The Trinity?

[Gerr]

Yes Gerry, man can possess life, original, unborrowed, underived, just as you have quoted.

"This life is not inherent in man. He can possess it only through Christ.

He cannot earn it; it is given him as a free gift if he will believe in Christ as His personal Saviour."

1 Selected Messages 296-7.

But the life of Christ was unborrowed. No one can take this life from Him. "I lay it down of myself" (John 10: 18), He said. In Him was life, original, unborrowed, underived. This life is not inherent in man. He can possess it only through Christ.

[Gerr]

So what is your view as to who is Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit?

[Gibs]

God talks to His Redeemer of Himself and His Redeemer talked to Him here from on earth and called His God and Father and said is greater than I. Even though the Father ordained the Redeemer would be equal.

Now the one that cinches it and I have to keep repeating this to you trinty folk is ,

1 Cor 15:24-28 and these give you the finish and this lets you know The Deity of the Father is returned that Yahweh is ALL IN ALL finally at last and we know sin is not to rise up again, no Redeemer ever no more throughout eternity.

Now just the last verse of,

1Co 15:28 And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.

Trinity don't have a leg to stand on.

Sell it to those who know not the scriptures, but I wouldn't if I were you, I sure wouldn't, Jesus told me "I and my Father are one", and I know what He is saying and I believe Him, you must know and none else!

1Jo 4:4 ¶ Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.

[Gordon1]

Peter K. save yourself some gray hairs.

Grab Patriarchs & Prophets and slowly read the second page. Bring pencil.

If you're feeling brave, read two more, even four.

You will know what foundation EGW laid for the Godhead from the very start of her Conflict Series.

[Gordon1]

So what is your view as to who is Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit?

Gerry, Christ is the Anointed One of God.

(Christos in Greek, Mashiyach in Hebrew = the Anointed One)

...God's dear Son, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

But who anointed Christ?

With what was He anointed?

"How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power..." (Acts 10:38)

"...for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him." (John 3:34)

[phkrause]

Peter K. the matter is simple. God the Father (the Ancient of Days) is speaking to His Son in Genesis 1:27.

...From the very first page of the original Great Controversy edition c.1858 - (Spiritual Gifts Vol 1):

"And I saw that when GOD said to His SON,

Let us make man in our image, Satan was jealous of JESUS." [Capitals in original]

The Father created through the Son:

"..God, who created all things by Jesus Christ." (Ephesians 3:9)

"...his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds." (Hebrews 1:2)

"The Father wrought by His Son in the creation of all heavenly beings." Patriarchs & Prophets second page.

Gordon thanks, but I already knew that. The question was for those that continue to say that Jesus was not in heaven before creation, etc.

[Gordon1]

So what is your view as to who is .. the Holy Spirit?

Every being made in God's image has a spirit/is a spirit. Just as God has a Spirit/is a Spirit.

Jesus rebuked James & John: "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of." (Luke 9:55)

They manifested the spirit of the destroyer.

Gerry has a spirit. But it is not a different person.

It is the person Gerry - what goes on between his ears - thoughts, motives, his mind.

You didn't roll over and say good morning to your spirit, because your spirit is within you (cranium).

The Spirit which God gave to his Son without measure is the same Spirit (way of thinking) he would like to fill all his people.

"Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.." (Philippians 2:5)

"The Father gave His Spirit without measure to His Son, and we also may partake of its fullness."

Great Controversy 477.

"And Moses said unto him,

Enviest thou for my sake?

would God that all the LORD'S

people were prophets,

and that the LORD would put his spirit upon them!" (Numbers 11:29)

[Gibs]

Gordon 1, Gerry, your answer, to who is the Holy Spirit?

Joh 4:24 God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

That is what God is, Jesus said it and I believe it!

1Jo 4:4 ¶ Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.

[Gordon1]

Gordon thanks, but I already knew that. The question was for those that continue to say that Jesus was not in heaven before creation, etc.

okpk. Yes there is some confusion,

but much brought to light in those first few pages,

including Proverbs 8:22-30 & Micah 5:2.

[Gordon1]

Yes Gibs, God is a Spirit, and this was stressed in John 4:24 to distinguish Him from an unthinking idol or inert block of stone. (God can hear and sympathize)

Of course He's a physical being as well - the Ancient of Days on the throne, to Whom comes the Son of man in Daniel 7:13.

The One whose express image Christ bears, and we also, in like form.

"I have often seen the lovely Jesus, that He is a person. I asked Him if His Father was a person and had a form like Himself. Said Jesus, "I am in the express image of My Father's person." Early Writings 77. (Italics in original)

"I saw a throne, and on it sat the Father and the Son. I gazed on Jesus' countenance and admired His lovely person. The Father's person I could not behold, for a cloud of glorious light covered Him. I asked Jesus if His Father had a form like Himself. He said He had, but I could not behold it, for said He, "If you should once behold the glory of His person, you would cease to exist." Early Writings 54.

(So God the Father is/has a Spirit and a Person, and we are the same.)

[o2bwise]

Quote:

Gordon:

Every being made in God's image has a spirit/is a spirit. Just as God has a Spirit/is a Spirit.

Jesus rebuked James & John: "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of." (Luke 9:55)

They manifested the spirit of the destroyer.

Gerry has a spirit. But it is not a different person.

It is the person Gerry - what goes on between his ears - thoughts, motives, his mind.

You didn't roll over and say good morning to your spirit, because your spirit is within you (cranium).

The Spirit which God gave to his Son without measure is the same Spirit (way of thinking) he would like to fill all his people.

"Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.." (Philippians 2:5)

Thank you. I have been blessed. So wonderfully and succinctly put.

Blessings,

Tony

[o2bwise]

So, were I to say, "My spirit is grieved," I am not implying that there are two independent conscious existences involved. I am also not suggesting "my spirit" should be taken in a totally impersonal way.

One thing...

Explanation is deserved for how the HS reaches the status of things like White's heavenly trio while not considered being a literal person such as the Father and His only begotten.

I suggest the reason is as follows...

It is to cement and reinforce the idea that the entirety of how God relates to us, including saves us, is AS REVELATION. I think to a large extent, HS can be likened to the person of God from the perspective of His love and devotion to us and how the saving medium is entirely within the realm of revelation.

Blessings,

Tony

[Gerr]

Originally Posted By: Gerry Cabalo

So what is your view as to who is Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit?

Gerry, Christ is the Anointed One of God.

(Christos in Greek, Mashiyach in Hebrew = the Anointed One)

...God's dear Son, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

But who anointed Christ?

With what was He anointed?

"How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power..." (Acts 10:38)

"...for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him." (John 3:34)

Thanks for answering, but my question was actually directed at Epaminondas because all I have read so far are his objections and critiques, but I have no idea what his views are on who Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit are. I might also add why he even bothers to bring up the Diaglott as his interlinear authority since I know of no reputable scholars/translators/commentators who use it other than the Watch Tower Society.

[Gerr]

I believe I understand what you are saying. However, THERE IS a Holy Spirit who is a person distinct from the spirit/mind/attitude of the Father in the same way as we have a spirit that you described.

This Holy Spirit was viewed by the early disciples as a person.

ESV | ýAc 15:28 For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements:

The above statement would be very odd if they were referring to the spirit of the Father in the same way you are describing my spirit. If that were the case, the natural thing would have been to say, "For it seemed good to God the Father and to us....

Of the Holy Spirit, Jesus said, "He will glorify Me," Jn 16:14. Jesus, in His baptismal formula, mentions 3 different persons in Mt 28:19. Notice how Paul distinctly mentions 3 person, ESV | ý2 Co 13:14 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

Furthermore, the HS "strives," Gen 6:3. He teaches, Lk 12:12. He convicts, Jn 16:8. He directs church affairs - ESV | ‎Ac 13:2 While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” He helps and intercedes, Rom 8:26. He inspires, 2 Pe 1:21. These are activities that can be attributed only to a person.

[Gibs]

No!!!, the scripture is clear, there is ONE Spirit, ONE God and no more are known or will be formed!

1Jo 4:4 ¶ Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.

[epaminondas]

I am curious how many agree with the following:

1. A foundational confession of a Christian is "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God!"

2. This confession refers to Christ's literal, actual relationship to the Father before creation took place.

3. Christ is divine as a natural consequence of being the only begotten Son of God, in much the same way I am human as a natural consequence of being the son of humans.

4. One true God refers to Father only where TRUE carries the meaning ORIGINAL, such as in Hebrews 8:2.

5. Thus, the confession of oneness is NOT a confession of one theos (God), rather a confession of one original God - mono-alesthinos-theos.

6. I am a man, but I am not the one true man. This can be used as a parallel explanation for the Son of God. Jesus is God and is not the one true God as sons cannot be "the original."

7. The Godhead is composed of the one true God, the Father, and His only begotten Son and these are the two who counseled and likely who make up the elohim - two separate beings - the one true God and the divine Son whom He begat and whom He sent into this world where at the incarnation the Son of God also became the son of man.

Blessings,

Tony

I agree with no 1 and 2. True does not really mean original. It's closer to genuine, but its real meaning is something like "conforming with fact."

You are human. Therefore both your mother and father must have been humans. OK, I know for a mule neither his mother nor his father were of the same species. But there is a case to be made for saying that if Jesus were God and his Father was God then his mother must also have been God. Do you want to make Mary a God?

Yes, I know that God is not a species and most likely does not conform to the laws of taxonomy. In that case it's way beyond our understanding because of our lack of knowledge of such a situation. All we can say is the Bible does not say Jesus was/is God. The only word god maybe applied to Jesus in the Bible is also applied to humans. That much we do know.

The problem with your reasoning is it relies too much on speculation. The rock of valid reasoning is fact.

[epaminondas]

Thank you, Gordon!

It amazes me that perhaps the least believed doctrine of the Godhead is that belief that confesses Christ to be the Son of the Living God in a literal sense.

Blessings,

Tony

It may not be in the sense we think of as literal for a son and father. Who was the mother then before Mary was born? We all know Jesus existed before Mary.

Maybe it's just the most accurate way it can be expressed in human language, especially speaking to an audience 2,000 ago.

No, I don't know how exactly Jesus is the Father's son. All I know is that that is the way the Father chose to explain the relationship between them to us.

[epaminondas]

So what is your view as to who is Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit?

[John317]

Oh yes, the Diaglott is often very close to a word for word translation of the original Greek. It was published in 1865. The Jehovah's Witnesses bought it in 1900. The copyright expired in 1952 and since then it's been in the public domain. It is not only used by Jehovah's Witnesses, but is quote popular, being in the public domain.

So, why pick the Diaglott to study from? I have it and am very well aquainted with it. It contains serious errors. There are many publications, superior to the Emphastic Diaglott, in which you can study the Greek text. Its Greek text is also long outdated.

[John317]

The above is what I know. I'm always ready to admit that I don't have the facts to come to a conclusion, unlike a trinitarian.

Besides your statement demonstrating your prejudices and evident lack of familiarity with many Trinitarians, shouldn't we follow the Golden Rule here?

[John317]

Yes Gerry, man can possess life, original, unborrowed, underived, just as you have quoted.

"This life is not inherent in man. He can possess it only through Christ.

He cannot earn it; it is given him as a free gift if he will believe in Christ as His personal Saviour."

1 Selected Messages 296-7.

Gordon, Ellen White is saying that Jesus Christ grants the saints the gift of immortality, not "life, original, unborrowed, and underived." She is making the point that only One who has original, unborrowed, underived life can give people immortality.

No one can derive or borrow "underived, unborrowed" life from God. That's a contradiction by definition. That would be like thinking that God can create a being with life that has no beginning. Utterly impossible, and so is the idea that creatures will ever derive underived life from God.

The saints' lives will always be derived from God.

Life originated with the eternal Trinity, which of course includes Christ.

Ellen White is saying that only Christ, who has original life, can give immortality to humans. Human beings-- even immortal human beings-- will never be able to create life or give the gift of immortality to anyone. Only God-- who has original life within Himself-- can do that.

[John317]

"The Father gave His Spirit without measure to His Son, and we also may partake of its fullness."

Great Controversy 477.

Ellen White isn't referring the pre-existent Christ, but to Jesus of Nazareth, the man.

Remember that Ellen White even says that when Christ was born into this world, He became the Son of God "in a new sense."

Christ is "the eternal, self-existent Son of God." So Christ has always been the Son of God, but after His birth on earth, He became the Son of God in a sense in which He had not been the Son of God in heaven prior to coming here.

In what "new sense" was Jesus the Son of God? Obviously in the literal sense-- which was not true before. When He was born as a human being, the Father became Jesus Christ's literal "daddy."

[John317]

.... life, original, unborrowed, underived...

Quote:

... Jesus declared, "I am the resurrection, and the life." In Christ is life, original, unborrowed, underived. "He that hath the Son hath life." 1 John 5:12. The divinity of Christ is the believer's assurance of eternal life. DA 530

Are you familiar with the influence that EGW quote had on M.L. Andreason?

He tells the story of how he was a non-Trintarian SDA pastor in 1906 when he was shocked to read that passage in Desire of Ages, page 530. In fact, he was so surprised by the words that he didn't believe Ellen White could have written them. So he went to Ellen White herself and talked to her about them and read them for himself among her unedited manuscripts. He stayed at her place at Elmshaven over the week-end. He left her house knowing without a doubt that she was the author of those words. M.L. Andreason became a convinced Trinitarian.

Study the statement again:

Quote:

"In him was life; and the life was the light of men" (John 1:4). It is not physical life that is here specified, but immortality, the life which is exclusively the property of God. The Word, who was with God, and who was God, had this life. Physical life is something which each individual receives. It is not eternal or immortal; for God, the Life-giver, takes it again. Man has no control over his life. But the life of Christ was unborrowed. No one can take this life from Him. "I lay it down of myself" (John 10:18), He said. In Him was life, original, unborrowed, underived. This [eternal, immortal] life is not inherent in man. He can possess

297

it only through Christ. He cannot earn it; it is given him as a free gift if he will believe in Christ as His personal Saviour. "This is life eternal

, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent" (John 17:3). This is the open fountain of life for the world. {1SM 296.2}

Compare it with Ellen White's statement that Christ spoke "words that could be spoken only by Deity":

Quote:

When the voice of the mighty angel was heard at Christ's tomb, saying, Thy Father calls Thee, the Saviour came forth from the grave by the life that was in Himself. Now was proved the truth of His words, "I lay down My life, that I might take it again. . . . I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again." Now was fulfilled the prophecy He had spoken to the priests and rulers, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." John 10:17, 18; 2:19.

Over the rent sepulcher of Joseph, Christ had proclaimed in triumph, "I am the resurrection, and the life." These words could be spoken only by the Deity. All created beings live by the will and power of God. They are dependent recipients of the life of God. From the highest seraph to the humblest animate being, all are replenished from the Source of life. Only He who is one with God could say, I have power to lay down My life, and I have power to take it again. In His divinity [i.e., Deity], Christ possessed the power to break the bonds of death. {DA 785.3}

[Gerr]

Originally Posted By: Gerry Cabalo

So what is your view as to who is Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit?

Jesus is the Son of God, the Bible tells us. Jesus had one main function: to pay for the sins of all humanity willing to accept the offer. Everything Jesus did was with that as the ultimate aim. Make no mistake, I believe Jesus has the most exalted place in the Universe next to the Father, as Paul says in so many words:

So is He worthy of worship? Do you worship Jesus?

Quote:

Quote:

1 Corinthians 15:28

New Living Translation (©2007)

Then, when all things are under his authority, the Son will put himself under God's authority, so that God, who gave his Son authority over all things, will be utterly supreme over everything everywhere.

That's what I believe. What I find strange is that trinitarians can still talk of equality after 1 Cor 15:28. I always like to know the causes of things. In humans, many causes seem to have genetic roots. Why do trinitarians, after reading that, still ride the old equality mare, dead under the saddle? The number of possible answers to my question is limited. Hanlon would proffer stupidity as the most likely cause.

So what do you think of the mare Paul is riding on in this statement?

NIV84 | ýPhp 2:6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, ý7 but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.

6 Although he was in the form of God and equal with God,

he did not take advantage of this equality.

7 Instead, he emptied himself by taking on the form of a servant,

by becoming like other humans,

by having a human appearance.

GOD'S WORD Translation. 1995 (Php 2:6–7). Grand Rapids: Baker Publishing Group.

Quote:

As the Holy Spirit would be on Earth after Jesus left, obviously he's not "the spirit of Jesus," but a separate entity.

The above is what I know. I'm always ready to admit that I don't have the facts to come to a conclusion, unlike a trinitarian.

Ah, so there you have it. Unlike Gibs who views the Father as operating in 3 different modes, you do accept 3 different entities/persons in the Father, Son, & Holy Spirit, even though you refuse to call yourself a Trinitarian. Yet the Bible clearly call each of those entities as "God". There is enough revealed about the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ that I am comfortable making the conclusion that all 3 are God and yet one.

Quote:

Oh yes, the Diaglott is often very close to a word for word translation of the original Greek. It was published in 1865. The Jehovah's Witnesses bought it in 1900. The copyright expired in 1952 and since then it's been in the public domain. It is not only used by Jehovah's Witnesses, but is quote popular, being in the public domain.

Since I am not a Greek scholar, I depend on several interlinears. I just find it curious that none use the Diaglott.

[Gerr]

No!!!, the scripture is clear, there is ONE Spirit, ONE God and no more are known or will be formed!

1Jo 4:4 ¶ Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.

You can deny all you want, that doesn't change what has been revealed. You already acknowledge there is a God the Father, a Son, and a Holy Spirit. You just believe that there is a one God who happens to be operating in 3 different modes just to avoid the idea of a trinity!