Using any language is a poor way to define any infinite being as God.
But since we must use language as it is how God decided to reveal Himself to us.
The problem I see with what you are proposing is you take a verse here or there and try to build a theology around it, and read all other verses thru the lense of those verses.
Historical Chrisitanity is able to take all the verses and harmonize them perfectly.
For example, you keep stressing God the Father was in Jesus and that is true. But that doesn’t negate the Son’s deity separate from the Father. For example, John 1 declares the Word was God, it doesn’t say the Father was in the Word.
In Revelation, Jesus declares He is the first and the last, the exact phrase used in the OT of God. It doesn’t say he was the first and the last because the Father was in him.
Acts 5 declares the Holy Spirit to be a person by calling him he and states he is God.
These verses don’t make any sense with your interpretation, only the Trinity is able to make each verse harmonize with the whole Bible and the Apostolic Tradition received from the Apostles.
(I included you, af vet, because you also use a similar defense: discredit the messenger, instead of addressing all of the points I’ve made.)
I figured to just let it go. I’ve done my job. But I keep coming back to this comment of yours, oLofob:
**The problem I see with what you are proposing is you take a verse here or there and try to build a theology around it, and read all other verses thru the lense of those verses.**
That’s an odd position to take, seeing that I probably presented 4 or 5 times as many scriptural references as you did in this back and forth.
And then there are points I made, such as the Christ and his apostles original TRADITION of using the phrase ‘Son of God’, but never, ever, using the phrase ‘God the Son’. That’s basically making 45 references of FACT in one comment.
**Historical Christianity is able to take all the verses and harmonize them perfectly.**
Inventing the phrase ‘God the Son’, is NOT historical Christianity.
**For example, you keep stressing God the Father was in Jesus and that is true.**
God the Father ‘was’, and still is in the Son, and the Son is still in the Father. I’m glad that you see that. But, God the Father is a Spirit (Jn 4:23,24), and invisible. So where can you say he is not present?
**But that doesn’t negate the Son’s deity separate from the Father. For example, John 1 declares the Word was God, it doesn’t say the Father was in the Word.**
John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Keep in mind, the following is presented using your separate and distinct, co-equal persons of God idea: the Son is the Word, and the Father in NOT the Word. But then there is that pesky problem about the Son saying repeatedly that the words that he spoke were not his, but are sourced to the Father.
But, you demand that the Word be the Son, separate and distinct, when they aren’t separate. Anywhere you find the Son, you find the Father. John 14 makes that quite clear. Jesus Christ is the mouthpiece (among many other things) of God the Father.
**In Revelation, Jesus declares He is the first and the last, the exact phrase used in the OT of God. It doesn’t say he was the first and the last because the Father was in him.**
The apostles, and those that were taught by them, already knew that the Father was in Christ, and Christ in the Father. Therefore they needed not to point out a separation in power and authority, as the Trinitarians insist on doing.
**Acts 5 declares the Holy Spirit to be a person by calling him he and states he is God.**
The Holy Spirit is sent/proceeds from the Father (a spiritual dimension that is incredibly hard for us mortals to imagine). The Holy Spirit is God the Father’s primary means of communicating with mankind since the ascension of the Son. I referred you to Jn 16:13, remember? You lie to the Spirit of God, and you are lying to God the Father.
So with the Trinity, and the separation that it demands, are these accurate conclusions?......
The Father...
-is one of the creators,
speaks words, but is not the Word,
-is Father to the Son, but didn’t perform the actual work,
-is considered a saviour, maybe co-saviour,
-is co-redeemer with the Son,
-is first and last, Alpha and Omega,
-is no longer the Judge.
The Son...
-is one of the creators (but gets most of the credit),
-is the Word (but gives the Father credit as being the source of the words),
-is the Saviour (or at least gets most of the credit),
-is the redeemer, or at least co-redeemer with the Father,
-is first and last, Alpha and Omega (even though he was begotten),
-is the Judge.
The Holy Spirit...
-is one of the creators (but was the one that did the initial heavy lifting in Gen. 1:2; therefore beating the Son to punch),
-is not the Father of the Son (but did the actual work),
-gives the words of God to mankind (but is just a relay; -having no separate and distinct words of his own),
-is not a redeemer,
-is not first and last, Alpha and Omega (by the apparent assignment of those attributes to the Father and the Son),
-is not the Judge.
Let us take a verse (2Cor. 13:14), and put it in what I call the unofficial Trinitarian Amplified Version:
The grace of God the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God the Father, and the communion of God the Holy Ghost, be with you all. Amen.
Let us use another verse (Acts 10:38). Remember, the Lord commended Peter for his God-given understanding of who he (Jesus Christ) was. So, there is no confusion on Peter’s part as he relates to Cornelius who Jesus Christ is. But, here it is using the T.A.V.
How God the Father anointed God the Son, Jesus of Nazareth, with God the Holy Ghost and with power.....
Anyway...
In his epistles, does Paul ever go into a second person of God mode, using the phrase: God the Lord Jesus Christ? No.
Your trinity concept divides God (the use of word: separate, in defining God).
A brief example of the confusion trinitarian creeds display is shown in the following numbered lines from a posting of the so-called Athanasian Creed:
10. The Father is eternal: the Son eternal: the Holy Spirit eternal.
22. The Son is of the Father alone: not made; nor created; but begotten.
Eternal=begotten??
The following statement is contradictory to the verse which follows it:
25. And in this Trinity none is before or after another: none is greater or less than another.
“..I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I.†John 14:28
And this:
12. As also there are not three uncreated: nor three immeasurable: but one uncreated, and one immeasurable.
??
So there are TWO that ARE created, and TWO that ARE measurable??
More confusion:
13. So likewise the Father is almighty: the Son almighty: and the Holy Spirit almighty.
If one is almighty, there is no need for the others. If one needs the others, that one is not almighty.
And these next ones......????
17. So the Father is Lord: the Son Lord: and the Holy Spirit Lord.
18. And yet not three Lords; but one Lord.
19. For like as we are compelled by the Christian verity to acknowledge every Person by himself to be God and Lord,
But, in the scriptures, there cannot be found the phrases: God Jesus Christ, Lord Holy Spirit, or, God the Holy Spirit.
20. So are we forbidden by the catholic religion to say, there are three Gods, or three Lords.
At least they got that part right.
Another favorite verse of Trinitarians is this:
“Unto the Son [God] saith, thy throne, O God, is forever and ever,..†Heb. 1:8
As I said before, you apparently believe that God the Father literally sits on one throne, and Jesus Christ literally sits on his own throne right beside the Father. What’s you understanding of this?.........
“And immediately I was in the spirit; and, behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne.†Rev. 4:2
The next verses seem to describe a image on the throne similar to that of Jesus Christ in chapter 1. Chapter 3:21 seems to point out that the Son’s throne is IN the Father’s throne.
Is the separate and distinct Father conceding ownership of the throne? No. The omnipresent Father now has image to dwell in, to actually, physically, sit on a throne. That image was obedient to the Father in all things, even unto death. That image is now resurrected, and STILL the one filled with Spirit without measure (the fullness of the Godhead bodily).
With Trinitarian reasoning, Satan is one person, taking on (and losing to) three persons; each side having angels. But, in the tribulation Satan tries to copy God the Father. Satan (the dragon) completely controls and brings forth his messenger (God calls the False Prophet), and has his own seemingly omnipresent force (God calls the Beast).
Of course, God the Father, with the power that he placed in his Son, will physically and spiritually defeat Satan. Notice that Rev. 19:13 calls the name of the Son: the Word of God, not God the Word.