Posted on 07/02/2012 6:30:14 AM PDT by Cronos
I want to thank Archbishop William E. Lori for reminding me once again why I'm an ex-Catholic ("Fight for freedom," June 27). With the so-called "Fortnight for Freedom," the church leadership is deliberately and cynically using a mixture of patriotism and religion in a blatant and manipulative attempt to influence the outcome of the upcoming elections.
I can't seem to recall any recent news about Catholic churches being bombed in the United States or attempts to bar American Catholics from attending mass. I do know that the Catholic Church has been using its "religious freedom" for decades to aid and abet child abusers, to recently attack nuns in the United States who are at the forefront of what used to be one of the church's primary missions to aid and comfort the poor and needy, and that the American church has over the past few decades formed an alliance with some of the most strident and politically active right-wing religious groups in the U.S. Archbishop Lori even received an award in May from a coalition of some of those groups.
I am proud to be an American, and I am a strong supporter of the Bill of Rights. I support freedom of religion, and I support freedom from religion. And, at this moment in time, I am also very proud and happy to be an ex-Catholic.
Sandy Covahey, Baltimore
(Excerpt) Read more at baltimoresun.com ...
“If you can’t even be sure abut what is being talked about in the prophecy, how in the name of common sense can you expect ANYONE to take these prophecies seriously? Nobody can when nobody is even sure what they’re about.”
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Thanks Mark. And metmom,
Well, when you reject the Truth, prophecy today would be
pretty confusing. You have just stated why Protestantism and it’s new teachings are lies, falsehoods.
Do you not think the first Christians understood and passed
on the Truth? Pretty important, the faith concerns our eternal life. How could those who knew Christ personally get it wrong?
The first Christians were Roman Catholic. Read their quotes and writings.
Oh the present day prophets! How better to be led astray.
Paul said:
“For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth , there be gods many, and lords many,)
But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him.” (1 Cor. 8:5,6)
Paul here calls God, the Father, the origin and Jesus,the Son, the channel of all things.
Who do I say Jesus is? I agree with Paul.
How about you?
I don’t reject the truth. I completely accept eveything written in Scripture as true and as truth.
What I don’t accept as truth is the delusions and deceptions of the enemy or his agents who are false prophets and claim they are messages from heaven.
They are messages from the pit of hell, the father of lies himself.
Nobody but you is accepting them as prophecy or as true.
Just a thought...... Your name wouldn’t happen to be Kevin, would it?
My impression of people like this is they have no real investment in studying the Scriptures and the history of the Christian faith. They lack the credentials that would require years and years of concentrated study and experiential knowledge to be able to teach the Word of God. They are much like people such as "Reverend" Al Sharpton, who claims he preached his first sermon at the age of FOUR and was licensed and ordained a minister at the age of nine or ten. These so-called "seers" or modern-day "prophets" claim a special gift to relay messages directly from God and they seldom bother with knowing the actual revealed Word of God first. They then go about drawing in the gullible and downtrodden seeking a personal experience with God.
Rather than filtering whatever this self-described prophet states is from God through the already-revealed Holy Scriptures, his followers are encouraged to also bypass Scripture and trust in whatever this seer "sees". It is far from the spiritual gift of prophesy described in I Corinthians 14:1 which was to be qualified to speak in a manner that would be edifying to the church under the power of the Holy Spirit. This is quite different than prophets who spoke directly from God such as in the Old Testament and through others such as Paul, John and Peter and who were used by God to reveal NEW truths. This gift was to be able to make the truths of God clear so that the church was edified or built up and strengthened.
I join you in being dubious of anyone who claims to be speaking "for" God. God speaks to us through His word and through the indwelling Holy Spirit who teaches us all truth. It is spiritually dangerous to take the word of someone over what God clearly states in Scripture and we KNOW that he will not contradict His word - EVER!
1. On Firstborn
What you appear to be doing is roughly this. There is a word we all use, “goodbye,” that happens by history to be a sharp contraction of “God be with ye.” But over time the word’s raw etymology gave way to common usage, and it is now a simple way of saying “I am leaving now,” or some such thing. Were an atheist to say it, we would not assume he had suddenly become a believer in God. We would assume he was simply talking about departure.
Similarly, the word prototokos, meaning “firstborn,” has a long and well-established history. It’s etymology in classical Greek did give more credit to the notion of biological birth in time. But by the time the LXX was created, the word had shifted significantly, such that the “tokos” component, “birth,” had receded in importance, and “proto,” meaning “first,” had become the controlling element.
For a modern example, when we say Prime Minister, we do not mean the first minister ever in time, we mean the minister of greatest importance. “Proto” has nearly exactly the same sematic value.” The “tokos” is now just coming along for the ride.
For a Biblical example, see:
Psa 89:27 Also I will make him my firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth.
What is interesting is that the LXX translators used prototokos here, not in a biological or temporal manner, but purely as a function of rank, designating Messiah to be the preeminent one, because one cannot already exist, and then be made into a firstborn. You either are or you aren’t, if taken in the strictly temporal sense. But taken as a function of rank, it more naturally describes promotion to the highest level of authority.
This is what we find in the NT, which was not only written well after the LXX, but was deeply affected my it’s approach to translating the Hebrew into Greek. Hence, when Paul says:
Col 1:15 Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: [16] For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: [17] And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. [18] And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.
… his use of firstborn in verse 15 corresponds to the point he is driving home and brings to a crescendo in verse 18, “that in all things he might have the preeminence,” which corresponds perfectly to the LXX usage of expressing rank, but has nothing to say about time of birth or following some earlier act of creation.
So we conclude that in the broader context, the use of firstborn actually strengthens the argument for the deity of Christ, because as we know, God will not give his glory to another, yet here we see repeatedly in Scripture that as the firstborn he is the rightful inheritor of all that is the Father’s, that he is to be made preeminent in all things, king of kings, Lord of Lords, that at his name, every knee will bow and every tongue confess that he is Lord. This bespeaks deity.
2. On Monogenes
“monogenes” is often translated “only,” or “unique,” or “uniquely begotten” or some such thing. See here:
Joh 1:14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
But I do understand the Arian/Gnostic position is that this should be translated “only generated,” which they surmise would help their angel theory.
But why would we assume that God is like a man? Because that is exactly what this “generative” approach slides into under the Gnostic/Arian influence. It reduces God to human categories and makes no allowance for the uniqueness of God being God.
Let me explain. Humans are time-bound, finite little creatures skittering around the planet like little bugs. When one of them gives birth, they do it in the context of human biology. That is, for humans, when we give birth, we “generate” another finite, time-bound little bug, because what we generate is more of us, and that’s all we can generate, and that’s the only way we can generate.
But God is the supreme Creator of all things. He upholds the universe by the word of his power. He stands alone and above and outside of our finite limitations of time and space. What would it mean for him to “generate” in like kind? Can any mortal mind even begin to conceive that? Would not eternal generate eternal? Would not infinite generate infinite? Would it be right to say it had a beginning? But how could that be right, if time only limits us little bugs, but not the Creator of time itself?
Is the Son like the Father? Absolutely. You keep trying to press folks back to the question of Jesus being the Father, but there’s another way to look at that, which also avoids your angel-agency theory. Simply this, that as anyone knows, when you look into the face of a son, you do see the father, because the son is genetically from the father, and therefore the father is genetically present in the son.
I get this all the time with my son. We look so alike we get people, total strangers, coming up to us and asking us if we are father and son. We must be, they reason, because the genetic cues are unmistakable. He has my eyes, my nose, my hair, my posture, my way of walking, and to top it all off, he grew a beard! We are unmistakably father and son, and he can honestly tell people, if you’ve seen him, you’ve seen me. And yet he is still him, and I am still me.
And all of this goes quite well with John 1:1, the final clause, “And GOD he was, the Word.” Remember we said that due to the emphatic position and the lack of a concretizing article, this was effectively saying Jesus belonged to the class of things we call God, of which there is only one member.
But having said all that, we find that even “monogenes” is not consistently used as a description of generative relationships, but may also sometimes describe the primacy of a relationship:
Heb 11:17 By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son,
Here, if we use a rigidly biological or generative definition for “monogenes,” we would have a contradiction in Scripture, which can never be, because Abraham had two sons, not one, and his firstborn son wasn’t even Isaac. It was Ishmael. Here, the notion of primacy of importance, rather than primacy of generation, is the only way to reasonably explain this language.
3. Back to John 1:1
Therefore, as none of your proposed evidence has dislodged the clear statements of John 1:1-3, I thought it might be good to take another look there, especially since you raised (if perhaps inadvertently) the question of punctuation.
First, as you are probably aware, there is no punctuation in the original Greek. It’s all caps too. It’s easy enough to read if it’s your main language. But what if you were a first century Gnostic, whose goal in life was show that Jesus was just a created angelic being? Well, there was such a man, and his name was Valentinus. How do you suppose such a man would feel about John 1:3? Well, he wouldn’t like it, not one bit. So he recommended numerous changes to the Biblical text, to promote his view of what it should have said (the sheer presumption of the man!).
One of those recommended changes was inserting punctuation to break the final “ho gegonen” (“created things”) away from the end of John 1:3 and attaching it to verse 4 instead. The result in verse 4 is what can only be described as an abrupt end to a classically rhythmic Johannine passage, with the word “one” teetering off the edge waiting for a referent that never arrives. Whereas verse 4 ends up being redundant, having “created things,” designed in tense to flow with the previous sentence, tacked crudely onto “in him was life.” It really makes no sense:
From page 118 of The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels, by John Burgon, 1896, we have the following:
“Epiphanius, who points out that the sense is not complete until you have read the words [Greek: ho gegonen]. A fresh sentence (he says) begins at [Greek: En auto zoe en][476].”
“Chrysostom deals with the latter. ‘Let us beware of putting the full stop’ (he says) ‘at the words [Greek: oude hen],—as do the heretics. In order to make out that the Spirit is a creature, they read [Greek: ho gegonen en auto zoe en]: by which means the Evangelist’s meaning becomes unintelligible[477].’”
And why do such violence to an orderly and beautiful passage? Because Valentinus “found it simply unmanageable.” Ibid.
Wow. Do you see the extremes to which so many have gone to avoid the plain and easy sense of John 1:3? And why? To hang on to an undocumented angel, a mere creature, when what God is offering us in his own Son … is Himself.
Peace,
SR
message to Kevin Barrett
May 3, 2012
http://www.hearhisheart.wordpress.com/
Hear My warnings, little ones. This all shall come upon the earth very soon. Many have been deceived into believing the “PRE-TRIB RAPTURE” LIE. They shall be greatly disappointed as they did not prepare themselves for the tribulation and instead put their hope in lies. Oh, My people, why? Why do you still believe the lies of the devil? Soon and very soon all will know his lies and how they all have been deceived. But at that TIME OF KNOWING, it will be too late for the ones deceived. But know this, My people, I am raising up My beautiful bride to be shown to the nations and she shall not be deceived as she will only cleave to her lover and bridegroom. Will you accept MY INVITATION to be part of My bride? I love you, My people, and do not desire that any of you should perish. But those that do not abandon themselves to Me shall be swept up in the darkness that shall cover the earth.
~ ~ ~
Hi, especially for Protestants reading the thread,
Yesterday, a Catholic Seer in her newsletter shared a vision
she was given about the Great Warning, also known as the “ILLUMINATION OF CONSCIENCE.” To Kevin Barrett in his May 3rd, 2012 message from Our Lord, Jesus referred to the Great Warning as “My invitation”, “the time of knowing.” Truly, every person on the earth will know how God sees their soul during the moments of the Great Warning. (Rev 6:15-17).
Yahoo Groups, - Seers2
message #36407
7/18/12
Sadie Jaramillo
In the beginning of the many messages and visions I was given, I was shown a particular vision of something at the time I did not understand. It came in 3 parts. The first scene I could see the earth far, far away, from someplace out in space...because the earth looked very small..and the blackness of space is all around me. Next, I see the earth is much closer....third, I see the two surfaces inches apart, the surface of this heavenly body, and the earth. Then I was shown like an explosion of light....and then a man falling to his knees crying.
Jesus told me that He had just shown me what would cause man to fall on his knees, for we would be seeing ourselves as if we were going through our particular judgement. We would see what God sees, when we stand before him after we die. You see, it is not God who condemns the soul. The soul instantly knows where it should go, i.e., heaven, purgatory or hell.... because it is standing before the light of JESUS.
FOR JESUS SAID:
I AM THE WAY THE TRUTH AND THE LIFE. John 14:6
and again in the Gospel of St. John:
[John 8:12] Again therefore, Jesus spoke to them, saying: I am the light of the world: he that followeth me, walketh not in darkness, but shall have the light of life.
So there is nothing that will escape us before the throne of God in our own particular judgement when we die or in the illumination of conscience, which will be similar....everything in our lives that we ever did, said, thought, etc., will be played for us like a movie of our lives.
This is a perfect example of the tactics of the enemy, confirming our suspicions of him/her being a false prophet. Satan always corrupts the Word of God.
The verse in its entirety reads .....
John 14:6 6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Aside from cherry pickng sections of vere, the enemy also uses them out of context. In this case, I do not see what possible connection there is between what was sais and the use of this verse. Adding it just to make something sound spiritual is smoke and mirrors that anyone with a lick of discernment can see through.
Since you're so big into great warnings, here is one for all the lurkers on this thread. The material posted from these alleged seers is NOT from God. There are no credentials given, never any reason why we should accept said "prophecies", nor has any information been forthcoming about the source of these prophecies, specifically how they are received by the so-called prophet. They are not recognized as valid by ANYONE on this thread, Catholic and Protestant alike.
You see, it is not God who condemns the soul. The soul instantly knows where it should go, i.e., heaven, purgatory or hell.... because it is standing before the light of JESUS.
Chapter and verse? Or perhaps you could point to somewhere in Catholic teaching that supports this.
Since pio posted something from a *Catholic seer* perhaps the Catholics on this thread could give us their input. Is this person whom is allegedly a Catholic seer REALLY a seer approved by the Catholic church? Does what she said really have the approval of the Catholic church?
metmom, spending a lot of time taking anything I post apart
sentence by sentence. You are helping people come to the
faith.
~ ~ ~
“You see, it is not God who condemns the soul. The soul instantly knows where it should go, i.e., heaven, purgatory or hell.... because it is standing before the light of JESUS.”
~ ~ ~
Catholics and Protestants accept there is a judgement at death, obvious, we don’t know exactly what happens at our first judgment called the Particular Judgment. Our Lord explains, makes explicit in Private Revelation.
metmom, rejecting more of God’s revelation (the oral, Tradition and Scripture, the written Word, the magisterial teachings of the Church for 2000 years and Prophecy) than you accept is your problem.
~ ~ ~
“Chapter and verse? Or perhaps you could point to somewhere in Catholic teaching that supports this.”
~ ~ ~
Chapter and verse? The Bible, a Catholic book is your
lone authority where are these Protestant heresies in
Scripture?
1. Bible Alone
2. Faith Alone
3. PIOS
4. Man is Completely Depraved
I am helping people see the truth.
I don’t reject Scripture. I reject the lies of the enemy put forth as truth from heaven by self-proclaimed *seers* and *prophets* who nobody ever heard of before andfor whom you have provided no credentials for, even when asked.
You didn’t answer my question for chapter and verse to support your contentions. I am not so blind as to not see the deflection technique of turning it around and asking questions of me without answering the ones put to you first.
You constantly complain that nobody addresses your posts even when they do and it’s shown to you, and here you don’t even extend the same courtesy to others you demand of them.
Where is the answer to my questions?
ALL of them because to date, I can’t recall seeing that you have answered a one of them.
The point again, the Protestants here will not answer to three Scripture verses that boldly and absolutely say “Faith Alone” is a lie. So, share another means, a current prophecy given to Protestants to help them see.
Negative. It is not a prophecy and there is no contact between God and this man. You might stop quibbling about the coincindence between some aspects of his posts and Catholic teaching and enquire a little more closely into his bona fides.
Hint: he doesn't have any. In the words of Gollum - wicked, tricksy, false. If he cannot prove that he is of God and that God actually sends him the message, then let him be anathema. He may serve his master, but that does not mean that Christians should follow his lead.
The state of Protestantism does not justify Barrett's blog. Just because something is wrong does not mean that something else is right without proof.
The first Christians were Roman Catholic. Read their quotes and writings.
What an idiotic statement. The first Christians were the Catholics of the church in Jerusalem, headed by James. Peter eventually went to Rome and over time, the Roman Catholic came to be, along with the other four original Churches.
Again, we find ourselves in agreement. Good question...
No such animal. I call on stpio to cease and desist from calling himself Catholic and to refrain from posting nonsense. There ain't no such thang as a 'Catholic seer'. Next, we'll be hearing about Barrett talking to a burning bush. And having it talk back...
Three ages of the Earth: pre-incarnate Jesus, incarnate Jesus, and post-incarnate Jesus.
May He have mercy upon us all.
A Catholic cannot embrace and espouse non-Catholic and false doctrines and still remain in communion. I see a person who no doubt has a love of God and an affinity for what he believes the Church to teach. I would advise you to seek a spiritual director by talking to your parish priest or Director of Religious Education
You find the truth not only by grasping truth, but also by recognizing and rejecting what is not true. Catholics call this process discernment. You appear to hear a calling, but lack the tools and support for proper discernment.
As taught by St. Ignatius Catholic should share everything with a director who can see things objectively, without being swayed by pride, ambition, emotions or passion. Discerning whether something is good (the influence of God, the Church, one's soul) or bad (the influence of Satan, the world, the flesh) is at work requires calm, rational and objective reflection. Catholics are called to a collective communion because no one can succeed alone.
Peace be with you
“Paul here calls God, the Father, the origin and Jesus,the Son, the channel of all things. Who do I say Jesus is? I agree with Paul.”
Well, I’m not so sure you actually do agree with Paul, not even in this passage. For review, here’s the text, with a little more context:
1Co 8:4-6 “As concerning therefore the eating of those things that are offered in sacrifice unto idols, we know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is none other God but one. [5] For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, (as there be gods many, and lords many,) [6] But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him.”
It is very clear Paul is setting up a contrast between true and false gods. Corinth was a particularly pagan place to live, with all manner of deities to choose from. Of course as you can see from the above passage, Paul didn’t regard false gods as anything.
But we also know that the church at Corinth was in a conflict over these deities. Could you buy the meat, and eat it, if it had been offered to a false god? Some said yes (it was cheaper by the pound, after such an offering), and some said no. What should a good Christian do?
So Paul reminds them, sure there are a lot of false deities around, “But to us” there is “one God,” and to us there is “one Lord.” We are monotheists. We can get past this confusion.
So riddle me this. If your theory is that the phrase “one God, the Father,” excludes all other beings as true God (remember, Paul’s contrast here is with false gods), then why does an equal rule not apply to the phrase “one Lord [KURIOS] Jesus Christ?” Does that mean that God the Father is the only true God, but that the Son is the only true Lord? Is not God also called Lord?
Luk 1:32 He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord [KURIOS] God shall give unto him the throne of his father David:
So then we either have a contradiction in Scripture, or we have a misunderstanding, which I find to be more likely.
Consider this also. This is a contrast for the Corinthians between true and false. Whatever is on the true side is true, right? So if your rendering is correct, Jesus cannot be considered a god of any degree, for the passage says “one God,” does it not? How then is it proper to give Jesus any title of deity? Because any such title, according to you, has just been declared false.
This would mean that John 1:1 being rendered “the Word was [a] god” has just been rendered invalid by 1 Cor 8:6. Not to mention a few other passages:
Isa 45:5-8 I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me: [6] That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else. [7] I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. [8] Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness: let the earth open, and let them bring forth salvation, and let righteousness spring up together; I the LORD have created it.
Now this passage is interesting for several reasons. “There is no God beside me” is an expression that most ordinary readers would take at face value. Though there many be many forms of authority in the world, and there many be many, many false Gods, there is only one true God. Therefore, Jesus cannot be “a god.”
But wait, you say, all that delegated authority just makes him look like God, so it’s fair to call him a god. Really? Let’s look at your delegation theory in Isaiah. Whom does the one and only true God say helped him with creation? Anyone? What does he say?
Isa 44:24 Thus saith the LORD, thy redeemer, and he that formed thee from the womb, I am the LORD that maketh all things; that stretcheth forth the heavens alone; that spreadeth abroad the earth by myself;
So here we have Jehovah (a nice English word, BTW, but almost certainly not the proper name of God) making it plain that HE is the Creator of all things. Not only does he not subcontract the job, he specifically repudiates the idea that he would do so, here:
“that stretcheth forth the heavens ALONE;
And here:
“that spreadeth abroad the earth BY MYSELF”
God doesn’t lie. He didn’t use a sub. He did it himself. He said so, and with such plainness and clarity in the OT Scriptures that the Corinthian Christians, who were well-trained in Hebrew monotheism, could not mistake Paul’s real meaning. There were false gods and false lords, but there was one true God the Father, and one true Lord Jesus Christ, and though they did have different roles in creation, they are both properly seen as the unitary Creator.
One of the best clues that this is what Paul was getting at in 1 Cor 8:6 is the parallel between his expression and the famous Shema Y’israel:
Deut 6:4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD:
The parallelism of thought is so striking some have suggested what Paul was actually offering here was a Christological monotheism. In simpler terms, he was actually asserting the full deity of Christ, not denying it.
For example, the word for “one” here, echad, is not the word that would typically be used for simple numerical oneness. It is a word that often used to describe a multiplicity of things that comprise one thing. For example:
Eze 37:19 Say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel his fellows, and will put them with him, even with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they shall be one [echad] in mine hand.
So when Paul declares there is one God the Father, he is not excluding the Son from being God any more that he is excluding God the Father from being Lord. But by putting them both in the same formulaic relation as the Shema, he is in fact asserting their sameness of being, while preserving their difference of person and role.
And in the broader context, this is the only possible conclusion, because John 1:1-3 sets forth the nature of Christ as that of God, and yet likewise differentiates him as a person from the Father, and furthermore forecloses any possibility of mistaking him for a created being by declaring quite clearly that without him not even one created being was created.
BTW, I found the following link very helpful in formulating my response. You may wish to take a look at it: http://www.answering-islam.org/Shamoun/q_paul_on_one_god.htm
What is so intriguing about that site is that Islam and Arianism both use essentially the same method to attack the deity of Christ, right down to the same passages and the same arguments. This fascinates me because it exposes the common root they both have in pagan Gnosticism. Which is why I find it so ironic that the Arian groups here, that pride themselves on being anti-Christmas and anti-Easter and anti-cross, etc., have strained at those tiny little gnats, only to swallow whole the camel of pagan Gnosticism, along with their Islamic counterparts.
Peace,
SR
Well spoken.
The same holds true for those who would have us believe that they bridge the gap between Christianity and Judaism in some way, shape or form. Saturday worship, and so on. The Judaizers were identified as not being Christian early on in Acts. The Jews are our elder brothers, yet we are not Jews.
How Paul used the term “firstborn” is evident in Heb. 11:28 when he recounts the Israelites splashing blood on their door posts to prevent the death of their “firstborn”, a term applied to both man and animal.
In the usual sense of first one born Paul uses the term “firstborn” at Romans 8:29. And it is that obvious sense that Jesus was called the “firstborn” of Mary at Matt. 1:25.
That one might find exceptions to the usual and normal usage such as Isaac being treated as firstborn though Ishmael was born earlier should not cause us to treat every usage as the exception.
Attempting to explain Christianity in Greek philosophical terms produced thinking like Origen’s that spoke of “eternal generation” (a nonsensical term) of the Son while calling him the “firstborn”.
“Were an atheist to say it (good bye),.....)”
We would assume he meant it in the most typical and often used way unless we could find him making an exception.
“So we conclude that in the broader context, the use of firstborn actually strengthens the argument for the deity of Christ, because as we know, God will not give his glory to another”
A faulty conclusion based upon a misunderstanding I think.
The angel that appeared after Jesus birth shared God's glory (Luke 2:9) and Jerusalem coming down from heaven shared God's glory (Rev. 21:9,10), Christians even reflecting that glory. (2 Cor. 3:17,18)
“But why would we assume that God is like a man? Because that is exactly what this “generative” approach slides into under the Gnostic/Arian influence. It reduces God to human categories and makes no allowance for the uniqueness of God being God.”
The description of the relationship between God and Jesus as father and son was not invented by Arius and the Gnostics but by God Himself. That it is not same in every fine detail is obvious but it well describes the gist of their relationship as it would to any Middle Eastern mind.
“Col. 1:15
… his use of firstborn in verse 15 corresponds to the point he is driving home and brings to a crescendo in verse 18, “that in all things he might have the preeminence,” which corresponds perfectly to the LXX usage of expressing rank, but has nothing to say about time of birth or following some earlier act of creation”
Again Jesus is the “image”, the “firstborn” not the invisible God and “all things are made through him (Jesus)”.
There is a difference between the image and the thing imaged. Between the coin and Caesar's eikon, image on it.
“Monogenes
Both mono and generate were commonly and regularly used by the NT writers (neither Arians nor Gnostics) in just the way we understand the meaning: Mono, only without others, as when Jesus went off alone and
ginomai, made, as when the water was made into wine.
How that classical Greek used such terms is another matter.
“Heb 11:17 By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son,”
It wasn't an elevation of Isaac to the position of firstborn, he, indeed, was the first born of Abraham and Sarah.
John 1:1-3
“Wow. Do you see the extremes to which so many have gone to avoid the plain and easy sense of John 1:3? And why? To hang on to an undocumented angel, a mere creature, when what God is offering us in his own Son … is Himself.”
‘undocumented angel, a mere creature”...These are your words not mine. Perhaps it's just hyperbole....
It might be helpful to consider the trinitarian definition of God when reading John 1:1-3.
Three persons in one God. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Do I have that reasonably correct?
Then when I read these verses I read the Word (pros)was with God and the Word was God and was in the beginning (pros)God.
Who is the God that the Logos was “with”? Father, Son, Holy Spirit? John said the Word became flesh (vs 14) so “the God” that the Logos was with leaves Father and Holy Spirit. But..
The God (first instance) could just as easily be the Father alone and so “the God” would refer only the Father that the Logos was with.
The Word was God but not “the God (theon)” as there is no article with God (theos) in the second instance. Is the Logos fully “the God”? or 1/3 of “the God”? Or both?
In beginning the Logos is with “the God” (theos).
This is where trying to force the trinitarian definition of God to John 1:1-3 leads...an incomprehensible redefinition of the Greek words used by John.
“From page 118 of The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels, by John Burgon, 1896, we have the following:.....”
Was there any text other than the King James translation and the Received Text that Burgon did not consider corrupt?
“Is the Son like the Father? Absolutely. You keep trying to press folks back to the question of Jesus being the Father, but there’s another way to look at that, which also avoids your angel-agency theory. Simply this, that as anyone knows, when you look into the face of a son, you do see the father, because the son is genetically from the father, and therefore the father is genetically present in the son”
And you might have a grandson that closely resembled you but you wouldn't call those three person the husband of your wife no matter their similarities.
When “the God” is defined as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and the Son is called God, then the trinitarian definition does indeed confuse Father with Son.
In Col. 1:14-20 Paul said all things were creaed in, through and for the Christ. In vs. 18 Jesus is called the firstborn of the dead. How so?
First in importance certainly but the larger sense first in time since he was the beginning of the church being the first raised to heavenly life from the dead.
How Paul used the term “firstborn” is evident in Heb. 11:28 when he recounts the Israelites splashing blood on their door posts to prevent the death of their “firstborn”, a term applied to both man and animal.
In the usual sense of first one born Paul uses the term “firstborn” at Romans 8:29. And it is that obvious sense that Jesus was called the “firstborn” of Mary at Matt. 1:25.
That one might find exceptions to the usual and normal usage such as Isaac being treated as firstborn though Ishmael was born earlier should not cause us to treat every usage as the exception.
Attempting to explain Christianity in Greek philospical terms produced thinking like Origen’s that spoke of “eternal generation” (a nonsensical term) of the Son while calling him the “firstborn”.
“Were an atheist to say it (good bye),.....)”
We would assume he meant it in tne most typical and often used way unless we could find him making an exception.
“So we conclude that in the broader context, the use of firstborn actually strengthens the argument for the deity of Christ, because as we know, God will not give his glory to another”
A faulty conclusion based upon a misunderstanding I think.
The angel that appeared after Jesus birth shared God’s glory (Luke 2:9) and Jerusalem coming down from heaven shared God’s glory (Rev. 21:9,10), Christians even reflecting that glory. (2 Cor. 3:17,18)
“But why would we assume that God is like a man? Because that is exactly what this “generative” approach slides into under the Gnostic/Arian influence. It reduces God to human categories and makes no allowance for the uniqueness of God being God.”
The description of the relationship between God and Jesus as father and son was not invented by Arius and the Gnostics but by God Himself. That it is not same in every fine detail is obvious but it well describes the gist of their relationship as it would to any Middle Eastern mind.
“Col. 1:15
… his use of firstborn in verse 15 corresponds to the point he is driving home and brings to a crescendo in verse 18, “that in all things he might have the preeminence,” which corresponds perfectly to the LXX usage of expressing rank, but has nothing to say about time of birth or following some earlier act of creation”
Again Jesus is the “image”, the “firstborn” not the invisible God and “all things are made through him (Jesus)”.
There is a difference between the image and the thing imaged. Between the coin and Caesar’s eikon, image on it.
“Monogenes
Both mono and generate were commonly and regularly used by the NT writers (neithr Arians nor Gnostics) in just the way we underst6and the meaning: Momo, only without others, as when Jesus went off alone and
ginomai, made, as when the water was made into wine.
How that classical Greek used such terms is another matter.
“Heb 11:17 By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son,”
It wasn’t an elevation of Isaac to the position of firstborn, he, indeed, was the first born of Abraham and Sarah.
John 1:1-3
“Wow. Do you see the extremes to which so many have gone to avoid the plain and easy sense of John 1:3? And why? To hang on to an undocumented angel, a mere creature, when what God is offering us in his own Son … is Himself.”
‘undocumented angel, a mere creature”...These are your words not mine. Perhaps it’s just hypebole....
It might be helspful to consider the trinitarian definition of God when reading John 1:1-3.
Three persons in one God. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Do I have that reasonably correct?
Then when I read these verses I read the Word (pros)was with God and the Word was God and was in the beginning (pros)God.
Who is the God that the Logos was “with”? Father, Son, Holy Spirit? John said the Word became flesh (vs 14) so “the God” that the Logos was with leaves Father and Holy Spirit. But..
The God (first instance) could just as easily be the Father alone and so “the God” would refer only the Father that the Logos was with.
The Word was God but not “the God (theon)” as there is no article with God (theos) in the second instance. Is the Logos fully “the God”? or 1/3 of “the God”? Or both?
In beginning the Logos is with “the God” (theos).
This is where trying to force the trinitarian definition of God to John 1:1-3 leads...an incomprehensible redefinition of the Greek words used by John.
“From page 118 of The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels, by John Burgon, 1896, we have the following:.....”
Was there any text other than the King James translation and the Received Text that Burgon did not consider corrupt?
“Is the Son like the Father? Absolutely. You keep trying to press folks back to the question of Jesus being the Father, but there’s another way to look at that, which also avoids your angel-agency theory. Simply this, that as anyone knows, when you look into the face of a son, you do see the father, because the son is genetically from the father, and therefore the father is genetically present in the son”
And you might have a grandson that closely resembled you but you wouldn’t call those three person the husband of your wife no matter their similarities.
When “the God” is defined as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and the Son is called God, then the trinitarian definition does indeed confuse Father with Son.
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