Re: Why Do You Believe Jesus is God?
 

...Don't you understand that God can manifest himself as Jesus and the Father at the same time. The one true God is a spirit. We won't see him. We can't. We can only see what he manifests himself as. So yes, God was on the throne, yes God took the scroll out of Gods hand.

I don't get why the oneness believers are having trouble explaining that portion of their doctrine to you. It's kinda sad because their doctrine was built to explain such instances.

It's not that I agree with them, but you simply saying look here's Jesus and here's God beside him and they are interacting... that doesn't disprove their doctrine.

Re: Why Do You Believe Jesus is God?
 

I said a lot more than that. I said that Jesus said he would be there in the Gospels. He said he would be at the right hand of God. He said pray to God and he did pray to God. He said nothing was given to him except by God, he did not say that He gave himself his own power and words.

This vision in Revelation only validated what Jesus already said. Nowhere did Jesus ever say "I am God".

Take the writings literally = No further explaining, or jumping from place to place, or added logic, or interpretative 'help' needed or required. "Build" a "doctrine" requires all of these things yes?

This is why those of whom you speak are having trouble explaining specific, stand-alone passages because specific, stand-alone passages do not support a doctrine "built" of disjointed, unrelated, out-of-context verses taken randomly from here and there. Furthermore to hold up the passages on which the doctrine is "built" have to be carefully taken from carefully selected "versions" of the translations or it all falls apart. <re-shakes head>

Surah 5:13-15 But on account of their breaking their covenant We cursed them and made their hearts hard; they altered the words from their places and they neglected a portion of what they were reminded of; and you shall always discover treachery in them excepting a few of them; so pardon them and turn away; surely Allah loves those who do good (to others). And with those who say, We are Christians, We made a covenant, but they neglected a portion of what they were reminded of, therefore We excited among them enmity and hatred to the day of resurrection; and Allah will inform them of what they did. O followers of the Book! indeed Our Messenger has come to you making clear to you much of what you concealed of the Book and passing over much; indeed, there has come to you light and a clear Book from Allah.

Re: Why Do You Believe Jesus is God?
 

John 1:1-14 Specifies that there was something in the beginning with God that also was God and that made all things and then became human. Do you believe this or is it a faulty translation?

Re: Why Do You Believe Jesus is God?
 

Is that the chapter that contains this verse?

"God no one hath ever seen; the only begotten Son, who is on the bosom of the Father -- he did declare"

No, seems like an accurate translation

Re: Why Do You Believe Jesus is God?
 

People have different understandings; i get this. While i cannot grasp how
God is the head of Christ
could possibly be stretched to "Christ is God," we obviously all come from the same Spirit, which is God's. But how are you guys who are trying to make Christ, our High Priest, into God the Father, going to answer, "therefore, I am God?" I mean, after all, Christ is the Son of Man, right? And Daniel is called son of man by...Gabriel, i think it was...and i am the same as Daniel (as if)...i mean please, the end of that can only be "satan is God." There is simply no other conclusion. You sound like new-agers with this, wadr.

Re: Why Do You Believe Jesus is God?
 

What was with god in the beginning and that all things were made by that became flesh? What was that?

Re: Why Do You Believe Jesus is God?
 

Here is your opportunity to identify the exact source and explain the meaning of this passage. It is contradictory to the rest of the book.

It is written differently than the rest of the book. It is an adder. So where did it come from and what does it mean and who put it there?

Re: Why Do You Believe Jesus is God?
 

:popcorn2

Re: Why Do You Believe Jesus is God?
 

It went from being an accurate translation to being added so quickly?

Re: Why Do You Believe Jesus is God?
 

Colwell's Rule and John 1:1

A Greek scholar named E. C. Colwell discovered a rule which applied to certain uses of the Greek article (in English this is the word “the”). His rule stated that “definite predicate nouns which precede the verb usually lack the article.”1 The word theos (God) in John 1:1c is a predicate noun and it is anarthrous (it lacks the article). The question I would like to address is: “How does this rule apply to John 1:1 and how does this relate to a Oneness perspective of this passage?”

In the past, Trinitarians have argued that Colwell’s rule proves that the anarthrous theos in John 1:1c (the Word was God) must be taken as definite. They have done so to combat Arianism and modern day Jehovah’s Witnesses. The New World Translation, the official Bible of Jehovah’s Witnesses, translates John 1:1c as “the Word was a god.” So we can see why Trinitarian scholars would object to such a translation and instead argue for a definite theos, thus proving the deity of Christ in this passage. However, as Daniel Wallace has pointed out, simply appealing to Colwell’s rule alone does not prove that theos must be taken as definite.2 His rule would only say that if theos is definite then it would probably lack the article (and it does). But the reverse is not necessarily true. Simply lacking the article in this construction does not make the noun definite.

Wallace goes on to argue that theos should not be taken as definite but instead as qualitative, thus emphasizing “the nature of the Word, rather than his identity.” The glosses which he suggests bring out this idea are, “What God was, the Word was” (NEB), or “the Word was divine” (a modified Moffatt translation).3 He also states that a definite theos in this passage would imply Sabellianism or Modalism (making Jesus to be God the Father, i.e., a Oneness perspective). In a footnote he quotes several other Greek scholars which concur, some even more emphatically (Westcott, A. T. Robertson, Lange, Chemnitz, Alford and even Martin Luther).4

My question to all of these grammarians is this: “Why does a definite theos have to refer to God the Father, since all three persons are co-equal in Trinitarian theology?” The Holy Spirit is identified as “God” with the article present in Acts 5:3-4. Jesus is identified as “God” with the article present in John 20:28, Titus 2:13 and 2 Peter 1:1. Wallace acknowledges these passages, but states that (in John 20:28) “there is nothing in that context that would identify [Jesus] with the Father.”5 But if God is a Trinity, I see nothing in John 1:1b (“the Word was with God”) that would require that this occurrence of theos be identified as God the Father either.6 It simply says that “the Word was with God (article present).” Why could this not be referring to God the Holy Spirit? Surely if God is an eternal Trinity then Jesus would have been with him (God the Holy Spirit) in the beginning as well.

The point we should note here is that when a Trinitarian reads the word “God,” he (rightly) assumes that it refers to God the Father, unless there is reason to believe otherwise. Somehow, the Father is more ‘God’ than the other two people. So if a definite theos in this passage would make Jesus God the Father (as Wallace and the other grammarians above have stated) then I see no reason why a definite theos applied to Jesus anywhere else in the New Testament would not also make Jesus God the Father! (such as in the passages noted above).

So what other options were open to John? He could have easily left theos anarthrous and still put it after the verb, thus retaining the qualitative sense that Wallace argues for. So it was not necessary to place it before the verb merely for that reason. The fact that he chose to put it before the verb and to the beginning of the phrase would seem to indicate emphasis (The Word was God!). As mentioned before, Colwell’s rule states that “definite predicate nouns which precede the verb usually lack the article.”7 So if John intended a definite theos and wanted to emphasize the word “God,” then he would have said it exactly how he did! Now, I am in agreement with Wallace, that Colwell’s rule does not prove a definite theos, but it most definitely supports it. Even he admits that a definite theos is “certainly possible grammatically.”8

Furthermore, you could only derive a Trinitarian interpretation from John 1:1 if you come to this passage with an already developed Trinitarian theology. If you approached it with a strict Monotheism (which is what I believe John held to) then this passage would definitely support such a view. If John had wanted to emphasize the word theos then he would have moved it to the beginning of the phrase before the verb and thus, (according to Colwell’s rule) it would be anarthrous (as it is).

Footnotes

1. E. C. Colwell, A Definite Rule for the Use of the Article in the Greek New Testament, p. 20, quoted in Wallace, GGBB, 257.
2. Daniel Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 269.
3. Wallace, 269. He does not however suggest that these glosses should actually be used in a translation since they can be misleading.
4. Wallace, 268.
5. Wallace, 268.
6. Which is how a Trinitarian reads this passage - ". . . the Word was WITH God the Father, and the Word WAS God the Son" (emphasis added).
7. Colwell, A Definite Rule, quoted in Wallace, GGBB, 257.
8. Wallace, 268. He still argues against it for reasons of frequency and theology, p. 269.

http://www.onenesspentecostal.com/colwell.htm#back1