Posted on 12/23/2013 5:14:49 AM PST by Kevmo
Great point!
Thanks for the ping. I don’t follow religious argument so closely. When I examine the historical case that jesus claimed deity, it is overwhelming. It is utterly obvious that those who attack the historicity and also bring ridiculous religious arguments are simply flat wrong. Not just flat wrong, but heretically flat wrong.
It was just a courtesy ping.
Merry Christmas!
Re “and Jesus Christ,” (Jn. 17:3) the word “kahee” (and) sometimes has “a cumulative force; as in “also, even, so, then,...” (Strong’s)
This cumulative sense makes sense, for rather than teaching eternal life is to know two separate beings, Deity and non-deity, instead, and consistent with John, it is teaching that eternal life is to know the one true God by knowing Jesus Christ, God manifest in the flesh, (Jn. 1:1,14) thus “Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father,” (1 John 2:23) and “He that believeth on me, believeth not on me, but on him that sent me. And he that seeth me seeth him that sent me. (John 12:44-45)
And note that the above verse is in the context of the Lord Jesus being the one whom Isaiah saw in His glory in Is. 6, when he saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple..., at which time was given the prophecy so often quoted in the NT,
And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed. (Isa 6:9-10)
And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life. (1 John 5:20)
The other thread was locked. Bummer.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/3104329/posts?q=1&;page=552#552
This thread has been locked, it will not receive new replies.
Locked on Thu 26 Dec 2013 05:28:25 AM PST by Religion Moderator, reason:
Childish behavior
The only other current thread to hash this out is already poisoned by heretics.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3069049/posts
On the other thread I said I would post my learnings here. Unfortunately I did not learn much. The same scripture twisting and revisionist history keeps getting pushed by those with an agenda to deny the divinity of Christ. There is no serious treatment of the historical evidence, just the same trite “well, there are many ways to interpret that passage”, but there are so many passages that they simply ignore the evidence.
To: redleghunter
Yup. It would appear that heresies are allowed on open threads. At least they are not allowed on caucus threads. So if I learn anything from this thread I will post it here
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/3104583/posts
Similarly, there is an open thread on the News/Activism forum that such heresies have been openly promoted, so if I learn anything there I will also post it on the caucus thread.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3069049/posts?page=2294
These are interesting times.
563 posted on Thu 26 Dec 2013 12:21:54 AM PST by Kevmo (”A person’s a person, no matter how small” ~Horton Hears a Who)
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This thread originally had a [caucus] tag. The basic attempt was for a caucus of trinitarians. I gather that since the tag has been removed, there is no such caucus. Something I learned on this thread...
A caucus must be designated. The term “[caucus]” does not designate a group to caucus. If the term “[Trinitarian Caucus]” had been used, the caucus would have been accepted.
Can I correct that mistake and have the term [Trinitarian Caucus] placed up there? That was obviously the original intent.
There have been too many reply posts to establish a caucus now.
On a recent thread, I learned that there’s a cult called UCG which will acknowledge that Jesus is God Himself but that isn’t what they mean...
By a resurrection, we become born God personages — personages just as our God the Father and Christ the Son! We shall have the entire universe put beneath our feet (Hebrews 2:8).” (Herbert Armstrong, The Plain Truth (September 1980): 40)
Their particular spin is that God is part of a “God Family,” which we can join. Thus, it is still “one God,” because to be “God” is a group noun which encompasses all its members.
(Herbert Armstrong,
“Personal From...” The Plain Truth (Feb. 1967): 47.
A Freeper wrote: “Telling a Mormon, who otherwise lived a righteous life, that they are going to hell, because their concept of Jesus Christ, as the son of God, is different from the mainstream view that he is actually God in a different form.”
The absurdity of this argument is that both the LDS and the UCG disbelieve that Christians are Christians. They both teach that they are the only ones who “have things right,” who have special revelation, and have refounded what was lost, and that anyone who does not believe as they do is a member of apostate Christianity. Hence the hypocrisy of these groups’ complaints that Christians do not acknowledge them as legitimate churches.
Our stand against ALL religious cults which deny the Trinity goes to ancient times. Freepers did not invent it. They just inherited it:
Blame God:
Exo_34:14 For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God:
Blame Paul:
Gal_1:8 But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.
Blame the Athanasian Creed:
“Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the catholic faith... And the catholic faith is this: That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity;”
“So, FreeperFrom UCG ... is Jesus God (Jehovah) Himself?”
Again, be careful with this, because he will answer “yes,” but he won’t mean what we mean. He does not mean “Yes, Jesus is the second member of the Trinity,” he means “Jesus is one of many potential God entities, who are ‘one’ God by being in a covenant with each other, but not because they are a Trinity.”
The question isn’t a matter of “Do you believe Jesus is God?” It’s a matter of “Do you believe that you will become a God by joining the God Family?”
If you live in 'Flatland' a realm where there are only two variables of dimension space, namely length and width, the only way you could comprehend what a pencil is would be for you to sense the pencil as it passes through your two variable space. Everywhere the pencil is 'in' your two variable realm would be a piece of evidence, then you would have to imagine what all the pieces of evidence make when together. The pencil is a three variable object. Your senses are two variable capable
Jesus told Philip that all he could see of God The Father Almighty was what he could see as Jesus, because the dimensional variability of God The Father is so much greater than the sensing capabilities of the Disciples. Jesus IS God with us. Where Jesus was in Philips spacetime, Philip could collect another piece of data about God The Father, but Philip would not be capable of 'sensing' God The Father directly because of Philip's limitations, thus God came to be Jesus so we limited creatures could sense that much of God. Jesus told Philip that He and The Father were One. To a Jew that is affirmation of the Torah statement that the God of Israel is One. Jesus was asserting specifically to His audience that He Is God.
1. We can only use scripture to support your views. No tradition allowed.
2. We can't be mean. No name calling. We'll both be courteous and respectful. I'm not interested in having to cut through insults to get to your points.
3. We can't link to other websites or sources to make your points. If you don't know what you believe without linking somewhere else I'm not interested.
4. We can link and use academic sources if required..i.e. concordances, lexicons, dictionaries, etc.
If you want to add other ground rules or question these please feel free. I look forward to lively, scriptural, courteous debate.
Okay Kevmo, why don’t we debate your spin on what I believe right here?
***No. This was intended as a caucus thread if you’d read it. It had a caucus tag when I posted the thread, and the moderator took it down due to some unposted rule requirement. If you want to have a debate, we open a thread for that debate. We don’t pollute what is intended to be a caucus thread with known anti-trinitarian heresy. Your thread already has the debate ongoing, so what’s wrong with proceeding there?
Here is a thread where you can defend your views and we can “debate your spin”.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/3108157/posts
Lol..no thanks. I think the first thing you need to understand is that UCG and the Worldwide Church of God are two completely different entities, philosophically, legally and organizationally.
I was never in the WWCG but I will grant that there were some aspects of it that fostered authoritarianism...which sometimes gave certain ministers God complexes and did wander into cultism.
Really about the only things the two organizations have in common are on some aspects of doctrine. However, even that is somewhat misleading. "Doctrine" in Worldwide often consisted of non-biblical speculation which sometimes took on a life of it's own.
Among the Churches of God UCG is usually attacked as being too "liberal" by other churches who wish to retain an authoritarian grip on it's members. A large reason for this is church government. Most other churches of God retain what essentially boils down to a supreme leader, a pastor for life, a human head of the church who keep it until his death and passes it on to a successor.
United, on the other hand, is run by a council of elders of 12 men, elected by their fellow elders. Their terms are 3 years. The council is human governing authority with Christ as the head of the church. The council can and does change. This system ensures that no one man can take control of church and build a mini-empire, though some have tried through the years.
So, and I don't mean this as a negative to you but only as a fact, when i see you reference threads like you did I know that you're ignorant of my church. I'm not going to spend time defending anything pertaining to Worldwide church of God. It would be like me asking you defend the Catholic church because you belong to a protestant church that split from it.
I hope that helps.
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