Jesus is not God?

[mikeledes]

There is a passage in Matthews that JWs use in which Jesus says no one knows the day or the hour, not even the Son, only the Father? If Jesus is God, how can he not know the day or the day, particularly since it is His Second Coming?

God Bless

 

[nkelly]

There is a passage in Matthews that JWs use in which Jesus says no one knows the day or the hour, not even the Son, only the Father? If Jesus is God, how can he not know the day or the day, particularly since it is His Second Coming?

God Bless

Hello Mikeledes, I think it probably has something to do with fact that Jesus is the Father’s only “begotten” Son which to use my own words means that Jesus “originates” from the Father. Jesus is the “idea” which the Father has of Himself. Jesus also said somewhere in the Gospel that “the Father is greater than I”.

So I suppose it would be possible for the Father to hold back this information from His Son.

F.J. Sheed explained the Holy Trinity in his Theology for Beginners far better than I can

God bless,
Noel.

 

[mikeledes]

So is it that Jesus choses not to know? If he has a Divine Nature, is it possible for him not to know as God. Can He withold information from Himself?

Thanks and God Bless

 

[FCEGM]

Jesus did have the information since, as God, He possesses all
things.* Jesus, in the humility of His humanity, though, chose (an act of human will) not to “look”,* and this was because the time of His Second Coming was not to be part of the Revelation of the Incarnate Jesus to the Church.* That’s all His statement about the “Father alone knows” means: that the time of the Second Coming is withheld from the revelation of the New Covenant (which comes to us through the Incarnate Christ).*

Remember that Christ is not only in the Nature of God, but of Man, and so in His human nature He is able to (and does) grow in the knowledge and wisdom that pertains to being a Man. So when addressed about “the End” we see Him limiting His answer to what He knows as Man, because this is information that is not for mankind to know, only to be prepared for. As St. Augustine said, “It was no part of His teaching duty to make it [the day of the General Judgment] known to us.”

 

[Mickey]

Jesus did have the information since, as God, He possesses all
things.* Jesus, in the humility of His humanity, though, chose (an act of human will) not to “look”,* and this was because the time of His Second Coming was not to be part of the Revelation of the Incarnate Jesus to the Church.* That’s all His statement about the “Father alone knows” means: that the time of the Second Coming is withheld from the revelation of the New Covenant (which comes to us through the Incarnate Christ).*

Remember that Christ is not only in the Nature of God, but of Man, and so in His human nature He is able to (and does) grow in the knowledge and wisdom that pertains to being a Man. So when addressed about “the End” we see Him limiting His answer to what He knows as Man, because this is information that is not for mankind to know, only to be prepared for. As St. Augustine said, “It was no part of His teaching duty to make it [the day of the General Judgment] known to us.”

Excellent answer!

 

[mikeledes]

So can we say then, that Jesus is using “know” like John the Baptist uses “know” in the Gospel of John. According to this Gospel, John does not “know” Jesus. But in Luke, they are described as being cousins. So John must be using “know” in a different sense, just as Jesus uses “know” in a different sense in Matthew. I don’t know if I make any sense. I’m still kind of confused.

Thanks

 

[SteakNPotatoes]

Or…

The author was repeating what was found in another gospel (Mark 13:32, nearly word for word), and neither author was concerned with whether Jesus was equal to God, which was an argument that would not arise for many years.

To me, this exegetical explanation seems much more probable than any attempt to “read Jesus’ mind” via eisegesis.

 

[sara888]

Or…

The author was repeating what was found in another gospel (Mark 13:32, nearly word for word), and neither author was concerned with whether Jesus was equal to God, which was an argument that would not arise for many years.

To me, this exegetical explanation seems much more probable than any attempt to “read Jesus’ mind” via eisegesis.

**
The bible is God breathed,

‘I and my Father are one’ [John 10:30],

“But in the one true God and Trinity it is naturally true not only that God is one but also that he is a Trinity, for the reason that the true God himself is a Trinity of Persons and one in nature. Through this natural unity the whole Father is in the Son and in the Holy Spirit, and the whole Holy Spirit, too, is in the Father and in the Son. None of these is outside any of the others; because no one of them precedes any other of them in eternity or exceeds any other in greatness, or is superior to any other in power” (The Rule of Faith 4 [c. A.D. 523).

Jan****

 

[SteakNPotatoes]

**
The bible is God breathed,

‘I and my Father are one’ [John 10:30], **

The Gospel of John was written years after Mark and Matthew, and shows further development of the concept of Christ’s divinity within the Christian community. It does not contradict my point, which is that neither writers of what we refer to as the Gospels of Mark and Matthew were concerned with the question of Jesus’ equality with God.

“But in the one true God and Trinity it is naturally true not only that God is one but also that he is a Trinity, for the reason that the true God himself is a Trinity of Persons and one in nature. Through this natural unity the whole Father is in the Son and in the Holy Spirit, and the whole Holy Spirit, too, is in the Father and in the Son. None of these is outside any of the others; because no one of them precedes any other of them in eternity or exceeds any other in greatness, or is superior to any other in power” (The Rule of Faith 4 [c. A.D. 523).

Jan**

Look at the date of that writing. Thank you for proving my point.

 

[sara888]

The Gospel of John was written years after Mark and Matthew, and shows further development of the concept of Christ’s divinity within the Christian community. It does not contradict my point, which is that neither writers of what we refer to as the Gospels of Mark and Matthew were concerned with the question of Jesus’ equality with God.

Look at the date of that writing. Thank you for proving my point.

**
There are many more writings before this one to refute your position, this was just an example of the trinity …Matthew is generally held to have been written about AD 80, although scholars have argued for dates as early as 65 and as late as 100.

You point is non-valid with regard to the Trinity and the gospels.It is my contention that the Apostles beleived that Jesus WAS god

1 Cor 8:6
6 yet for us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we for Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and through whom we live.

Jan**

 

[SteakNPotatoes]

There are many more writings before this one to refute your position, this was just an example of the trinity …Matthew is generally held to have been written about AD 80, although scholars have argued for dates as early as 65 and as late as 100.

The verse from Matthew is a nearly word for word copy from Mark 13:32. The gospel of Mark is generally thought to have been written around 70 A.D.

I am not, as you seem to think, arguing that there are NO writings from early times in which Jesus is linked to the divine. What I AM asserting is that Jesus’ equality with God was not a primary theme of either author, and therefore such concepts should not be read into the text.

It is my contention that the Apostles beleived that Jesus WAS god

Don’t you mean “IS”?

My position is that what the Apostles believed is irrelevent (except as a starting point), because those early beliefs were evolved and developed further by the various christian communities, who incorporated these evolving concepts into the writings that eventually were accepted as canonical.

Look at the speech of Peter in Acts 3. If he believed Jesus to be God, would he not have said so?

When Peter saw this, he addressed the people, “You Israelites, why are you amazed at this, and why do you look so intently at us as if we had made him walk by our own power or piety? The God of Abraham, [the God] of Isaac, and [the God] of Jacob, the God of our ancestors, has glorified his servant Jesus whom you handed over and denied in Pilate’s presence, when he had decided to release him. You denied the Holy and Righteous One and asked that a murderer be released to you. The author of life you put to death, but God raised him from the dead; of this we are witnesses. And by faith in his name, this man, whom you see and know, his name has made strong, and the faith that comes through it has given him this perfect health, in the presence of all of you. Now I know, brothers, that you acted out of ignorance, just as your leaders did; but God has thus brought to fulfillment what he had announced beforehand through the mouth of all the prophets, that his Messiah would suffer. Repent, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be wiped away, and that the Lord may grant you times of refreshment and send you the Messiah already appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the times of universal restoration of which God spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets from of old. For Moses said: “A prophet like me will the Lord, your God, raise up for you from among your own kinsmen; to him you shall listen in all that he may say to you. Everyone who does not listen to that prophet will be cut off from the people.’ Moreover, all the prophets who spoke, from Samuel and those afterwards, also announced these days. You are the children of the prophets and of the covenant that God made with your ancestors when he said to Abraham, ‘In your offspring all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’ For you first, God raised up his servant and sent him to bless you by turning each of you from your evil ways.”

Now to pre-empt your contention that the phrase “author of life” equates Jesus with God, the well-respected Jesuit scholar Leopold Sabourin, in his book “Christology: Basic Texts in Focus” notes that “the term ‘Author of Life’ does not reflect a belief in the divinity of Christ. The sense is that of the one who leads humanity into a new life. The greek can be translated as ‘Leader of Life’ as well. So the meaning had more to do with ultimate salvation than with original creation.”

Again, I am not saying that “Jesus = God” interpretations cannot be made (obviously they have been), but in the narrow confines of the original post in this thread, I don’t believe the verses in Matthew or Mark support that concept.

 

[sara888]

The verse from Matthew is a nearly word for word copy from Mark 13:32. The gospel of Mark is generally thought to have been written around 70 A.D.

I am not, as you seem to think, arguing that there are NO writings from early times in which Jesus is linked to the divine. What I AM asserting is that Jesus’ equality with God was not a primary theme of either author, and therefore such concepts should not be read into the text.

Don’t you mean “IS”?

My position is that what the Apostles believed is irrelevent (except as a starting point), because those early beliefs were evolved and developed further by the various christian communities, who incorporated these evolving concepts into the writings that eventually were accepted as canonical.

Look at the speech of Peter in Acts 3. If he believed Jesus to be God, would he not have said so?

Now to pre-empt your contention that the phrase “author of life” equates Jesus with God, the well-respected Jesuit scholar Leopold Sabourin, in his book “Christology: Basic Texts in Focus” notes that “the term ‘Author of Life’ does not reflect a belief in the divinity of Christ. The sense is that of the one who leads humanity into a new life. The greek can be translated as ‘Leader of Life’ as well. So the meaning had more to do with ultimate salvation than with original creation.”

Again, I am not saying that “Jesus = God” interpretations cannot be made (obviously they have been), but in the narrow confines of the original post in this thread, I don’t believe the verses in Matthew or Mark support that concept.

**

It is understandable that someone might have difficulty grasping the explanation of the nature of God. Part of the reason why the doctrine of God’s nature can be difficult to understand is due to the Greek terminology used to explain it. The early Greek and Latin Christian theologians were the first to wrestle with the problem of how to rightly discuss the nature of the one God in terms of his threeness—as God the Father, Jesus the Son and the Holy Spirit.

They used words like the Latin persona to refer to the “Persons” that compose the Being of God. Theologians of the early centuries wrote mostly in the Greek language, understandable to people living in their time and culture.

But most people today have not been trained in theological terminology or know the Greek language. A certain amount of translation and explanation is necessary to understand such statements as Jesus is God. This is especially so since the theologians of the early church who crafted the Trinitarian creeds used common Greek terminology that was given a wholly new meaning when used of God.

The phrase,One God who is three Persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is a common way of referring to the Trinity. However, the ordinary meaning of the word “persons,” for example, which is normally included in English-language definitions of the Trinity, can cause people to wrongly think of God as existing in three separate Beings.

Thus, the ordinary meaning of the word persons as understood when applied to humans is misleading when it is applied to God. It gives the impression that God’s threeness lies in his being three separate individuals. (This is not biblical. )

There is only One God, not two Gods (bitheism) or many Gods (polytheism). The Father is omnipresent, the Son is omnipresent, and the Holy Spirit is omnipresent, and they cannot be separate from one another as three Gods.

Jan**

 

[SteakNPotatoes]

I’m not sure you are getting my point. So rather than smack my head against the wall repeating myself, I will graciously bow out of this thread.

peace.

 

[Neo_Canaan]

Confusing…