Meadow77,
If the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are three separate entities as well as three separate persons, they simply have to be three separate Gods. There is nothing in human experience and nothing in the Scriptures that is so unscientific and so contrary to reason. You gave the example of a man and his wife. While they become one in marriage, they remain two separate humans and two separate persons. Their persons are not made into one human being. So, the very idea of the Trinity is totally absurd. One + one + one always equals three, never just one.
God is never addressed in the Bible as they, but always as he. He never calls himself us or we, but always I or I myself.
I am not a JW, and I agree their teaching that Jesus is Michael has no support in the Scriptures. But I find it interesting that trinitarians like to make an issue of this. They do the same thing. For example, three angels visited Abraham, and since one of them is called the Lord, Trinitarians say that the angel was Christ. An angel visited Joshua and called himself the commander of the army of the Lord. (Joshua 5:14) Often Trinitarians will say that the angel was none other than Christ. So trinitarians and JWs are really showing inconsistency and dishonesty when they criticize each other on that count.
Trinitarians really shouldnt criticize JWs on the matter of a second lesser god either. As I mentioned above, Trinitarians really believe in three Gods, though they wont admit it. They speak of God the Father (1), God the Son (2) and God the Holy Spirit (3). Still, in their minds, there are not three Gods, but only one. So, can you understand why both Trinitarians and JWs leave the rest of us scratching our heads in amazement?
Its not my intention to belittle you in any way. Yet, I have to call your attention to some ideas that you and other Trinitarians are hung up on. Your concepts of the terms god, lord and worship are not Bible concepts.
The Scriptures tell us there is only one Almighty God. (1 Corinthians 8:4) The Father is the only true God (John 17:3). He alone is the one and only God. (John 5:44) But, according to Jesus, others may be called gods. He asked his Jewish opponents, "If he called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture cannot be broken), do you say of him, whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, 'You are blaspheming,' because I said, 'I am the Son of God'? (John 10:35, 36) Jesus was here referring to Psalm 82:6 where the judges of Israel are addressed as gods. They were gods because they represented God. They spoke for him, and their message was to be treated as if it came from God himself, for indeed it had. In that same sense Jesus is God. If the judges of ancient Israel were worthy to bear that title, he was entitled to it even more so.
Similarly, angels were often called the Lord or Jehovah. That was because they were to be viewed as if God himself were present and speaking. And so, just because Jesus is called Lord, that does not make him Almighty God. As you pointed out, he is called Mighty God, but never Almighty God, a title reserved for the Father alone.
Worship in Scripture is offered not only to God but to human persons who hold positions of dignity. The point is obscured in translation by the fact that the Greek verb proskuneo is translated into English as worship of God but doing obeisance to humans. According to the meaning in Hebrew, the king of Israel was to be worshipped in association with God. (1 Chronicles 29:20) Daniel was worshipped. (Daniel 2:46) In Greek the situation is the same. The original word translated as worship is sometimes translated into English as bow down to or do obeisance to. (Revelation 3:9) Jesus is worshipped as Messiah, but only one person, the Father, is worthy of worship as God. It is highly significant that another Greek word, latreuo, which is used of religious service only, is applied exclusively to the Father.
You are also mistaken with regard to the name Emmanuel. Yes, it literally means With us is God. But that does not mean that he was the incarnation of God. It was a common practice among Jews to embody the word God, even Jehovah, in Hebrew names. Today Emmanuel is the proper name of many men, none of whom are incarnations of God.
The birth of "Immanuel" was intended as a sign for Ahaz. A comparison of Isaiah 7:16 with 8:1-4 and Isaiah 7:14 with 8:18 makes it apparent that Emmanuel was the name of one of Isaiahs sons, and surely he was not God.
Im familiar with Colwells rule, and I agree that the New World Translation has it wrong at John 1:1. But I can guarantee you that most other translations also have it wrong. All that Colwell did was show the possibility of God instead of a god. He really never proved one way or the other. So, there are a few translations that do much better than most of the others. For example, the New English Bible says, What God was, the Word was. And a modified Moffatt translation says, the Word was divine. These renderings are better because, as other scholars have pointed out, theos should not be taken as definite but instead as qualitative, thus emphasizing the nature of the Word, rather than its identity.
Jesus is not God the Father. Trinitarians call him God the Son. But what happens when you substitute God the Son for the Word? John 1:1 then says, in effect, In the beginning was God the Son, and God the Son was with God the Father, and God the Son was God the Father. Such a teaching is the heresy of Sabellianism or Modalism, making Jesus to be God the Father.
Both Trinitarians and JWs are also in error by assuming that Word should begin with a capital letter. Logos appears 36 times in Johns Gospel, but it begins with a capital W only the first 4 times, all in chapter 1. Hardly anyone ever asks why this is. Everywhere else in the New Testament logos refers to words, sayings or ideas. It should refer to the same in John 1, but Trinitarians and JWs make it into a person and say that it is the preexistent Jesus. Just as the words of God have become a book, John 1:14 shows that those same words became a man of flesh, namely, Jesus.
You make some pretty strong statements that are unprovable. For example,
There are experts on the subject who do not agree that John 1:1 cannot be adequately translated.
The Greek grammatical construction leaves no doubt whatsoever that this is the only possible rendering of the text.
Christ, if He is the Word made flesh (John 1:14), can be no one else except God unless the Greek text and consequently Gods Word be denied.
There are plenty of people who know better, and they would express themselves much more cautiously than you have ventured to do.
You also pretend to be a mind reader in attempting to explain why the New World Translation doesnt agree with trinitarianism. You wrote: Jehovahs Witnesses, in an appendix in their New World Translation (pp. 773777), attempt to discredit the proper translation on this point, for they realize that if Jesus and Jehovah are One in nature, their theology cannot stand since they deny that unity of nature. I think such a statement is mere guesswork at best and sheer presumptuousness at worst. There are several scholars who see just as much validity in the NWT rendering as what they see in translations produced by Trinitarians.
So, you jump to the conclusion: The refutation of their arguments on this point is conclusive. It is nothing of the kind. It is absurd to state, as if you really know, that the NWT is a product of pseudo-scholarship. Only a trinitarian would say that, simply because it doesnt support his own speculative theology.
Its quite obvious that you havent done your own thinking on John 1:1, 2. As I read your explanation it became plain to see that you were merely copying from what another Trinitarian had written. I urge you, Meadow77, to read and study the Bible without the influence of other dogmatic men. Otherwise, you become almost as much in bondage as the JWs. As you read, you should think and pray. Let the Bible speak to you personally. Stop letting other blind persons lead you astray with pagan teachings such as the Trinity, doctrines that are ridiculous on their own merit and that are not found in the Bible at all.
Your argument for the personality of the Holy Spirit is still very weak. The Bible often speaks of the spirit as the power of God. We ourselves have a dominant spirit that motivates us and urges us to action. With enthusiasm and gusto we accomplish much more than we can with no energy and when we are listless. God is a God of dynamic energy, and to describe that driving force by which he accomplishes all things as his spirit is most appropriate.
You make too much of an issue about Jesus being the first and the last. The first and the last what? Do you really know what he means? Are you suggesting he was the first to come into existence and the last person who will exist? God is without beginning and without end, so anyone who is the first and the last is not necessarily God.
Pardon me for laughing under my breath, but how did you come up with the idea that I AM is Gods true name according to the Jews? Neither in ancient times nor in modern times have the Jews been known to speak of God as the great I AM. Again, the influence of other persons rather than the Bible itself is manifesting itself in what you believe and say.
And no matter how you try to reason it out, the Bible nowhere states that Jesus was executed for blasphemy. That is a Trinitarian idea, pure and simple, totally unsupported by a single passage of Scripture. Men were paid to speak against Jesus, yet none were reported to have said that he claimed to be God. Really!!!
Please understand that I havent responded to your post with an attitude of ridicule. Nevertheless, it is very noticeable that your train of thought isnt coming from the heart. Its so plain to me that, just like the JWs, you are simply repeating what other men have told you to think and speak.
Herk
