JW's are semi-trinitarians and do not understand the Sacret Secret (page 3)

paradisebeauty

@ millie 210

About the trial and crucifixion - apparently it lasted more than the jw's say. And he was really in the grave 3 days and 3 nights, not 2 nights and one day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFf5HgJq5wY

At least what the jw's could have done was to get their timeline right.

I learned more in the last 2-3 months about the Bible than I learned in 12 years of being a jw.

I think they do no real Biblical research. They take for granted what is left from Russel and Rutherford and try to adapt it as they go without real Biblical research.

i like how fine you emphasize or underline the thought that we as christian belief in "a cooperation between God and man nature", a fine word. That is our belief all about. So i think too. What mankind is longing for: eternal justice, eternal truth, eternal love is thus achievable.

Achievement is possible because, so i think, in this cooperation only God is the donor and men the recipients.

short >>>The divine saves, the human is saved, God is saviour, men are saved.(whatever "saved of").

Now the question comes up, if God is love and wants to save us, why didnt he do it earlier in the history and

why doesnt he save us itself instantly out of love, why would a loving God send a spiritual being/angel called "Michael" send to earch, give him another name, called Jesus, and make him "flesh" solely to let him die, why should his death have any necessity and value, in the framework of the salvation, if only a divine God can bring salvation > and no man can save?

No muslim would understand the necessity that a man has to die for other men. And no Jew believes that, because the Jews taught that no one has to die for another man.

The notion of God that here is constructed through misunderstood biblereading is horrible, it makes of a loving God a monster. Biblicism pur. Then jesus would not have had a free decision at all, he had to die because he had to fulfill the prophesy, he had to loyal in a big issue, in a judicial chimera, that originated in an unkind notion of God of unkind people.

You say that jesus is the door to salvation, but he was not divine, only man, only a human "doorkeeper" who made oral messages "divine" messages and than disappeared from the scene, a good tool, a good prophet that told men that only God is the saviour and that after God would have resurrected after 3 days, him the only-man, he would be what...

- a "perfect" human proof of the fact that only God can save and resurrect and fulfill prophesies an make tests of loyalty,, what was known anyway,

- and that only God would be allowed to decide when and how enough ransom was paid for Adams and mankinds sin, what was a fine demonstration of Gods loving kindness, how it looks like, >> a man died for the sin of others because the laws has to be fulfilled.

P.S. I only want to bring us to think about.. how import a correct understand is of basic christian teachings.

TheWonderofYou

An additional thought:

If God is the only one that can save us...

Why lately the "redeeming deed" or "redeeming act" of Jesus becomes a totally human achievement or human effort; why this human effort ----if salvation is a divine gift at all? Do we understand the "redeeming sacrifice" of Jesus correct if we think of him as an "human" sacrifice, a sacrifice of a perfect human being corresponding as redemption sacrifice for Adams + mankind sins, do we apply it correct, why did the first christians make such confessions? Was the redeeming act in fact?

dyakoub

paradisebeauty: You have a private message.

Diogenesister

Dear Spiritualbeauty I know you doing a bit of 'brain workout' only but here are my thoughts : However, Jesus' s pain and suffering was real and I am sure God's, too. If you think about, Adam was created an adult, Jesus was born a baby and grew up as a normal man, I am sure God took care of him all this time and loved him very much, just as human parents do with children.

Which is why blaming adam ( and more so Eve) was so unfair.. he was not a fully rounded man and had not had time to 'evolve' (my pun) in the normal way before being tested..no wonder they were fooled. Wonderofyou is right when he says it is allegory the story of Eden as Adam just means Earth man.

I think in the Bible there is a difference between guaranteed and foreseen. Maybe God foresees if He wants to do this but does not necessarily always does this.

This why philosophers say your Almighty God cannot exsist he cannot

Be all powerful

Be all knowing

Be all good

IF god could see into the future he could not CHANGE it as then he could not have KNOWN the future (because the future he knew is now different) Therefore he cannot be all POWERFUL (can change) AND all KNOWING at the same time.

paradisebeauty

@ The Searcher

Thank you for the research, very useful, and I'll use some of the verses you compiled.

Thanks again!

CalebInFloroda

There are too many conditions in these theories which are based solely on Watchtower theology to be acceptable to Christianity.

The original meaning of "only begotten Son" in Christianity is based on both the Semitic idiom of "son" and that used by ancient Hellenistic Roman society. Remember the "sons of thunder" of Mark 3.17? They weren't the literal male offspring of thunder. Luke 10.16's "son of peace" is not the male offspring of the absence of war. And Judas Iscariot was not the male offspring of perdition merely because Jesus called him "the son of destruction" at John 17.12.

No, a "son of thunder" is a thunderous or boisterous person, a "son of peace" is a peaceful soul and Judas met his own destruction or was destroyed. This term "son," except when used in genealogies and the like, means to be "one and the same with," or the personification of the subject.

Jesus being the "Son of God" as written in the Gospels meant in the eyes of early Christians that he was an incarnation of YHWH (though the Trinitatrian formula was still absent until at least a century later). It doesn't mean that he was literally begotten anymore than kings in David's line were literally begotten by God even though they are said to be such as at Psalm 2. The term "only begotten Son" meant that Jesus was viewed as the incarnation of YHWH, the "only" one anointed or selected to act as such a physical representation.

The JW description is primitive and has no connection to the etymology of the past. It reads the texts as if the English meaning behind words is the primary reading.

The "Son of God" cannot be a created being by definition, which is why the Nicene Creed states that Jesus is "begotten not made." (Again compare how God begets a king in David's line on the day of that king's anointing, not the day of his birth at Psalm 2.) To "beget" a king meant the day God set him on his throne or even the day he was anointed or appointed to be such a king representative of God. It never meant God directly created the ruling king.

As a Jew I don't believe in the whole Jesus or Trinity thing, but I do know the doctrine that I reject very well. I also know that the early Christians never meant to go against the principles of Shema in their theology of Jesus as "Son of God." Instead they intended that this contact with Jesus was a manifestation that required an epiphany on behalf of the believer, an epiphany like Doubting Thomas had that the one Christians were identifying as Messiah was also the God of the Shema.

As such there was no creation of a literal offspring of God to be born as a human to be Messiah. On the contrary, the Trinity doctrine was developed to explain how a God that transcends time and space could enter history while at the same time transcending it, die while at the same time remain undying, be seen while at the same time not being able to be seen.

To introduce a literal second individual who is not this same God as do the JWs would make producing the Trintiy doctrine unnecessary. But the fact that there is such a doctrine demonstrates the problems that arose when the acts attributed to Jesus of Nazareth could in no way be attributed to a mere mortal without defying Shema, something that Christians knew could never be done. The Trintiy was their solution.

paradisebeauty

To redeem human kind god needed a human being that did not have the adamic sin. So He created one.

God can give whatever power and knowledge He wants to give.

So, He gave incredible power and knowledge to this second son that he created directly.

Village Idiot

Jehovah's Witnesses are Representative Christologists who believe that Jesus, although lesser than The Father, was granted full authority to act in his place (not that they follow the full implications of their doctrine).

paradisebeauty: My personal opinion is that God created a new type of being that somehow can travel between earth ad heaven, Jesus was the first one and the other christians will be transformed in the same type of being at the rapture.

What about the angels in Noah's time?

Just prior to my disfellowshipping years ago I explained to an elder what my thoughts were. He compared the Witnesses to a barbeque grill full of coals where you have to be part of the fiery pile to continue shining (otherwise if you're separated you cool off). He was obviously giving me the "stay close to the organization" routine.

I gave him my own explanation of how I saw God and his plan. I compared God to a light source, the Holy Spirit to the light itself and Jesus to a large diamond acting as a prism in breaking down the light into its colors.

We humble humans were supposed to be pieces of dusty dirty coal that was to be compressed and transformed into diamonds through salvation. Thus a million and one diamonds were to sparkle in the light as opposed to the imperfect burning which represented our physical life.

jhine

The Searcher , with regard to the Exodus verse , who then did Abraham see in Genesis 18 ? This is one of the arguments of the Early Church Father's . There are times in the OT when The Angel of The Lord is equated with God Himself and did appear to people . The reasoning is that this is the pre-incarnate second person of the Trinity .

In the NT passages you mention it is God the Father who knows these things.

I have simplified the words of the Church Fathers because I am quoting from memory , but I hope you get the gist of it .

Jan

JW's are semi-trinitarians and do not understand the Sacret Secret

paradisebeauty: You have a private message.

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