Hypostatic Dilemma - Do you have one?
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- Jun 22, 2015
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Wrangler
Well-Known Member
Why does the complete absence of trinitarian dogma from Scripture, coupled with contradicting explicit and repeated verses (like, the Father is the only God), not cause trinitarians to question the validity of their beliefs?
Lambano
Well-Known Member
For that matter, why doesn't the contradiction between the attributes attributed to Christ and monotheism cause you to question the inerrancy of scripture?
Wrangler
Well-Known Member
There is no contradiction. Other prophets raised people from the dead and performed other miracles. Trinitarians falsely associate the performance of miracles to Christ when they ought to be attributed to his God. All glory to God and not to his servant. Did Moses part the Red Sea or did God?
I do find this debate tactic childish. Just ignore the question, make a false premise in pushing back on the critics of the non-existent trinity. Now, try answering my question.
quietthinker
Well-Known Member
You have clearly rejected the Christian Bible, so you must make up your own personal anti Bible god to please you!
face2face said: "Literal reading of the Word rarely provides the insight God intended in His Word."
Your opinions do not overrule the Bible!
I’m sure you’re aware that this verse/rendering, part of the Comma Johanneum, is not found in the oldest manuscripts. (Isaac Newton proved this.) Obviously it was added by a trinitarian.
Which should make readers wonder: if a trinitarian was brazen enough to alter this Scripture, what other Scriptures have trinitarians altered to support their bias?
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Because it’s “a mystery”, unknowable.
Unlike Jesus’ declaration at John 4:23,24….”We worship what we know”.
So, who did Jesus worship?
Ronald Nolette
Well-Known Member
Lambano
Well-Known Member
Rich R
Well-Known Member
I'm not saying there is no trinity, but 1 John 5:7 is not a good proof verse.
If you dig around a little, you can easily find that the words, "and these three are one" are not found in any early manuscripts. The words were added at a rather late date. There are several modern English that rely on earlier Greek texts that omit these words. The note in the NIV Study Bible, which is well known for its ardent belief in the Trinity, says, “The addition is not found in any Greek manuscript or NT translation prior to the sixteenth century.”
Earburner
Well-Known Member
Not that any of the illustration below is destructive to our salvation, or is it blasphemous towards God, but rather it provides three representations of HOW we each may personally perceive of how it is that GOD the Father, according to scripture, dwells within US, who are "born again" of His Holy Spirit.
Symbol and Color key:
GTF- God the Father, The Holy Spirit.
GtS- God the Son, both man and Holy Spirit.
GtC- God the Comforter.
In us- who are "born again".
In the following figurative equations, which equation is the actual representation of
John 14:23, John 17:20-24; 2 Cor. 4:7?
Please take your time, and by all means, reference the suggested scriptures.
1-GTF + 1-GtS + 1-GtC in us = God is One
1-GTF + 1-GtS = 1-GtC in us = God is One
(1-GTF in 1-GtS) = 1-GtC in us = God is One
Symbol and Color key:
GTF- God the Father, The Holy Spirit.
GtS- God the Son, both man and Holy Spirit.
GtC- God the Comforter.
In us- who are "born again".
In the following figurative equations, which equation is the actual representation of
John 14:23, John 17:20-24; 2 Cor. 4:7?
Please take your time, and by all means, reference the suggested scriptures.
1-GTF + 1-GtS + 1-GtC in us = God is One
1-GTF + 1-GtS = 1-GtC in us = God is One
(1-GTF in 1-GtS) = 1-GtC in us = God is One
The worship of Jesus’ Father Yahweh, & Jesus worshipping Him, is in the Bible.
But the expression hypostatic union, or any explanation of it, is not in the Bible.
There’s the biggest part of the dilemma.
Lambano
Well-Known Member
"That may be true, dear Colonel, but it is also irrelevant."
What IS in the Bible is Jesus existing before Creation and being given credit as instrumental in Creation, attributes which belong solely to God in Jewish monotheism. "Hypostatic Union" is merely a concept used to explain THAT dilemma. The REAL dilemma.
The alternative is to rip the Gospel of John, Philippians, and Colossians out of our bibles for being heretical. Who here is willing to do that? Any takers?
Ronald Nolette
Well-Known Member
Well you are getting hung up over a word made up to describe a bibliocal truth.
The hypostatic union describes Jesus as both god and man while on earth. He gave up His privileges of absolute divinity while on earth, but not His essence as absolute divinity.
Ronald Nolette
Well-Known Member
And the fact that Jesus was both god and man at the same time is in the bible.
John 1, JOhn 5:18, John 10:30, John 14:9, Mt. 1:23,Luke 1:32-33
That’s why he’s the “only-begotten” … the only one directly created by God. He couldn’t create himself, could he?
Revelation 3:14 Jesus himself tells us that he was “the beginning of the creation by God.”
Yet in their own Scripture, Proverbs 8:22-24 states….”Jehovah produced me as the beginning of his way, The earliest of his achievements of long ago. 23 From ancient times I was installed, From the start, from times earlier than the earth. 24 When there were no deep waters, I was brought forth,…”
(This is speaking of Jesus; he is called by Paul, “the wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:24)”. So Jesus was “brought forth”; he had a beginning, an origin.)
Vss.30,31 continues….”Then I was beside him as a master worker. I was the one he was especially fond of day by day; I rejoiced before him all the time; 31 I rejoiced over his habitable earth, And I was especially fond of the sons of men.”
To ‘rejoice’ and be “especially fond”, are actions of a Sentient Being, not of an impersonal quality.
Really, prior to Jesus’ day, how the ancient Israelites interpreted their Scripture, would be closer to what the Truth is, than what Jewish understanding exists now. We know even 2000 yrs ago, in Jesus’ time, many of their religious leaders had warped thinking that He highlighted.
What or how the Jews believed, however, should not carry much weight with us anyway, because their religious leaders denied Jesus as the Christ / Messiah, and still do.
Good point. Tying in with that, is Acts 2:22. Peter’s words.
So contrary to what many trinitarians profess, Peter (& the other Apostles - see Acts 4:24:30) did not believe Jesus was God. Rather, Jesus was God’s “Holy Servant “. Who was the “Sovereign Lord” they addressed their prayer to? It wasn’t Jesus. It was the One that Jesus worshipped. John 20:17.
I assume you mean John 1:1 where many versions say “…and the Word was God”
However, other translations, even some which support the trinity, render that phrase:
▪ 1808: "and the Word was a god" – Thomas Belsham The New Testament, in an Improved Version, Upon the Basis of Archbishop Newcome’s New Translation: With a Corrected Text, London.
▪ 1822: "and the Word was a god" – The New Testament in Greek and English (A. Kneeland, 1822.)
▪ 1829: "and the Word was a god" – The Monotessaron; or, The Gospel History According to the Four Evangelists (J. S. Thompson, 1829)
▪ 1863: "and the Word was a god" – A Literal Translation of the New Testament (Herman Heinfetter [Pseudonym of Frederick Parker], 1863)
▪ 1864: "and a god was the Word" – The Emphatic Diaglott by Benjamin Wilson, New York and London (left hand column interlinear reading)
▪ 1867: "In the beginning was the gospel preached through the Son. And the gospel was the word, and the word was with the Son, and the Son was with God, and the Son was of God" – The Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible
▪ 1879: "and the Word was a god" – Das Evangelium nach Johannes (J. Becker, 1979)
▪ 1885: "and the Word was a god" – Concise Commentary on The Holy Bible (R. Young, 1885)
▪ 1911: "and the Word was a god" – The Coptic Version of the N.T. (G. W. Horner, 1911)
▪ 1935: "and the Word was divine" – The Bible: An American Translation, by John M. P. Smith and Edgar J. Goodspeed, Chicago
▪ 1955: "so the Word was divine" – The Authentic New Testament, by Hugh J. Schonfield, Aberdeen.
If a verse can grammatically be translated two different ways, which one is the right one?
The one that agrees with the context.
Which translation of John 1:1-2 agrees with the context?
John 1:18 says: “No one has ever seen God.” John 1:14 clearly says that “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us . . . we have beheld his glory.” Also, vss.1 &2 say that in the beginning he was “with God.” Can one be with someone and at the same time be that person?
At John 17:3, Jesus addresses the Father as “the only true God”; so, Jesus as “a god” — or “divine” — merely reflects his Father’s divine qualities.—Hebrews 1:3.
What the Jews thought or said?
But they also called God, their Father. (John 8:41) What does that make them? Equal to God? They were hypocrites. Their reasoning was twisted.
Then who did Jesus pray to? Himself?
Come on! Jesus was not his Father!
John 14:28
So how did Jesus mean this? In praying to his Father, Jesus said @ John 17:20-22…”I make request, not concerning these only, but also concerning those putting faith in me through their word, 21 so that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in union with me and I am in union with you, that they also may be in union with us, so that the world may believe that you sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you have given me, in order that they may be one just as we are one.”
So they’re “one” in the sense of unity.
This, too, agrees with context.
This says (KJV)….
“He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: 33 And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.”
Who ‘gives’ this to Jesus? His God.
Reminds me of Matthew 28:18, where Jesus said, “All authority has been given me in heaven and on earth”
Why was this given to him? If Jesus was God, wouldn’t he have already had it?
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