Jesus is Lord?

[man]

Jesus is Lord!

I have seen this on bumper stickers, TV and the internet, but I'm not quite sure what it means.

It seems to be saying that Jesus and the God are the same thing, is this correct?

[marco]

All of your theocratic gymnastics aside, I don't know how much clearer it could be that Jesus deferred to the Father as God when he said to the Father, "YOU [are] the only true God." (John 17:3)

You keep repeating the same thing, and each statement where Jesus, as man, defers to God, does not in any way disprove the Trinity. You seem to think that three Gods are claimed, not one. So in the above statement, of course Jesus says there is only one God. That is what Trinitarians say. So what is your contradiction?

You say other people have different views "without contradicting the Bible." It's interesting that you haven't noticed that THEY DO CONTRADICT THE BIBLE. The only thing trinitarians can say about John 17:3 is : "That verse doesn't belong there,"

That is a straw man argument. They can say a lot better than that. They can point out that Jesus, on earth, speaks as man and defers to God.

You haven't commented on ALL of the verses I cited (John 20:17?) and you haven't explained others that I have presented, such as:


I Corinthians 11:3: "I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman, and GOD IS THE HEAD OF CHRIST." (NASB...This was written after Jesus returned to heaven, so he wasn't a human man any more.)

Here is Paul:

"But there is one thing I want you to know: The head of every man is Christ, the head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.[a] 4 A man dishonors his head if he covers his head while praying or prophesying. 5 But a woman dishonors her head[c] if she prays or prophesies without a covering on her head, for this is the same as shaving her head. 6 Yes, if she refuses to wear a head covering, she should cut off all her hair! But since it is shameful for a woman to have her hair cut or her head shaved, she should wear a covering."

Paul is giving instructions, as he sees it, for behaviour in a church. He is building a figurative hierarchy to make a point about head covering. People today don't place reliance on man ruling woman or the prescriptions for head coverings. In his list Paul is correctly saying that Christ, the man people knew, deferred to God, but it is amusing that you'd take this rather odd piece from Paul as defining divine relations. There is no temporality involved - as though Jesus wasn't then was God. Jesus had a human and a divine nature; Paul refers here to the human nature.

Your other quotes such as:

But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him.

simply indicate what Trinitarians accept - there is ONE God.

God commands Jesus STILL, as He did when Jesus was on the earth. These arguments haven't been addressed by any I've run into that believe Jesus is God.

You are seeing TWO Gods. The Trinity is a mystery, which means it is above human reason. The interrelationship of the three persons in one God is not the same as one that involves God telling a messenger on Earth what to do. Obviously you have not the slightest justification for saying what God does now - you are simply making things up to fit in with your private ideas. It is no difficult thing to search through Scripture and note the passages that happily agree with you. Trinitarians have done the same, else there would be no Trinity doctrine. The workings of the Trinity now are, for humans I'm afraid, a closed holy book. It is presumptuous to declare that we know what God does or does not do and how he conducts his affairs.

[Elijah John]

All of your theocratic gymnastics aside, I don't know how much clearer it could be that Jesus deferred to the Father as God when he said to the Father, "YOU [are] the only true God." (John 17:3)

You keep repeating the same thing, and each statement where Jesus, as man, defers to God, does not in any way disprove the Trinity. You seem to think that three Gods are claimed, not one. So in the above statement, of course Jesus says there is only one God. That is what Trinitarians say. So what is your contradiction?

It is not just her "private interpretation", many Christian monotheists share her pov in this. The whole JW sect for one, the Christadephians, to name another, and many of us free-lance absolute monotheists, like myself.

A large minority of people read John 17.3 and come to similar conclusions.

The contradiction to the Trinity lies in the distinction Jesus makes between God and himself. Notice he did not say that "we" are the only true God, but rather, that they know "you" the only true God. Didn't say, that they know "us" the only true God.

Assuming the historical Jesus said anything like the passage of John 17.3, which is more likely in your opinion?

That Jesus, a good monotheistc Jew, (certainly not an outlandish assumption in and of itself) would be speaking of any hypostatic "mystery" or that he was re-affirming once again the most central doctrine of Judaism, that God is one, and God alone is the source of eternal life?

If we want to insist on the plain meaning of a given passage, (such as we did in the debate on Jesus impending return which never materialized in the lifetime of his apostles) hadn't we ought to be consistent, and consider that even the John of high Christology was saying plainly here that only the Father is the "one true God"?

Isn't there a distinction between the One doing the sending, and the one being sent?

Also, there are many verses that support this interpretation, from both John and Paul. In spite of their extreme tendencies to elevate, glorify and mythologize Jesus, even they stopped just short of calling him "God", or any portion of a "Trinity".

Whether or not the Trinity is an existential reality, it was never taught in Scripture. Not by Jesus, and not even by Paul or John. Rather it was the product of the Church fathers, born from a desire to worship Jesus without violating the first Commandment.

The Trinity was their solution, not the Bible's.

And I say this as one who was conditioned and inclined to believe in the Trinity as well. Raised as a Catholic, this is my own "private" interpretation, the result of my giving the Bible a fresh reading, putting aside the lens of indoctrination. And lo and behold, my "private interpretation" on this matter is shared by many others as well.

[man]

[Replying to post 40 by onewithhim]

Do you think God's own government that will rule over the earth is going to have a problem with Jewish people, Muslim people, gay people, blasphemers and atheists?

I answered that in post #41.

Oops, sorry I missed it.

[man]

Jesus is Lord!

I have seen this on bumper stickers, TV and the internet, but I'm not quite sure what it means.

It seems to be saying that Jesus and the God are the same thing, is this correct?

I think the way most modern bumper-sticker Christians mean it is that "Jesus is God".

But that is not the original meaning of the expression. To Paul, it meant "Jesus is master" our best authority for understanding things Divine and the mediator for access to the Divine.

In the OT/Hebrew Bible "LORD" always meant YHVH, Lord meant Adonai ( "my Lord, referring to YHVH)

Only in the NT does the lower case "Lord" refer to Jesus.

And even in the NT YHWH has been obliterated. Where God's personal name was included in old manuscripts, it is deleted in modern translations. So sometimes where it says "Lord" it might be referring to YHWH. (See Acts 2:34 where Jehovah is definitely referred to.) It's hard to tell, and that is thanks to men through the centuries altering the texts to irradicate God's name.

[/i]

That is sad. I do like and respect the way the NWT has restored some of the NT references to YHVH, when it is clear that OT Scripture is being quoted, and in certain other cases.

What may be encouraging is that even outside of the JW organization, some are rediscovering the importance of the Divine name. Some Evangelicals refer to "Jehovah" or "Yahweh" and an Evangelical couple Peter and Linda-Miller Russo have published "Proclaim His Holy Name" , and also the "Proclaim His Holy Name Bible" which is based on the KJV, but with all the "LORD"s restored to "Yehovah".

I recommend the book and their version of the Bible.

Also, Keith E Johnson's "His Hallowed Name Revealed Again". I don't think he is either a JW or an Evangelical, but this book demonstrates he really understands the importance of The Name as well. Highly recommended.

Awesome! I will look for those books and the "Holy Name Bible." I have The Divine Name King James Bible by Divine Name Publishers, which restores the name in all 6,972 places it occurs in the O.T. and includes it within parentheses where it should be in the N.T.

It's really great that more people are recognizing God's name. Soon the whole planet "will have to know that I am Jehovah" (Ezekiel 38:23). I long for that day.

You long for that day? Why what happens?

The culmination of all of Bible prophecy. The very theme of the Bible is God's own government that will rule over the earth. Jesus focused on that government and taught us to pray for it.

"Pray, then, in this way: 'Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." (Matt.6:9,10, NASB)

"In the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which will never be destroyed, and...it will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, but it will itself endure forever." (Daniel 2:44)

"For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; and the government will rest on his shoulders;...There will be no end to the increase of his government or of peace." (Isaiah 9:6,7)

"Blessed and holy is the one who has a part in the first resurrection....They will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him for a thousand years." (Revelation 20:6)

Do you think God's own government that will rule over the earth is going to have a problem with Jewish people, Muslim people, gay people, blasphemers and atheists?

God's government will welcome everyone who accepts Jehovah as the one true God and agrees that he has the right to rule. They will also accept the provision for salvation that Jesus made available for everyone.

Psalm 15 gives us a good idea of the kind of people Jehovah will have in his new world:

1 "O LORD [YHWH], who may abide in Your tent?
Who may dwell on Your holy hill?
2 He who walks with integrity, and works righteousness,
And speaks truth in his heart.
3 He does not slander with his tongue,
Nor does evil to his neighbor,
Nor takes up a reproach against his friend;
4 In whose eyes a reprobate is despised,
But who honors those who fear the LORD [YHWH];
He swears to his own hurt and does not change;
5 He does not put out his money at interest,
Nor does he take a bribe against the innocent.
He who does these things will never be shaken." (NASB)

I will never accept Jehovah as the one true god, even if he shows himself to me that does not prove he is the only one and there may be other gods.

I will never accept the provision for salvation that Jesus made available for everyone because God and Jesus are in reality Satan.

I don't and never will fear the lord. If I must fear the lord then he is nothing but a terrorist.

I walk with integrity, and my works are righteous and I speak the truth in my heart and most important of all I do not pretend to know things I do not.

I do not honor those who fear the lord because no one should fear a terrorist.

I do not slander with my tongue, nor do I do evil to my neighbor and nor do I take up a reproach against my friends.

What will your god do to me then?

[Yahu]

[Replying to ttruscott]

Three divine attributes - Father, Son, Holy Spirit.
God is one. Jehovah in the OT is the the Lord in NT.

We are are also triune - body, soul, spirit.

Finally, someone else recognized that we are also three parts made in the image of Elohyim.

I see the Father as the soul, Yeshua as the body and of course the Holy Spirit as the spirit of the trinity. We are all 3, body, soul and spirit in a single entity whereas they are separate entities of the same God. Yeshua's body had the Holy Spirit conceived Him and did the will (a part of the soul) of the Father.

The physical form of Yeshua was the 1st thing created and then all other creation was THROUGH Yeshua.

[marco]

It is not just her "private interpretation", many Christian monotheists share her pov in this. The whole JW sect for one, the Christadephians, to name another, and many of us free-lance absolute monotheists, like myself.

What I intended to mean, EJ, is that we each have a choice of which meaning we take from words. The belief or faith that springs from that interpretation is irrelevant, in that I can take an interpretation without then moving towards some Christian group. So for each person, the interpretation is a personal thing.

The contradiction to the Trinity lies in the distinction Jesus makes between God and himself. Notice he did not say that "we" are the only true God, but rather, that they know "you" the only true God. Didn't say, that they know "us" the only true God.

Yep, that's perfectly true; he did not say 'we' because speaking as a man, a friend of the apostles it would have been incorrect; suggesting he wasn't a real man.

If we accept that God became man - as in the Word was made flesh, and dwelt amongst us - then all is well with the Trinity idea. And John says so.

If we want to insist on the plain meaning of a given passage, (such as we did in the debate on Jesus impending return which never materialized in the lifetime of his apostles) hadn't we ought to be consistent, and consider that even the John of high Christology was saying plainly here that only the Father is the "one true God"?

The problem with treating every statement in exactly the same way is that SOME statements are in fact figurative. For Trinitarians, all talk of ONLY ONE GOD is no problem. People who deny Christ's divinity argue as though this disproved the Trinity. It certainly disproves polytheism, but Trinitarians are careful to avoid being polytheists, so the argument should NEVER be about words such as "there is only one God." There is no contradiction there.

Isn't there a distinction between the One doing the sending, and the one being sent?

That is true. The three persons act independently in the mysterious Trinity. One is not simply an aspect of the other. I have no understanding of this, but I am not supposed to have.

And I say this as one who was conditioned and inclined to believe in the Trinity as well. Raised as a Catholic, this is my own "private" interpretation, the result of my giving the Bible a fresh reading, putting aside the lens of indoctrination. And lo and behold, my "private interpretation" on this matter is shared by many others as well.

And Peter answered that Christ was the Messiah - son of the living God, in some versions. So it all depends in what form the Messiah was to come; as word made flesh would certainly qualify for authenticity, and that is how millions see it. Numbers don't matter, of course.

The move towards the doctrine of the Trinity is not illogical when we read that Christ promised to "send" the Paraclete. How else do we explain these apparent divinities? How else would Jesus himself have the capability of sending such a powerful entity?
There are various ways we can take these words. In the end it depends on what we are comfortable with.

[Monta]

[Replying to post 52 by Elijah John]


Elijah John wrote:

Isn't there a distinction between the One doing the sending, and the one being sent?//


We are not talking of one bodily person sending another bodily person and another bodily person doing something else.

I think the problem is that we do not know Who What God is.

Just to mention, we send our love to loved ones all the time.

[onewithhim]

All of your theocratic gymnastics aside, I don't know how much clearer it could be that Jesus deferred to the Father as God when he said to the Father, "YOU [are] the only true God." (John 17:3)

You keep repeating the same thing, and each statement where Jesus, as man, defers to God, does not in any way disprove the Trinity. You seem to think that three Gods are claimed, not one. So in the above statement, of course Jesus says there is only one God. That is what Trinitarians say. So what is your contradiction?

You say other people have different views "without contradicting the Bible." It's interesting that you haven't noticed that THEY DO CONTRADICT THE BIBLE. The only thing trinitarians can say about John 17:3 is : "That verse doesn't belong there,"

That is a straw man argument. They can say a lot better than that. They can point out that Jesus, on earth, speaks as man and defers to God.

You haven't commented on ALL of the verses I cited (John 20:17?) and you haven't explained others that I have presented, such as:


I Corinthians 11:3: "I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman, and GOD IS THE HEAD OF CHRIST." (NASB...This was written after Jesus returned to heaven, so he wasn't a human man any more.)

Here is Paul:

"But there is one thing I want you to know: The head of every man is Christ, the head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.[a] 4 A man dishonors his head if he covers his head while praying or prophesying. 5 But a woman dishonors her head[c] if she prays or prophesies without a covering on her head, for this is the same as shaving her head. 6 Yes, if she refuses to wear a head covering, she should cut off all her hair! But since it is shameful for a woman to have her hair cut or her head shaved, she should wear a covering."

Paul is giving instructions, as he sees it, for behaviour in a church. He is building a figurative hierarchy to make a point about head covering. People today don't place reliance on man ruling woman or the prescriptions for head coverings. In his list Paul is correctly saying that Christ, the man people knew, deferred to God, but it is amusing that you'd take this rather odd piece from Paul as defining divine relations. There is no temporality involved - as though Jesus wasn't then was God. Jesus had a human and a divine nature; Paul refers here to the human nature.

Your other quotes such as:

But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him.

simply indicate what Trinitarians accept - there is ONE God.

God commands Jesus STILL, as He did when Jesus was on the earth. These arguments haven't been addressed by any I've run into that believe Jesus is God.

You are seeing TWO Gods. The Trinity is a mystery, which means it is above human reason. The interrelationship of the three persons in one God is not the same as one that involves God telling a messenger on Earth what to do. Obviously you have not the slightest justification for saying what God does now - you are simply making things up to fit in with your private ideas. It is no difficult thing to search through Scripture and note the passages that happily agree with you. Trinitarians have done the same, else there would be no Trinity doctrine. The workings of the Trinity now are, for humans I'm afraid, a closed holy book. It is presumptuous to declare that we know what God does or does not do and how he conducts his affairs.

You haven't gotten the distinction yet? Trinitarians say that each member of the Trinity is God.

The Father is God.
The Son is God.
The Holy Spirit is God.

Add them up. A God + a God + a God = THREE Gods

Trinitarians thus believe in three Gods. That is polytheism. It contradicts the Bible. I believe that there is ONE God, and that is the Father only, just as Jesus said.

Your arguments are so perplexing (and other adjectives which I will refrain from using) that I am going to stop trying to help you to see. Anything I say falls on deaf ears. How can God be Jesus when he is repeatedly DIFFERENTIATED from "God" over and over again? "There is ONE GOD AND ONE MEDIATOR (which is obviously apart from the "one God") BETWEEN GOD AND MEN." If Jesus is God, how can he also be a mediator between himself and men?

[onewithhim]

Jesus is Lord!

I have seen this on bumper stickers, TV and the internet, but I'm not quite sure what it means.

It seems to be saying that Jesus and the God are the same thing, is this correct?

I think the way most modern bumper-sticker Christians mean it is that "Jesus is God".

But that is not the original meaning of the expression. To Paul, it meant "Jesus is master" our best authority for understanding things Divine and the mediator for access to the Divine.

In the OT/Hebrew Bible "LORD" always meant YHVH, Lord meant Adonai ( "my Lord, referring to YHVH)

Only in the NT does the lower case "Lord" refer to Jesus.

And even in the NT YHWH has been obliterated. Where God's personal name was included in old manuscripts, it is deleted in modern translations. So sometimes where it says "Lord" it might be referring to YHWH. (See Acts 2:34 where Jehovah is definitely referred to.) It's hard to tell, and that is thanks to men through the centuries altering the texts to irradicate God's name.

[/i]

That is sad. I do like and respect the way the NWT has restored some of the NT references to YHVH, when it is clear that OT Scripture is being quoted, and in certain other cases.

What may be encouraging is that even outside of the JW organization, some are rediscovering the importance of the Divine name. Some Evangelicals refer to "Jehovah" or "Yahweh" and an Evangelical couple Peter and Linda-Miller Russo have published "Proclaim His Holy Name" , and also the "Proclaim His Holy Name Bible" which is based on the KJV, but with all the "LORD"s restored to "Yehovah".

I recommend the book and their version of the Bible.

Also, Keith E Johnson's "His Hallowed Name Revealed Again". I don't think he is either a JW or an Evangelical, but this book demonstrates he really understands the importance of The Name as well. Highly recommended.

Awesome! I will look for those books and the "Holy Name Bible." I have The Divine Name King James Bible by Divine Name Publishers, which restores the name in all 6,972 places it occurs in the O.T. and includes it within parentheses where it should be in the N.T.

It's really great that more people are recognizing God's name. Soon the whole planet "will have to know that I am Jehovah" (Ezekiel 38:23). I long for that day.

You long for that day? Why what happens?

The culmination of all of Bible prophecy. The very theme of the Bible is God's own government that will rule over the earth. Jesus focused on that government and taught us to pray for it.

"Pray, then, in this way: 'Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." (Matt.6:9,10, NASB)

"In the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which will never be destroyed, and...it will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, but it will itself endure forever." (Daniel 2:44)

"For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; and the government will rest on his shoulders;...There will be no end to the increase of his government or of peace." (Isaiah 9:6,7)

"Blessed and holy is the one who has a part in the first resurrection....They will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him for a thousand years." (Revelation 20:6)

Do you think God's own government that will rule over the earth is going to have a problem with Jewish people, Muslim people, gay people, blasphemers and atheists?

God's government will welcome everyone who accepts Jehovah as the one true God and agrees that he has the right to rule. They will also accept the provision for salvation that Jesus made available for everyone.

Psalm 15 gives us a good idea of the kind of people Jehovah will have in his new world:

1 "O LORD [YHWH], who may abide in Your tent?
Who may dwell on Your holy hill?
2 He who walks with integrity, and works righteousness,
And speaks truth in his heart.
3 He does not slander with his tongue,
Nor does evil to his neighbor,
Nor takes up a reproach against his friend;
4 In whose eyes a reprobate is despised,
But who honors those who fear the LORD [YHWH];
He swears to his own hurt and does not change;
5 He does not put out his money at interest,
Nor does he take a bribe against the innocent.
He who does these things will never be shaken." (NASB)

I will never accept Jehovah as the one true god, even if he shows himself to me that does not prove he is the only one and there may be other gods.

I will never accept the provision for salvation that Jesus made available for everyone because God and Jesus are in reality Satan.

I don't and never will fear the lord. If I must fear the lord then he is nothing but a terrorist.

I walk with integrity, and my works are righteous and I speak the truth in my heart and most important of all I do not pretend to know things I do not.

I do not honor those who fear the lord because no one should fear a terrorist.

I do not slander with my tongue, nor do I do evil to my neighbor and nor do I take up a reproach against my friends.

What will your god do to me then?

When scripture says to "fear" Jehovah, that means to absolutely reject anything that would cause Him to be hurt. You fear hurting His feelings. It's not a morbid fear of what He might do to you.

You say that you speak the truth in your heart? Whose version of "the truth"? In your life, who has decided what is true? I think it's important to know what absolute truth is.

[tigger2]

Marco, post 51 wrote

Your other quotes such as:

But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him.

simply indicate what Trinitarians accept - there is ONE God.

It, like John 17:1, 3, is clearly calling the Father alone the ONE God.

1 Cor. 8:6 - “yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by [ lit . ‘through’ - dia ] whom are all things, and we exist through [ dia ] Him.� - NASB. Bracketed information added.

Notice that there is a comma before and after 'the Father.' These commas set off ‘the Father’ from the word ‘God’ and supply a further explanation or description of it. In other words, ‘God’ here is described or explained by its appositive (‘the Father’). It could be written differently, but with the same meaning, as “yet for us there is but one God, who is the Father.� That is why some trinitarian-translated and trinitarian-published Bibles have translated 1 Cor. 8:6 as follows:

1 Cor. 8:6 - “But for us there is only one God. He is our Father. All things came from him, and we live for him. And there is only one Lord—Jesus Christ. All things were made through Jesus, and we also have life through him.� - ICB.

1 Cor. 8:6 - “Yet for us there is only one God. He is the Father. All things come from him. He is the one for whom we live. And there is only one Lord. He is Jesus Christ. He made all things. He is the one who gives us life.� - WE (NT).

1 Cor. 8:6 - “for us there is only one God—our Father. All things came from him, and we live for him. And there is only one Lord—Jesus Christ. All things were made through him, and we also were made through him.� - NCV.

“But for us there is only one God. He is the Father. All things came from him, and we live for him. And there is only one Lord. He is Jesus Christ. All things came because of him, and we live because of him.� - NIRV.