The Trinity study ,plural references to God in the Old Testament:Plural nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs

[mikesw]

Nothing about Jesus being an angel. So here we are you have not show even one dot of evidence of Jesus' pre-existence. Care to try again?

That is such an ignorant response to the discussion. I do not need to try again until you can understand even simple ideas.

Maybe I can add another little bit...

God as existing in a triune sense can then, share of that triune sense One who appears as and is described as a messenger. That is because God in full glory would be too intense to be seen directly. We do not have to have everything described to us. We only need to accept the what has been shared.

I can see how you are trying to share in an honest and open fashion some novel insight you think you have gained over against the basic awareness of Christ in scripture. Then either you had a predisposition to hyperliteralist reading of narrow passages or that was the only way you could find something different from the verses already so familiar among Christians. I just see that you have sufficient arguments insufficiently persuasive to convince people of your novel interpretation. Nor have you improved much in making arguments.

 

[amazing grace]

No one that I have seen here has suggested a physical preexistence of the Word. Nor do people say God in totality became flesh, as if modalism and of God taking on a humanness as a shell. If the situation were exactly that, then the text would share this directly in the way you convey it.
We also know that theos is not able to be used as an adjective in the fashion you hoped it could be. For this to just happen in the verse that shows the preexistent Word, is desperation. Nor does the idea make sense.

If God is Triune and he exist physically then wouldn't the 'second person of the Trinity', i.e. the Son, the Word also physically exist within the ONE God?

Edited in: There also would be easier way to just say godly words were reflected in Jesus -- if that is what you are saying here. Even if John were purely sharing the godly words in Jesus' ministry usinga poetic sense, it would just lead to the confusion that you are reflecting

haha. You stop the grammar from giving understanding. Since there is no figurative sense here, the direct sense is boiled down to being literally God. However, the clarifying way to see the phrase based on Daniel Wallace is -- What God was, the Word was. That is not adjectival. So hopefully you will let the grammar be a guide.

I said nothing about anything being figurative.

I stop the grammar from giving understanding??? It's simple John 1:1c - if it was in the vocative case then the word would be equivalent to God but sense it is in the nominative case it is adjectival in meaning, i.e. descriptive and yes 'what God was, the word was' is meant to be adjectival, descriptive.

You speak against contradiction but you reject John 1:1-18 to avoid contradiction, as you see it. Ironically you also reject the literal sense of Jesus as the Son of God. You leave him only viewed as man.

I don't REJECT John 1:1-18 - I REJECT the Trinitarian reading of John 1:1-18.
I have NEVER rejected Jesus being the LITERAL Son of God. I do see him as a human being and see the scriptures describing as such. I just don't see the Son of God meaning that he is God.

uh. Maybe a paraphrased line from a silly movie would help "I was in London and now am here. So, I am from London." Jesus cannot come down from somewhere where he never was.

Jesus's origin, authority, and mission come directly from God the Father.

Exactly! This hardly can deny that his glory is in being the preexistence as the Word who became flesh as Jesus.

Your "logic" simply undoes the glory Jesus speaks of before the world existed.

Totally missed any logic presumed to be shared by your earlier arguments.

Now you blame your confusion on John.

Uh. I see your confusion. It may be a limitation of the Trinitarian understanding at times. But really! No one says God turns solely into a man. I would disagree with that too. You are rejecting a straw man here.

Again, any preexistence of Jesus is in the foreknowledge and plan of God. If my logic lines up with scripture - I am okay with that. Because my understanding is different than yours, I am blaming John???? WOW!
So, now Jesus is no longer God? Jesus wasn't God incarnate? Or just the 'second member of the Trinity' assumed humanity? Which is it?

You miss that a plural sense appears in Genesis 1. If you can, accept that as a preview of that which would be clearer in the New Testament.

Nope, I haven't missed what you are calling a 'plural sense' in Genesis. I just don't accept that God is talking to himself but rather to the angels. And yes, elohim is plural but it can also be singular in usage depedant upon the verbs, adjectives, and pronouns used. God created......created is singular therefore elohim is singular.

AI --- Elohim is grammatically plural in form but often functions as a singular noun, referring to the one God of Israel, using singular verbs and adjectives, a usage known as the "plural of majesty" or honorific plural.

The problem is you are pushing novel, new, gnostic, private interpretation on people. Unless your view could be supported by sufficient, convincing argument, you are just presenting speculation.

Then there is no problem because that is not what I am doing.

 

[Runningman]

Exactly. Literally no one, not even myself, says God is an angel. Duhhh.
That expression would mean that the essence of God is reduced to one meaning of "angel" in the sense of being a created servant or messenger able to appear among men and having consciousness and dependent existence.

But only a hyperliteralist will deny that the Angel of the Lord could refer to one who then is also called Yahweh. The unitarian must read only half of scripture rather than the full scripture.

The angel of the Lord is explicitly called an angel, not God. You can't change that. Do angels speak representatively for God? Yes? Then what the angel said is a repeat of the words God told the angel to speak. There is no other conclusion to draw from that.

 

[Runningman]

That is such an ignorant response to the discussion. I do not need to try again until you can understand even simple ideas.

Maybe I can add another little bit...

God as existing in a triune sense can then, share of that triune sense One who appears as and is described as a messenger. That is because God in full glory would be too intense to be seen directly. We do not have to have everything described to us. We only need to accept the what has been shared.

I can see how you are trying to share in an honest and open fashion some novel insight you think you have gained over against the basic awareness of Christ in scripture. Then either you had a predisposition to hyperliteralist reading of narrow passages or that was the only way you could find something different from the verses already so familiar among Christians. I just see that you have sufficient arguments insufficiently persuasive to convince people of your novel interpretation. Nor have you improved much in making arguments.

Show the verse where the angel is referred to as Jesus, God the Son, the Lamb, or any other possible name or title we may connect the angel to Jesus with in trinitarian theology. I might add, no one has found this yet. Good luck.

 

[Runningman]

The term “Prologue” is singular, so when someone simply says “John’s Prologue,” it naturally and automatically points to the well-known introductory section of John’s major work, the Gospel of John—specifically John 1:1–18. Because “prologue” in this usage functions as a proper literary label rather than a generic description, it refers to that single, recognized opening. If a person intended to reference another Johannine writing, they would need to qualify it, such as “the prologue of 1 John".

So when will you finally acknowledge the fact that the Word, who was God (John 1:1c), tabernacled as Jesus (John 1:14), proving that Jesus is God?

Again, you continue to display your willful ignorance of Greek. John makes use of Greek-styled neuter pronouns in 1 John 1 to refer to an abstracted or collective reality, as he did in John 3:6: “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” We can all agree that a thing is not born of Spirit, people are. Right?

1John 1:1-3 explicitly refers to the Word as a that, which, this, and it. Yeah, when referring to things that is exactly how things are referred to. 1 John 1:1-3 is proof that the Word is not actually God. Now you understand how in John's prologue the Word is not God, i.e., the Word is not the same God it's with. Not two different God's, only one God known as the Father, and the Word has the nature of God.

 

[mikesw]

If God is Triune and he exist physically then wouldn't the 'second person of the Trinity', i.e. the Son, the Word also physically exist within the ONE God?

I have no idea what concept of God you are presenting here. It sounds like another straw man argument surrounding some sort of physicality. Maybe you can explain what you are arguing against in this point.

I said nothing about anything being figurative.

I stop the grammar from giving understanding??? It's simple John 1:1c - if it was in the vocative case then the word would be equivalent to God but sense it is in the nominative case it is adjectival in meaning, i.e. descriptive and yes 'what God was, the word was' is meant to be adjectival, descriptive.

Uh. You wish to alter standard Greek grammar to make this adjectival. Stop altering the grammar teaching just to fit your desired misinterpretation.

I don't REJECT John 1:1-18 - I REJECT the Trinitarian reading of John 1:1-18.
I have NEVER rejected Jesus being the LITERAL Son of God. I do see him as a human being and see the scriptures describing as such. I just don't see the Son of God meaning that he is God.

Indeed you strip "God" out of the meaning of Son of God.

Jesus's origin, authority, and mission come directly from God the Father.

Duh. Or you would have division in the Godhead.

Again, any preexistence of Jesus is in the foreknowledge and plan of God. If my logic lines up with scripture - I am okay with that. Because my understanding is different than yours, I am blaming John???? WOW!

Preexistence in the foreknowledge within John 1 is such a whitewash of meaning that it hardly deserves a response. John could have written out your concept much more clearly.

So, now Jesus is no longer God? Jesus wasn't God incarnate? Or just the 'second member of the Trinity' assumed humanity? Which is it?

I just repeat what John 1 shows. The preexistent One, designed as the Word, was with God and was God. That One became flesh while preserving that continuity. Of course I say it this way because there was no physical Jesus in heaven but only the preexistent conscious One in creation that John carries forth from Philo as being the logos.

Nope, I haven't missed what you are calling a 'plural sense' in Genesis. I just don't accept that God is talking to himself but rather to the angels. And yes, elohim is plural but it can also be singular in usage depedant upon the verbs, adjectives, and pronouns used. God created......created is singular therefore elohim is singular.

you make man in the image of angels. that is a nogo.

AI --- Elohim is grammatically plural in form but often functions as a singular noun, referring to the one God of Israel, using singular verbs and adjectives, a usage known as the "plural of majesty" or honorific plural.

Then there is no problem because that is not what I am doing.

the blind saying he can see.

 

[mikesw]

The angel of the Lord is explicitly called an angel, not God. You can't change that. Do angels speak representatively for God? Yes? Then what the angel said is a repeat of the words God told the angel to speak. There is no other conclusion to draw from that.

you cannot break free from an incoherent use of "angel" in the text.

 

[mikesw]

Show the verse where the angel is referred to as Jesus, God the Son, the Lamb, or any other possible name or title we may connect the angel to Jesus with in trinitarian theology. I might add, no one has found this yet. Good luck.

really?? You want to find the OT filled with content from the NT? You are getting too desperate.

 

[Runningman]

you cannot break free from an incoherent use of "angel" in the text.

really?? You want to find the OT filled with content from the NT? You are getting too desperate.

As I said, you cannot find any working examples of Jesus doing anything in the Old Testament. So you have a major setback for your argument that imposes a pre-existence onto Jesus. There is no Jesus to be found in the Old Testament because he didn't exist yet, he isn't an eternal being, only has a record of existence at his birth.

Next fallacy.

 

[amazing grace]

You reduce Jesus to mere flesh. You deny John 1. You deny the significance of the designation Son of God. Everything is reduced to nothingness in your doctrines.

That's where you are wrong.

Uggh. You get more into Mormon doctrine that you might be overcoming. You seem again and again to assume that anyone has said the body of Jesus preexisted. There lies much of your confusion about Jesus.

<snip>
I agree Jesus 'came down from heaven', i.e. came from God (John 3:2; 8:42; 16:27,30); God sent him (John 3:34; 4:34; 5:24, 30,36,37; 6:38,39,57; 7:16,28,29,33; 8:16,18,26,29,42; 9:4; 11:42; 12:44,45,49; 13:20; 14:24; 15:21; 16:5; 17:8,18,21,23,25; 20:21)
BTW, John 6:38 does say Jesus 'came down from heaven to do the will of him who sent me' --- self explanatory - he came from heaven in that the Father sent him. Yes, Jesus was sent into the world - not from another planet - but through birth.
John and Jesus both were sent by God - apostellō.

Well, I am not Mormon the only thing I know about them is that they think Jesus was an angel.
I haven't said anything about the body of Jesus preexisting.

The question is not about the birth aspect. It is about the being sent from heaven while being spiritual both with God and being God. Then you repeat the thwarted diversion of reducing Jesus down to John's normal birth. That is one of the most noticeable problem of the views held by unitarians.

both with God and being God?
Well, John and Jesus did get here through birth.

Duh. It tells us of the very essence of Jesus and what makes him the Son of God not only as a fanciful expression but rather as carrying the attributes of his Father.

Not really.
Luke tells us what makes him the Son of God.

John could have just said Jesus was a godly man. You take John 1 and reduce it to that. You would take Kipler's poem about trees (https://poets.org/poem/trees) and just say he did not like smokestacks. You are far to reductionistic in what you propose against the text sharing the Word becoming incarnate in continued conscious existence.

John could have said that but he didn't. He was inspired to use poetic, symbolic and lyrical language.
Are you saying that I am making scripture too simplistic?

People are going to reject your modalist interpretation of the preexistence of the One who became Christ. I have some thought of looking deeper into existing Trinitarian theory and note there may be weaknesses in understanding how this incarnation works and what it means. However, it is stated better there than what unitarians offer.

Modalist interpretation? If I was putting forth a modalist interpretation then I would expect them to reject it - a theological doctrine defining God as a single person who manifests in three successive 'modes'----Father, Son and Holy Spirit-----rather than three distinct, co-existing persons. They, like Trinitarians, also try to pull off monotheism.

I don't see how ANYONE would think I was putting forth a modalist interpretation!!!!

That is such a weaseling away from the message of John 1. But you get closer to reality when you speak of his entrance into the world from his heavenly conscious existence.

<snip>
As I said, I agree that Jesus preexisted just not in a literal sense but in the foreknowledge and plan of God. Scripture records his entrance into the world through his conception and birth.<snip>

The problem is that it does not. As you see, you are interpreting it and thus add a third party into the analysis. That is where you have to provide something convincing to shift the idea away from a private interpretation into a generally acceptable one.

Maybe people will believe what they will believe, but that does not justify pushing private doctrine on to others as you have done.

I have no need to justify or not justify something I am not doing.......especially, something that is just your opinion.

 

[mikesw]

As I said, you cannot find any working examples of Jesus doing anything in the Old Testament. So you have a major setback for your argument that imposes a pre-existence onto Jesus. There is no Jesus to be found in the Old Testament because he didn't exist yet, he isn't an eternal being, only has a record of existence at his birth.

Next fallacy.

You mean the fallacy of expecting NT passages to be found in the OT?

People may inaccurately discuss the Trinity with Jesus preexisting, as if a body exists with the name Jesus assigned to it before 100BC. That is just weak language. Then the unitarian tries to make it seem there must be a physical body to exist ahead of the birth of Jesus, as if part of Christian thinking. Because there is no physical body existing before 100BC, the unitarians says "see Jesus does not preexist!" That becomes a straw man argument by the unitarians.

We show, without suggesting, a four-person Godhead, that the Angel of the Lord logically applies to Jesus in being distinct -- of being both with God and being God. That is what John 1 shows as well. It would take more than a weak hyperliteralist argument on John 1 and the Angel of the Lord passages to break that link.

The unitarian also has to argue that a nonexistent One (who became incarnate as Jesus) worked in the creation of the world. That is an obvious contradiction.

 

[Runningman]

You mean the fallacy of expecting NT passages to be found in the OT?

People may inaccurately discuss the Trinity with Jesus preexisting, as if a body exists with the name Jesus assigned to it before 100BC. That is just weak language. Then the unitarian tries to make it seem there must be a physical body to exist ahead of the birth of Jesus, as if part of Christian thinking. Because there is no physical body existing before 100BC, the unitarians says "see Jesus does not preexist!" That becomes a straw man argument by the unitarians.

We show, without suggesting, a four-person Godhead, that the Angel of the Lord logically applies to Jesus in being distinct -- of being both with God and being God. That is what John 1 shows as well. It would take more than a weak hyperliteralist argument on John 1 and the Angel of the Lord passages to break that link.

The unitarian also has to argue that a nonexistent One (who became incarnate as Jesus) worked in the creation of the world. That is an obvious contradiction.

Give it up already. The only thing that matters here is the scripture, not your opinions, beliefs, and projections. Show Jesus clearly in the Old Testament or bow out of this senseless debate with class.

 

[mikesw]

Give it up already. The only thing that matters here is the scripture, not your opinions, beliefs, and projections. Show Jesus clearly in the Old Testament or bow out of this senseless debate with class.

You are making no sense here. How do you expect to see Jesus' name in the OT when that name was not assigned to him until his birth. Until you make some sense here, there is hardly a topic for discussion.

 

[amazing grace]

I have no idea what concept of God you are presenting here. It sounds like another straw man argument surrounding some sort of physicality. Maybe you can explain what you are arguing against in this point.

I guess since you are not able to answer the question, I get that type of answer.
I simply asked the question:

If God is Triune and he exist physically then wouldn't the 'second person of the Trinity', i.e. the Son, the Word also physically exist within the ONE God?

Uh. You wish to alter standard Greek grammar to make this adjectival. Stop altering the grammar teaching just to fit your desired misinterpretation.
Indeed you strip "God" out of the meaning of Son of God.

Speech:

Case:

Number:

Gender:

[td]Noun[/td] [td]Nominative[/td] [td]Singular[/td] [td]Masculine

[/td]

Just what I said John 1:1c theos is in the nominative case.

Duh. Or you would have division in the Godhead.

Preexistence in the foreknowledge within John 1 is such a whitewash of meaning that it hardly deserves a response. John could have written out your concept much more clearly.

I just repeat what John 1 shows. The preexistent One, designed as the Word, was with God and was God. That One became flesh while preserving that continuity. Of course I say it this way because there was no physical Jesus in heaven but only the preexistent conscious One in creation that John carries forth from Philo as being the logos.

So again you cannot simply answer my question to your statement - No one says God turns solely into a man?

So, now Jesus is no longer God? Jesus wasn't God incarnate? Or just the 'second member of the Trinity' assumed humanity? Which is it?

you make man in the image of angels. that is a nogo.

Nope, God is having a discussion with SOMEONE other than himself - both God and angels are spiritual beings - God says to them: Let us make man in our image after our likeness ---- both God and angels are spiritual beings.
At this point God is not creating man he is discussing creating man.
In the next verse God actually does the creating -
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
Man wasn't created in OUR IMAGE after OUR likeness but in God's own image.

the blind saying he can see.

If you mean by using AI? - sometimes I agree but in this instance AI is correct and there are references to others that say the same - just Google it but I doubt you will believe any of them either.

 

[Runningman]

You are making no sense here. How do you expect to see Jesus' name in the OT when that name was not assigned to him until his birth. Until you make some sense here, there is hardly a topic for discussion.

Then don't make any claims about Jesus pre-existing until you an actually prove it. We have already been over this several times by now and the result is the same: no actions performed by Jesus before his birth, no words spoken by Jesus before his birth.

 

[synergy]

1John 1:1-3 explicitly refers to the Word as a that, which, this, and it. Yeah, when referring to things that is exactly how things are referred to. 1 John 1:1-3 is proof that the Word is not actually God. Now you understand how in John's prologue the Word is not God, i.e., the Word is not the same God it's with. Not two different God's, only one God known as the Father, and the Word has the nature of God.

Again and again, you continue to display your willful ignorance of Greek. John makes use of Greek-styled neuter pronouns in 1 John 1 to refer to an abstracted or collective reality, as he did in John 3:6: “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” We can all agree that a thing is not born of Spirit, people are. Right?

So when will you finally acknowledge the fact that the Word, who was God (John 1:1c), tabernacled as Jesus (John 1:14), proving that Jesus is God?

 

[Runningman]

Again and again, you continue to display your willful ignorance of Greek. John makes use of Greek-styled neuter pronouns in 1 John 1 to refer to an abstracted or collective reality, as he did in John 3:6: “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” We can all agree that a thing is not born of Spirit, people are. Right?

So when will you finally acknowledge the fact that the Word, who was God (John 1:1c), tabernacled as Jesus (John 1:14), proving that Jesus is God?

I hear you, but I also know you cannot change the English translation of what the Word is in 1John 1:1-3, nor the Greek, so I am not inclined to accept anything other than an agreement about what it says. You can argue all day, but you can't change it.

Why not just agree that the Word is eternal life and that eternal life is a thing Jesus and us can have and leave it as simple as that? I know why, it's because you need the Word to be a person even when it is demonstrably not.

Here's what's happening here: there is no way to make the Word a person in 1 John 1:1-3, but there is a valid way to make the Word a thing in John 1:1 and everywhere else in the Bible. See, you are outnumbered 10:1. It's you against Scripture at this point.

 

[mikesw]

Then don't make any claims about Jesus pre-existing until you an actually prove it. We have already been over this several times by now and the result is the same: no actions performed by Jesus before his birth, no words spoken by Jesus before his birth.

Jesus is shown saying it. John 1 shares it. So I have no understanding what your obstacles are to understanding scripture. If you want to say the Word did nothing during the process of creation, you come to a rather odd interpretation.

 

[synergy]

Why not just give me your definition of nature?

That is not what I meant and YOU know it.
I worship God not a nature and I have not changed the glory of the immortal God.......

Who said anything about worshiping a nature? Not me. You're attempting to redirect the conversation astray. Stick to the subject and tell us what "nature of God" do you think Jesus has?

 

[amazing grace]

So you define "the nature of God" as not uncreated and not eternal. That clearly describes the nature of whom you worship. Got it.

Why not just give me your definition of nature?

That is not what I meant and YOU know it.
I worship God not a nature and I have not changed the glory of the immortal God.......

Who said anything about worshiping a nature? Not me. You're attempting to redirect the conversation astray.

You did: "That clearly describes the nature of whom you worship."

Stick to the subject and tell us what "nature of God" do you think Jesus has?

Not redirecting the conversation at all.

Jesus is a human being, therefore has a human nature.
He is the anointed of God, Jesus Christ, the Son of God who displays the characteristics of God NOT GOD'S INHERENT, INNATE ATTRIBUTES [omni's, invisibility, immortality (he was given immortality)] but God's characteristics of righteousness, justice, holiness, kindness, love, grace, merciful, faithfulness, truthfulness, etc.