What are the differences between God and Jesus Christ?

[sojourner]

What does, ‘The word was God’, mean?

‘The word was God - and the word that was God, was with God!’

Please explain the claim.

What? You can’t do your own exegesis of the text? But yet you claim to have all the answers.

 

[sojourner]

Reread the meaning of antanaclasis, ...your exegesis leaves a lot to be desired.
Don't be hyper-literal in your hermeneutics, when the passage does not warrant it - that's a very amateurish mistake

Again: you’re gaslighting. First of all, I didn’t offer an “exegesis.” Second, if I had, an exegesis is a treatment of the text for what it literally is and how it literally conveys its meaning. Third, you’re really not in a position to make the judgment call you’re attempting to make; obviously, you don’t know an exegesis when you see one.

 

[DNB]

“antanaclasis”…. I like it!

This is exactly what I stated in my own way (I didn’t know about the word, ‘Antanaclasis’).

‘God’ is a TITLE…
‘GOD’ is an Adjective (a Superlative Adjective)
(Bold caps just for different usage)

Therefore:

• ‘In the beginning was the word [of God (title)]
  
• ‘And the word [of God (title)] was GOD (S.A.)
• ‘And the word [of God (title)] was with God’

You can see how this works when you apply it you, say:

• “And you know that the Scriptures cannot be altered. So if those people who received God’s message were called ‘gods,’” (John 10:35)

Here, you can see how replacing the the ‘gods’ with suitable superlative adjectives gives a truly valid rendering:

• “And you know that the Scriptures cannot be altered. So if those people who received God’s message were called ‘Mighty Ones / Heroes / Judges / Magistrates, Majestic ones, Powerful Ones, etc.’

Indeed, the holy angels of God were called ‘Mighty ones’ (S.A.: GODS).

Check out any response to: ‘How can the word of God be God and bd with God?’

That will be very interesting!!

Yes, I believe that it's rather intuitive to perceive John's prologue as a poetic convention, so that employing a hyper-literal interpretation is clearly not the authorial intent. I'm not surprised that you recognized this. And, of course, many do not know the term antanaclasis, but they recognize the convention.
The usage of 'word' is rendered in a different sense each time.
I understand the initial sense to be God's divine plan before the beginning of time. And that despite it's belated inception into history, it was always with God in reservation. And, finally, it defined all that God was. Ultimately, John is stating that Jesus' appearance in history was not an afterthought, it was intended before Adam was created - the mystery is in Jesus' chronology, not his ontology.

 

[DNB]

Again: you’re gaslighting. First of all, I didn’t offer an “exegesis.” Second, if I had, an exegesis is a treatment of the text for what it literally is and how it literally conveys its meaning. Third, you’re really not in a position to make the judgment call you’re attempting to make; obviously, you don’t know an exegesis when you see one.

Definition: exegesis is the subjective application of one's hermeneutics. If your hermeneutics establish a literal interpretation of Scripture, with the allowance of cultural and literary conventions of idioms, hyperbole, parables, figures of speech, colloquialisms, vernacular, allegory, metaphors, anthropomorphisms, etc... , as it should, then it is the responsibility of the exegete to determine when the passage is employing either a literal approach, or a literary device.

 

[YoursTrue]

One of my favorite YouTube atheists, Pinecreek, likes to use thought experiments and unconventional ideas when he hosts Christians for discussions. He is very affable and calm, but he does dig down to core issues in interesting ways.

One of the things he does is describe events in the Old Testament but replaces the name "Yaweh" with "Jesus."

For exampe, "Jesus drowned all the children of the world in the great flood. Jesus was there, holding their heads under the water, as they struggled for breath, right?" and, "Jesus commanded that all the people and livestock of the town were to be killed, except for the young virgin girls who the Hebrew warriors could keep for themselves. Yes?"

It's remarkable to watch the Christians squirm when he does this simple transposition. Even as they insistently deny it, it is clear that they see Yaweh and Jesus as having distinctly different personalities, both from this response and from the fact that their traditional description of Jesus is completely at odds with how Yaweh's personality is described in the bible. It's one of Christianity's many, many cognitive tensions and logical contradictions.

So would you or Pinecreek say that Jesus holds down the heads of children that drown now?

 

[YoursTrue]

OK they are two separate persons so they should be described differently. And Jesus said the father is greater than himself. So it sounds like you agree with me. Two separate persons but one God just two separate persons but one family.

Jesus is said to be the son (of God), right?

 

[YoursTrue]

No, it's part of the Gospel of Thomas, which I understand not everyone ascribes to.

So would you say that if God resides in a leaf I can pray to the leaf?

 

[lostwanderingsoul]

Jesus is said to be the son (of God), right?

Exactly. And what is a father and a son? A family.

 

[sojourner]

Definition: exegesis is the subjective application of one's hermeneutics. If your hermeneutics establish a literal interpretation of Scripture, with the allowance of cultural and literary conventions of idioms, hyperbole, parables, figures of speech, colloquialisms, vernacular, allegory, metaphors, anthropomorphisms, etc... , as it should, then it is the responsibility of the exegete to determine when the passage is employing either a literal approach, or a literary device.

Exegesis is “reading out of the text” in order to determine what the author meant. It is an objective approach — not a subjective approach, since the aim is to not read through one’s biased lens.
Since a critical approach to the texts is called for, “one’s hermeneutic” should be informed by such objective critical techniques as determine the nature of the text under consideration. This isn’t a question of “literal vs. metaphorical.” It’s a question of what literary devices the author used in order to get his meaning across. John isn’t a historical document. Therefore, “literal” doesn’t really enter the equation. Additionally, Koine Greek doesn’t often translate seamlessly into English. There are shades of subtlety in the Prologue that aren’t easily parsed out. What is clear from the Greek is that the essence of God and the essence of the Word (that God spoke) are the same. A better translation might be: “What God was the Word also was.” The whole Prologue points to a revelation of God in the world through the Person of Jesus. Jesus was the embodiment of the Word God spoke (which is of the essence of God). The literary device is used in order to convey a subtlety of thought that just isn’t caught in the English translation. The mistake many make regarding the Trinity is that they don’t take under consideration this subtlety and, instead, turn it into a “black-or-white” proposition, which it clearly isn’t. What is clear is that Jesus (being God’s Word) is of the same essence as God.

 

[Nakosis]

So would you say that if God resides in a leaf I can pray to the leaf?

I would say why focus on just the leaf?

I'd suppose it is a little easier for folks to identify with Jesus than the leaf. I don't imagine God would mind in either case though.

 

[Soapy]

Your response isn’t cogent to my post.

What does ‘Cogent’ mean?

 

[Soapy]

What? You can’t do your own exegesis of the text? But yet you claim to have all the answers.

Like I said, Trinitarians dare not give valid or relevant responses to the truth of scriptures…

What does ‘Exegesis’ mean?

 

[Soapy]

Exactly. And what is a father and a son? A family.

‘Father’ means:

• ‘He who creates’
• ‘He who gives life’
• ‘He who brings forth that which was not in existence’
• ‘He who is the Head’

God is the FATHER of all created Beings.

The angels are created Beings.

 

[IndigoChild5559]

‘Father’ means:

• ‘He who creates’
• ‘He who gives life’
• ‘He who brings forth that which was not in existence’
• ‘He who is the Head’

God is the FATHER of all created Beings.

The angels are created Beings.

Where are you getting these definitions from? For example, I've never heard father defined as someone who is the head.

 

[sojourner]

‘Father’ means:

• ‘He who creates’
• ‘He who gives life’
• ‘He who brings forth that which was not in existence’
• ‘He who is the Head’

God is the FATHER of all created Beings.

The angels are created Beings.

But Jesus wasn’t created...

 

[sojourner]

Like I said, Trinitarians dare not give valid or relevant responses to the truth of scriptures…

What does ‘Exegesis’ mean?

I rest my case.

 

[muhammad_isa]

But Jesus wasn’t created...

..wait a moment .. I thought that you believed that Jesus was divine AND human.
Human beings are Almighty God's creation.
Jesus was born in Bethlehem, His mother was a virgin. She carried him in her womb.

..and Jesus wasn't created?
Human beings are God's creatures but not Jesus? How so?

 

[DNB]

Exegesis is “reading out of the text” in order to determine what the author meant. It is an objective approach — not a subjective approach, since the aim is to not read through one’s biased lens.
Since a critical approach to the texts is called for, “one’s hermeneutic” should be informed by such objective critical techniques as determine the nature of the text under consideration. This isn’t a question of “literal vs. metaphorical.” It’s a question of what literary devices the author used in order to get his meaning across. John isn’t a historical document. Therefore, “literal” doesn’t really enter the equation. Additionally, Koine Greek doesn’t often translate seamlessly into English. There are shades of subtlety in the Prologue that aren’t easily parsed out. What is clear from the Greek is that the essence of God and the essence of the Word (that God spoke) are the same. A better translation might be: “What God was the Word also was.” The whole Prologue points to a revelation of God in the world through the Person of Jesus. Jesus was the embodiment of the Word God spoke (which is of the essence of God). The literary device is used in order to convey a subtlety of thought that just isn’t caught in the English translation. The mistake many make regarding the Trinity is that they don’t take under consideration this subtlety and, instead, turn it into a “black-or-white” proposition, which it clearly isn’t. What is clear is that Jesus (being God’s Word) is of the same essence as God.

That is your entirely subjective exegetical opinion.
There is no such thing as a god-man, even a child knows this. Therefore, your subjective exegesis, corrupted by eisegesis, bears no substantiation to the truth.
John's prologue is explaining that Christ was not afterthought, despite entering history 4,000 years after Adam. The Garden of Eden, Abrahamic and Mosaic covenants were not God's initial Word, despite preceding all other covenants of fellowship.
Although Jesus was created around 6-4BC, he was the first-born of creation, and of the dead, the catalyst behind all creation, and King of Kings and Lord of Lords. John is expressing the fact that Jesus' mystery is in his chronology, not his ontology.

 

[lostwanderingsoul]

‘Father’ means:

• ‘He who creates’
• ‘He who gives life’
• ‘He who brings forth that which was not in existence’
• ‘He who is the Head’

God is the FATHER of all created Beings.

The angels are created Beings.

A father has relations with a mother and brings forth a new life of the same kind. A sculpture creates a statue that was not in existance before but is not the father of the statue.

 

[Soapy]

A father has relations with a mother and brings forth a new life of the same kind. A sculpture creates a statue that was not in existance before but is not the father of the statue.

What does, ‘Satan is the Father of the lie’ mean?