This is very likely to be the case not only for the issue at hand in this discussion, but also most other religious and political topics. As people, our default positions and beliefs are rarely brought under the microscope for questioning. They are simply accepted as fact and we find ways to rationalize the data and facts we are later presented with to reinforce our perspectives. We've got to do a better job of critical thinking and questioning the 'givens' we almost naturally assume.
I myself in the Word have found this view. The Word God invokes mans imagination into what a god should be. This imagination gets impregnated into all religions even Christianity. God will be who I want Him to be. I do my best just viewing scriptures and hope that tells me who God is, and what a god is. I am aware I have wrong concepts in me from man. If I did not, then I would Know God perfectly, which I am not at that point. Being aware of shortcomings makes one continue to study and compare scriptures.
Free:
It isn't quite clear what you're saying here. It seems as though you are saying verse 18 is stating that God, the Father, is declaring the Son. Is that correct?
What I stated brother is that without a "Trinity" doctrine then we read the Word was made flesh just like we read everything else God declared and it came to pass. Mary became Pregnant by the Spoken Word through the power of the Holy Spirit. That was how Jesus was Begotten, and came into the World. Something God said as always came to pass. This is why the Word begotten is also included twice in John and in acts with the exact Word God spoke in Psalms that came to pass.
This is how we would interpret anything that God has said, declared or spoken. When God speaks, it comes to pass and in this case the spoken Word was made flesh, through Mary. This was how Jesus was begotten in a flesh body and came to Earth, by what God had declared would happen.
If I have a doctrine in the way of what I am reading, then what I read would be normally how I would read it until I have a chance to prove my doctrine. So instead of "The Word was made flesh" as something that came to pass as God declared in Psalm. The Word instead becomes a person, or Part of the Triune God. The Father, The Word, The Holy Spirit. So it's no longer God's Word, or as Jesus said My Words, or my Fathers Words, but the Word is now a person by which we have no scripture to back that up, except "The Word Was God" the same..................
So, only with a Doctrine written by several men with different versions would I examine "The Word was made flesh" as to mean something else that would not normally mean that. The Word made tree's, and everything else we see, but tress are not a person, nor are they a god.
Free:
1. The Bible shows that Jesus is truly man.
2. The Bible shows that Jesus is truly God.
3. The Bible shows that the Father is God.
4. The Bible shows that Jesus is the Son, who is separate and distinct from the Father.
5. The Bible shows that the Holy Spirit is God but yet is separate and distinct from both the Father and the Son.
6. The Bible shows that there is only one God.
Jesus is God, the Father is God, The son is separate and distinct from the Father.
I also can find scriptures for those, and can be proven in scriptures.
5. The Bible shows that the Holy Spirit is God but yet is separate and distinct from both the Father and the Son.
I would need the scripture that says the Holy Spirit is God. Just one would do even though that would break the rules of taking a scripture into private interpretation, I'll overlook that and give it to you if you give me the scripture that declares the Holy Spirit as God or any god. I can give you the ones that Show Jesus as God and the Father as God. I would need the Holy Spirit scripture to validate this claim with no possible means of countering in a common sense way.
The Holy Spirit (God in us?) Though there is not scripture connecting the Holy Spirit as God in us, one would assume that through the Holy Spirit this could only be true. This don't make the Holy Spirit God though because God has always taken ownership of the Holy Spirit. Jesus said I pray to my father and he will send a comforter that will not speak of himself, or on his own but only that which He hears. A God speaks on his own, and does not need to get direction from another part of God. So God in us is through the Holy Spirit and direct connection to God the Father through "HIS" Spirit.
If I had that scripture that says the Holy Spirit is God, like I do for the Father and Son, then we are getting somewhere. No scripture though, no go.
Gen 1:2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And
the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
The Spirit "OF" something, God's Holy Spirit. Not God himself, but something that belongs to.
I can post 20 more if you like.
The Bible shows that there is only one God.
Again............. by Doctrine.
4. The Bible shows that Jesus is the Son, who is separate and distinct from the Father.
If Jesus is separate and distinct from the Father, then that makes Two. This has always been a problem with "Trinity" trying to get this concept across because it makes absolutely no sense. This is the flaw in the Doctrine itself. Trinity wants their cake and eat it to. They want to say there is ONE God, but they also want to say that Jesus is not 1/3 of a god, but separate and distinct from the Father. So Jesus is either just a 1/3 of a god machine or He is fully God, the Son of God who was with the Father when told Let "US" create man in our image.
If Jesus is called God in Scripture, Once by His own Father, and He is separate and distinct from the Father, and there are two thrones, and there is One mediator, and One God, then that is TWO.
Weight the scriptures where Two are there or it's just ONE GOD. What gets more weight?
I will be more than happy to list a whole bunch of them.
I don't understand why you go for something man had written that has so many scriptural complications. What does man know? About as much as we know and that is only in part. Why buy into it?
Mike.