JW's came to visit me today

[VWcrazy]

BibleSteve forgets to mention that the belief in the Trinity has existed before the Bible was even canonized. The Early Church Fathers believed and taught the divinity of Christ.

 

[BibleSteve]

BibleSteve forgets to mention that the belief in the Trinity has existed before the Bible was even canonized. The Early Church Fathers believed and taught the divinity of Christ.

That issue is discussed in Post #8

 

[VWcrazy]

Posting 8 gives a link to a website which is filled with falsehoods.

BibleSteve, I think you can do better and we deserve a better and more honest answer.

To deny that the Early Church Fathers taught and believed in the divinity of Christ is not just being dishonest, its being deceitful.

 

[BibleSteve]

Posting 8 gives a link to a website which is filled with falsehoods.

That link is to a brochure that specifically answers your question. If you’re interested in an answer you’ll find it there. If you don’t want to read it, then that is your choice.

 

[BibleSteve]

This thread began with a question about the Paradise earth and quickly just turned into a Trinity discussion.

I’m going to wrap my participation with some very basic, simple, points.

We all view Jesus to be the authority on his identity. He made simple and explicit statements. Some will argue about what uninspired men thought years after the death of the apostles, while others will argue about what the Jews thought Jesus was saying, or what Thomas thought Jesus was saying, etc.

What about what **Jesus **specifically taught?

How many times did Jesus specifically describe himself as “Son of God” or “God’s Son”?

Now, compare that with how many times he call himself “God The Son”? I can’t find **any **reference to “God The Son” in the entire Bible, can you? And yet the Trinity Dogma teaches it’s “God The Son”.

Is the phrase “God The Son” an accurate reference from the Bible? No, it’s not. It is a twisting of the simple description, Jesus himself provided of being “God’s Son”.

This is not complex. It’s what Jesus himself told me to believe, right from the pages of the Bible. The simple, explicit, and obvious reading of the Bible teaches me that Jesus was “God’s Son”.

And for holding to that position, I am told by Trinitarians that **I’m **being decieved by Satan.

Go figure.

(Matthew 10:24-25) “A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a slave above his lord. 25*It is enough for the disciple to become as his teacher, and the slave as his lord. If people have called the householder Be·el′ze·bub, how much more [will they call] those of his household so?

 

[SD_Catholic]

Bible Steve:

God is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. In Rev. 22:13 Jesus calls himself the “Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”. How can Jesus be the first and the last, the beginning and the end… if he is not God?

SD

Bible Steve Jesus said this, which I quoted earlier… you forgot to respond to it.

SD

 

[BibleSteve]

Bible Steve Jesus said this, which I quoted earlier… you forgot to respond to it.

SD

Dear SD Catholic,

I provided a detailed examination of this Alpha/Omega question in another thread… click here

 

[holdencaulfield]

That link is to a brochure that specifically answers your question. If you’re interested in an answer you’ll find it there. If you don’t want to read it, then that is your choice.

I’m making one more post on this forum and then I am done. I think that it is useless in arguing with someone who does not believe in the Bible. We all know what is true. Fellow Catholics I hope you can try to change his mind, but when they fail to acknowledge common sense, there will be no convincing them. I hope with time that you JW’s can accept Christ.

PS. By the way Steve thanks for reporting me to a moderator. I appreciate it. I’m not going to argue with you anymore, for fear of getting banned.

 

[cascherman]

I’ll say this… I agree with you BibleSteve in one respect, God the Son is not explicitly in the Bible (though I could argue that it is implicit) and Christ did not stress his God-hood as if it were his priority #1 mission objective.

I’ll tell you why I believe this is.

First off, Christ made a Church to pass information on and early Fathers of the Church will attest to Christ being God very early on.

Secondly, and my main point,

Phillipians 2:6-7 "who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant being born in the likeness of men.

I know you have already touched on this with one of your links. I have read the link and it does not address the in bold above.

Christ’s mission here was not to be worshiped and not to let everyone know he was God, this verse illustrates that, he was here to BE a servant. The Jews of that time would agree that Jesus left it somewhat ambiguous to the dense that he was even the Messiah, and likewise at times he even told people to NOT tell others who he was. He **EMPTIED HIMSELF **and BECAME a servant by his own will. If there was nothing to empty to become a servant of God why would he need to empty himself?

The explanation for the above verse in the link you provided does not make sense in the context of the very next verse.

 

[cascherman]

Dear SD Catholic,

I provided a detailed examination of this Alpha/Omega question in another thread… click here

I notice in your explanation you did not include Revelation 1:17-18 "…“Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one;** I died**, and behold I am alive for evermore…”

Anything on that?

 

[SD_Catholic]

Dear SD Catholic,

I provided a detailed examination of this Alpha/Omega question in another thread… click here

I have to admit you are very charitable in your posting, and for that I have much respect for you as a child of God.

But it seems that your way of getting around the points and quotes that can’t be defeated is to tell us to check out some other translation or other article. We can’t argue against your “other translations” or “articles” because they were made to support the JW beliefs. You will probably have a better chance of convincing us if you would use a Bible or translation that we believe.

SD

 

[Ravyn_Guiliani]

Jehovah’s Witnesses used to ask me, “Have you accepted Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior?”

sorry but JWs do not use that lingo or promote that concept—sounds more like born-again terminology. I can guarantee no JW would have said such a thing to you. You must have them mixed up with someone else.

 

[TobyLue]

Think about it BibleSteve and all JW’s and the rest of you guys here
I dont want to be irreverent but if what the JW’s teach that when Thomas said “My Lord and My God” was only an expression of exclamation and they are correct, then when Jesus on the cross said “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me” He was in other words saying
“Wow, holy toledo…” or “Holy cow, what the…hell, why have you forsaken me”.
Sorry BibleSteve but the JW translation is an affront to God Almighty, to Jesus and to deny Jesus as God is a sin against the Holy Spirit…

G’night…

 

[SD_Catholic]

I notice in your explanation you did not include Revelation 1:17-18 "…“Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one;** I died**, and behold I am alive for evermore…”

Anything on that?

Did you read Bible Steve’s link? His answer for this was basically that we can’t be sure that it was actually Jesus who said these words in Rev. 22:13 because God used an angel to spread this message. Between the angel the message and the writers it was actually Jahova who probably said this in all those places not Jesus at any time.

Well I would wonder if he can’t be sure who actually said what to whom, than how can he trust any of his Bible? Do we just guess at who was speaking at certain times and fill in the person that best meets our quota?

SD

 

[BibleSteve]

Did you read Bible Steve’s link? His answer for this was basically that we can’t be sure that it was actually Jesus who said these words in Rev. 22:13 because God used an angel to spread this message. Between the angel the message and the writers it was actually Jahova who probably said this in all those places not Jesus at any time.

Well I would wonder if he can’t be sure who actually said what to whom, than how can he trust any of his Bible? Do we just guess at who was speaking at certain times and fill in the person that best meets our quota?

SD

Dear SD Catholic,

First, let me thank you for your nice compliment in post #91 I think you deserve the gold star award for exhibiting a Christian personality in your comments.

Now to this point. Rev 1:17, 18; 2:8 “I died” obviously refers to Jesus. Trinitarian reasoning will then say, but then Jesus is called by a descriptive title “First and Last” and that phrase has been used for Jehovah, so Jesus = Jehovah. See this post.

The problem with this reasoning is the Bible explicitly shows that Jesus is not Jehovah. Psa 110:1-3 shows Jehovah talking to Jesus, asking Jesus to sit at his right hand. Acts 3:13 shows Jehovah (The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) was the one who resurrected Jesus and He considers Jesus to be His servant.

With explicit scriptures like these,** it’s illogical to think that because a highly symbolic book like the book of Revelation uses a similar descriptive title for two people, that Jesus must be Jehovah**. The Bible provides many examples of descriptive phrases like this being used for different people which was discussed in this thread, posts 3-5. It would be silly to conclude that these descriptive titles proved one person was the other.

This is the thing that just baffles me about the Trinitarian “proof texts”. How absolutely explicit Scriptures that state that Jehovah is Almighty God(Psa 83:13), Jesus is His son (Luke 1:32), His servant(Acts 3:13) sitting at his side (Psa 110:1-3)… His son who prays to Him(Matt 26:39), worships Him(John 4:22), considers Him to be “my God and your God”(John 20:17), subjects himself to Him for all of eternity(1Cor 15:28) are ignored in favor of reasonings like “but they were called by the same descriptive phrase, so Jesus **must **be Jehovah”.

Jesus was indeed “the First” human to be resurrected to immortal spirit life. (Colossians 1:18) Moreover, he is “the Last” to be so resurrected by Jehovah personally. Jesus himself would resurrect all other spirit-anointed Christians to heavenly life.

The phrase “First and Last” can also be applied to Jehovah for a completely different reason. In Isaiah 44:6, Jehovah rightly describes his own position as the one and only almighty God, saying: “I am the first and I am the last, and besides me there is no God.” When Jesus presents himself by the title “the First and the Last,” he is not claiming equality with Jehovah, the Grand Creator. He is using a title properly bestowed on him by God. In Isaiah, Jehovah was making a statement about His unique position as Almighty God. He is God eternal, and besides him there is indeed no Almighty God. (1*Timothy 1:17) In Revelation, Jesus is talking about his bestowed title, calling attention to his unique resurrection.

**And finally about the use of an angel… **this is a point that seems to go over everyone’s head. I’ve never seen any Trinitarian note this. According to Rev 1:1 and Rev 22:6, everything you read in Revelation, all the conversations, everything that looks like Jesus talking or Jehovah talking was in reality spoken to the apostle John by an angel. **It was an angel speaking, conveying a message that he heard from Jesus, who in turn heard it from his Father Jehovah. **

In reality, it was the angel, as a designated spokesperson for Jesus who was speaking everything. Even though this angel was the one saying “I am the First and Last”, and “I am the Alpha and Omega”, you would never confuse him to be Almighty God, right? He’s just the designated spokesman in the message chain spoken of in Rev 1:1. Similarly, Jesus is spoken of as just one more link in that communication chain. He was asked to speak a message by his Father Jehovah (Rev 1:1). If you would never confuse the angel to be Almighty God, why confuse the person just above him in the communication chain to be Almighty God.

 

[MH84]

22:13
I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end."

Where does it say that Jesus was the “first and the last to be raised by God”? In the text there is no clarification; it simply says “I am the first and the Last”…

Also, if Jesus is not God, how can He actually raise someone to Heaven? Wouldnt He need God to give Him the power to do so?

 

[MH84]

Becky,

Let **us **consider this quote from the article to clarify matters for ourselves.

"Some have claimed that the “us” and “our” in this expression indicate a Trinity. But if you were to say, ‘Let us make something for ourselves,’ no one would normally understand this to imply that several persons are combined as one inside of you. You simply mean that two or more individuals will work together on something. So, too, when God used “us” and “our,” he was simply addressing another individual, his first spirit creation, the master craftsman, the prehuman Jesus. "

How could Jesus create the world if He wasnt God? What do you mean by “master craftsman”?

 

[VWcrazy]

The problem with this reasoning is the Bible explicitly shows that Jesus is not Jehovah./QUOTE]

This is not true.

 

[why_me]

then when Jesus on the cross said “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me” He was in other words saying
“Wow, holy toledo…” or “Holy cow, what the…hell, why have you forsaken me”.

Well, we can also ask why would Jesus be asking himself why he foresoke himself if he is god? It seems that there were two distinct personages, Jesus and Heavenly Father.

 

[NanaR]

Dear SD Catholic,
Now to this point. Rev 1:17, 18; 2:8 **"I died" obviously refers to Jesus.** Trinitarian reasoning will then say, but then Jesus is called by a descriptive title "First and Last" and that phrase has been used for Jehovah, so Jesus = Jehovah. [See this post.](http://forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?p=3085339&highlight=They+will+respond+that+He+is+Jehovah+God#post3085339)
The problem with this reasoning is the Bible explicitly shows that Jesus is not Jehovah. Psa 110:1-3 shows Jehovah talking to Jesus, asking Jesus to sit at his right hand. Acts 3:13 shows Jehovah (The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) was the one who resurrected Jesus and He considers Jesus to be His servant.

With explicit scriptures like these,** it’s illogical to think that because a highly symbolic book like the book of Revelation uses a similar descriptive title for two people, that Jesus must be Jehovah**. The Bible provides many examples of descriptive phrases like this being used for different people which was discussed in this thread, posts 3-5. It would be silly to conclude that these descriptive titles proved one person was the other.

The Trinity teaches Three Persons, One God. Jehovah was a name given to God – not just to God the Father. Jesus is a name given to only one Person of the Trinity – the Son who became Man. So your reasoning is flawed.

Catholicism teaches that Jehovah = God and Jesus = God and the Holy Spirit = God. It does not teach that the Father and the Son are the same Person, but that they are both equally God (along with the Holy Spirit). In addition, Catholicism teaches that Jesus as God now exists in Heaven with his glorified human body, which is obviously distinct from the Father (who did not come to earth).

So perhaps you should read the explanation of the Trinity in the Catechism of the Catholic Church before you try to refute it with reasoning such as this.

This is the thing that just baffles me about the Trinitarian “proof texts”. How absolutely explicit Scriptures that state that Jehovah is Almighty God(Psa 83:13), Jesus is His son (Luke 1:32), His servant(Acts 3:13) sitting at his side (Psa 110:1-3)… His son who prays to Him(Matt 26:39), worships Him(John 4:22), considers Him to be “my God and your God”(John 20:17), subjects himself to Him for all of eternity(1Cor 15:28) are ignored in favor of reasonings like “but they were called by the same descriptive phrase, so Jesus **must **be Jehovah”.

The Catholic statement of the Trinity is that there is ONE GOD who exists in THREE PERSONS. The fact that Jesus is called The Son, that he prays to The Father, that he calls the Father “my God”, in no way prevents Jesus from also being God.

The JW “explanation” of the Trinity is not an accurate explanation. Catholicism does not teach Modalism – that is one God with three different aspects. Catholicism teaches that there are three persons who together ARE GOD. That these three have the same substance (made of the same stuff), and that they are equally GOD.

A very simplistic statement of this idea would be: there is one Humanity, but there are many members of humanity.

There is one Divinity, but there are three members of this Divinity.

The fact that the three Persons are equally God does not prevent them occupying different positions in Their Godship. “No one comes to the Father except through me” was said by Jesus.

Hebrews 1:6 says of Jesus: “Let all God’s angels worship him” according to the 1950 version of the New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures (and every other translation I could find in my search).

Of course, the NWT now substitutes “Do obeisance” in this text, but a check of the footnotes in your reference Bible and the Kingdom Interlinear will show that “worship” is indeed a correct translation. In fact, C. T. Russell in one of his early works used Heb. 1:6 as a proof that Jesus and Michael the Archangel are not the same person (Watchtower, November 11, 1879, pg. 48).

The Jews knew only the Father and awaited the coming of the Son. Early Christians were then introduced to the Holy Spirit (a person, not a force).

The writings of the Early Church Fathers are very definite on the Diety of Christ and the Personhood of the Holy Spirit. That the explicit definition of the great mystery of the Trinity developed over time does not negate its Truth.

The existence of God is a great mystery. The birth of God as a human is a great mystery. The relationship of the Holy Spirit to the other two members of the Trinity is a great mystery. None of these things can be understood only through research (no matter how intense).

Prayer is required. Faith is a gift from God.

I continue to pray for you, Bible Steve.

Pax,

Ruth