@issacaustin wrote:
[Jesus'] god is the Father. That simply shows submission to the decision-maker by the agent who carries out those decisions. That does not disprove the Father and Son sharing the same nature.
@djeggnog wrote:
You are correct on all three fronts in what you say here.... While it is true that all of the angels of God -- and that would include Jesus and Satan -- are spirit beings, gods that are all sharers of the same divine nature as Jehovah, after Jesus' resurrection, only he came to share bodily that divine quality of which only Jehovah had been in possession, immortality. (Colossians 1:19; 2:9) So it is only with respect to immortality have both the Father and the Son become sharers of this divine quality. Those of the first resurrection will all of them be given immortality, too.
@issacaustin wrote:
They share [omnipotence], omniscience and omnipresence.
Is Jehovah almighty and all-knowing? Exodus 6:3 underscores Jehovah's almightiness and at Mark 13:32, Jesus underscores Jehovah's omniscience, when he said that "[c]oncerning that day or the hour nobody knows, neither the angels in heaven nor the Son, but the Father." Jesus attests to Jehovah, his Father, as being an all-knowing God. Although Jesus himself is now an immortal God, at John 14:28, Jesus also indicated that "the Father is greater than I am." So while it is true regarding omnipotence and omniscience that both Jehovah and Jesus share both, Jehovah's power and knowledge are without equal.
While it is true that Jesus Christ is now "Lord to the glory of God the Father" (Philippians 2:11) and after the "great tribulation" he is destined to return with his angels "in the glory of the Father" (Matthew 16:27), Jehovah has made clear in His word that "to no one else shall [He] give [His] own glory. (Isaiah 42:8) In fact, "Christ did not glorify himself by becoming a high priest, but [was glorified by him] who spoke with reference to him: 'You are my son; I, today, I have become your father,'" which promise was fulfilled when Jehovah brought Jesus back to life as His immortal Son. (Hebrews 5:5; Acts 13:32-34)
Yes, Jehovah glorified His son, Jesus, not only when He resurrected Him, thus making Jesus His spiritual Son in fulfillment of Psalm 2:7, but in His also giving to Jesus an indestructible life His own. (Hebrews 7:16)
Jehovah has committed all the judging to Jesus, so that we might "honor the Son just as [we] honor the Father ... who sent him." (John 5:22, 23) Thus Christians today honor Jesus by taking his name upon ourselves -- Jesus' name -- by declaring ourselves to the world as being Christians, and by our living up to Jesus' name by exhibiting conduct that is becoming to the Christ. To be teaching anyone that Jesus is almighty God and that he was equal to God in love, justice, wisdom and power, when Jesus didn't teach these things about himself, would be to dishonor Jesus and his name. Anyone putting faith in Jesus also puts faith in Jehovah since what things Jesus taught belonged to his father, and He it was that sent Jesus to teach us about Himself and His purposes. (John 7:16; 12:44) One more thing:
Anyone that denies the things that Jesus taught, denies the existence of the Father since Jesus is the proof that God exists.
I saved the last thing you mentioned -- omnipresence -- for last.
Where is God's house? Where does He live? What is God's location? At Acts 7:48, we read that "the Most High doesn't dwell in houses made with hands." Continuing with verses 49 and 50, same book and chapter, Stephen says "'The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What sort of house will you build for me? Jehovah says. Or what is the place for my resting? My hand made all these things, did it not?'"
God's throne is located in the heavens, the earth is God's footstool, and what kind of materials would one use to make a house in which God might dwell. So whether a structure could be made here on earth of gold, silver or some other precious stone, or even wood, God's house is not a church, not a cathedral, not a mosque, not a Kingdom Hall. It's not a house "made with hands."
A person is a "being possessing or forming the subject of personality," so God is a person, just like a man is a person, a woman is a person. A dog is not a person. A cat is not a person. Jehovah is a person, so he must have specific dwelling, for every intelligent person has location, but where is it?
So then is it true that God is everywhere at the same time, He's a part of and in everything? No, this is not true; God is not everywhere. God is somewhere. So where would we find God? Where exactly is God located? Well, what did Jesus say at Matthew 6:9? I know you know this scripture, for in the King James Version even young children learned what Jesus taught his followers to pray, "Our Father which art in heaven...." So where is God? Does this mean that God is in the sky? Is He in the clouds, or where the sun is, where the stars are, where the planets are, or in our solar system somewhere?
Our earth, it's atmosphere, our solar system, the universe cannot contain Jehovah, for King Solomon makes the point at 2 Chronicles 6:18 that "the heaven of the heavens" cannot contain Him. Now Jesus "became flesh and resided among us" we read at John 1:14, but Jehovah? He is nowhere to be found in our material universe. He's not everywhere; he's not omnipresent.
Leave the solar system past all of the stars to where the universe ends, if it so ends, and thus cross from this literal physical dimension into a spiritual dimension where the spiritual heavens is, and that is where God is, in another dimension. Isaiah 63:15 says "Look from heaven and see out of your lofty abode of holiness and beauty." This is the heaven where God makes His home, where Jehovah dwells in person.
But note what we read at Hebrews 8:1, 2 about God's dwelling place, His abode in the spiritual heavens, "We have such a high priest as this, and he has sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, a public servant of the holy place and of the true tent, which Jehovah put up, and not man." So if it were possible to get out of our universe, out of this creation, that is to say, out of our physical dimension, and enter the spiritual heavens, you would find Jehovah in the spiritual dimension where He resides in person, you would see the palatial home that Jehovah himself put up, the palace where He lives and thrones.
But the apostle Paul provides this important detail at Hebrews 9:11 that will bear out what I've said here about God's dwelling place, about this "true tent" that Jehovah put up as His own dwelling in the spiritual heavens, for he speaks about "when Christ came as a high priest of the good things that have come to pass," that he did so, "through the greater and more perfect tent not made with hands, that is, not of this creation." Isn't this what Stephen said about God's house at Acts 7:48-50? "What sort of house will you build for me?" IOW, God's 'perfect and true tent,' His abode, is not here on Planet Earth at all. You can look, but you won't find God here anywhere!
No, @issacaustin, what we see from all of this is that God's home, His dwelling place, is in the heavens, and is "not of this creation."
@issacaustin wrote:
The Father, not the Holy Spirit, is Son's god. The Holy Spirit is the helper. This explains how Jesus can be God, yet have a God.
@djeggnog wrote:
No, it [doesn't.] The fact that the holy spirit is the active force of God that can bring back to one's mind what things Jesus taught to those that have actually learned these things (John 14:26) (while the holy spirit helps one remember the things learned, it doesn't plant memories into the mind that never existed there!) doesn't explain how Jesus can be God at all. That after his resurrection, Jesus was given immortality by God explains how Jesus is now a God. That Jesus is now immortal is proof that Jesus doesn't have to be the true God to be a God himself, and the fact that [the] God that raised Jesus from the dead gave him immortality is proof that Jesus has a God, someone greater than he.
@issacaustin wrote:
Let me say this again if I said it confusingly. I don't think i worded it well. Jesus has a god- the Father, to whom the Son is eternally submissive. Jesus also is God, by nature. In a similar sense we can say Adam and Eve were Cain's head in the Garden. Yet Eve also had a head- Adam...to whom she was to be submissive, one flesh.
I think I understand part of your analogy, but let me see if I'm understanding it correctly: Jehovah, the Father, is Jesus' head, and so what you seem to be saying here is that Adam's relationship to his wife, Eve, as being Eve's head corresponds to the relationship that the Father has to His son, as being Jesus' head. Correct?
Then, to continue the analogy, Jesus is eternally submissive to Jehovah, and so Jesus is 'by nature" God, even as Eve should have been -- let's just say she was -- submissive to her husband, Adam, and so we might conclude that Eve was "by nature" Adam. I'm not sure that this is what you meant to say, but ok.
You then go on to mention that "Adam and Eve were Cain's head," but you provide no correspondency to this relationship. I believe it could be said that Cain was "by nature" Adam and Eve, since Cain and his parents possessed human nature, but the correspondency I'm missing here is how Cain's submissiveness to his parents relates to anyone else? Do you mean to refer to the submissiveness of the angels in heaven? Or, do you refer to something else altogether? Please clarify this.
@The Finger:
c'mon djeggnog in your heart you know Jesus isn't an angel.
Well, even if Jesus is no longer an angel, then he is certainly a new creation, and so would each one of those in union with Christ be, "a new creation" (2 Corinthians 5:17), each one having spiritual sonship and indestructible lives, all of these created Gods having immortality. Like the apostle Paul wrote at Galatians 6:15, a "new creation is something"!
@djeggnog
