Doug Brents
Active Member
Where in Scripture do you find that the spirit is physical?
Thomas... My Lord and my God
- Thread starter Peterlag
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Doug Brents
Active Member
Pete, while these terms are not in Scripture, the essence of them is. And #s 4, 6, 10, 12, & 13 are, in fact, completely supported and stated in Scripture.
4 - Philippians 2:6-8, John 17:24, Hebrews 1:3, Colossians 1:17, John 1:14, 1 Timothy 3:16
6 - John 1:1-3, 14
10 - Philippians 2:5-8
12 - Acts 17:29, Romans 1:20, Colossians 2:9
13 - John 1:1-18, John 8:58, Philippians 2:6-11, Hebrews 1:1-8, Colossians 1:15-20
Peterlag
Active Member
Philippians 2:6 is not a teaching on the trinity or that we should confess or believe that Jesus is God. After saying that Christ was in the form of God, Philippians 2:6 goes on to say that Christ “considered being equal with God not something to be grasped at.” If Jesus were God, then it would make no sense at all to say that he did not “grasp” at equality with God because no one grasps at equality with himself. Some Trinitarians say, “Well, he was not grasping for equality with the Father.” That is not what the verse says. It says Christ did not grasp at equality with God, which makes the verse nonsense if he were God.
The Greek word morphē does not refer to the essential nature of Christ in that context. If the point of the verse is to say that Jesus is God, then why not just say that? If Jesus is God, say that, don’t say he has the “essential nature of God.” Of course God has the “essential nature” of God, so why would anyone make that point? This verse does not say “Jesus being God” but rather “being in the form of God.” Paul is reminding the Philippians that Jesus represented the Father in every possible way.
From the Septuagint and their other writings, the Jews were familiar with morphē referring to the outward appearance, including the form of men and idols. To the Greeks, it also referred to the outward appearance, including the changing outward appearance of their gods and the form of statues. The only other New Testament use of morphē outside Philippians is in Mark, and there it refers to the outward appearance. Also, the words related to morphē clearly refer to an outward manifestation or appearance. The word morphē refers to an outward appearance or manifestation. Jesus Christ was in the outward appearance of God, so much so that he said, “He who has seen me has seen the Father.” Christ always did the Father’s will, and perfectly represented his Father in every way.
Peterlag
Active Member
You want me to find a verse in the Bible that says God has material existence, characterized by the forces and operations of physics?
Doug Brents
Active Member
Absolutely!
Doug Brents
Active Member
The Greek word here is
ἁρπαγμὸν (harpagmon)
Noun - Accusative Masculine Singular
Strong's 725: Spoil, an object of eager desire, a prize. From harpazo; plunder.
And then the author goes on to say that Jesus emptied Himself. He already was in the form of God. He already had position with God; as part of God. But He let it all go and emptied Himself of the power and authority that went long with that position and became a man, even lesser than the angels.
Not at all. Equality with God was not something that He needed to hold onto, or desire greatly, or seek as a spoil of war (in contrast to Satan who desires, and wants, and covets equality with God).
Because He was also a man. And God knew that there would be people like yourself who would claim that because He was a man, He could not also be God. But God, through Paul, is telling us that Jesus is God, He started out as God, and let it all go to become a man.
What does it mean to be in the form of God. Is there any other being that is said to be in the form of God? Man? Angel? Satan? Demon? Other "gods"? NO. There is nothing and no one else that is ever said to be in the form of God, equal with God. Only Jesus and the the Holy Spirit which is the Spirit of God.
Just representing Him is not all that Jesus does for God. You forget, or ignore, John 1:1-3, & 14 which says that Jesus was with God, was God, and Jesus did all of the creating of everything that was created; nothing was created that was not created by Him. Only God has the ability to make something from nothing. And Jesus could no create Himself (meaning He is NOT a created being). He existed before anything was created. So He was not just in outward appearance as God, but was/is fully God in every way.
Peterlag
Active Member
I did not forget John 1:3 nor do I have to ignore it. I can list it right here along with John 1:14...
John 1:3
“Everything came to be through it.” The logos is an “it” not a “him.”
Translators have deliberately chosen to use “him” because they wanted to emphasize that the Word was the male person we know as Jesus. This was a theological choice, not a linguistic one.
John 1:14
The "Word" is the wisdom, plan or purpose of God and the Word became flesh as Jesus Christ. Thus, Jesus Christ was the Word in the flesh, which is shortened to the Word for ease of speaking. Scripture is also the Word in writing. Everyone agrees that the Word in writing had a beginning. So did the Word in the flesh. In fact, the Greek text of Matthew 1:18 says that very clearly: "Now the beginning of Jesus Christ was in this manner..." The modern Greek texts all read "beginning" in Matthew 1:18. Birth is considered an acceptable translation since the beginning of some things is birth, and so most translations read birth. Nevertheless, the proper understanding of Matthew 1:18 is the beginning of Jesus Christ. In the beginning God had a plan, a purpose, which became flesh when Jesus was conceived.
Peterlag
Active Member
Will this work...
Jesus Christ is not a lexical definition of logos. The verse does not say "In the beginning was Jesus." The "Word" is not synonymous with Jesus, or even the "Messiah." The word logos in John 1:1 refers to God's creative self-expression... His reason, purpose and plans, especially as they are brought into action. It refers to God's self-expression or communication of Himself. This has come to pass through His creation and especially the heavens. It has come through the spoken word of the prophets and through Scripture. Most notably it has come into being through His Son. The logos is the expression of God and is His communication of Himself just as a "word" is an outward expression of a person's thoughts. This outward expression of God has now occurred through His Son and thus it's perfectly understandable why Jesus is called the "Word." Jesus is an outward expression of God's reason, wisdom, purpose and plan. For the same reason we call revelation "a word from God" and the Bible "the Word of God."
If we understand that the logos is God's expression... His plan, purpose, reason and wisdom. Then it is clear they were with Him "in the beginning." Scripture says God's wisdom was "from the beginning" and it was common in Hebrew writing to personify a concept such as wisdom. The fact that the logos "became" flesh shows it did not exist that way before. There is no pre-existence for Jesus in this verse other than his figurative "existence" as the plan, purpose or wisdom of God for the salvation of man. The same is true with the "word" in writing. It had no literal pre-existence as a "spirit-book" somehow in eternity past, but came into being as God gave the revelation to people and they wrote it down.
Doug Brents
Active Member
lol, the Logos is a Him, because He became (took on) flesh and became a man while still retaining His deity.
Not theological at all. It completely fits the pronoun used in the Greek:
αὐτοῦ (autou)
Personal / Possessive Pronoun - Genitive Masculine 3rd Person Singular
Strong's 846: He, she, it, they, them, same. From the particle au; the reflexive pronoun self, used of the third person, and of the other persons.
So the Word was God, and then the Word became flesh. That means that the flesh that the Word became is God. The Word did not cease to be God when it put on flesh.
In one sense you are right: at one time there was no written record of the words of God (Scripture) and then they were written down, so they had a point in time in which they "began". But there was a time when those words were passed down orally without being written down. So did they not really exist when they were only in oral form? The suddenly became real because they were written down? No. They always existed, even before they were passed from God to man, they existed in God.
Jesus is no different. He began as God; existed with and as part of God from before the Beginning. And then He took on flesh and became a man. He didn't suddenly become real just because He took on flesh. He always existed and was always real, even before He took on flesh.
Yes, the beginning of Jesus as a man happened as Matthew records. But that is not the beginning of Jesus as a being, as an entity. John tells us clearly that He existed with God and as part of God from before Creation. Paul tells us that as a Man, all the deity of God dwelt on Earth in human form. To accept your bastardization of Matthew would be to negate so many other Scriptures.
Doug Brents
Active Member
You spout your personal doctrine (which does not agree with Scripture at all), but you have not answered the question.
Again: where in Scripture does it say that God has a physical form or a material existence?
Peterlag
Active Member
Oh you mean a form that is physical and not spiritual? There's no Scripture that says God is not spiritual.
I do find it interesting that when I post biblical data that it's my opinion or personal doctrine. But when you post biblical data it's the Word of God.
Peterlag
Active Member
It seems difficult for people to understand that John 1:1 is introducing the Gospel of John, and not the Book of Genesis. The topic of John is God (the Father, the only God) at work in the ministry of the man Jesus of Nazareth, not the creation of rocks, trees and stars.
John 1:3
“Everything came to be through it.” The logos is an “it” not a “him.”
Translators have deliberately chosen to use “him” because they wanted to emphasize that the Word was the male person we know as Jesus. This was a theological choice, not a linguistic one.
Translators, on the other hand, retained the natural feminine gender of the Hebrew word chokmah (חָכְמָה) “wisdom” in the book of Proverbs.
“Do not forsake wisdom, and she will protect you; love her, and she will watch over you.” (Proverbs 4:6)
Was the Wisdom a distinct divine person?
So, for the same reason that Wisdom is not literally a person, Word is not literally a person.
Both the description in Proverbs and in John 1:1-3 are metaphorical.
Jesus is the personification of the Word because He speaks the words of God. To listen to Jesus equals listening to the Word of God.
Doug Brents
Active Member
Then why do you claim that:
What part of Spirit is physical? Your statement is an oxymoron. There is no such thing as a physical spirit.
As I said, your "biblical data" contradicts what Scripture says. So it is your personal doctrine with no connection to reality.
When was "the Beginning"? Obviously it was at or before Creation, because John goes on to explain that Jesus (the Logos of God) was instrumental and fully involved in the creation of EVERYTHING.
Nowhere in Scripture does it say that the wisdom of God became or took on flesh. Yes, there are similarities in the way wisdom and logos are personified in these passages. But then the logos took on flesh and became man. And the wisdom of God is never said to BE God, yet logos IS said to BE God.
Peterlag
Active Member
Sure it does. Right in the first chapter of John...
John 1:14
The "Word" is the wisdom, plan or purpose of God and the Word became flesh as Jesus Christ. Thus, Jesus Christ was the Word in the flesh, which is shortened to the Word for ease of speaking. Scripture is also the Word in writing. Everyone agrees that the Word in writing had a beginning. So did the Word in the flesh. In fact, the Greek text of Matthew 1:18 says that very clearly: "Now the beginning of Jesus Christ was in this manner..." The modern Greek texts all read "beginning" in Matthew 1:18. Birth is considered an acceptable translation since the beginning of some things is birth, and so most translations read birth. Nevertheless, the proper understanding of Matthew 1:18 is the beginning of Jesus Christ. In the beginning God had a plan, a purpose, which became flesh when Jesus was conceived.
dwight92070
Active Member
The Father is one of the three persons in the Godhead - NOT "the third God". You're blind.
Peterlag
Active Member
The word "Father" is a name. A title. It is not a living creature. You got nothing. You cannot answer the question because there are no 3 parts of God.
Peterlag
Active Member
What do you make of these guys...
"The doctrine of the Trinity is not a biblical doctrine... it's the product of theological reflection." - The Christian Doctrine of God Trinitarian. E. Brunner, 1949, p. 236.
“Trinity is not a biblical doctrine" - New Bible Dictionary, J. Douglas, F. Bruce, 1982, p. 1298.
“Scholars generally agree that there is no doctrine of the Trinity as such in either the Old or the New Testament” - The Harper Collins Encyclopedia of Catholicism, 1995, p. 564.
“The Bible has no statements or speculations concerning a trinitary deity." - Encyclopedia Britannica, volume 12, p. 383, 1979.
“Three coequal partners in the Godhead cannot be clearly detected within the confines of the Bible. It's important to avoid reading the Trinity into places where it does not appear." - Oxford Companion To the Bible, Bruce Metzger, M. Coogan, p. 782-3.
“The doctrine of the Trinity is not present in biblical thought... it goes beyond, and even distorts, what the Bible says about God.” - A Contemporary Interpretation of the Trinity - God in Three Persons: Prof. M. Erickson, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, p. 12, 20.
“The belief (in a Trinity-God) was reached only in the 4th and 5th centuries AD and hence is not explicitly and formally a biblical belief." -Dictionary of The Bible, 1995, (trinitarian) J. Mckenzie, p. 899.
“The doctrine of the Trinity was formulated in the post-biblical period." - Harper’s Bible Dictionary, 1985.
“In the New Testament there is no direct suggestion of a doctrine of the Trinity." - An Encyclopedia of Religion, V. Ferm (ed.), 1945, p. 344.
“No passage of Scripture discusses the threeness of God." - The New International Version. Disciples Study Bible, p. 173, note for Mt. 3:16.
“The Bible does not state that there is one God who exists in three persons” - Basic Theology, Prof. C. Ryrie, p. 89.
“The Bible does not teach the doctrine of the Trinity” - Christian Doctrine, Prof. S. Guthrie, Columbia Theol. Seminary, 1994, p. 92.
“The doctrine of the Trinity cannot be justified on the basis of Scripture. Indeed it's hard to imagine Jesus speaking in such terms"- An Outline of Biblical Theology, Prof. M. Burrows, Yale Divinity School, p. 81.
“The doctrine of God as existing in three persons and one substance is not demonstrable by scriptural proofs." - Hastings Dictionary Of The Bible, 1898.
“There is in the Old Testament no indication of interior distinctions in the God-head. And there is no doctrine of the Trinity in the New Testament” - The Known Bible and its Defense, Rev. M. Hembre, 1933, p. 25.
"The doctrine of the Trinity is not a biblical doctrine... it's the product of theological reflection." - The Christian Doctrine of God Trinitarian. E. Brunner, 1949, p. 236.
“Trinity is not a biblical doctrine" - New Bible Dictionary, J. Douglas, F. Bruce, 1982, p. 1298.
“Scholars generally agree that there is no doctrine of the Trinity as such in either the Old or the New Testament” - The Harper Collins Encyclopedia of Catholicism, 1995, p. 564.
“The Bible has no statements or speculations concerning a trinitary deity." - Encyclopedia Britannica, volume 12, p. 383, 1979.
“Three coequal partners in the Godhead cannot be clearly detected within the confines of the Bible. It's important to avoid reading the Trinity into places where it does not appear." - Oxford Companion To the Bible, Bruce Metzger, M. Coogan, p. 782-3.
“The doctrine of the Trinity is not present in biblical thought... it goes beyond, and even distorts, what the Bible says about God.” - A Contemporary Interpretation of the Trinity - God in Three Persons: Prof. M. Erickson, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, p. 12, 20.
“The belief (in a Trinity-God) was reached only in the 4th and 5th centuries AD and hence is not explicitly and formally a biblical belief." -Dictionary of The Bible, 1995, (trinitarian) J. Mckenzie, p. 899.
“The doctrine of the Trinity was formulated in the post-biblical period." - Harper’s Bible Dictionary, 1985.
“In the New Testament there is no direct suggestion of a doctrine of the Trinity." - An Encyclopedia of Religion, V. Ferm (ed.), 1945, p. 344.
“No passage of Scripture discusses the threeness of God." - The New International Version. Disciples Study Bible, p. 173, note for Mt. 3:16.
“The Bible does not state that there is one God who exists in three persons” - Basic Theology, Prof. C. Ryrie, p. 89.
“The Bible does not teach the doctrine of the Trinity” - Christian Doctrine, Prof. S. Guthrie, Columbia Theol. Seminary, 1994, p. 92.
“The doctrine of the Trinity cannot be justified on the basis of Scripture. Indeed it's hard to imagine Jesus speaking in such terms"- An Outline of Biblical Theology, Prof. M. Burrows, Yale Divinity School, p. 81.
“The doctrine of God as existing in three persons and one substance is not demonstrable by scriptural proofs." - Hastings Dictionary Of The Bible, 1898.
“There is in the Old Testament no indication of interior distinctions in the God-head. And there is no doctrine of the Trinity in the New Testament” - The Known Bible and its Defense, Rev. M. Hembre, 1933, p. 25.
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If we take this as a good evidence of unitarian distorting of meaning, we can recognize that Erickson is just saying not to read the Trinitarian doctrine improperly into the text of scripture. That is not to to reject the recognition of our triune God but just to be humble in our reading of scripture in its context. For the unitarian, he cannot allow people to understand God in a broad sense but only in a hyperliteralist sense that makes God two dimensional and constrained to man's imagination of an anthropomorphic deity.
No matter how many errors Peterlag makes, he just copies and pastes them back at a later date.
Peterlag
Active Member
Colossians 1:15 calls Jesus “the firstborn of all creation.”
Scholars disagree on what this phrase means, but that is primarily because the doctrine of the Trinity obscures its simple meaning. Trinitarian doctrine states that Jesus is “eternal” but if that is true then he cannot be the firstborn “of all creation” because that would make him part of the creation. But the simple reading of Colossians 1:15 seems clear: Jesus is a created being. The BDAG Greek-English lexicon [entry under “creation”] explains the Greek word translated “creation” as “that which is created… of individual things or beings created, creature.” Not only was Jesus a created being, but he's also called the “firstborn” from the dead because he was the first one in God’s creation who was raised from the dead to everlasting life—a point that is also made in Colossians 1:18.
God is eternal and was not born. In contrast to the eternal God, Christ is “begotten” that is born meaning Jesus Christ had a beginning. Jesus is never called “God the Son” in the Bible, but he's called the “Son of God” more than 50 times, and a “son” has a beginning. The very fact that Jesus is the “Son of God” shows he had a beginning. Trinitarian doctrine denies this and invents the phrase “eternally begotten" but “eternally begotten” is not in the Bible, but was invented to help explain the Trinity and is actually a nonsensical phrase because the words are placed together but they cancel each other out. “Eternal” means without beginning or end and something that is “begotten” by definition has a beginning.
Scholars disagree on what this phrase means, but that is primarily because the doctrine of the Trinity obscures its simple meaning. Trinitarian doctrine states that Jesus is “eternal” but if that is true then he cannot be the firstborn “of all creation” because that would make him part of the creation. But the simple reading of Colossians 1:15 seems clear: Jesus is a created being. The BDAG Greek-English lexicon [entry under “creation”] explains the Greek word translated “creation” as “that which is created… of individual things or beings created, creature.” Not only was Jesus a created being, but he's also called the “firstborn” from the dead because he was the first one in God’s creation who was raised from the dead to everlasting life—a point that is also made in Colossians 1:18.
God is eternal and was not born. In contrast to the eternal God, Christ is “begotten” that is born meaning Jesus Christ had a beginning. Jesus is never called “God the Son” in the Bible, but he's called the “Son of God” more than 50 times, and a “son” has a beginning. The very fact that Jesus is the “Son of God” shows he had a beginning. Trinitarian doctrine denies this and invents the phrase “eternally begotten" but “eternally begotten” is not in the Bible, but was invented to help explain the Trinity and is actually a nonsensical phrase because the words are placed together but they cancel each other out. “Eternal” means without beginning or end and something that is “begotten” by definition has a beginning.
Hmm. So for Peterlag, if a=b then b is not equal a because the order is wrong. This is a logic foreign to European thought but maybe Peterlag can explain what seems to be an anomaly.
Too bad that verse 18 rejects Peterlag's view as does the whole of Colossians 1. Namely we see "And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent." (ESV)
In becoming incarnate, being the image of God among humanity, he also died but was the firstborn or first raised from the dead. This is a better explanation than denying who Christ is and reflects his humanity in addition to the contextual emphasis on his divinity.
The sense of the Greek may be seen this way:
The uses as privilege was not noted in my commentaries but is not necessarily excluded as having a range of connotations.
Even if we note verse 15 as difficult, the meaning is not limited to what Peterlag dictates.
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