Join For His Glory for a discussion on how
https://christianforums.net/threads/a-vessel-of-honor.110278/
https://christianforums.net/threads/psalm-70-1-save-me-o-god-lord-help-me-now.108509/
Read through the following study by Tenchi for more on this topic
https://christianforums.net/threads/without-the-holy-spirit-we-can-do-nothing.109419/
Join Sola Scriptura for a discussion on the subject
https://christianforums.net/threads/anointed-preaching-teaching.109331/#post-1912042
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SBG
As you are the most prolific writer on this thread, may I ask you the question to which I have had no satisfactory answer as yet?
You have said that Jesus (as per Col 1 and other passages) was the one who created all things.
I have before me this problem which that understanding creates.
Nowadays, we can take a fertilised embryo from one mother, and for various reasons implant it into another woman's womb, who then brings the embryo to full term.
When the child is born, two things happen:
1 The child can in no way be called the child of the surrogate mother
2 The child cannot be said to have been CONCEIVED by the surrogate mother.
I hope you think that's correct. I can see no objection to those statements.
This applies to the Lord Jesus as follows:
If He was a conscious, intelligent, creating being BEFORE He was born of Mary, then He was not CONCEIVED by her. He was fully in existence before that.
He was implanted/transplanted into her womb by the Holy Spirit.
I hope you agree with that statement too.
Here's the difficulty:
Gabriel, bearing the Father's message which is recorded by Luke, the medical doctor, says to her: 'Thou shalt CONCEIVE in thy womb and bring forth a SON'.
If Jesus was implanted/transplanted into her womb, then Gabriel, Luke and the Father are all wrong, because they have used faulty terminology. They should have used another word (like engrafted or similar) to describe what was going to happen.
They didn't.
They said 'conceive'. And just to clarify matters even further, Gabriel says :
Lk 1.36 And behold, Elisabeth thy kinswoman, she also hath conceived a son in her old age: and this is the sixth month with her that was called barren.
Exactly the same Greek word is used in both cases.
So were they wrong? Or is your understanding wrong? Or what?
Conjecture.That is correct, Eventide.
The problem is, if He existed before His birth of Mary, then she could not have CONCEIVED Him. He was already alive, powerful etc etc.
That makes nonsense of what Gabriel actually said, and that's a serious problem to pre-existentialists.
Conjecture.
As Time is a temporal existence and we are in a dispensation of time the term before he came to earth or after may only be from a temporal subjective point of view. For those who exist in eternity time is of no signifigance.That Jesus existed as God-Man before the His virgin Birth, and before the world began is indicated here Jn 3:13
And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.
If He was the Son of Man in Heaven while on Earth, then why not the Son of Man in Heaven before He came to Earth ? His Son of Man status was not out of Mary, but out of Him Being the God Man Mediator 1 Tim 2:5 !
For those who exist in eternity time is of no signifigance.