and gods like Zeus at the top. We're much more black and white these days.

factorally God APPOINTS Jesus to the position of power and authority: ‘The Father was pleased that all the power of God should [come to ] dwell in him [Jesus]’

What seems to get very little mention in Trinity conversations (or indeed elsewhere) is that once Jesus ascended back to heaven, God, or at least Matthew's God, retired (Matthew 28:18). So these days if you want the CEO, you get Jesus, if you want the office boy you get the Ghost, and if you want God, [he]'s down at the Celestial Golf Club having a nectar or two with the other celestians.[/QUOTE]

 

[Soapy]

The pre-existing-in-heaven Jesus in Paul and John comes from gnosticism, with Jesus in the role of the gnostic demiurge ("craftsman"), who creates the material universe (1 Corinthians 8:6, John 1:3). The gnostic god is absolutely pure and immensely remote, so it would never occur to [him] to create anything so dirty as the material world; hence the demiurge must do it and there must afterwards be a mediator between God and Man. None of that is found in the synoptics, of course.
He wasn't a god in gnosticism, hence he wasn't a god in Paul or John. In fact all five versions of Jesus say out loud that they're God and don't claim to be God.
Think of it as his archangel status or something like that. As Bart Ehrman points out, the idea of being divine back in those days was a spectrum, which gods like Caesar at the low end (I imagine a cut about river gods and so on, but that's a guess) and gods like Zeus at the top. We're much more black and white these days.
What seems to get very little mention in Trinity conversations (or indeed elsewhere) is that once Jesus ascended back to heaven, God, or at least Matthew's God, retired (Matthew 28:18). So these days if you want the CEO, you get Jesus, if you want the office boy you get the Ghost, and if you want God, [he]'s down at the Celestial Golf Club having a nectar or two with the other celestians.

So you mean that

The pre-existing-in-heaven Jesus in Paul and John comes from gnosticism, with Jesus in the role of the gnostic demiurge ("craftsman"), who creates the material universe (1 Corinthians 8:6, John 1:3). The gnostic god is absolutely pure and immensely remote, so it would never occur to [him] to create anything so dirty as the material world; hence the demiurge must do it and there must afterwards be a mediator between God and Man. None of that is found in the synoptics, of course.
He wasn't a god in gnosticism, hence he wasn't a god in Paul or John. In fact all five versions of Jesus say out loud that they're God and don't claim to be God.
Think of it as his archangel status or something like that. As Bart Ehrman points out, the idea of being divine back in those days was a spectrum, which gods like Caesar at the low end (I imagine a cut about river gods and so on, but that's a guess) and gods like Zeus at the top. We're much more black and white these days.
What seems to get very little mention in Trinity conversations (or indeed elsewhere) is that once Jesus ascended back to heaven, God, or at least Matthew's God, retired (Matthew 28:18). So these days if you want the CEO, you get Jesus, if you want the office boy you get the Ghost, and if you want God, [he]'s down at the Celestial Golf Club having a nectar or two with the other celestians.

[/QUOTE]
The scriptures does not say that Jesus ascend ‘Back’ to Heaven.

And Jesus does not attain ‘Archangel status’. Jesus is a human Being made in the image of God. Angels are not made in God’s image … so if Jesus was to do as you say then it would mean him being DEMOTED to that lower status.

Archangel status just means the highest of the angels and that is given to the angel closest to God, Michael.

The passage where Jesus is to return with an archangels cry is so badly misinterpreted by Jehovahs witnessss that their mindset needs testing. I mean, the verse says Jesus will return WITH ‘the cry/shout of an archangel’. It stands to reason, therefore that Jesus IS NOT an archangel - crying out/shouting out LIKE an archangel…

That’s as weird as saying that Jesus is LIKE GOD and therefore IS GOD!

A man gains a car like his Father’s. Is his car his Father’s?

 

[blü 2]

So you mean that

The scriptures does not say that Jesus ascend ‘Back’ to Heaven.[/quote] The Jesus of Paul and the Jesus of John are in fact returning to heaven when they ascend. The Jesuses of Mark, Matthew and Luke are not.

And Jesus does not attain ‘Archangel status’.

I was looking for an analogy for the heavenly status of the Jesuses of Paul and of John, who indeed pre-existed in heaven with God and it appears are taken to have held the most senior place in the heavenly hierarchy under God.

 

[1213]

So you dont believe Jesus is God?

I don't think it is what Bible teaches, and I want to remain in Biblical teachings.

 

[Brian2]

I think it is good to notice that also disciples of Jesus should be one with them.

I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them through your name which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are.
John 17:11

that they may all be one; even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that you sent me.
John 17:21

Disciples of Jesus are one with each other in Christ and we are the body of Christ and children (adopted) of God because we have Jesus Spirit in us joined to our spirit, but Jesus is not an adopted child and is not a created child.
I do not notice that disciples are one with the Father and Son in those scriptures, it says "so that they may be one in us", not "one with us".

 

[Soapy]

The scriptures does not say that Jesus ascend ‘Back’ to Heaven.

The Jesus of Paul and the Jesus of John are in fact returning to heaven when they ascend. The Jesuses of Mark, Matthew and Luke are not.
I was looking for an analogy for the heavenly status of the Jesuses of Paul and of John, who indeed pre-existed in heaven with God and it appears are taken to have held the most senior place in the heavenly hierarchy under God.[/QUOTE]
It is very wrong to use such an analogy since down the line someone will believe that you meant it exactly such an reality.

This is the same as what happens when something is misquoted or misinterpreted. Sooner than later those errors become the mainstay of the belief…. And the evidence is shown as what you misquoted or misinterpreted.

We see this in verses such as: ‘God came in the flesh’ wherein the verse actually does not mention God at all but I’d referring you Jesus.

And… The coming in the flesh is actually a reference to the Word of God CONCERNING the messiah’s coming coming into fruition.

Indeed, the error is easily shown if the individual wishes to see if in that the claim is that ‘GOD was seen by angels’ and ‘Raised up in glory’…

God created angels… how are we to be told that Angels saw God? Or that God was in a low place and was RAISED UP in glory out of that place…. By whom?

But truth raises itself… Does not 2 John 1:7 not say this:

• “I say this because many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist.”

How then do trinity scholars now say that it was actually God who came in the flesh - does the verse here not show exactly what s going on in Christianity… the Anti-Christ is with us? Trinity is his name!!

 

[firedragon]

I don't think it is what Bible teaches, and I want to remain in Biblical teachings.

Okay. So you dont believe Jesus is God. Thanks. You could have just said that.