Is belief in Jesus's divinity necessary?

[Imagican]

There IS NO Biblical 'trinity'. That is a 'philosophical creation' that has NO bearing on The Word.

God IS The Father of Christ.

There is ONLY ONE God and there is 'the ONLY Begotten of God', His Son.

That they are ONE is NOT in entity, but in Spirit.

God IS The Head of Christ, as Christ IS the Head of man, as man IS the Head of Woman. This IS scriptural. The Godhead is NOT a 'trinity' except in the minds and hearts of those that have 'bought into' such a concept.

Is Christ divine? Absolutely. But AS The Son. The Father and Son ARE ONE in purpose.

The Bible PLAINLY states that NO ONE has EVER 'seen' God. For Christ to BE God would negate this FACT and make The Word NULL and void through falsity. For MANY have SEEN Christ.

Christ EVEN openly admits that there are THINGS that ONLY the Father KNOWS. That He was SENT by the Father. That He DID the Father's will.

If you SEE me, you have SEEN the product OF MY FATHER.

The 'I am' offers NO confession of Christ other than stating that He existed BEFORE Abraham. One MUST PRESS themselves to even THINK that in this He was stating that He IS God.

Christ is the FIRSTBORN of EVERY creature. God is NOT the 'firstborn' PERIOD. God is NOT 'begotten'. God first, Christ second, man third. And this is NO MORE a 'trinity' than Father, Son and Spirit.

Now, as adamant as Christ was to offer OVER AND OVER His identity, PLEASE explain why it took three hundred years AFTER His death for man to COME to an understanding that HE WAS GOD. IF Christ WERE God Himself, why didn't He just SAY SO? Or the apostles? Why didn't they simply STATE that 'Christ IS God'?

Speaking of the words that could have been spared, just THINK of how many could be eliminated IF Christ WERE God. There would be NO need of distinction that we HAVE THROUGHOUT the NT. From Matthew to Revelation we have UTTER distinction between God and His Son. And IF Christ IS God, then why these words, "Father forgive them for they know not what they do''? Wouldn't God Himself on a 'cross' have simply stated, ''I forgive them for they know not what they do''?

And explain the 'sitting on the right hand of God' thing. If this doesn't offer distinction in entity, then there is little more that I can offer that is able to open the eyes of those that have 'chosen' not to SEE.

And handy, IF there had been NO ONE to TEACH you 'trinity', if ALL you had were the Words of Christ and His apostles, you would have NEVER EVEN HEARD THE WORD; 'trinity'. That is EXACTLY how obscure this concept IS. That one MUST be 'taught it by MEN' in order to even KNOW of it's existence. For it is NOT in The Word.

And if I ask a hundred believers in this 'idea' WHAT it truly means, I will ultimately get 100 DIFFERENT responses. And not a ONE of them will bring me ANY closer to a TRUE understanding than when the question was first asked.

We are commanded to live by faith. But we were also warned NOT to accept any 'strange doctrines' that were NOT taught by the APOSTLES. Yet this 'trinity was NEVER EVEN MENTIONED by Them. Took hundreds of years AFTER their deaths to be CREATED and instituted INTO Christanity by a people that PREVIOUSLY HAD 'triune gods' in their pagan religions.

So, I still stand by this; "IF 'trinity' were SO important as the denoms insist that it is, WHY was it NEVER even MENTIONED until hundreds of years after Christ's DEATH? A SIMPLE question that CANNOT be reasonably answered by ANY that accept it.

MEC

 

[Rick W]

I'm afraid that the Trinity is not something that I can understand. . . . . so it is hard for me to accept what is so foreign in concept. And even though "the trinity" isn't verbalized in the bible, it is a doctrine of the church that I just can't agree with. The verses given are just so vague.

The word "bible" isn't in the bible either.

Atheism or atheist
Divinity
Incarnation
Monotheism
Rapture
Omniscience
Omnipotence
Polygamy
Monogamy

All these are concepts found in the bible but not "verbalized in the bible".

"so it is hard for me to accept what is so foreign in concept."

Black holes
Quantum mechanics
Einstein's theory of relativity
Dark matter

These concepts were foreign to you and neither can you say you fully understand them now. You didn't come up with these concepts on your own. Yet, you accepted these concepts by faith that someone else knows what they are talking about. You trust their witness.
Why is there the absolute need to fully understand the Word of God, His witness to mankind, before you would be willing to accept it?

 

[handy]

Jesus said Himself, "Before Abramham, I AM." This cannot be discounted and it means nothing else but that it was Jesus who spoke to Moses. The Jews knew this. This is why they tried to stone Him.

You are absolutely right. It cannot be discounted. Jesus himself told the Jews he was the SON of God, and that is the reason they wanted to stone him. Jesus IS the Word of God. And he has been from the beginning. He was WITH God in the beginning and through Him all things have been created. Being the 'WORD' of God, he can rightly say, 'Before Abraham was I am'.

Now explain to me why scripture tells us that God has put all things under Christ EXCEPT God himself.

Yep, Jesus IS the Word of God. So, let's just stick with what the Scriptures tell us about that:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Since, Christ is God, then God would not be 'under' Christ.

The Bible PLAINLY states that NO ONE has EVER 'seen' God.

The Bible also PLAINLY states that Jesus is the Word and the WORD WAS GOD. Not "a" God, not "has known God", not "The Son of God" but WAS God.

From Matthew to Revelation we have UTTER distinction between God and His Son.

No, we have distinction between the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. But, all are presented clearly as God.

 

[Orion]

I have no problem with a Godhead of more than one person, yet under the "umbrella" called "God". Depending on the situation, you'll expect one of them to take over the situation. But that's the only way I would see it. All three of them existing from the beginning, each having a "specialty", so to speak. Jesus, the redeemer. Whatever the "Holy Spirit" is actually named, being comforter. Yahwah in the role he plays. Under the term "God" (which is obviously a general term), but still seperate beings. And I don't believe I will be damned for such a belief.

 

[handy]

And handy, IF there had been NO ONE to TEACH you 'trinity', if ALL you had were the Words of Christ and His apostles, you would have NEVER EVEN HEARD THE WORD; 'trinity'. That is EXACTLY how obscure this concept IS. That one MUST be 'taught it by MEN' in order to even KNOW of it's existence. For it is NOT in The Word.

Wrong again, MEC. I knew the truth of the Trinity before I had any church dealings at all. I knew the truth of the Trinity that night I picked up the Gospel of John and read John 1, realized that Jesus was no mere Jewish philosopher but God Himself, and that the Father and Spirit are also God, but not Jesus. That was the night I gave my life completely over to the Lord, and became a Christian, and before I ever became a church member taught by preachers.

The concept is hardly obscure as even a 13 year old with no church background was able to clearly see the truth of it in one reading of the Gospel of John. It's all in the Gospel of John which was NOT written 300 years after Christ's death.

 

[Orion]

Black holes
Quantum mechanics
Einstein's theory of relativity
Dark matter

These concepts were foreign to you and neither can you say you fully understand them now. You didn't come up with these concepts on your own. Yet, you accepted these concepts by faith that someone else knows what they are talking about. You trust their witness.
Why is there the absolute need to fully understand the Word of God, His witness to mankind, before you would be willing to accept it?

But I think that's the point. There ARE those who can and DO understand those concepts given above. I understand some of them myself. No one has any idea how this "trinity" would even exist or present itself. I see it as man's way of INSISTING on a monotheocrity, and trying to resolve the issues of Christ and "The Holy Spirit", whatever name that being goes by.

 

[Catholic Crusader]

Have you considered the idea that any god you can understand is probably not the God of all creation? We cannot even fully fathom some of what He has done, LET ALONE fully fathom HIM.

 

[Orion]

Then how can we REALLY know who we are supposed to be following?

Again, there are too many instances where Jesus's own comments allude MORE towards seperate beings, rather than this "trinity" concept that arose well after Jesus had left the earth.

 

[Rick W]

Then how can we REALLY know who we are supposed to be following?

Again, there are too many instances where Jesus's own comments allude MORE towards seperate beings, rather than this "trinity" concept that arose well after Jesus had left the earth.

"this "trinity" concept that arose well after Jesus had left the earth."

You're sure of that? You're absolutely positive the Jews had no idea about Christ as God?

Joh 8:58 Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.
Joh 8:59 Then took they up stones to cast at him: but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by.

Why did they want to kill Jesus?

I find it curious how you would know what the early Jews didn't believe and yet have so many questions concerning scripture. The bible is a VERY Jewish book.

 

[Orion]

To be honest, I really don't have much care about what Jewish people may or may not have believed. I would really like to know how Jesus could mention, on several occations, statements that illude more to seperate beings rather than this "trinity"? Some of those scripture passages have already been mentioned in this thread.

And the "I am" is just a phrase meaning "I have always existed". It isn't actually a name.

 

[handy]

Think of how language works. Jesus did refer to the Father and the Spirit as separate from Himself. But, he always, always refers to God in the singular. God is single, yet Father, Son and Spirit.

As for I AM meaning "I have always existed", no, it truly doesn't mean that at all. One does need to go back to Exodus 3:14 and see the declaration of God there. It is indeed the given name of God, the one's always written as YHWH so as to not accidently offend. It's not just a phrase.

 

[Catholic Crusader]

.....And the "I am" is just a phrase meaning "I have always existed". It isn't actually a name.

CCC 205....

"I Am who I Am"

Moses said to God, "If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you', and they ask me, ‘What is his name?' what shall I say to them?" God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM." And he said, "Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I Am has sent me to you' . . . this is my name for ever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations."10

CCC 206 In revealing his mysterious name, YHWH ("I AM HE WHO IS," "I AM WHO AM" or "I AM WHO I AM"), God says who he is and by what name he is to be called. This divine name is mysterious just as God is mystery. It is at once a name revealed and something like the refusal of a name, and hence it better expresses God as what he isâ€â€infinitely above everything that we can understand or say: he is the "hidden God," his name is ineffable, and he is the God who makes himself close to men.

http://www.usccb.org/catechism/text/pt1 ... htm#art1p1

The dogma of the Holy Trinity

CCC 253 The Trinity is One. We do not confess three Gods, but one God in three persons, the "consubstantial Trinity."83 The divine persons do not share the one divinity among themselves but each of them is God whole and entire: "The Father is that which the Son is, the Son that which the Father is, the Father and the Son that which the Holy Spirit is, i.e., by nature one God."84 In the words of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215): "Each of the persons is that supreme reality, viz., the divine substance, essence or nature."85

CCC 254 The divine persons are really distinct from one another. "God is one but not solitary."86 "Father," "Son," "Holy Spirit" are not simply names designating modalities of the divine being, for they are really distinct from one another: "He is not the Father who is the Son, nor is the Son he who is the Father, nor is the Holy Spirit he who is the Father or the Son."87 They are distinct from one another in their relations of origin: "It is the Father who generates, the Son who is begotten, and the Holy Spirit who proceeds."88 The divine Unity is Triune.

CCC 255 The divine persons are relative to one another. Because it does not divide the divine unity, the real distinction of the persons from one another resides solely in the relationships which relate them to one another: "In the relational names of the persons the Father is related to the Son, the Son to the Father, and the Holy Spirit to both. While they are called three persons in view of their relations, we believe in one nature or substance."89 Indeed "everything (in them) is one where there is no opposition of relationship."90 "Because of that unity the Father is wholly in the Son and wholly in the Holy Spirit; the Son is wholly in the Father and wholly in the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit is wholly in the Father and wholly in the Son."91

http://www.usccb.org/catechism/text/pt1 ... art1p2.htm

 

[Orion]

I personally believe that humans tend to confuse themselves more than they ought to.

You take a few verses and come up with a huge, forbidding doctrine and I can only think of the verse that says (paraphrased), thinking themselves wise, they become fools.

I keep asking how it is that you can have Jesus specifically state the concept that he IS seperate from the other heavenly beings. A few vague instances, which could be read several different ways, and a whole doctrine is established. :-?

 

[Orion]

Why in the world did I use the word "Forbidding". . . . . . ??? : I must have been distracted when I wrote that last post. I mean "formitable", I'm sure. : Anyway, there are just too many places where Jesus makes statements about the nature of HIS relationship and interaction with God that you must conclude that the church may be off on it's doctrine of the trinity.

I also like what was said from (I think) Imagician, posting how "no one has ever seen God", that would propose a problem for those who interacted personally with Jesus.

 

[handy]

Why in the world did I use the word "Forbidding". . . . . . ??? : I must have been distracted when I wrote that last post. I mean "formitable", I'm sure. : Anyway, there are just too many places where Jesus makes statements about the nature of HIS relationship and interaction with God that you must conclude that the church may be off on it's doctrine of the trinity.

I also like what was said from (I think) Imagician, posting how "no one has ever seen God", that would propose a problem for those who interacted personally with Jesus.

Believe me, Orion, there really isn't any conflict with there being a Divine Father, a Divine Son and a Divine Spirit, all of whom are God. There is no reason whatsoever to conclude that the church "may be off" regarding the doctrine. The case against Jesus being God is weak and relies totally upon dimissing very clear statements made on the matter.

As for the fact that 'no man has ever seen God" being a problem for those who interacted personally with Jesus, not really. Jesus was ever the Son of Man. Coming as the Babe in the manger, wasn't the Son's first visit to the earth in an incarnate form. He walked with Adam, and with Abraham, He actually sat down and ate a meal. (Genesis 18) At the transfiguration, the disciples caught a glimpse of His divine nature (which terrified them), but normally when the Son of Man is with us, He looks, walks, and talks, like an ordinary Man. There is that 'something more' there that those who are God's responds to, but for the most part, He looked like a guy, according to Isaiah, not a particularly handsome guy.

However, it is a big mistake to think that, just because Jesus came to us as the Son of Man and even the Son of God, we are not clearly taught that He is God. While He was here on earth, we are told that He had humbled Himself and was made a little lower than the angels. During that time, His references to the Father, Spirit and to God, while showing complete unity, also were defined by this humbled state. Humbled state there was, but there are no Scriptures about Jesus' interactions with God, with the Father, with the Spirit, with men that contradicts the truth that, even humbled, Jesus was indeed God Incarnate.

What does bring up sharp contradictions would be to deny the truth of Jesus being God Incarnate with texts such as:

The Word was God, John 1:1

Before Abraham was born, I AM, John 8:58

and even:

But of the Son, He (God) says, "Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever.

These texts are clear. They don't mean anything else than what they say. Jesus is God.

Thank you, Freeway for adding yet another brick to this foundational truth. Yes indeed, we see that God raised Jesus from the dead, (Acts 2:32) something that Jesus indeed said that He would do Himself (John 2:19).

 

[mutzrein]

Dora

Without again going over and over the scriptures which you see as proof that Jesus is God, this debate has been thrashed in times past and all of the scriptures that you have quoted have been answered. You see there is always two sides to every debate. In this case some believe that Jesus is God and and some accept Him as the Son of God. We each have a different perspective on what the scripture is saying.

So lets get back to the OP. I didn't start it of course, but if I can extend it to this question and forgive me if this is not what the OP intended - but I think it is.

Is belief that Jesus = God necessary for salvation?

Of course this has been thrashed too, but I would be interested in your perpectuve.

 

[handy]

My own opinion: It would be a lot like the Baptism issue, one can be saved without it, but one should come to a proper knowledge and observation of it within the scope of one's faithful walk.

To deny the divinity of Christ is to deny the essence of who He is. Thus, if one continues on in this denial, if one tries to walk with Him all the while denying the truth of who He is, one cannot be fulfilling the command to worship Him in Spirit and in truth.

I can see someone becoming saved without the full knowledge that Jesus is God. I cannot see a true believer continuing on in this denial for long.

Let me put this in a wholly human illustration: When I married my husband, I became Mrs. Miller. Now, my folks really didn't want me to marry my husband. They've since come around, but at time it was tense. Now, let's say for the sake of this illustration that they didn't come around. So, every time they referred to me they did so as Miss Dora, rather than Mrs. Miller. Totally ignored and denied the truth of the fact that while I was their daughter, I was also my husband's wife. I'm close to my folks, but I don't think my relationship with them could have sustained that kind of denial of an essential part of who I am.

You can't define who Jesus is for Him. While I'm sure that He is most patient with ignorance, a total refusal to even listen to the truth of who He says He is, after awhile becomes arrogance. It would be as if I never accepted the results of the 2000 election. And, then meeting President Bush and saying to him, "I'll call you Mr. Bush, but not President Bush because you're really not the President."

One cannot get around the fact that Jesus is not only the Word of God, but God. He is the great I AM. He is the God of Whom God says, "Thy throne is forever."

Yes, Mutz, we have indeed thrashed this before. And, while I agree that all the texts I've provided have been answered, the answers are just more dodging around a very essential truth regarding our Lord. There is a reason why the vast, vast majority of the Church embraces the divinity of Christ without any reservation whatsoever. It's because the vast, vast majority of the Church recognizes her Bridegroom. Jesus said Who He was, and the Spirit and the Scriptures validate His words.

To walk in ignorance is forgivable. To walk in arrogance, to continue to say "MY convoluted interpretation of these straightforward texts is correct and the rest of the Body of Christ is wrong, wrong wrong!" ...I don't know.

 

[Rick W]

Well said Dora. :smt023

 

[Free]

In this case some believe that Jesus is God and and some accept Him as the Son of God.

And many rightly believe both.

Is belief that Jesus = God necessary for salvation?

Yes.

 

[Voyageur]

The reason that anybody fights over the Trinity, in the final analysis, is because the Catholic Church developed the idea in the first place and decreed it.

It was one group of men winning out in an argument over various other groups of men.