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Author | Topic: Jesus - Wholly Man - Wholly God | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
GDR Member (Idle past 274 days) Posts: 5410 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: |
Just to touch on a couple of things. The quotes you used from the OT were about the return of Yahweh. They were not messianic. Here is a wiki article that talks about Jewish belief about a messiah.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messiah The messiah was only believed to be a human who would lead the presumably in battle but would be the anointed one of God to do that. Jesus wove together the two Jewish ideas, a human messiah to lead them and the return of Yahweh into Himself. Of course He wasn't the messiah that the Jews expected or wanted, and they missed completely the time of Yahweh's visitation.
He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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Faith ![]() Suspended Member (Idle past 766 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
But the return of God IS the coming of the Messiah, the Messiah IS God.
The Jews were wrong about the Messiah, as Jesus makes amply clear. He criticizes the Pharisees endlessly, because they were wrong in their understanding of the scriptures in all the ways He says. As Christians we are to understand the Old Testament through the New Testament, we are not to follow the Jewish understanding. The appearance of the Messiah in Jesus was anticipated rightly only by very few of the Jews who read the scriptures rightly: Anna and Simeon in the temple were two of those. The vast majority got it wrong and had to learn the truth from Jesus Himself. They had the Book of Daniel to tell them when it would be so most got the timing rightish, which is why there were so many would-be Messiahs popping up around that period of time, but the character of the Messiah, no. That He was to be God Himself in human flesh, that's all in the OT but they missed it.
Jesus didn't do any weaving of these things, He simply fulfills the prophecies as written, to be the Suffering Servant of Isaiah in His first advent, as He explained in the synagogue when He read from the first part of Isaiah 61, stopping right before the line about God's vengeance, and then on His second coming to be the conquering hero of that line He left out, but not against Rome, against all of God's enemies.
OK.
Yes we disagree about that. Do you know that the Greek for "inspired" where the scriptures are described as inspired literally means "God-breathed?"
Which as God He could say, since He'd said it before in Hosea 6:6:
And also, of course, He was going to be THE sacrifice for all sins in His own body, ending the need for animal sacrifices and heralding the destruction of the temple which was the only place they could be performed. Yes, we'll disagree about how Jesus shows the Father through Himself.
Maybe I wasn't clear that I was referring to this passage:
When Jesus says this as directly as He did, how He Himself wanted to do this, He is clearly identifying Himself as God who wanted to gather Jerusalem to Himself to comfort them and they kept refusing Him. Your answer seems to be addressing something else but I'm not sure:
I don't think I quite get your meaning here. Certainly He saw their revolutionary fervor as completely missing the boat, missing who He was and why He came, but you have a way of putting these things together that I'm not getting here. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Faith ![]() Suspended Member (Idle past 766 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Sorry I answered anything you said.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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GDR Member (Idle past 274 days) Posts: 5410 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: |
I don't see anything in Luke's account of Simeon and Anna that indicate that they thought the messiah was a deity. They certainly believed Him to be the messiah and that He would bring a renewal to the Israelites, but as the human messiah annointed by God. Even the term Son of God was essentially a messianic term and it was quite a bit later that the early Christians denoted and understood that the term meant more than simply being anointed by God but to actually claim Jesus as part of the godhead.
Yes, but that was Jesus' understanding and not the understanding held by the Jews in general. I agree that it wasn't just about Rome but the broader problem of evil itself.
Yes, just as I believe that Lewis, Wright and numerous others have been inspired to write what they do. That doesn't impute inerrancy to what they write.
quote:It is about the one who “comes in the name of the Lord”, which is quite different from how you understood it when you left off the final verses of the passage. He is speaking on behalf of the Father. He is likely also referring back to Psalm 118 vs 26 where it is clearly about humans who come “in the name of the Lord”.
Not at all. Why couldn’t He comfort Jerusalem as God’s representative as you put it. He they had believed He was God’s anointed one it would seem reasonable that He could have comforted Jerusalem. He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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Faith ![]() Suspended Member (Idle past 766 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
What sort of "return of Yahweh" could there be apart from the Messiah? What are you anticipating? When is it to happen, or has it happened?
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Faith ![]() Suspended Member (Idle past 766 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
When Thomas is permitted by Jesus to touch His wounds after the resurrection he says "My Lord and my God" showing that His deity was known at least by that time. It's all through the Old Testament as I've learned from many different teachers, so those who got it right even in the early days did know that. ABE: There is also that passage in Philippians where Jesus is described as "being in the form of God" and that's scripture, that's not a long time after. Referring to Jesus' claiming of His first advent to be for comfort, leaving out the later coming in vengeance:
Yes of course, but what is the point you are making? Jesus is the one we are to listen to, the Jews kept getting it all wrong. "God-breathed" means authored by God, it is not the same kind of "inspiration" you are talking about. The Messiah being both God and Man can come in the name of the Lord without having to be ONLY Man as you are implying. I have learned the traditional understanding of all this which has come down the centuries through many theologians, and makes perfect sense, and all the new theology like Wright's is just a lot of human hot air to me. I think I've probably run out of anything more to say on this thread, or I'll just be repeating myself from now on. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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GDR Member (Idle past 274 days) Posts: 5410 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: |
quote:The messiah, as I've said, was to be the one anointed by God to lead them, but very human. They were two different strands of Jewish thought. Jesus through prayer and through His Scriptural knowledge combined the two strands together into His own life. He would also have experienced God the Father working through Him in ways that were unique to Him. So yes, Jesus did embody Yahweh's return but as a very human messiah. The "Word" became flesh, with the "Word" representing God's nature and His message for mankind. He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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GDR Member (Idle past 274 days) Posts: 5410 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: |
I wonder if you have considered this Faith. It seems to me that the views that you have expressed of Jesus’ divine knowledge actually diminishes what He was as a man, and what He did as a man. How many Christians, (and non-Christians for that matter), have over the centuries sacrificed their lives out of love for others. These people gave up their lives simply on the faith that this was the human, or the right thing to do.
If Jesus had the kind of supernatural knowledge that I think you believe He had, then He would have knowledge of His resurrection, which diminishes His sacrifice on the cross. However if,( as I believe and also contend is consistent with the NT accounts), with faith and belief, not knowledge, that His Father was somehow going to redeem His torturous humiliating death, then it takes on a whole new and far more relevant meaning. He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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Faith ![]() Suspended Member (Idle past 766 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
I have no problem with "very human," GDR, what I have a problem with is what often sounds like you are saying "MERELY human" and completely ignoring His deity. And the idea that He had no consciousness of His deity during His earthly life is saying just about the same thing anyway.
I also can't take seriously anything written about "Abrahamic religions." That's a red flag that the writer is an unbeliever with a merely human focus. "Two strands of Jewish thought" is utterly meaningless to describe the Messiah who was promised by God and sent by God and IS God in human flesh. You reduce this supernatural phenomenon to the merely human and THAT's what I object to. Yes He's human, completely human, and acted only from His humanness while on Earth, but that's not the same thing as reducing Him the way your sources do to "merely" human as if He chose to unite some strands of Jewish thought. I guess you can't understand why I find this so offensively out of synch with Christianity. Yes "Messiah" simply means "anointed one," and there are lots of anointed ones in the scripture, but that's just a way to distract from the main point that there is a Savior Messiah God promised from all the way back in Eden, to "save His people from their sins," which means He can't be merely human, He HAS to be God incarnate, and that particular Messiah can be traced up through the scriptures from era to era through many defining hints and references, up to Jesus. \\
This trivializes the gospels, shrivels them up into nothing really. Yes of course Jesus was human, always human, seen as human, acted as human, never stopped being human, and He is still human as He sits at the side of God the Father interceding for us, but He is not MERELY human and never was merely human. And when you reduce His mission to "representing" God's nature plus bringing a "message to mankind" I guess you have no idea how paltry a definition that is. Pick any other great philosopher and leader, say Gandhi, you make Jesus no greater than they. You present a shriveled up little remnant of a grand truth. I can't even find words. You seem to have NO idea of the amazing transformation of human life Jesus promises believers, a transformation that reverses the Fall and creates a new universe in which demonic forces of evil are vanquished by a redeemed humanity; you'd roll your eyes at its supernatural implications I'm sure. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Faith ![]() Suspended Member (Idle past 766 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
I see that this is what concerns you but I think you are just stopping short of grasping that He "emptied Himself" of His divinity for that very purpose, so that He could live a fully human life as all the rest of us He came to redeem. He "put it aside," He refrained from using it apart from the direct guidance of God the Father and then only rarely. He showed it when He told the woman at the well about all her husbands and lovers for instance, and certainly showed His divinity during the incident called the Transfiguration. He did the miracles, however, according to the commentary I quoted, through God the Father's power rather than His own. In all these things He was acting as a believing human being could act, which was His task. If He hadn't lived fully as a human being He couldn't qualify to be our Savior, our Mediator, our representative, He couldn't have died in our place to save us: so He HAD to be fully man and living the life of a man. And of course He went to the cross as a man. He COULD have called on "legions of angels" to spare Him but He didn't, He died the real death of a man and there is nothing in anything I've said that diminishes that. I think in a way it may enhance it to know that He chose to do all this without any dependence on His divine powers although they were always available. I can't even keep from sinning for five minutes but He had the moral and spiritual strength to resist the use of His powers.
Two things: He could have kept such khowledge suppressed along with all the rest of His powers, but also I expect to die knowing I'll wake up in Jesus' presence and yet I may die in great pain for all I know, and He died in far greater pain. Knowledge of what is to be the result in the end isn't going to change that. And He also had to experience being abandoned by God during His suffering on the cross ("Why have You forsaken Me?") which would have been an immense suffering for one who had never been so deprived before. He had to go through it for us. Yes He did endure it all as a human being would, through faith. I see no diminishing of His sacrifice in anything I've said. You are failing to grasp what it meant that He really did put aside His powers in order to live a fully human life. You think He would have to have been totally deprived of them. But scripture doesn't say that, it says He put them aside. And yet we know He died a completely human death. There is no diminishing of His sacrifice at all. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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GDR Member (Idle past 274 days) Posts: 5410 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: |
HI Faith
I don't know if you read the whole talk that I started off this thread with or not. I'll quote the last pert of it that deal with what we are discussing. quote: I also want to comment on this statement.
quote:He is actually saying that although what is happening to Him looks as if God has deserted Him, but He is saying no, that isn't the case., as it says in verse 24 specifically. He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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Faith ![]() Suspended Member (Idle past 766 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
I'm about to take a break so I may have to come back to this later, but I have a few coments:
You have the timing of Gethsemane wrong. He had already ridden into Jerusalem on the donkey the week before, He did not go there from Gethsemane which is what you seem to be saying, and He'd already dealt with the moneychangers in the Temple too. Gethsemane follows the Last Supper, Judas has gone to get the authorities and they come to Gethsemane to arrest Him and crucify Him. God DID forsake Him briefly on the cross, or He wouldn't have said that. This must mean that the Father withdrew His presence from Him for that period of time. It must have been a feeling of unimaginable desolation. He had to be forsaken to fulfill His mission as our Savior, we being the ones who deserve it and He taking our place. That's a messianic psalm, He was crying out to God, which is what the words actually say... MY GOD MY GOD... He's not crying out to the Jews but to God. Most of what you say is no problem for me or other "fundamentalists" and I don't know why you think it is. We have just as strong a view of Jesus as human as you do, possibly even stronger, since you often sound rather iffy about His dying in our place for our salvation from our sins, or at least you treat it as a small thing you relegate to a sort of footnote. But we know it took God becoming a man to be able to do it for us and that in itself is an enormous sacrifice, just becoming human for our sake. You seem to think doing good works is far more important. But all religions teach good works, big deal. Only Jesus Christ came to die for us. But I object strongly to such terms as "vocation" to describe Jesus, as if it's just a role He decided to take in life. Ho hum. It's like the intellectualizing idea that He somehow decided to embody "two strands of Jewish thought." Jesus could not care less about Jewish thought, that's a job for academicians not the Son of God.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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GDR Member (Idle past 274 days) Posts: 5410 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: |
He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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Faith ![]() Suspended Member (Idle past 766 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Jesus cries out to GOD in Psalm 22, not to the Jews. Of course He wasn't permanently abandoned but He would not have cried out that way if it wasn't true.
Do you deny the virgin birth, that God begot Him, not Joseph? If you say He is both wholly God and wholly man how COULD you say that and yet it sounds like that is what you are saying. He said "Before Abraham was, I AM," That's a direct claim to have existed before Abraham, and He uses the name of God for Himself. He also says He "came down from heaven." So yes of course prior to being born human He was God, and He stayed God throughout His human life though He did not live by His divine powers, He lived a human life as we all do, and He is still God AND man, glorified man, the firstborn from the dead unto the Kingdom of God and the new creation, which He opened to us by His life and death as a human being. And again I can't understand how you could ask the question who He prayed to. He prayed AS A MAN, GDR, He did EVERYTHING as a man, and men pray to God. Even if He prayed as the Son of God, the Second Person of the Trinity, it would make good enough sense, but He didn't, He prayed as a man, just as He lived as a man, just as He died as a man. He needed to pray the same way He needed to do everything else human beings do, He came to live the life of a human being. He had put aside His divine powers in order to live as a man.
He was a man, He was wholly and fully man, but He wasn't MERELY man, He KNEW He was God and that He was called to live the human life for us and to die for us. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Faith ![]() Suspended Member (Idle past 766 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
You've many times said that the traditionalist/fundamentalist emphasis on our salvation is "selfish" while you think the "message" is far more important: to have a loving heart. You haven't said that yet here but I suppose eventually you will.
So apparently you think He came just to deliver this message to humanity, and I guess embody it as well. So it seems you really have no explanation whatever for His incarnation. Why would such a messenger need to be God at all? Someone like Paul could have done the job, a mere human being strongly taught in the scriptures and living a blameless life as a Jewish teacher. Is there any need at all for Jesus to have been "Wholly God" in your way of thinking? Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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