Are you indicating you don't agree with the Nicene Creed or just casually suggesting improvements from your POV ?
Friendly Bible Study - participants must agree to Nicene Creed.
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David in NJ
Well-Known Member
Holy Spirit IMPROVEMENTS by the Word of God = God's POV is the Only one that we should believe.
Water baptism can never forgive sins.
Only faith in His Death and Blood Offering for Atonement of sins is accepted by the FATHER.
Water baptism is an outward act of faith that occurs AFTER the person has been called to Christ, hears the Gospel and Believes unto Salvation
Matthew 26:26-28
Romans 3:21-26
Romans 5:9
Romans 10:5-13
Acts chapter 2
Acts 4:8-12
1 Peter 1:1
1 John 1:7
Hebrews chapter 9
Ephesians 2:1-14
Exodus 12:1-14
Genesis chapter 3
quietthinker
Well-Known Member
Friendly Bible Study - participants must agree to Nicene Creed.
Ahhhhh, that word 'must' !Do we have concealed coercion behind the word 'Friendly'
Guys...
We have a gate.
It enables us to share freely without endless arguments about fundamentals of the faith.
Mainstream churches recognise this ancient agreement as valid.
There is nothing unfriendly about defining conditions of entry.
The Nicene Creed does not say Water Baptism is forgiving sins.
We could have used the Apostles Creed dating back to the 2nd Century...
It is less specific about contentious issues.
Mind you , knowing the human heart we will have members object to this as well.
The Apostles Creed lacks specific reference to the pre-existance of Jesus before His earthly birth which members love to endlessly argue about..
No gate will be perfect - freely come freely go.
Apostles Creed
I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit
and born of the virgin Mary.
He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to hell.
The third day he rose again from the dead.
He ascended to heaven
and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty.
From there he will come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic* church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.
*that is, the true Christian church of all times and all places
We have a gate.
It enables us to share freely without endless arguments about fundamentals of the faith.
Mainstream churches recognise this ancient agreement as valid.
There is nothing unfriendly about defining conditions of entry.
The Nicene Creed does not say Water Baptism is forgiving sins.
We could have used the Apostles Creed dating back to the 2nd Century...
It is less specific about contentious issues.
Mind you , knowing the human heart we will have members object to this as well.
The Apostles Creed lacks specific reference to the pre-existance of Jesus before His earthly birth which members love to endlessly argue about..
No gate will be perfect - freely come freely go.
Apostles Creed
I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit
and born of the virgin Mary.
He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to hell.
The third day he rose again from the dead.
He ascended to heaven
and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty.
From there he will come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic* church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.
*that is, the true Christian church of all times and all places
Brakelite
Well-Known Member
I agree with this. But does the church? And how can this be
And still be a Son?
We are no allowed to debate the Trinity so I will tread carefully.
The terms Father and Son do not convey the total Truth of the mystery of how the Godhead relates because although God chose to speak about Himself in human terms, this was never meant to be and could not be the total Truth of the matter. God is a Spirit and human language cannot grasp the total wonder of how the Father and the Son have interrelated and will continue to co-exist in eternity.
Brakelite
Well-Known Member
Agree. Yet we were made in His image, and it was God Who created the entire concept of being begotten, and generational addition. Throughout John's gospel and his first letter, it is repeated numerous times... begotten Son. How else are we expected to understand that except by our own experience? Now of course we don't know how Jesus was begotten. But we do know through revelation that He was. Twice. In eternity. And at the incarnation. And it could be argued at the resurrection. So how else are we to understand except that somehow, in a way we aren't told, the Son came forth from the Father and inherited His name, His power, and even His life itself. And that life is exactly the same life of the Father. It can be no other kind of life. It is divine, it is self existent, it is eternal, and such a life chimaera all the qualities and prerogatives of a Being we are fully justified as addressing as God. The only thing the Son has that is different from His Father, is rank. Please note. I am not talking about the trinity. Whatever you believe and accept what I say, you believe it biblical and true, then you apply that to the Godhead. Or not. Up to you. But a belief in how the 3 members of the Godhead coexist, is unnecessary and superfluous. All we need to believe is what we've been told in scripture. Beyond that is assumption.
Fair point.
The Nicene Creed's word "begotten" is γεννηθέντα. When the Creed was translated into Latin, the word used was "natum" -- meaning "born." Paul meant "born" when he used γεννηθέντα in Romans 9:11. So did Aristotle in his Nicomachean ethics 1161b. Ditto for the Didache. It would be difficult to find any instance of γεννηθέντα which doesn't connote a parental relation. And in our human experience, that requires the parent's pre-existence before the child existed. There is a temporal order here, a before and an after.
To describe a "begotten" son's eternal existence therefore takes some doing. The Creed uses τὸν ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς γεννηθέντα πρὸ πάντων τῶν αἰώνων -- "begotten from the Father before all ages." That gives us a "when," not a "how." We aren't going to get a "how." It's beyond our comprehension.
| Ge 41:40 | Thou shalt be over my house, and according unto thy word shall all my people be ruled: only in the throne will I be greater than thou. |
Brakelite
Well-Known Member
If it were explained, we still wouldn't understand it. Can the finite understand, let alone explain, the infinite? I have long believed that Christ's Sonship is the greatest evidence for His divinity. Without it, He could not be God. He would be reduced to a created being as the JWs and others believe. His Sonship is key. Which is why John wrote his Gospel in a social milieu of Heresy regarding Christ's nature. Those heresies continue today... even among trinitarians, many of whom believe the familial relationship between Father and Son is metaphorical. That begotten merely means unique.
I don't agree with the creeds only is as much as they make assumptions that go beyond scripture. I do agree with their use of begotten... the begotten coming forth from the unbegotten. Greek was their native tongue. Should we doubt they knew the meaning of their own language?
First off Jesus had no beginning as He is part of the timeless order of Melchizedek.
Secondly His appointed function was always to assume human form via human birth - This makes Him the only begotten Son of the Father conceived by the Spirit.
However mystery remains and our human minds can't process timelessness and the fullness of God's interrelationship.
It is easy to make anthropomorphic conceptions and think we fully understand God but this misses the mark is woefully inadequate.
I don't think rank applies to the Godhead except for a short season during the earthly life of Jesus.
Well.. I won't go into it further because my beliefs would go into a forbidden discussion topic.
Brakelite
Well-Known Member
I believe Jesus was begotten of the Father before creation. When God created: when He said, "Let us make man in our image"; I believe He was talking to His Son. I also believe it possible that indeed Jesus was eternal as God, but as a begotten Son at some point on eternity. I see the situation similar to what we read in Daniel 2 with the rock... the Son... coming out of the mountain. The mountain obviously is God, and the rock is of the same eternal material... character, life, power, nature etc, but had a beginning as an individual being, the Son of God, who then creates all things. And later destroys all that man created that defiled.
Remember, Jesus Himself declared that it was the Father who gave Him life. But as a human Jesus did not exercise the prerogatives of that divine life else He could not die. Because His life was inherited...a gift... He had the authority and power to lay it down. The only true God, the Father, could not do that. John 17:3; 1 Cor.8:6
The Son of God will always be in subjection to His Father.
“24 Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. 25 For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. 26 The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. 27 For he hath put all things under his feet. But when he saith all things are put under him, it is manifest that he is excepted, which did put all things under him. 28 And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all. ”
1 Corinthians 15:24-28 KJV
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