SB what argument should I win because what you support doesn't make sense! Why God will worship to Himself, pray to Himself and subject to Himself? Jehovah never called Jesus My God, whereas Jesus call His Father " My God".
You already know the answer to this question. It was explained to you with many scriptural references to you on page 2 of this thread. The reason is because Jesus is a Tri-Partite being just like you or me.
You and every other JW continually try to frame this topic as an either or scenario. But, it is not an either or scenario, it is a both scenario. Regardless of the countless times that the Bible and Christians present a portrait of Jesus as BOTH God and Man, JW's are trained to ignore this and just keep on arguing a point that no Christian has a problem with.
Jesus, the son of Mary is just as human as you or I. As such, it is appropriate for Jesus to pray to God. If the body is all there is to Jesus, then that would be the end of the discussion....Jesus is not God - and the bible contradicts itself.
However the WT has taught a view that is foreign to the bible. It is a heresy.... one that effects other biblical doctrines.
God has explained how we are made. We are constituted of three parts - soul body & spirit.
The bible writers assume that the reader understands that fact. The view that we are only a body and that the soul is just our bad breath and your spirit is simply electricity - is a belief that is found in the modern worldview of Materialistic Naturalism, not the bible. Several false philosophies of the 18th and 19th centuries laid the groundwork in which Materialism could later take root and grow.
The WT bought into this and adopts an unbiblical materialistic belief on the nature of man.
They deny that we ourselves are anything other than a body when it comes to personhood.. Yet God says that, like him, we are a tri-partite being:
1 Thessalonians 5:23 - And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Hebrews 4:12 - For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
This is illustrated extensively throughout scripture: In language, personal pronouns denote personhood. He, she, I, they, etc. The bible assumes that the reader understands this 3rd grade grammar. For example:
Rev. 6 - I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held: And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?
See all the personal pronouns? They are disembodied PERSONS who can think, speak, remember, complain and be comforted.
The bible is full of examples like this:
1Co_5:3 For I verily, as absent in body, but present in spirit, have judged already, as though I were present, concerning him that hath so done this deed,
Isaiah 26:9 With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early
These should suffice to show that in the bible your body, soul and spirit are all characterized as YOU, AND NOT AN IT like the WT tries to present.
This understanding that the WT has told you to reject clears up why you are having such a "problem". Jesus' body is the son of Mary, making him fully man. The spirit of Jesus was God himself. "God is a spirit". God is indivisible being omnipresent So, Jesus is fully God as well.
This is why the bible calls him God's only-begotten (begotten means out of his essence) son. Angels were created but Jesus came out from the essence of the Father. This was a onetime, single solitary never-to-be-repeated event for all eternity - only-begotten.
The bible teaches that Jesus is both God and Man at the same time.
This chart illustrates how Jesus is both fully Man and fully God:
I am not saying that you have to believe any of this. But, if you continue to reject this clear biblical teaching on the nature of man, you must logically conclude that Jesus was a mad man. You certainly cannot conclude that Jesus was any sort of a good person. Good people don't run around saying they are God.
Perhaps no better example of this biblical truth is the entire exchange in John 8 where Jesus switches back and forth in one conversation from speaking as God to speaking as a man.
John 8: 24
I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins. 25Then said they unto him, Who art thou?
And Jesus saith unto them, Even the same that I said unto you from the beginning..... 27They understood not that he spake to them of the Father.
Wow! If a person doesn't believe that Jesus is Jehovah, they will die in their sins! But, then almost right away Jesus changes from speaking as God, to speaking as a man:
"And he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him."
The Pharisees are shocked at this exchange and conclude he has a demon because he speaks as BOTH a man and as God. Then Jesus again changes from talking as a man with a beginning to God with no beginning and who is the great I AM.
"Then answered the Jews, and said unto him, Say we not well that thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil? 49Jesus answered, I have not a devil; but I honour my Father, and ye do dishonour me....Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am."
There are many more examples of Jesus speaking as a man AND as God in this exchange recorded in John 8. This is because he is.
None of this is of any importance to you because the bible is a closed book to you just as the WT has taught you. The WT views the bible as belonging only to them and as such they can pick and choose which scriptures to cite in support of their lies and which ones to ignore.... just as you do. Without any embarrassment I might add.
It is shocking to people when they get a grasp of the depth of ignorance and bondage that JW's are in when they subject themselves mentally to such hucksters.
These hucksters speak as God and view their proclamations as the bible itself!
Watchtower December 15, 2008, pg. 28 – “Our
coming to know „the truth‟ - the entire body of
Christian teachings that has become part of the
Bible - and adhering to it are essential for our
salvation”.
No one would have ever believed that human ignorance could sink so far as to accept the illogical and blasphemous decrees of 8 biblically illiterate obese fat men who imagine themselves to be the Savior of the world.
Yet, talk to any JW and you will soon have proof of what is possible.
