Is Jesus God?

[Martin_R]

How about you read verse 65:

Matthew 26:65
"65 Then the high priest tore his robes, and said, “He has uttered blasphemy. Why do we still need witnesses? You have now heard his blasphemy.”

How was he committing blasphemy?
Blasphemy, Chambers definition:
1 a speaking about God or sacred matters in a disrespectful or rude way; b an action, word or sign that intentionally insults God, or something held sacred, in such a way. 2 law blasphemous libel.

I think claiming that your father is God insults God if it isn’t true.

To you the Son of God means nothing more than being God’s chosen one.

No, being God’s Son, He is unique, He came from God and has direct knowledge of God and is the only one who can say that:
John 8
23 And He was saying to them, You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world.
and
38 I speak the things which I have seen with My Father…
and
42 Jesus said to them, "If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and have come from God, for I have not even come on My own initiative, but He sent Me.
54 Jesus answered, "If I glorify Myself, My glory is nothing; it is My Father who glorifies Me, of whom you say, ‘He is our God’;
55 and you have not come to know Him, but I know Him; and if I say that I do not know Him, I will be a liar like you, but I do know Him and keep His word.

The Jews didn’t have any problem with this, in fact, they were EXPECTING the chosen one to appear. There problem with Jesus is that He claimed to be God.

Son of God.

When He says that He is the Son of God, the Jews KNEW He was claiming the Divine Nature and saying that He was in fact God! It doesn’t get anymore clear than this Martin.

If it was clear, I wouldn’t have started this thread.

The Jews knew it, but somehow it has escaped many of Jesus’ own followers of the modern era. Like I said before Martin, you either have to trust Jesus in what He says about Himself, or you have to think He’s not telling the truth. I sincerely hope you choose the first option.

I do.

Martin, you clearly do not know what it means to be the Son of God. No matter how many verses we show you, they won’t work unless you understand what the Son of God implies. It implies "of the same nature as,

Yes:
Col 1:15
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. NASB

" meaning Jesus has a Divine Nature, meaning He is God.

No, the image of God. (See above).

Jesus is the Son of God and the Son of man because He has two natures.

Yes I understand that now it has been explained, thanks.

This was too long for one post so have had to split it up.
To be continued…

 

[Martin_R]

Continued from post #251

The Jews unequivocally knew what this meant as very passages show Jn 8:59; Jn 5:18; Jn 10:33]. They knew and you should know, I guess the only way to convince you is to show you a verse that directly states that Jesus is God. So I’ve done some searching and I’ve come up with these, hopefully they’ll convince you:

Titus 2:13
“13 Awaiting our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.”

The translations vary on this one. Can anybody give me a literal translation of this whole sentence please? I suspect it might be something to do with Jesus being the glory of God:

Heb 1:3
And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation…

1 John 5:20
“20 And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, to know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.”

John here even says that being the Son of God is being the true God.

There’s a variation in translations again.

Point 1:
It says, “we are in him who is true”. What can that mean? We are in God?
We know from Jer 10:10 and John 17:3 that the Lord (Jehovah) is the true God.
But we are separated from God (Isa 59:2)
So that must be referring to Jesus, not God.

Point 2:
Then in the next part of the verse some translations say, “this is the true God” and others say, “He is the only true God” and eternal life.

Jesus is eternal life (1 John 5:11) but God (Jehovah) is the true God.
Not a clear translation.

But :newidea: both parts are together in John 17:3

And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.

Then I found another suggested translation :
“We know that God’s Son has come and has given us understanding to
know the true one, and we are in the true one, in his Son, Jesus Christ.”

I found that here:
lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/b-greek/1998-August/001322.html
It’s a discussion on Greek grammar, not theology so it should be unbiased.

Now it ties up with
John 17 and explains points 1&2:

21that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me.
22"The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one;
23 I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me. NASB

That must mean they are of one mind i.e. singing from the same hymn sheet as it were.
Jesus agrees with everything God says.
Either that or Jesus is God and anybody else who believes is also God (and I don’t think that is correct!)

Romans 9:5
“5 To them belong the patriarchs, and of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ. God who is over all be blessed for ever. Amen.”

LOTS of different translations for that one!
Some say God is blessed, some say Christ is blessed, some say God is over all, some say Christ is over all.

These verses without a doubt teach that Jesus is God, I cannot see how you cannot believe it anymore. You have been given ample evidence, have these verses made you at least think of the possibility that Jesus is God?

No, have my answers made you think of the opposite possibility?

Let me share something with you:

Go on.

Exodus 20:1-5
"1 And God spoke all these words, saying, 2 "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. 3 "You shall have no other gods before me. 4 “You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; 5 you shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me.”

Why do you worship Jesus? That would make Him a false god considering you don’t believe Him to be God. I’m sure you’ll say that God said to worship Him,

Yes .

but then God would be contradicting Himself, something He cannot do. He lets people worship Jesus precisely because Jesus is God.

Or because we worship God through Jesus.

Luke 1:28
"28 And he came to her and said, “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you!”

This, Gabriel said to Mary.
What’s that got to do with it?

I still must say I don’t quite like the NLT, they’ve tried to modernize the Bible which shouldn’t be done. This translation has lost a lot of power because of it.

I’ve quoted mostly from NASB.

 

[placido]

I did post here a few days ago but stopped because of the “color” factor. Using blue, black, red, bold etc instead of the “quote” feature, it becomes difficult to know who is saying what and the possibility of atributing a statement to a wrong poster becomes greater.

placido

 

[Martin_R]

I did post here a few days ago but stopped because of the “color” factor. Using blue, black, red, bold etc instead of the “quote” feature, it becomes difficult to know who is saying what and the possibility of atributing a statement to a wrong poster becomes greater.

placido

I thought using colour helped.
If you use the quote feature, everything is in black which doesn’t help if there are more than 2 quotes quoted.
OK, placido, I’ll try and make sure I name the user I’m quoting.

 

[Holly3278]

You want the simple answer? Well, here it is. Yes, Jesus is God. :extrahappy:

 

[Peter_Dawson]

I’ve started this thread to discuss the idea that Jesus is God. I don’t think so and no, I’m not a Jehovah’s Witness.

John 10:30.

 

[xong111]

i guess the easiest way to put an end to martin’s surprising lack of biblical knowledge and credibility is to ask him the question,

**Was there ever any verse that says Jesus WASN’T God?? **
rather than personal inferences with the “why did” and “how come” cases??

 

[placido]

I thought using colour helped.
If you use the quote feature, everything is in black which doesn’t help if there are more than 2 quotes quoted.
OK, placido, I’ll try and make sure I name the user I’m quoting.

I’ll appreciate that.

placido

 

[Martin_R]

I guess I’m trying to see where the point of divergence is at between what he believes [and those like him] and what we believe. I just don’t understand how we can believe the same thing and then suddenly we go off to opposite ends!

I’m trying to determine if the issue is with ‘Jesus’ or with the ‘Persons’ or with what! Somewhere, there is a 'missing link…but I just don’t see where it is…

Haven’t I explained that already?
Calling Jesus “God the Son” seems wrong to me, saying God came to earth in human form seems wrong to me, saying God is three persons in one seems wrong to me. I can’t find any of these ideas in the Bible.

Jesus was seen by a very large number of people performing miracles. When Paul and Barnabas healed a crippled man in Acts 14, the crowd brought bulls and wreaths to the city gates and began to offer sacrifices to them because they thought they were gods in human form. Now if Jesus really was God in human form, you’d expect the same reaction wouldn’t you? Instead Jesus tells people He is the Son of God (and, of course, they don’t believe it (Matt 4, Matt 27, Luke 4)).

Then there was the story of the man who rented his vineyard to some farmers (Mark 12) and they kept beating and killing the servants the owner had sent. In the end he sends his son thinking they won’t kill him but they do. This is obviously speaking of God sending prophets and then His Son to earth. Wouldn’t the story be a bit better if it had something about three in one in it? Something along the lines of, “the owner was God and He sent His Son and He was God as well”? I can’t believe Jesus forgot about that bit.

 

[Martin_R]

Another web site that define’s theos as:

1. refers to the things of God
2. his counsels, interests, things due to him

whatever can in any respect be likened unto God, or resemble him in any way

God’s representative or viceregent

(Greek lexicon based on Thayer’s and Smith’s Bible Dictionary plus others; this is keyed to the large Kittel and the “Theological Dictionary of the New Testament.” These files are public domain.)

biblestudytools.com/Lexicons/NewTestamentGreek/grk.cgi?search=2316&version=kjv&type=eng&submit=Find

I suppose you’re going to say that’s wrong as well.

 

[Newbie2]

Wow. I can’t believe this thread is still going on.

In any case, perhaps I missed it, but I thought Martin R wrote that he worships Chirst. If that is the case, and if Christ is not God, is he not commiting blasphemy?

 

[Martin_R]

Wow. I can’t believe this thread is still going on.

In any case, perhaps I missed it, but I thought Martin R wrote that he worships Chirst. If that is the case, and if Christ is not God, is he not commiting blasphemy?

I’ve got plenty more to add when I get time. I’ve hardly started.
God told us to worship Christ (I’m sure I’ve said that more than once already) and we worship God through His Son.

Hebrews 1
6 And again, when God brings his firstborn into the world, he says, “Let all God’s angels worship him.

• John 14:6 -
  Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except* through* me.

NIV

 

[placido]

Calling Jesus “God the Son” seems wrong to me,

And it seems right to us.

saying God came to earth in human form seems wrong to me,

And it seems right to us.

saying God is three persons in one seems wrong to me.

And it seems right to us.
I mean, this is very unfortunate you have lowered Christianity to the level of the petty game of “wrong to me/right to me”.

I can’t find any of these ideas in the Bible.

So what? We can find all of those ideas in the Bible and in the Apostolic Tradition.

placido

 

[zach_dunn]

John 12:42 (New Living Translation)

42 Many people did believe in him, however, including some of the Jewish leaders. But they wouldn’t admit it for fear that the Pharisees would expel them from the synagogue.

So they did care.

They cared about what he taught, which is quite different than what Jesus thought of the Pharisees.

 

[zach_dunn]

Blasphemy, Chambers definition:
1 a speaking about God or sacred matters in a disrespectful or rude way; b an action, word or sign that intentionally insults God, or something held sacred, in such a way. 2 law blasphemous libel.

I think claiming that your father is God insults God if it isn’t true.

The thing is, Martin, it can’t not be true. God has always been considered our Father. It obviously has some deeper meaning, what is that meaning? I think John explains it:

John 10:33
“33 The Jews answered him, ‘It is not for a good work that we stone you but for blasphemy; because you, being a man, make yourself God.’”

He commits blasphemy because He makes Himself God. What does that mean to you. For us (Catholics), it shows that the Jews recognized that He was claiming to be God. Just like in Matthew 26:65.

The blasphemy was that he claimed to be the Son of God. But His meaning and your understanding differ. You think He’s just very special, just the Messiah, which was fine to them. Like I said, they were waiting for the Messiah. He was meant that He had an eternal sonship with the Father, which would make Him divine.

No, being God’s Son, He is unique, He came from God and has direct knowledge of God and is the only one who can say that:
John 8
23 And He was saying to them, You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world.
and
38 I speak the things which I have seen with My Father…
and
42 Jesus said to them, "If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and have come from God, for I have not even come on My own initiative, but He sent Me.
54 Jesus answered, "If I glorify Myself, My glory is nothing; it is My Father who glorifies Me, of whom you say, ‘He is our God’;
55 and you have not come to know Him, but I know Him; and if I say that I do not know Him, I will be a liar like you, but I do know Him and keep His word.

In this quote Jesus unequivocally calls God His Father, by saying this He makes Himself equal to God [Jn 5:18]. Jesus never says they are wrong in saying this, why? What being is equal to God? There is none, but God Himself. Yes, Jesus, in His human nature, is less than God. But as you admit, Jesus has two natures: Divine and human. He is equal to God in His Divine nature and person.

We believe that the Son (Jesus) did indeed proceed from the Father, just as the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. And the Son was sent to earth by the Father. That’s how it works.

Son of God.

I’ve told you numerous times what that means.

If it was clear, I wouldn’t have started this thread.

That’s true but I figured we would have gotten somewhere after this long thread.

I do.

Then the problem is that you don’t understand what He says about Himself.

Yes:
Col 1:15
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. NASB

So do you believe that Jesus has a Divine nature?

No, the image of God. (See above).

So you don’t believe He has a Divine nature? Just above you said “yes.”

Yes I understand that now it has been explained, thanks.

You believe He has two natures, then? What do you believe they are?

To be continued . . .

 

[zach_dunn]

The translations vary on this one. Can anybody give me a literal translation of this whole sentence please? I suspect it might be something to do with Jesus being the glory of God:

Heb 1:3
And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation…

I don’t know much Greek so I couldn’t help you there. I have a question Martin, why do you ignore the fact that all of Christianity believed that Jesus is God from the beginning until recent times? Do you think that all of those Christians got it wrong? If we did, we would be breaking the first commandment and would be worthy of hellfire for idolatry, what do you make of this?

There’s a variation in translations again.

Point 1:
It says, “we are in him who is true”. What can that mean? We are in God?
We know from Jer 10:10 and John 17:3 that the Lord (Jehovah) is the true God.
But we are separated from God (Isa 59:2)
So that must be referring to Jesus, not God.

It is clear that we are “in God” from other scripture passages:

2 Peter 1:4
“4 By which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, that through these you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of passion, and become partakers of the divine nature.”

This seems, to me, to show that under the New Covenant our sins are washed away and we “partake in the divine nature.” We do this by being “in” God, much like all Christians are members in Christ and alive to God in Jesus. I may be stretching this a bit though, what do you think?

Another point is that God is truth, there is no falsity in Him. Therefore we would be in God according to this verse.

I don’t have time for the rest right now, I’ll try to respond later.

 

[Martin_R]

I just found a better verse to answer your previous question Zach:

I think it was John 8 we were discussing.

QUOTE (zach dunn)
But, not surprisingly, they only got upset when Jesus claimed God’s name. Which means
He was claiming to be God.

I said, “No it doesn’t, that was the name He was given *by *God.”

QUOTE (zach dunn)
What basis do you have for saying this?

Here’s the verse I just found, that I think better answers that:

Philippians 2:9 KJV

9 Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name:

 

[Newbie2]

I’ve got plenty more to add when I get time. I’ve hardly started.
God told us to worship Christ (I’m sure I’ve said that more than once already) and we worship God through His Son.

Hebrews 1
6 And again, when God brings his firstborn into the world, he says, “Let all God’s angels worship him.

• John 14:6 -
  Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except* through* me.

NIV

That would seem to negate the first commandment.

But, discussing this with you is a waste of time. Hopefully, you’ll come to the realization of the truth, and not be blinded by whatever is getting in your way of seeing that your misinterpretation of scripture is quite bizarre.

 

[Martin_R]

I guess I’m trying to see where the point of divergence is at between what he believes [and those like him] and what we believe. I just don’t understand how we can believe the same thing and then suddenly we go off to opposite ends!

I’m trying to determine if the issue is with ‘Jesus’ or with the ‘Persons’ or with what! Somewhere, there is a 'missing link…but I just don’t see where it is…

I think I’ve answered that in #238 but I still have plenty more to add.
I’m trying to go through all the comments in order to avoid any claims that I’m ignoring any.

 

[Martin_R]

Is Jesus God? Absolutely, my Lord and my God. It’s the basis of Christianity.

I’ve already answered that in #194.