Was Jesus Divine?

First of all, let me just say that I am opening this thread for the purpose of discussing whether or not Jesus should be worshipped as the one and only Son of God.

If you want to post shit like christians are stupid, you all are sheep, you preach hate - well you have done a very good job of that in about 4 other threads, and I really dont care to hear worthless post that add nothing to the conversation. Only post if you have something worthwhile to say plz.

Christian theology holds that Jesus was more than just the Messiah. They hold that Jesus is God Himself. First, let’s explore a couple of New Testament verses which make it perfectly clear that Jesus was subordinate to God, and not equal to Him:



Mark 13:32 But of that day and [that] hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father. (KJV)

There are things that God keeps from Himself? Is such a thing even possible? It’s obvious that these verses contradict Jesus being equal and of the same substance as God Almighty. Christians say he’s God, and then they say he’s the Son of God. Make up your mind. Which one is he? Is he God or is he the Messiah? He can’t be both, and closer examination will show he is neither.



Ezekiel 37:23 Neither shall they defile themselves any more with their idols, nor with their detestable things, nor with any of their transgressions: but I will save them out of all their dwelling places, wherein they have sinned, and will cleanse them: so shall they be my people, and I will be their God. [24] And David My servant [shall be] king over them; and they all shall have one shepherd: they shall also walk in my judgments, and observe my statutes, and do them. (KJV)

Christians and Jews agree that chapter 37 of Ezekiel is messianic. The object of verse 24 of Ezekiel 37 is the Messiah, and it is clear that the Messiah is God’s servant, and not God Himself.



Of all chapters in the Bible, chapter 13 of Deuteronomy has always pulled at me. Let us examine this chapter in greater detail.





Deuteronomy 13:1 The entire word that I command you, that shall you observe to do; you shall not add to it and you shall not subtract from it. [2] If there should stand up in your midst a prophet or a dreamer of a dream, and he will produce to you a sign or a wonder, [3] and the sign or the wonder comes about, of which he spoke to you, saying "Let us follow gods of others that you did not know and we shall worship them!" [4] do not hearken to the words of that prophet or to that dreamer of a dream, for HASHEM, your God, is testing you to know whether you love HASHEM, your God with all your heart and with all your soul. [5] HASHEM, your God, shall you follow and Him shall you fear; His commandments shall you observe and to His voice shall you hearken; Him shall you serve and to Him shall you cleave. [6] And that prophet and that dreamer of a dream shall be put to death, for he had spoken perversion against HASHEM, your God Who takes you out of the land of Egypt, and Who redeems you from the house of slavery to

make you stray from the path on which HASHEM, you God, has commanded you to go; and you shall destroy the evil from your midst.

 

So, what are the lessons gleaned here? First off, we are to never alter the precepts of the Torah, we are never to add to it nor subtract from it. Secondly, we are not to follow gods that we did not know. Did my ancestors from 2, 500 years ago or earlier know Jesus as God? Did they pray to Jesus as Lord and Messiah? Of course, not. Jesus had not been born yet. The point is that we did not know a God in the form of man and since it was something we did not know, as verses 3 and 4 show, we are not to listen to these teachings. Chapter 13 of Deuteronomy is not the only chapter of the Torah that deals with false prophecy. Moses gave another warning in this regard:


Deuteronomy 18:15 A prophet from your midst, from your brethren, like me, shall HASHEM, your God, establish for you to him shall you hearken. [16] According to all that you asked of HASHEM, your God, in Horeb on the day of the congregation, saying, "I can no longer hear the voice of HASHEM, my God, and this great fire I can no longer see, so that I shall not die." [17] Then HASHEM said to me: They have done well in what they have said. [18] I will establish a prophet for them from among their brethren, like you, and I will place My words in his mouth; He shall speak to them everything that I will command him. [19] And it shall be that the man who will not hearken to My words that he shall speak in My name, I will exact from him, [20] But the prophet who willfully shall speak a word in My name, that which I have not commanded him to speak, or who shall speak in the name of the gods of others that prophet shall die. [21] When you say in your heart, ":How can we know the word that HASHEM has not spoken?" [22] If the prophet will speak in the Name of HASHEM and that thing will not occur and not come about that is the word that HASHEM has not spoken; with willfulness has the prophet spoken it, you should not fear him.


Didn’t Apostles such as Paul believe and preach that the return of Jesus would occur within their lifetimes? It didn’t happen. What can we learn from this? That these teachings were foreign to the core of Judaism, that it was not the word of the Lord and that we should neither fear nor trust those who spoke it. To further magnify this point, let us look at the beginning of the Ten Commandments:


Exodus 20:2 I [am] the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. [3] Thou shalt have no other gods before me. (KJV)

Contemplate the importance of this commandment for a moment. "No other gods before Him." Christians will contend that Jesus IS God, claiming they don't have any other gods before Him, but as noted in the verses from the New Testament quoted above, it is plain to see that not only was Jesus separate from God, but he was NOT God. What do we have if we pray to Jesus? We have polytheism.

 

From Deuteronomy 34:10-12, we learn that Moses was the greatest prophet of all time, whom God knew "face to face." He taught us everything there is to know about the nature of God.



Numbers 23:19 God [is] not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do [it]? Or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good? (KJV)



Psalms 146:3 Put not your trust in princes, [nor] in the son of man, in whom [there is] no help. (KJV)

From this, we learn that God is NOT a man. When God appeared before Moses prior to the delivering of the Ten Commandments, God made His presence known amidst a cloud of smoke. If He were a man, why didn’t the Holy One, Blessed be He, take on physical form and appear as a man? The answer is amazingly simple: God is infinite, and incorporeal. To take on physical form would limit the limitless, and He would not take on physical form because that might have led the Israelites to idolatry.

On a slightly different note, didn’t Jesus refer to himself quite often as the Son of Man? Aren’t we to learn from Psalm 146 that there is no help to be had from the Son of Man? There’s a reason why Jesus called himself this. Jesus was a Jew, and as such, there are things that Christians who deify him will miss. It is quite likely that Jesus was trying to prevent his followers from deifying him.

What reason is there to think that Jesus is God? What reason is there to think that ANY man is God? So a man shows you signs and wonders, and a couple of people claim he rose from the dead. How do you test a man to know that he’s God? What could Jesus possibly have done to prove He was G-d, especially given the text of the New Testament, which makes it plainly clear that he was subordinate to God? That which is subordinate to God must be SEPARATE from God.


In an occasion that keeps Christian apologists fumbling, we have the following passage, from Matthew and Mark:


Matthew 19:16 And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life? [17] And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? [there is] none good but one, [that is], God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. (KJV)


Mark 10:17 And when he was gone forth into the way, there came one running, and kneeled to him, and asked him, Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life? [18] And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? [there is] none good but one, [that is], God. (KJV)

 

These verses present a back-breaking problem to a Christian who believes in Jesus as God, because Jesus states emphatically that he wasn't. The translators of NIV were quick to recognize the problem, and adjust their text accordingly:

Matthew 19:16 Now a man came up to Jesus and asked, "Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?" [17] "Why do you ask me about what is good?" Jesus replied. "There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, obey the commandments." (NIV)

It's very slick, it's very sneaky. And it's also very sloppy. See the same scene below from Mark in NIV:

Mark 10:17 As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. "Good teacher, " he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" [18] "Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good--except God alone." (NIV)

NIV's rendering of this passage from Mark's Gospel makes the point even more clearly than King James did.

Jesus makes it clear that he is the son of God, which for no reason should be taken literally. All Jews can be considered sons of God. See Hosea 11:1. Even others can be under that terrific label.

Matthew 5:9 Blessed [are] the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.

Christians will object, saying that of course this isn’t to be taken literally. Well, neither is it to be taken literally with Jesus! Gentiles come to the New Testament with a clean slate, without a true understanding of what came before. Well, the Jews can view the New Testament from a different perspective, the proper perspective.

Jesus wasn’t God. The worship of Jesus is precisely what God warned us against.

The plain fact is that there is not a single verse in the entire New Testament that makes the claim that Jesus is God. If such verses did indeed exist, then Christianity wouldn’t be splintered into so many hundreds, if not thousands, of sects, and the councils of Nicea and Constantinople would not have taken place to determine Jesus’ divinity.

Hebrews 5:8 Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered; (KJV)

God Almighty needed to learn obedience? Isn’t God all knowing? Does He not know everything?

John 14:28 Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come [again] unto you. If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I. (KJV)

Jesus clearly states that he is less than God. That which is less than God cannot be the same as God.

 

Luke 2:52 And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man. (KJV)

Would God grow in wisdom and stature? Would God grow in His own favor? It is noteworthy that this verse from Luke’s Gospel bears a remarkable resemblance to another Biblical verse:



1 Samuel 2:26 And the child Samuel grew on, and was in favour both with the LORD, and also with men. (KJV)


Also, there is this verse to consider.

John 17:3 And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.


The fact remains. Nowhere even in the New Testament is it taught that Jesus is part of a triune godhead. Nowhere does he make the claim that he was God. Nowhere in the New Testament is there the reason to believe that he is God.

 

There is no such thing as divine, except as a mental concept.

All things in creation are made out of the same clay. Some creations are aware of this. Some are not.



x

 

I often tend to not respond to threads like this because there is so much stuff posted in 5 posts, I don't want to spend my time writing out a response. addressing everything

 

Scriptures where Jesus directly claims to be the Son of God

John 5:25 I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live.

John 10:36 what about the One Whom the Father set apart as His very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse Me of blasphemy because I said, `I am God's Son'?

John 11:4 When He heard this, Jesus said, "This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God's glory so that God's Son may be glorified through it."

John 17:1 After Jesus said this, He looked toward heaven and prayed: "Father, the time has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son may glorify You."

Mark 14:61-62 But Jesus remained silent and gave no answer. Again the high priest asked Him, "Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?" "I am," said Jesus. "And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven."

Scriptures where Jesus indirectly claims to be the Son of God (or God)

Matthew 11:27 John 8:58-59

Scriptures where Jesus allows other to call him the Son of God (or God)

Matthew 4:3-7;16:15-17 John 1:49-50;11:25-27;20:28 Luke 3:21-22

Verses where the narrator of a gospel calls Jesus the Son of God (or God)

John 1:1;1:18 3:16-18;20:31

 

so which is he?

 

Since we're quoting the Bible so much (and for this topic, I don't see an alternative) do you think we should move this over to Sanctuary?

 

Okay so I'm only going to share what it is that I know myself to be true. (For me).

Before Jesus was concieved immaculately, he wasn't God. However, God knew the plan the whole time. It wasn't until Jesus' ressurection that he became the living God. Jesus performed miracles with God's grace. What you say is true about Jesus (at that time being unequal to God). This seems evident to me because Jesus still prayed to God his father many times in his life and in his hour of death. "Why have you forsaken me?" "Forgive them, they know not what they do". However, three days after he died..or even longer, some may argue.. Jesus DID then, become equal to God, as he was meant to be. The same entity. With different faces. That is why the sign of the cross in Catholic practice is so balanced. The Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. At this time in history, there cannot be one without the other.

 

Well, I didn't want to post in the Sanctuary, b/c it's for Christians only.

From a Christian perspective, questioning the Divinity of Jesus might not be acceptable. who knows.

 

Well if god could empty himself (in the words of St Paul), does that then place limits onto what God can do if he became a man, and therefore, is not longer all powerful?

 

Xexon, you can't be serious?

What about the divine spark we, as humans, have, or divine love or divine realization? All humans are divine, the only difference is levels of realization and soul development.

 

no I don't view it as limits. the bible constantly reminds us of Jesus' humanity as well as his divinity (after the crucifixion). It is exactly what you say. God became flesh. Flesh as in human flesh, but still touched by God. The limits are the realities of the truth that human flesh can be killed, can become angry, can cry, can feel pain. This was the mystery. Catholics are tought about the 5 mysteries.

 

Sorry Im still not clear of your views.

So do you think that the conscienceness Jesus had is attainable by all of us?

 

No, I don't. God only chose one to do his work on Earth. It is said that Jesus will have a second coming, but it's never said that anybody else could be anywhere nearly as holy as Jesus. The closest thing is the Pope of course since he's the earthly embodiment of what is truly holy. I probably don't convey my thoughts that well but did that help at all?

 

Although I have severe disagreements about the Pope, I wont address that now.


So, none of us can even come close to Jesus? then why should we even try, if we are not to do God's work?

 

Didn't Jesus say;
"What i have done you shall do also and more." ...although this could be from dead sea scrolls or aquarian gospel ...i forget.

... kinda hints strongly towards us all being just the same as he.

The pope being the earthly embodiment of what is truly holy is a joke.

 

One of my favorite quotes from the bible is

Luke 17:20-21

20 And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation:
21 Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for behold, the kingdom of God is within you.


That to me says that we are all divine, we are all holy. Rather than looking to someone else to tell us what is right or wrong (pope, church, religious leaders) we should just look inside ourselves.