1. Welcome to Baptist Board, a friendly forum to discuss the Baptist Faith in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to all the features that our community has to offer.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon and God Bless!

Featured Why does John 1:2 say Jesus is God?

Discussion in 'General Baptist Discussions' started by Rev. Autrey, Aug 11, 2014.

  1. Rev. Autrey

    Rev. Autrey New Member

    Joined:
    Aug 2, 2014
    Messages:
    24
    Likes Received:
    0
    The doctrine of God as a Trinity has not been taught to us for so long we have forgot what it really says about God. It says that God is one being or one substance. It also says that God expresses himself in three distinct ways: The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And it say that God does not divide his substance nor confuse his persons. Jesus endorsed this view of God by saying that the greatest of all the commandments is "Hear O Isreal, the Lord our God is One." Then he tells us about the Father who is God, the Holy Spirit who is God, and He Himself (John 1:2) who is God.

    Modelism. on the other hand, admits that God is One. But is says that God speaks to us in three different modes, and at three different times. That is, in the Old Testament, God spoke to us as the Father. In the New Testament, God spoke to us as Jesus. And now, God speaks to us as the Holy Spirit. Modelism, that is to say, denies that God is three distinct persons. But Trinitarian thought is that God' three self expressions or persons are simultaneous, at the same time. That is, at the time God is the Father, he is also The Holy Spirit and Jesus. Jesus expressed this when he said to Nicodemus, "I am telling you what WE know and have seen, yet you won't believe US."

    So if we say that Jesus is not God. we are disputing Scripture. But Jesus is God. Titus 2:13 calls him "God our Savior." Thomas called him "My Lord and my God." Hebrews 1:8 says about him, "Your throne O God."

    Our word personality come from the Latin word Persona. It comes down to us as Person. A Persona (plural personae or personas) or Person in the word's everyday usage, is a social role or a character played by an actor. We see actors on TV doing the same thing. In one play they are one person, and in another play they are another. Sometimes they play two or three roles in the same play. This is how the early Church Fathers used the word Person at the Council of Nicea in 325 AD. They saw God as playing three roles in our salvation: that of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

    But most important of all, if we say that Jesus is a separate entity from God, we are saying that we have two Gods, three if we count the Holy Spirit as a separate entity. See how wrong this is! People we can't have two Gods! Pagans have two or more Gods. We serve God through his 2nd person or personality Jesus. As Paul said, "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord."

    We chide the JW's for saying that Jeus is is not God. Yet, we say the same thing in trying to deny that Jesus is God, or saying that Jesus is separate from God. Folks, we do not endorse the JW thought. But if we say that Jesus is a separate individual from God, we are saying the same thing the JW's say. I will remind you of Jesus' own words in John 14:"Philip, don't you know me. Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father." "Just believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me." And in John 10:30: "The Father and I are One."

    Just because very few people understand or teach God's Trinitarian nature does not mean that the Bible does not teach it. It does! Only when we come to believe that God is a Trinity can we come to worship him through his person or personality Jesus!

    May God Bless you!
     
  2. Rev. Autrey

    Rev. Autrey New Member

    Joined:
    Aug 2, 2014
    Messages:
    24
    Likes Received:
    0
    Again, our word personality come from the Latin word person or persona. A person's persona is the way he acts, or displays himself to the public. It was the early church fathers at the Council of Nicia in 325 AD who used this word when describing the nature of God as he worked out our salvation as the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. That is, as the Father God planned our salvation. As the Son God spoke this salvation to us. And as the Holy Spirit God inspires us to believe in this salvation.

    Over the years we have lost the original way of saying that the way a person acts or displays or reveals himself is a person's person or personality. Now we incorrectly use the word person to mean a separate individual from another. But is not.

    I use the word personality because it is more understandable to the average person than saying person. And it is. But if we go back to the way the early church fathers thought, we will see that the early church fathers used the word person to mean the same thing as personality.

    The athanasian Creed states the following: And the catholic (universal) faith is this: That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity;

    1. Neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance.

    2. For there is one person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Spirit.

    3. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit is all one, the glory equal, the majesty coeternal.

    4. Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Spirit.

    5. The Father uncreated, the Son uncreated, and the Holy Spirit uncreated.

    6. The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the Holy Spirit incomprehensible.

    7. The Father eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Spirit eternal.

    18. And yet they are not three eternals but one eternal.

    So to say personality, person, or persona, we are saying the same thing; that God reveals himself in three distinct ways. This is how he works out our salvation.

    God bless you!
     
  3. Rev. Autrey

    Rev. Autrey New Member

    Joined:
    Aug 2, 2014
    Messages:
    24
    Likes Received:
    0
    The words person and personality mean the same thing. They both refer to the way a person reveals himself to the world. That is, if you reveal yourself in a bad way, you are said to be a bad person, or have a bad personality.

    I agree with you that God did not create three personalities, God is three persons or personalities. He has been this way from eternity. We can say it this way: God has expressed himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit from eternity. That's why God is said to be eternal. That is why His personalities or perons are said to be eternal; they are him.

    God speaks to us like this, “Hi, I’d like to say good day to you, again. I am Jesus. The Father sends his greetings, too.” And when we ask Jesus to show us the Father, he says, “When you see me, you see the Father who sent me,” meaning the Father and Jesus are the same God. Then Jesus says, “By the way, The Holy Spirit says hi, too”, meaning that the Holy Spirit is the same God that the Father and Jesus are.

    So God did not create his persons or personalities, they are him. They are the way he has eternally expressed himself to us.

    By the way, another Scripture that reveals God as Jesus is Ps 25:5: "Lead me, teach me, for you are the God who gives me salvation. I have no hope except in you."

    God bless you!
     
  4. Rev. Autrey

    Rev. Autrey New Member

    Joined:
    Aug 2, 2014
    Messages:
    24
    Likes Received:
    0
    Modalism, too, believes that God is One. But it says that God acts in three different ways, without admitting that God is three perons, or to say it in modern English, God expresses himself as three distinct personalities, different from each other, but all the same God. Let's say it this way, Orthodox Christanity says this: "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty. God in three Persons, blessed Trinity.

    See the difference!

    Again, what basic Orthodox Christinanity says is, God reveals himself as the Person the Father. This is how God decided to save us. God reveals himself as Jesus, the Son. This is how God saves us. Many say it as God coming in the Person of the Son. And God reveals himself to us as the Holy Spirit. This is how God imspires us to believe in what he is doing.

    To say that Jesus is separate from God is to say that we worship two Gods. Or three Gods, if we say the Holy Spirit is a separate entity. This cannot be!

    I know this is hard to understand because our minds are not accustomed to thinking this way. But this is what the Bible reveals.

    God bless you!
     
  5. Rev. Autrey

    Rev. Autrey New Member

    Joined:
    Aug 2, 2014
    Messages:
    24
    Likes Received:
    0
    We are not talking about human disorders, we are talking about how God reveals himself to us in the Bible! " For My thoughts are not your thoughts."

    The famous Baptist hymn expresses it best: "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty! God in three Persons, blessed Trinity."

    Your personality is the way you express yourself. If a person expresses himself in a certain way, that is who he is. And everyone knows that a person can express himself in more than one way. The Bible teaches that God expresses himself simultaneously as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is why the Bible teaches that all three are God. This is hard to unseratand, and harder to believe, but it is so.

    People have debated this subject since the earliest of times. Arian Christianity started teaching in the mid 300's that Jesus is not God. And it was so seccussful that we have become accustomed to believing that Jesus is a separate person from God. But he is not. As Jesus said in John 10:30, "The Father and I are One." And in John 14, "When you have seen me you have seen the Father."

    What I am saying is, the Son is as much God as the Father and the Holy Spirit are. And who would say that the Father and the Holy Spirit are not God? Well, Jesus is God, too. God has always expressed himself to us this way. We call it the Trinity. And what Christian would deny the Trinity?

    To say that God is three separate persons, is to say that we have three separate Gods. This cannot be!

    May God bless you!
     
  6. JamesL

    JamesL Well-Known Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Dec 22, 2013
    Messages:
    2,783
    Likes Received:
    158
    Faith:
    Baptist
    That will depend on how someone defines "person"

    Go back to post #20, where I gave some "possibilities"

    But, you'd have better luck pulling teeth out of a alligator's mouth than you will getting Baptists to unambiguously define "person"

    The "paranoids" are afraid of getting too close to it, out of fear that they might be wrong. Ambiguity is comfortable, because if you word it in such a way that everybody nods, you've saved yourself a lot of grief - and saved yourself from anathema
     
  7. Rev. Autrey

    Rev. Autrey New Member

    Joined:
    Aug 2, 2014
    Messages:
    24
    Likes Received:
    0
    I will answer this statement by repeating the words of Paul in Titus 3:4-5: "But then God our Savior (Jesus as God) showed us his kindness and love. He saved us, not because of the good things we did. but because of his mercy. ..."

    If Paul calls Jesus God, then that is exactly who he is, Our Great God and Savior!

    May God bless you!
     
  8. Revmitchell

    Revmitchell Well-Known Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Feb 18, 2006
    Messages:
    52,013
    Likes Received:
    3,649
    Faith:
    Baptist
    That in fact is not what it says. It says there is one God in threee distinct persons. There is no correct way other than the use of the word persons to describe the triune God. Anything else is heresy.

    Saying God acts in three personalities and God is three distinct persons are not the same thing.
     
  9. JamesL

    JamesL Well-Known Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Dec 22, 2013
    Messages:
    2,783
    Likes Received:
    158
    Faith:
    Baptist
    Care to define "Person" ?
     
  10. convicted1

    convicted1 Guest

    Joined:
    Jan 31, 2007
    Messages:
    9,012
    Likes Received:
    28
    :thumbsup::thumbs::thumbs::thumbsup:
     
  11. Inspector Javert

    Inspector Javert Active Member

    Joined:
    Jun 10, 2013
    Messages:
    1,256
    Likes Received:
    0
    How about:

    An entity possessing a center of consciousness which is endowed with rational faculties of intellect and volition which enable it to be a self-reflective agent, have intentionality (the capacity to think about things) and posses an individual volitional will.
     
  12. Rev. Autrey

    Rev. Autrey New Member

    Joined:
    Aug 2, 2014
    Messages:
    24
    Likes Received:
    0
    Another way to define person is is self identity. For example, if I define or identify myself as Joe Smith, then I am Joe Smith. The Bible reveals that God has three simultaneous self identities. One self identity is the Father. The Bible referrs to God as the Father when God makes a decision. Another self identity is the Holy Spirit. God is the Holy Spirit when he inspires us to believe in what he is doing. The self identity God uses when he speaks to us is Jesus, the Son.

    Look at how God spoke to Saul on the Damascus Road. Saul knew it was God speaking to him because he called Him Lord. Too, Saul was a devout Jew who before his conversion would have never referred to anyone as Lord except YHWH, the God of Israel. But when Saul asked God who he was, God said "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting." "Then Jesus told Ananias: "Go over to straight Street, to the house of Judas. When you arrive, ask for Saul of Tarsus. He is praying to me right now." "... For Saul is my messenger to the Gentiles and to kings. And I will show him how much he must suffer for me." And Saul as Paul suffered much for Jesus.

    So not only did Saul (Paul) pray to God as Jesus, so did Stephen, the first Christian to die for God. Acts 8:59-60 reads: "And as they stoned him, Stephen prayed. 'Lord Jesus, receive my Spirit.' And he fell to his knees, shouting, 'Lord, don't charge them with this sin.'"

    Now we can understand better what Paul said in Romans 7:24-25, "O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord."

    So the early Church fathers used the word person, but as that term has lost it's original meaning, we can use the term self identity. Self identity, then, is the way one identifies himself to those he is speaking to. Thus, when God speaks to us, he says "I am Jesus." That is why the four Gospels, and the writings of Paul are all about Jesus. Yes, the Father and the Holy Spirit are often mentioned, but Jesus is the way God speaks to his people!

    May God be with you!
     
  13. Rev. Autrey

    Rev. Autrey New Member

    Joined:
    Aug 2, 2014
    Messages:
    24
    Likes Received:
    0
    Thanks for giving such a good answer! This answer applies to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, for they are all God's persons. Each posess will and volition, and can identify themselves from the others. But since God is One entity, they are the same God. Such is the revealed wonder of our Great and Glorious God!

    Rev. Autrey
     
  14. Rev. Autrey

    Rev. Autrey New Member

    Joined:
    Aug 2, 2014
    Messages:
    24
    Likes Received:
    0
    Again, thanks for giving such a wonderful anawer. Truly,God inspired you to give this answer! And to further prove that God three persons have posess individual will, volition, and individual thought, Jesus talked about himself and the Father in just this way. Jesus said in John 5: "I assure you, the Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing." "For the Father loves the Son and tells him everything he is doing. ..." "And the Father leaves all judgment to the Son." This also proves that the Father and the Son can distinguish themselves from each other.

    But most revealing of all, God's three persons talk to each other. What a revelation! The Father talks to the Son, the Son talks to the Father, and both the Father and the Son talk to the Holy Spirit." Jesus revealed this to us when he said to the Father, "I brought glory to you by doing everything you told me to do." "Now Father, bring me into the glory we shared before the world began."

    But remember, all of this is is the work of the One God. This is what Jesus meant when he said to Nicodemus, "I assure you, I am telling you what WE know and have seen, and you won't believe US.

    Again, may God bless you!

    Rev. Autrey
     
  15. kyredneck

    kyredneck Well-Known Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Jul 28, 2009
    Messages:
    19,500
    Likes Received:
    2,880
    Faith:
    Baptist
    And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness... Gen 1:26

    Come, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another`s speech. Gen 11:7
     
  16. Yeshua1

    Yeshua1 Well-Known Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Mar 19, 2012
    Messages:
    52,624
    Likes Received:
    2,742
    Faith:
    Baptist
    was God the father still in heaven when jesus was here on Earth as God?

    John wrote his prologue in such a fashion in the Greek construction of it that we would know that Jesus was as much God as the father, yet he and the father are not same person, two seperate persons, each one God!
     
  17. Yeshua1

    Yeshua1 Well-Known Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Mar 19, 2012
    Messages:
    52,624
    Likes Received:
    2,742
    Faith:
    Baptist
    Has God always been 3 seperate persons within the God head, all equally God, but each one also His own unique person?
     
  18. Rev. Autrey

    Rev. Autrey New Member

    Joined:
    Aug 2, 2014
    Messages:
    24
    Likes Received:
    0
    True, each one is God, but they are not separate from each other. God is one substance or one essence. That is, the person of the Father and the person of the Son are the same substance or the same God. In other words, the substance of the Father is the same substance that the Son and Holy Spirit are. Jesus explained it this way in John 14: "When you see me, you see the Father who sent me" (verse 9). "And just believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me" (verse 11). And in John 10:30 Jesus said "The father and I are One." It's just a matter of which of God's persons is speaking to us. So on the cross, God spoke to us by Jesus, his Son.

    But remember that God is everywhere present. However, he can localize or manifest himself in one place, and still be everywhere present at the same time. This means that while God was dying one the cross, he was present in heaven, running the universe. And according to most Theologians, God did not have to divide his substance into two or three parts to do it. He is God and he can do anything he wants.

    The same is true of when God walked on earth and talked to Abraham. At the time he was walking on earth, he was in heaven, controlling the uviverse.

    So again, God can do anything he want to because he is God!

    I hope this helps!

    Our
     
  19. Rev. Autrey

    Rev. Autrey New Member

    Joined:
    Aug 2, 2014
    Messages:
    24
    Likes Received:
    0
    I wouldn't use the word separate because it implies that God is divided into three parts. A better way is to say that God's unique persons are distinct from each other. That is, they can tell each other apart, but they are the same substance or essense. Jesus was very clear about this when he said in John 10 that he and the Father are One. And in John 14:9 when he said that we should believe that He is in the Father and the Father is in him.

    The Godhead, then, is the theologians way of saying God. It implys that God is in control of everything, and that there is no one else but him.
     
  20. Rev. Autrey

    Rev. Autrey New Member

    Joined:
    Aug 2, 2014
    Messages:
    24
    Likes Received:
    0
    A person is an entity possessing a center of consciousness which is endowed with rational faculties of intellect and volition which enable it to be a self-reflective agent, have intentionality (the capacity to think about things) and posses an individual volitional will. In this sense it express itself by what it does and says. Too, when a person reflects himself by acting out his will it displays his personality. But for the sake of peace I will use the term person and not the tern personality.

    Rev. Autrey
     
Loading...