Who is God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit? (page 2)

Mondo1

sanjanicole,

You wrote:
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What about Scriptures such as Matthew 3:16 "...and he saw the Spirit of God descending" the greek words here, according to the concordance, mean an angel, or (divine) God, a deity, the Supreme Divinity God - so where do you get that He is just an IT, and in Hebrews 1:8 "But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne,o God..." again we have the same use of words in Greek, Jesus is depicted as God.-------------------

It seems that you are looking at a concordance and not a lexicon. The word translated spirit, PNEUMA, does not mean any of those things that you provided. Those are various applications. In other words, those are things that the word is used of, but none of those are what the word means. The basic meaning is breath or wind. It refers to various things beyond that, including one's mental inclination and our very life force. For Hebrews 1:8, remember that this is a quote from Psa. 45:6, originally addressed to the Jewish king. It is no problem to use the word "god", QEOS, for others. It carries with it various senses, outside of the one Almighty God. Hence the angels of Psa. 8:5 are called gods, and so are the judges of Israel in Psa. 82:6.

Mondo

Star Moore

Dear Sanja,

You are right as far as there is the 3, in the bible..

The father, the son and the holy spirit.

But the original definition of the trinity way back when, is that the 3 are the same being. all one person, and one God. Do you believe that? Also do you feel that, that is in the bible?

Now I believe he is in "nature" equal to the father or divine. Not that he and the father are the same person. but only equal in nature. I think this is why the Jews tried to stone him for they said that by Jesus saying he was God's son - he was making himself equal to God.

Lil, Do you mean by the same 'nature', that they are both spirits?

I think the pharisees imagined, he was making himself equal to God, as in Phil. 2:6 "He gave no consideration to be equal to God." NWT or NIV "he did not consider equality to God something to be grasped".

I realize there is a lot of debate..about the 1st part of that scripture, 'although being in the same nature of God.. or in God's form'...

I take the 1st part to mean, that he was the image of God..

lovelylil

Star,

What I mean by same in nature is not that they are both spirits but that in essential form and being, all the sum qualities that make God "God" are present in the Son. That is why Jesus is the "image of the invisible God" (colossians 1:15) and another scripture says "the exact representation of God's being" (Hebrews 1:3) Think of looking in a mirror. If you looked in one you would see your exact image represented in it. The same with Jesus and the heavenly father. He is the exact image of God and thus if you have seen him - you have seen the father too. But it goes one step further in that not only is Jesus the "exact image of God" he also posseses every quality that God does and therefore in essence, nature, and form and in his very being, he is equal to God.

The Jews wanted to stone him when he said he was the "Son of God" for they knew if he was the Son of God - he would have to be equal in nature and essence to God but NOT in his position to the father as he said himself "the father is greater than I". To the ancient Jews - they thought Jesus was blaspheming as at the time he said he was God's son they probably thought he was just a propet somewhat like Moses but only a little greater. But the whole concept that anyone could be equal to God in any way would be incomprehendable to them.

Here is an example you can relate to: My husband is superior in position to my son but they are both equal in their nature as they are both humans. As two humans they posses the same qualities.

I know this is a very hard concept to grasp. I am still learning more on it each day. The text you brought out in Phillipians is a good one because it shows that even being an equal with God - Jesus did not think he was too superior that he could not empty himself and take on a lesser form for our benefit.

The understanding of Jesus true relationship to the Father can explain why all the OT titles that are applied to Jehovah are applied to Jesus in the NT and yet Jesus is not the heavenly father. But this is another topic and I do not want to steal this thread. Lilly

sanjanicole

it is true that the Greek word used in htis text, pnyoo - mah, means breath or wind but it also translates the things i mentioned, in other contexts it is translated as ghost, life, spirit, mind but as far as the origional translations it means a current of air i.e breath (blast) or a breeze, (superhuman) angel, or (divine) God

sanjanicole

Somebody was asking about Philippians 2:6-7 "Who being in the formof God thought it not robbery to be equal qith God. But made Himslef in form of a servant adn was made in likeness of man" the Greek word for God here is Thehos and means the supeme divinity

as i see it it says he saw it not robbery to be equal with God, but he chose to make Himslef a servant that He may save the fallen man. It was His own choice to step down from the throne and become a man, He didn't have to, nobody made Him do it.

Another thing is that in Genesis God is listing everything that He created and He starts with the earth, and then He goes on saying let US make, now if God had to create the Son and the Holy Spirit, if they weren't part of the divinity wouldn't you think He would think that was important information for us to know. Aftar all He did tell us that He created the angels, He even created Licufer, right. So why did He fail to tell us about creating Jesus and the Holy Spirit?

sanjanicole

It is true that it does not say in the Bible that you have to believe in the trinity to be saved, our Gospel is 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 "For i delivered unto you first of all that which i also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures"

But that is not to take His divinity away from Him,

Mondo1

sanjanicole,

Your definition of pneuma is simply incorrect. It does not mean angel, superhuman, divine or God. These are not meanings of the word. You seem to be mixing up *application* with meaning.

Further, I would suggest that you look for a better translation of Phil. 2:6. Any translation that says "thought it not robbery" or uses the word "nature" in the text, is quite simply lacking. These are not accurate translations of the Greek in that verse.

Mondo

sanjanicole

King James Vrsion of Philippians 2:6 says "Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God" now in hte KJV if something is added to the origional text it is in italics, this verse, however, does not have any italics in it.

American Standard says "who, eisting in the form of God, counted not the being on an equality with God a thing to grasp,"

New International Version says "who, being in very nature (in the form of) God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped."

Now what everyone has failed to mention is the last part of this verse...a thing to be grasped, that means that this is somethnig beyond our understanding.

The translation of the Greek in Strong's Concordance works as follows; the words that come before : - are the actual tranaslations of the word itself, after it are words that are just used to describe the word translated. So all the definitions i gave you came before,and the words following it were x Exceeding God, god (-ly, -ward).

I also asked for a Scripture where it clearly states that God Almighty created the Son and the Holy Spirit?

Mondo1

sanjanicole,

The key is that Strong's is a concordance, it is not a lexicon. It shows how the KJV translators translated a verse in a specific place. Simply because they translated a word a certain way does not mean that the word means that. For example, in Psalm 8:5 the Hebrew texts reads ELOHIM, yet the KJV translates it as "angels." ELOHIM never *means* angels, but the LXX translated it as AGGELOS, because the referent is the angels as ELOHIM (gods), so the KJV translators simply translated the text in line with an interpretation, not according to what the Hebrew itself means.

In contrast, a Lexicon will show you the actual meanings of a word. I would suggest you drop Strongs if you want to understand word meaning.

For Phil. 2:6, "a thing to be grasped" has nothing to do with our understanding. The text is saying that Jesus did not view equality with God as something he should reach after and try and take. He did not view this equality as "a thing to be grasped." Verse 7 tells us what he did do in contrast to this, which is what he didn't do.

Now, for a text that clearly shows Jesus as created, I would point you to Revelation 3:14, where ARCH is translated as "beginning" and according to A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, "the [meaning] beginning='first created' is linguistically probable." [emphasis added] This text, according to the Nestle-Aland 27th Edition Greek New Testament is an allusion to Proverbs 8:22, which speaks of Wisdom being "created" as the first of God's works.

Mondo

sanjanicole

Mondo,

You are right that Ps. 8:5 translates the word elohim as angel, and the concordance does not say it means agel either, eccept, just like i explained it, the translation comes after :- which menas that it is an added translation of the word itself.

Who is God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit?

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