"Why Jesus is God!" Explanations for JW's

[Timothy416]

I really cant understand starting a thread where only one side of an argument us allowed according to forum rules.

In mainstream churches, all christians agree as to the essence of Christ but disagree as to his title.

So I guess the correct question to ask is.

What title must one accept for Christ to inherit eternal life according to the bible?

 

[Timothy416]

What should the bottom line be for christians?
Scholars and theologians or the plain words of the bible?

 

[Timothy416]

You know, roughly half the people who attend trinitarian churches solely believe Jesus is the Son of God. That isn't surprising their ministers dont tell them otherwise, and well over 90% of trinitarian churchgoers will happily accept anyone as a christian who solely believes Jesus is the Son of God.
Its strange. The average pew sitter has spent little, if any time studying theological doctrine but understands more of what matters than the average person who comes on the internet and spends huge amounts of time immersed in the study of theology

 

[Timothy416]

Another way John in his gospel refutes these early heretics, is the 7 “I am” statements!

“I am the bread of life” John 6:35
“I am the light of the world.” John 8:12
“I am the door” John 10:9
“I am the Good Shepherd” John 10:11
“I am the resurrection and the life.” John 11:25
“I am the way, the truth and the life” John 14:6
“I am the true vine, my Father is the vinedresser” John 15:1

Now, while these are all expressive and interesting word pictures, but how do they prove the deity of Christ?

Unfortunately, the Greek wording does not come out in any English translation that I am aware of. But the Greek is very important. The way to say, “I am” in Greek is εἰμί or eimi. Indeed, in each of the 7 “I am” verses I listed above, the word “I” or "ἐγώ” or ego is also included. Thus, in all 7 of these “I am” statements, John actually says, “ἐγώ ἐιμί” οr “I, I am.” So again, that is “ἐγώ ἐιμί.” Or just think “I, I am!” But even that is not enough to explain why these statements, among others, made the Pharisees and the scribes so angry, that they tried to stone Jesus for making himself equal with God.

We have to look back to the Old Testament to find the full reason. In Exodus 3:14 Moses asks God whom he is to say sent him to Pharaoh. YHWH gives his sacred name.

“God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I am has sent me to you.’” Ex. 3:14.

In Hebrew, “I am who I am” is the tetrgram YHWH, or as some transliterate into English, Yahweh. A few hundred years before the time of Christ, Alexander the Great, when he ruled the known world, started a rigorous program of Hellenization (or making everyone into Hellenes or Greeks,) The Jews started were losing their Hebrew. So in Egypt, an ambitious project to translate the OT into Greek was started, for the Hellenized Jews, and completed around 300 years before the time of Christ.

So how do you think this Old Testament, which was called the Septuagint or LXX (After the 70 or 72 translators who translated the Hebrew into Greek), which Jesus and the disciples also used, translated “YHWH or יְהֹוָה ?

In Greek, Exodus 3:14 was ἐγω ἐιμί. The sacred name of God was translated as “I am” in exactly the same way John wrote that Jesus called himself at least 7 times, in the above statements. The Jehovah's witnesses translate "ego eimi," into the word Jehovah! But the Jews, before Christ, they translated YHWH into Greek using the words ἐγώ ἐιμί in Exodus 3:14. I think they knew what they were talking about, and certainly Jesus knew what he was talking about, when he called himself the same name as YHWH, or as some people Anglicize it "Jehovah" And that is why the Jews were so angry with him they tried to stone him. He was calling himself God. He said before Abraham was ἐγώ ἐιμί or "I, I am." And then in his teaching he repeated the fact in his parables and metaphors that he was God. Because he said "ἐγώ ἐιμί" or "I, I am" or YHWH!"

It doesn't get any clearer than that!

Do you believe Gods requirement as to who His son must be believed to be to inherit eternal life has changed since Christ died at Calvary? I'm sure you don't.
Only the church didn't make it official doctrine Christ was God himself until 300 years after Calvary. So who is responsible for people prior to this only believing Christ was the Son of God? What happened to these people when they died? They didnt meet the required belief to attain to Heaven did they?
So who us responsible for them being cast into hell?
The church?

 

[DaveTheRave]

Do you believe Gods requirement as to who His son must be believed to be to inherit eternal life has changed since Christ died at Calvary? I'm sure you don't.
Only the church didn't make it official doctrine Christ was God himself until 300 years after Calvary. So who is responsible for people prior to this only believing Christ was the Son of God? What happened to these people when they died? They didnt meet the required belief to attain to Heaven did they?
So who us responsible for them being cast into hell?
The church?

It is God ( not the "church's official doctrine" ) who judges the hearts of each person which determines their salvation

 

[bluto]

Do you believe Gods requirement as to who His son must be believed to be to inherit eternal life has changed since Christ died at Calvary? I'm sure you don't.
Only the church didn't make it official doctrine Christ was God himself until 300 years after Calvary. So who is responsible for people prior to this only believing Christ was the Son of God? What happened to these people when they died? They didnt meet the required belief to attain to Heaven did they?
So who us responsible for them being cast into hell?
The church?

That's not true timothy? Who told you the following: "Only the church didn't make it official doctrine Christ was God himself until 300 years after Calvary." What is your evidence?

IN GOD THE SON,
bluto

 

[PeterJens]

That's not true timothy? Who told you the following: "Only the church didn't make it official doctrine Christ was God himself until 300 years after Calvary." What is your evidence?

IN GOD THE SON,
bluto

I think timothy is a JW or something similar. It would explain his comment about
forum rules.

 

[jaybird88]

That's not true timothy? Who told you the following: "Only the church didn't make it official doctrine Christ was God himself until 300 years after Calvary." What is your evidence?

IN GOD THE SON,
bluto

i think he is referring to Nicaea. but i dont think a doctrine was made at that point and nicaea only dealt with the nature of Jesus and not the trinity, that would be many years later.

 

[bluto]

I think timothy is a JW or something similar. It would explain his comment about
forum rules.

Maybe, I'm not a 100% sure but there are those that say the Trinity originated at the Council of Nicea. However, that was not the purpose of the Council. In any event, what timothy stated begs the question? Jesus Christ was identified as God well before the Councils. One example would be the declaration of Thomas at John 20:28. Or at the trial of Jesus Christ at Matthew 26:59-66 where He was accused of blasphemy for claiming to be the Son of God, which btw in the case of Jesus Christ is an idiom for claiming to be God.

The main purpose of the Councils and the Creeds were to address questions brought up by others (especially regarding who is Jesus Christ) like Arius did at the Council of Nicea. The Creeds corrected various heresis that had arisen at the time. Plus the fact that Creeds affirm certain Biblical truths which the early Church already believed. 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 is a Creed and so is 1 Timothy 2:5-6. In the OT the "Shema" is a Creed, Deuteronomy 6:4.

IN GOD THE SON,
bluto

 

[jaybird88]

The main purpose of the Councils and the Creeds were to address questions brought up by others (especially regarding who is Jesus Christ) like Arius did at the Council of Nicea. The Creeds corrected various heresis that had arisen at the time. Plus the fact that Creeds affirm certain Biblical truths which the early Church already believed. 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 is a Creed and so is 1 Timothy 2:5-6. In the OT the "Shema" is a Creed, Deuteronomy 6:4.

IN GOD THE SON,
bluto

the councils and creeds also gave a means to enforce the doctrine against people will, if you refused to believe you were killed.

 

[blue_ladybug]

Heads up, you turkeys.. Timothy was a troll. An 8-times-banned troll.. lol

 

[maxwel]

Heads up, you turkeys.. Timothy was a troll. An 8-times-banned troll.. lol

9 .............

 

[bluto]

the councils and creeds also gave a means to enforce the doctrine against people will, if you refused to believe you were killed.

Well jaybird, I'm not one that puts much stock in Wikipedia because anybody can choose to write something in there if they want to. But in this case please read the following; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heresy_in_Christianity

My point is why are you "painting" everybody with a broad brush with the implication that we are all somehow complicit in these crimes? What someone does will not negate the truth and you know full well that Jesus Christ would be against such behavior as well as real Christians. Why don't you mention all the millions of Christians that have been killed unjustly which pales in comparison to what was done in those early centuries? In fact, I just heard on the news the other day that Christians are being killed today in record numbers. And believe me, we haven't seen anything yet, it's going to get even worse. How prepared are you mr.?

IN GOD THE SON,
bluto

 

[Angela53510]

Why am I surprise that a thread dedicated to witnessing to JW's attracted a bunch of trolls defending that Jesus is not God?

Well, as least we have quite a few Scriptures so far, showing that Jesus is God. That is not quite the Trinity, because one must also show in Scripture where the Holy Spirit is God. I believe the JW's refer to him as "it" and again, some kind of lesser deity? Please correct me if I am wrong here, on what JW's believe.



Back to Jesus is God.


Granville-Sharp rule simply is that a certain pattern in Greek of article-substantive-καί-substantive (TSKS) (substantive being something that is a noun, or can take the place of a noun - substantival adjective, substantival participle) involved personal nouns which were singular and not proper names, they always referred to the same person. Granville-Sharp noticed that such a rule applied, in several texts to the deity of Christ. (Kai being a copulative word connecting two nouns of the same case, i.e., AND!)

"while we wait for the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great (the)God and Savior, Jesus Christ," Titus 2:13

"The" above appears in the Greek text, but because of the word "our" (a possessive pronoun), it is difficult to translate the word "our" with the word "the" in English. Another case in which an essential word in the Greek has to be left out to conform with good English grammar, the word "the", which points to the deity of Christ in the TSKS. But it is there in the Greek, and thus the Granville Sharp rules shows that Jesus is "the God and Saviour," hence, Jesus is God.

"προσδεχόμενοι τὴν μακαρίαν ἐλπίδα καὶ ἐπιφάνειαν τῆς δόξης τοῦ μεγάλου θεοῦ καὶ σωτῆρος ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ," Titus 2:13 Greek

τοῦ - article
θεοῦ - Substantive (noun)
καὶ - Kai
σωτῆρος - substantive (noun)

This TSKS above describes Jesus Christ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ. This phrase therefore says "Jesus Christ is the God Saviour.


This is another reason why a knowledge of Greek is important when discussing theology, especially with people who have wrongly translated the Bible. Of course, a knowledge of Greek is NOT necessary to be saved, or to grow in the Lord!

 

[jaybird88]

Well jaybird, I'm not one that puts much stock in Wikipedia because anybody can choose to write something in there if they want to. But in this case please read the following; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heresy_in_Christianity

look up list of heretics killed or burned at the stake. look at the crimes and see how often anti trinitarian pops up. remember what Jesus said about a ttree and its fruits. when Jesus, the 12 or John the baptist preached, the crowds were "amazed" and they were believers. they followed because of what they heard, not because they feared they would be put to death.

My point is why are you "painting" everybody with a broad brush with the implication that we are all somehow complicit in these crimes? What someone does will not negate the truth and you know full well that Jesus Christ would be against such behavior as well as real Christians. Why don't you mention all the millions of Christians that have been killed unjustly which pales in comparison to what was done in those early centuries? In fact, I just heard on the news the other day that Christians are being killed today in record numbers. And believe me, we haven't seen anything yet, it's going to get even worse. How prepared are you mr.?

IN GOD THE SON,
bluto

lots of Christians have been killed, Jesus, 11 of the 12 apostles, John, etc. they were killed for their faith but they were not killed by other Christians over a doctrine. my point, The Messiah's disciples will be persecuted. They must never be the persecutors.

 

[LaurenTM]

Heads up, you turkeys.. Timothy was a troll. An 8-times-banned troll.. lol

this should go nicely with my sombrero song in another thread

sorry Angela..back to being serious

 

[trofimus]

For those who are afraid that when they will use modern translations, there will be less evidence for the deity of Christ:

"No one has ever yet seen God. The only begotten God, the One being in the bosom of the Father, He has made Him known."
John 1:18

You will not find this in your KJV.

 

[PeterJens]

The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
col 1:15

have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
Phil 2:5-6

Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”
Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me?
John 14:8-10

If you read scripture by just using a concordance and not reading whole letters,
you will miss a lot.

Jesus is God. How many times do the apostles have to write it?
When Jesus was with the disciples they knew a man. They knew the authority,
they knew His abilities, but actually be walking with the creator, no, come on,
that cannot be.

So Jesus explains he is the same as talking with the Father in heaven. His heart,
His nature, all His judgements and approach, they are the same. Now this was
hard to take in, like it is for us. God is reasonable and loving, God cares and is
a friend. But also righteousness and justice will blast you into the lake of fire if
you do not resolve sin through the cross and walk in His ways.

So Paul says Christ is the Father, the very image of God on earth.
Being the creator, he ignored, and became our friends, that is true love.

And He faced evil and a cruel death from ambitious, blind, foolish men who
had no clue who or what they are dealing with, but just wanted wealth, power
and an easy life. Just like us.

And just like us, we find it hard to look into Jesus's face, and walk the road
we need to walk. We think scripture will trip us up, not realising it is our
lack of faith and doubt that trips us up all the time.

Ananias and Sapharia thought, sell land, give it to the apostles claiming we
gave it all, but keep a little for ourselves. A small lie about appearance.
Win-win, we get cudos, and benefit a little. All they had to do was be honest
about what they had done. You cannot lie to God.

This is human nature, working out a way to get more than we should and hide
it. But it destroys the whole, it pollutes everything, it turns light into darkness,
it makes words unrealiable, makes intentions double standard.

The Lord stands and falls on His word. He does not lie, He does not change,
what has been declared is eternal.

So something so small, becomes actually everything. But we do not see because
we as sinners learn how to appear one thing and do another.

It is why no matter how many times we read Jesus is God, we find it hard to believe.

 

[Dagallen]

I am by no means a JW follower, however here is another passage that being used here, John 8:58 Jesus said unto them, Verily, Verily, I say unto you, before Abraham was, I am. Note: They were looking for a Messiah to come, Jesus is telling them I am the Messiah that was before the foundation if the earth. The ( I am ) can mean, I am the Messiah, I am the son of man who has no earthly Father, I am the firstborn, I am the one who was sent, I am the Savior if this world, the ( I am ) applies to all the titles Jesus had but does the above mean that Jesus is God, therefore God the Father Himself ? According to scriptures, the answer is no. I guess this must be the Jesus only group.

 

[Dagallen]

Philippians 2:5-6 let this mind be in you ( believe it ) which was also in Christ Jesus. Note : believe Jesus is about to say. 2:6 who being in the form of God, thought ( believed ) it not be robbery to be equal to God. Note: If Jesus was God the Father Himself, this passage would be useless, because if Jesus is God the Father, then the word form is useless, robbery was be useless, the word equal would be useless, all Jesus would have had to say, I am God, I am the Father but Jesus said no such things in scriptures, again I am not a JW follower, just some food for thought.