Posted on 05/14/2016 8:48:31 AM PDT by Salvation
While Jesus states God is ‘greater,’ it is only in the sense that the Father is the principal source of being
Msgr. Charles Pope 5/11/2016
Question: We read in a recent Sunday Gospel (May 1), that Jesus says the Father is greater than him (Jn 14:28). Since we are all taught that each divine person of the Blessed Trinity fully possesses the nature of God, equally to be adored and glorified, what did Jesus mean by such statement?— Dick Smith, Carrollton, Texas
Answer: Theologically, Jesus means that the Father is the eternal source in the Trinity.
All three Persons of the Trinity are co-eternal, co-equal and equally divine. But the Father is the principium deitatis (the source in the deity).
Hence, Jesus proceeds from the Father from all eternity. He is eternally begotten of the Father. In effect, Jesus is saying, “I delight that the Father is the eternal principal or source of my being, even though I have no origin in time.”
Devotionally, Jesus is saying that he always does what pleases his Father. Jesus loves his Father. He is always talking about him and pointing to him. By calling the Father greater, he says, in effect, “I look to my Father for everything. I do what I see him doing (Jn 5:19) and what I know pleases him (Jn 5:30).”
So, though the members of the Trinity are all equal in dignity, there are processions in the Trinity such that the Father is the source, the Son eternally proceeds from him, and the Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from them both.
St. Thomas speaks poetically of the Trinity as: “To the one who begets, and to the Begotten One, and to the one who proceeds from them both, be equal praise.” So, though equal, processions do have an order, and the Father is “greater” as source, but equal in dignity to Son and Holy Spirit.
With all due respect, I’ll answer your query after you answer mine.
I will not convince you of the paradoxical dual nature of Christ, since the nature of God cannot be fully studied by a being of lesser intelligence (meaning all of us), only analogized. However, this question is easy: Christ is reciting Psalm 22 and simultaneously fulfilling it, the same way he read Isaiah at the beginning of His ministry and simultaneously fulfilled it.
Well said.
quote-Plenty of people have, and continue to, “dare” question the premise of the triune nature of Almighty God. It came up in the first few centuries of Christianity. It was defined, proved and defended through the Divinely-inspired Holy Scriptures which is why we as Christians believe and defend it to this day. Read John 8 for the words of Jesus on this.
There is a ‘trinity’ in the Father’s Kingdom calendar,that He taught Israel.
The Scriptures don’t come out and say it, but the Word can lead one to see it. (ezekiel 46:1 template can start anyone on the journey, though)
It is deep but a study that would bless people of faith. (maybe have them question the premise that Rome or anyone without the Son can know the Father’s calendar or should be trusted with ‘times’ or ‘laws’)
The Father finishing His work on the 7th Day (depends on what bible version one uses-
That would sound like a contradiction, so some modern versions use ‘finished by the 7th Day’
But that isn’t a contradiction on His monthly calendar template because the Father has a 7th Day of His month that isn’t a weekly Sabbath-
The 7th Day of His month is His 6th Work Day of the 1st week.
Add that understanding to the Son ‘finishing’ His Work on the 14th Day as the Passover Lamb who laid down His life for our sins.
The 14th Day of the Father’s calendar, like the 7th Day of the month, is the 6th Work Day of His 2nd week.
and He laid in the tomb, resting on the ‘15th’ Day, which is the weekly Sabbath of the Father’s 2nd week in every month.
And He rose from the grave on the 1st Day of the 3rd week (16th Day), and thus began the prophetic week of work for the Holy Spirit, that has been at work for nearly 2000 years.
The Father and the Work of Creation is commemorated in His 1st week, each month
The Son and the Work of Redemption is commemorated in His 2nd week, each month.
The Holy Spirit and the Work of Conviction (John 16:8) in His 3rd week, each month. with that week of work leading into the ‘8th’ day or the 22nd day- a Sabbath.
fyi, each of His months has 4 weeks of 6 work days and 1 Sabbath-
What does the 4th week mean(23rd day-29th day) each month?
If He blessed you with an answer, let me know!
I’ve been blessed to understand His 1st 3 weeks in a prophetic way that is beyond what religion can teach today.
The trinity can be found in how He taught Israel to keep time-
not something I expected to see. Just sort of stumbled onto it.
But blessed to see it!
Every Christian should be FORCED to read this book by Dorothy L. Sayers:
tinyurl.com/mindofthemaker
“My God My God why have you forsaken me. Read Psalm 22. What joy I had when I realized that this statement of Jesus from the cross was referring to this psalm. All raised in the Torah who heard these words knew exactly what he meant. It is finished. Its the final cup - the one he did not drink at the Last Supper.
I love the Peter Whimsey series. Darn you, I had made a promise to myself to stop buying kindle books. Just bought Mind of the Maker. It had better be good!!!
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How to NOT recognize the Messiah in one (three) easy step(s)
Keep seeing the plain meanings, teppe. Watch the house of cards fall. It's a big house.
Speaking of simple meanings that shock and offend, Joseph was Jesus' father. A virgin birth isn't that complicated. Even mankind figured out a crude way of getting around the natural method of conception, and that was almost forty years ago.
Weird stuff all right, but haha, Sarah was ninety. Absurd, isn't it. Yeah, an entire nation built upon an incredible absurdity. Is anything too hard for the Lord? Gotta laugh!
The outcasts will have their day. :)
Study the anthropology of man as provided in His Word.
It took the Church some 400 years just to get through the doctrine of the Trinity. It is a basic and worthy study.
Some have described it colloquially in this fashion:
God the Father Wrote the Play (His Plan).
God the Son performs the play.
God the Holy Spirit focuses the spotlight on God the Son throughout the play.
One God, three Persons, and man was made in His image, with a body, soul and spirit.
Study the Doctrine of the Hypostatic Union.
The first statement you quote is also evidence that Christ was judicially imputed with our sin. He was perfect, but God the Father would have nothing to do with sin, except than to judge it.
The penalty of sin was death, and the separation of the spirit from the Son, shows He did suffer death spiritually, as well as soulishly when he descended to Hades, and physically when pierced with the spear.
This was a strategic victory of man at the Cross over the Adversary. It is the basis for the Good News, because now He is risen, we know we also may share in that victory through faith in what Christ provided at the Cross.
Neither Jesus Christ , nor his apostles EVER used the phrase ‘God the Son’.
The phrase ‘Son of God’ is found about 50 times in the NT. The phrase ‘God the Son’ is not found in the entire Bible.
Are you ‘Free Republic the papertyger’, or ‘papertyger of Free Republic’?
**God the Son**
**God the Holy Spirit**
Those phrases were never used by Jesus Christ or his apostles. Are you wiser than they in your efforts to define God?
**Jesus said repeatedly He was God.**
Correction: Jesus said repeatedly He was the Son of God.
He never once called himself God the Son either. And neither did his apostles.
God the Father is a Spirit (John 4:23,24), and not a man. Joseph Smith is exposed as a false prophet in that he claimed to have seen, and to have been spoken to by two men, claiming that they were the Father and the Son. Whereas Jesus Christ, Peter, John, and Paul all declared God to be invisible.
The Father is omnipresent and invisible. His dwelling in the Son, giving him all power, is what makes the attributes of the Father visible to man. Jesus Christ credited the Father as the source of all things divine, also saying that he was sent from the Father, and that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father.
Can you name one divine thing that the Son gave to the Father?
His life.
Full disclosure: You're a Mormon who believes in an unlimited number of gods, including Joseph Smith and, if you're lucky, yourself, and a harem of Mormon wives. This you believe even though God says He is the one and only Lord, and knows no other gods beside Him.
Christians do not consider Mormons Christian, consequently.
The trinity makes no sense in this instance, Why would god talk to himself in this in his greatest agony almost as if he were a person with a multiple person disorder.
This is a gross misinterpretation and one whose answer is obvious. What you should be asking yourself is this:
If Jesus is just one God of many, how come He's Almighty?
Rev_1:8 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.
Christ applies to Himself the name of God, calling Himself "I Am" and establishing His omnipresence:
Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad. Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham? Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am. Then took they up stones to cast at him: but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by. (Joh 8:56-59)
Christ is called God by the inspired scriptures, and even described as Omnipotent:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1).
Rev_1:8 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.
He also accepts worship and is called God:
Joh_20:28 And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God.
Joh_9:38 And he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped him.
Furthermore, the Son of God, biblically, is defined as God:
Isa_9:6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
“...found no place for them.”
Interesting - him in the first part of the sentence, and them in the second part of the same sentence. Unless the “them” refers to the man and the throne. Which it perhaps could. Or - it does refer to the mystery of Him being Them.
“Them” is the earth and the heaven. Re-read the verse, my friend.
Peace.
Not really relevant...
The Bible was codified by the Church, not the other way round.
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