Well, I think is just a natural response, at least for me, to provide various examples proving the contrary when it is asserted that Christ is a created being. I acknowledge this approach could appear to some as an imbalance in presentation. I assure you that any apparent imbalance is due more to my inability to state exhaustive truth in a post than it is to any denial of the truth of any part of Scripture, the voluntary subordination of Christ included.
Jesus is quoted as saying that he is "I am"; he also claims to be the "other" lord in Psalm 100:1, which to a Greek unfamiliar with Judaism may seem perfectly believable, especially given that the LXX addressed both Lords with the same word (kyrios), unlike Hebrew which leaves no doubt the first Lord is the Lord God (Yahveh) and the second one is not divine (because that word is never used as a divine title).
I have to say something about this one. The fact that the Hebrew word YHWH does not appear in the Greek Scriptures is not dispositive of the issue because the equivalent titles, passages and attributes of YHWH are quoted and directly applied to Christ by the Apostles.
Man is an icon of God, according to the Bible, and with the Holy Spirit supposedly indwelling the believer, all the fullness of deity is in him bodily too! So what's the difference, except that Jesus, according to Paul, was the first to be transformed that way, hence the "firstborn of all creatures"!
I feel I should say something in response to this, too. One major difference, as far as I can tell, is that no believer is ever said to have pre-existed in essence (huparcho) in the form (morphi-not schema) of God prior to emptying himself and taking the form of a bond-servant.
All these verbal acrobatics are an English necessity to attempt to express without going into deceptive language the meaning of the original languages.
I agree.
The Bible is believed on faith. That is its "proof." This book has been 'cooked' numerous times for the past 2,000 years and subjected to innumerable rationalizations, alterations, redactions, additions and deletions, to make it appear "harmonized" and without contradiction. Apparently, the "harmonization" continues to mimick the prevailing doctirne of the editors.
That's a rather bleak picture you're painting, my FRiend. In my view, without the remarkable plethora of N.T. manuscript evidence unparalleled in classic literature, we wouldn't even think of having a discussion about alterations, redactions, additions and deletions. If the Gospel were engraved on a dime, as the saying goes, we wouldn't be having this discussion.
For a Book that is supposedly perspicuous, that even a 5-yearold can understand [sic], it sure is laborious and requires endless hyperbolic exegetical explanations by multiglot PhD intellectuals who can selectively stitch together any "official truth" to their liking.
Amazing then, isn't it, the number of major doctrines of Christianity universally agreed upon by Christians of every stripe, not the least of which, the Deity of Christ?
Thank you for the discussion.
Cordially,
The Greek text (Septuagint) of Psalm 110:1 uses the same word (kyrios) for both Lords. This is misleading because the Hebrew text uses the tetragrammaton reserved only for God for the first one and the second one is a secular title never used for deity.
Where is hyparchio used to assert pre-existence? The exact verse please. The only one I can think of is Phil. 2:6 by . The word itself is obviously another Pauline innovation because the only other author besides Paul who uses the word is Luke, not surprisingly and definitely not in the meaning you suggest.
The earliest copy of the letter to Philemon is a fragment dated 3d century otherwise known as Papyrus 87 which contains but a few broken verses. The earliest complete copy of the Epistle to Philemon known is a copy dating to the 7th century (Papyrus 60).
Based on that we can't possibly know if the verse Phil 2:6 was in the original the way it appears in P60 because we do know that manuscripts have been "Christianized" to keep up with the develping doctirnes.
Papyrus 89 (4th century) allegedly contains the letter to Philemon, but to my knowledge that papyrus is a copy of the Book of Hebrews, which was not written by Paul, and is not a collection of Pauline prison letters.