Hi Lee...thanks for your contribution to the thread and thank you for the link to my profile page!
I was pointing him to a place he could get an answer to his question.
Do you also believe that Jesus Christ is God as his disciples did?
I think that question is carefully worded. Let me guess -- "Constantine and the Council of Nicea screwed everything up", right?
How do you want me to word it? :-)
Jesus is God? Yup.
Jesus is the God of the old testament? Yup.
When we refer to Jesus Christ, we're talking about God himself? Yup.
That's what scripture teaches and I agree with that. Do you?
The UCG believes that Jesus is God. It’s just that, they think that they will be too. From Herbert Armstrong:
“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)
From the UCG website:
“Above these in the spirit realm is the angelic kingdom. And above all is the God Kingdom. God intends to raise man from the human kingdom, over the angelic kingdom, to the God Kingdom—the Kingdom of God. Indeed, in an ultimate sense, the Kingdom of God is synonymous with the ruling family of God, all members of which will share the full nature of God.”
http://www.ucg.org/booklet/what-your-destiny/life-gods-family/
They believe that they will “join” the ‘God family,” because the name “God” is a common noun, referring to many different people. Thus, “God”, according to them, or the “family” anyway, is reproducing new God Personages who will “join” the family. In other words, they believe the Godhead is open. Though, they make the Holy Spirit a “force” rather than a person.
“Now what could that mean? Well let’s tear it apart. If you’re filled up to all the fullness of God and your family’s last name is now God, in other words you are named a part of God’s family, well that can only mean that you can become a literal son or daughter of God, a full fledged member of His family, a divine spirit being like God in His eternal family.”
More:
“Your Bible shows that people were created according to the God kind, to be a part of God’s spiritual family. Now this may seem astonishing to you, that God is in fact reproducing spiritual children after His kind through humanity.”
http://www.ucg.org/beyond-today-program/doctrinal-beliefs/family-destiny
Some more, to help you untangle the web of UCG teaching.
“...the one God is a family, presently consisting of God the Father and God the Son, Jesus Christ. And God is in the process of adding to the divine family multitudes of others - eventually all human beings who are willing and who faithfully choose to follow God’s way...the Father and Jesus Christ are both God...The real message in these pronouncements is that there is no other God apart from the true God’that is, outside the God family now consisting of two divine Beings, the Father and the Son. In short, the God family alone is God...the true God means the one God family to which others will yet be added.”
From http://www.ucg.org/booklet/god-trinity/do-some-verses-deny-divine-family/
More:
“Trinitarians would argue that this is because the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one triune being. But the true explanation is that the one God is the one God ‘family.’” (From same link as above)
The UCG on the Holy Spirit:
“...the Holy Spirit is the very nature, presence and expression of God’s power actively working in His servants...the very essence and life force through which the Father begets human beings as His spiritual children...The Holy Spirit is spoken of in many ways that demonstrate that it is not a divine person.”
http://www.ucg.org/booklet/god-trinity/holy-spirit-person/
You can find a summary of UCG’s beliefs, as well as footnotes STRAIGHT from the UCG’s website, from the helpful folks at CARM:
>> Let me guess — “Constantine and the Council of Nicea screwed everything up”, right? <<
.
Do you believe that they had the slightest desire to get anything “right?”