Debate: Is Jesus God or the Son of God?

So it's all that we need. Only sufficient, but the only thing that couldn't be done for okay.

So we don't need baptism then because it's the only thing. Is it. Is it the only thing or is it not do you need to be baptized or not? Because if you need to be baptized, it's not sufficient.

It is true that you are an extremely skilled debater and you're good. This is apologetics live to answer your questions your host from striving for eternity ministries.

We are live apologetics live here to answer your most challenging questions you have about god and the bible. As we say every week I can answer any question that you have about god in the bible no matter how hard it is.

And if you think that I can't answer your question Just do a favor go to apologetics live .com. Scroll down till you see the participate icon there that duck icon for streamyard join us. And ask me your hardest question.

Just remember one thing I don't know is a perfectly good answer. I didn't say i'd give you a satisfying one. I just told you I could answer All right, so we are a ministry of striving for eternity. We're here every thursday night 8 to 10 eastern time to Well do apologetics show apologetics explain apologetics.

The Question of Jesus' Identity

So that is what we're doing tonight. What we're going to do is someone that I had an interaction with on twitter. Oh, sorry x. What a weird name, but that that's a musk thing. He he just is like that I guess so.

Uh, I I had a and I don't even remember how we got into a discussion. Maybe andrew will his name is also andrew. So that's going to be fun but at least you know, we don't have aaron or You know the other andrew that we call drew here, right?

You know all the a's so, uh, we're going to discuss well originally I know we got into discussing whether jesus christ was god or not. And first off i'm going to say, uh Kudos to andrew because as this audience knows the regular audience.

There are many people who like to challenge me only on keyboards. And we invite them to come on in and have a discussion and they don't want to do that. I don't think i'm that scary. I hope not but uh, andrew said he would and so we dialogue now, I will say I I asked for the the title of Discussion debate.

It's not going to be a formal debate.

But.

We're gonna we're gonna have a discussion. I I suggested the topic Of is jesus God or not god and he he wanted to To debate or discuss the topic as we have Is jesus god or the son of god, which which I said to him that's going to be really hard I think for him because I'm, just going to get play my hand.

I played it to him already. The term son of god is a title of deity. So is he god or is he son of god. I'm going to say is the same thing. But let me welcome in, uh, andrew, how are you, sir?

I'm, very well. I'm glad to be here. Thank you. Uh, I appreciate the invite today and uh salute all the saints out there.

Yeah, so so for folks who who don't know you which was including me because We we just had our first conversation about 30 minutes before as we're just getting making sure all the equipment was working, right?

But uh, tell tell folks a little bit about yourself.

Uh, so, um I would. Uh, I i've been saved. I was baptized in the name of jesus christ. I went down in the water. Uh approximately eight years ago. Uh two years after that I received the holy ghost speaking in tongues.

I've been a minister in an apostolic church. And I currently and and not a formal minister, but I attend the truth of god church. First church of our lord jesus christ as uh just a regular brethren and uh.

Uh, like I said, i'm very happy to be here and I hope we have a lively discussion.

Yeah, and uh Parker parker brown says mad respect for putting putting himself out there man. That's tough Parker ben i've been on your show. It wasn't that bad. Was it? So, uh, so yeah. So let's let's get into a little bit of this.

Let me first let you do some of the talking and and explain your view and and and for folks to to know you have. As we discuss there's two two different topics we can end up discussing right. You you believe that I'm gonna i'm gonna try to be careful in my in my wording.

You believe in one god, which we both do. But you believe in one person would that be right?

Well, let me.

I'll let you explain Your view like you would not hold to a view of a trinity, correct?

That's correct. Absolutely not. We deny that.

Okay, and and you would also believe that one needs to be baptized to be saved. Is that correct? You must be baptized is the name of jesus christ as it says in acts 2 38. Okay, so so for folks, you know, um, One of the things you know for anyone new here.

You'll you'll see that being being that this is my show and I can always come back next week. Some people sometimes criticize me for letting a guest speak which I'm, sorry, but I actually think that's respectful to a guest.

Uh, but I always have next week and I we've done that before. Where we do. What we could do a whole another week explain go like last week's we did a whole show explaining when we had godless grandma on and and getting into some Background and and more than that.

So so for folks to that like to you know. Email me saying why do you leave that guy talking so much? Because he's in here to explain his view and then i'll give some challenges, but. That's how we do things here.

So so andrew, please explain explain your your views as far as um, specifically with. Let me ask this is we would you be able to? Give a definition of what you believe. When when I say trinity what I mean?

And then where you disagree with it.

Well, I think the main point of contention would be that A trinitarian or a person who teaches trinity Would say that the body of jesus christ the flesh and blood that was born of a woman Was crucified and later and died.

That you would say that that body Is god. It's divine It it is god. It's either equal to god or next to god. However, you want to describe it and we deny that we we we believe That god was in the body.

He he put himself the spirit. God is a spirit. We know that right? We know god is a spirit according to john 4 24 God is a spirit. And we know according to second corinthians 519 we know that.

That.

God was in christ. So that spirit was inside the body born of a woman. And later died. That does not describe any god. That I worship.

Okay.

So so.

Do you believe. So, how how do you believe as far as we see the father Referred to as god, right?

Yes, sir. Yes. Okay, of course. Yes many places in the in the text describe that yes.

Okay, do you believe the holy spirit is god?

Yes we uh.

If you don't mind me cutting in to make this maybe a bit simpler. We believe in one god with many functions. But not different persons or personalities.

Yeah, right. So would you. And and i'm i'm asking questions just for clarity for you know people listening and for myself as as we get into discussion when you say functions uh, there's some who refer to as modes so.

Like he was in the mode of the father in the old testament and mode of jesus. When he walked the earth in the mode of the holy spirit. Now would that be the same or would it be? Is there a difference between modes and functions?

Well.

The only reason I don't like the word mode. Is the same reason I don't like the word oneness.

Or.

When uh, we like to categorize people by Who we say they are. I don't like to put labels on things i'm i'm strictly by the holy scriptures. So sometimes when we debate people i'm not saying that you do or I do but this is what happens sometimes.

Is that we say? Oh, you're catholic or oh, you're a modalist or. Fill in the blank and we pigeonhole people and it shuts down.

Teaching.

And learning simultaneously. It just shuts everything down. So I really. Don't. I try to stay away from labels and I I know people would like to call me a modalist or a oneness. Uh, but i'm strictly scriptural.

That's how I like to describe myself.

Okay.

And.

And and and this is the thing that you'll you'll see with me and what we do here Is to try not to take people out of context, which is why i'll ask a lot of questions. Um to to be precise with it. Uh, and that's what we we should do.

Um.

This is I mean when when we do apologetics and this is more for for the audience. But when we do apologetics one thing we don't want to do Is make the assumption if someone says.

That.

Well, say they're they say they're a muslim or they're a mormon. But well, okay, let's say mormon. This is so if they say they're a mormon. Well, okay, you'd make a mistake if you just assume well all mormons believe that they can have multiple wives.

Because that's one branch of mormonism today, but it's not the majority of mormons. So we have to be careful with labels and folks here regular listeners, you you know that i'm i'm careful with that because there's labels that get assigned to me that I don't hold up to but Uh, because I don't know what people mean by them and so.

And parker says well done andrew no time for strawman arguments that that's what we don't want to do right because that's kind of becomes a waste of time and One of the things I want folks to think about is It may be easy to make a strawman argument and and knock down What a strawman argument is where you make a false definition so you can easily knock it down.

But the person you're speaking to Recognizes what you're doing. And then can just reject everything you're saying. I mean the an example that I give is when I was uh in new york city with a muslim family.

And they explained that they understood what christianity is and defined The trinity as three gods. To which I said there's no christian that believes it's three gods. That's what the quran teaches. But it is not what christians believe.

And he's like, oh no, that's what christians believe. And I I just grabbed I had 25 other christians with me there. And I just grabbed one after another what define the trinity one after another, you know would say in some form or another one god three persons.

And so he finally was like, okay. Okay, I get the point right? Now, what did I do with anything else that person said? about christianity.

I rejected it.

Right because he doesn't know christianity. So so folks this is why we take the time In understanding and asking people questions. It does take more time, but. A it's more respectful. B it avoids the strongman arguments and Really the the more important one is.

Three you get into a more meaningful discussion, which is I hope we'll have here.

So.

With that, let me get back to you. What what's your what was your uh upbringing. Were you raised in a in any kind of christian background.

Uh, yes, sir, I was taken to a lutheran church and I spent most of my childhood teenage years and young adulthood in the lutheran church and um. If you're if you or the audience is not familiar some it's a lot like being catholic it really is and I had no desire just got upset.

I just do that. I enjoy doing that. Um, I had no desire to learn of god or learn about god or be close to god. Uh, the churches I attended were a lot like what I like to call social clubs.

Um.

We.

For instance, we we would we would all uh jockey position to get in the back bunch. And the churches I go to now everybody jockeys for position to get into the first bench. So it's a complete 180 from from uh where I started.

And and what is it that brought you from the lutheran church where you ended up apostolic church.

Uh so.

Uh, well, I got to give my wife a lot of credit. I married an apostolic woman and um. So she took me to her church.

And.

Suddenly a lot of things started to click for me a lot of things. Because I would I I never read the bible never looked at any scripture never had any desire to. But when I would glance at it, it made no sense to me.

I couldn't make sense of even the most simplest verse uh, but suddenly I had an epiphany I guess you would say.

Where.

I started to connect the dots. Things started to make sense. And I had a desire to get closer to god and to learn about the scripture and uh. That led me to uh request being baptized and. And and then uh, you know lead us to more recent events, but um, give my wife credit.

Yeah, yeah always good to give our wives credit so. So, all right, let's let's get into. At least your your understanding of who jesus is and and the these the different functions. How how would you see?

The functions of the father. The the son and the spirit. How do they how do they? I'm trying to find right words to use but how do they interact? Do you do you believe? Yeah, I know that you know, we talk modalism there right.

Modalism would say that God was the father in the old testament jesus while he walked the earth in the spirit. Now would you hold to something similar like that or would it be different and if it's different how?

Well uh.

This scripture teaches us that Uh god is holy. And that god is a spirit. If god is a holy spirit Why would he need other gods next to him? All the fullness of the godhead is inside jesus the body. Is one one spirit one god one faith one baptism?

So.

The what we say. So the bible says that that jesus was born. Um from a woman. He was made. The bible declares that he was made. Uh, he grew in stature and wisdom. Uh, he slept he ate. He was a man in the flesh.

And that god that holy spirit was inside of him. Uh jesus the man is our mediator. The go-between.

He.

Was sacrificed. Because the bible says that there cannot be any remission of sin without the shedding of blood. So he needed Blood to be shed to pay our price to pay the price of our sin now.

Uh.

We don't believe that the body of jesus existed Before he was born. Um, you know two thousand some years ago from from his mother uh that that body Later died Was buried and was rose by the power of the spirit not on his own accord.

God rose the body up. And that body became Spiritualized. It no longer was flesh and blood. It was a Spiritualized body which we saw a premonition of that on the mount of transfiguration. That was the spiritualized body of moses and jesus, right?

So.

That is the body That ascended to heaven and is currently sitting on the throne. There's one throne. And one person sitting on it. It's jesus.

So.

When the bible says that he's seated at the right hand of the father He's not literally sitting in another chair next to a spirit. The right hand obviously referred to he is the power that that spirit Uh used right hand meaning power not a literal sitting on the right hand.

Um, so let me let me try and make sure I just because i'm confused with son so it. You believe jesus is god, correct? And of course, I'm a good waiter. I ask that just as you take a sip. So you get.

Yes, I do. Just not that body of flesh and blood is not god, okay, so.

Is I I'm i'm trying to see if I can delete. Is it the spirit who is god or jesus. And because it seems like you're you're making a distinction between Him having a body or not.

But.

Jesus. Jesus inherited Jesus meaning savior. Inherited that name from his father. They they're. God's name is jesus. But not that body of flesh and blood that is his son.

Let me ask this. What what makes a a person? And if it may be a question you hadn't really thought about so I mean you're you're referring to the body, which is the material part. Uh, but is is a person made of the material?

Or is it that immaterial that.

That.

Spirit.

What is it that we that would be the a person?

You know, yeah, right. The person is not the body or even their thoughts.

Um.

We might get into another discussion if I. If I hit you real with a real hot shot here and I say our thoughts are not our own. You probably weren't expecting that. That's a whole other discussion. But uh, who are whose thoughts are our thoughts?

That's not the topic.

So who's.

Do we have. Well, let me ask it with another question. I know that's maybe not polite to do. But let me do that. Anyway, if you don't mind. Uh, so if your thoughts are your own, how do you create them?

How do you do it if my thoughts are my own? Yeah, well thought thoughts are immaterial. So now you get into the question when you're speaking of creation. You you know of an immaterial thing. It's not going to be.

The same as what we think of as creating something materially.

But uh.

Thoughts would be part of The mind which is separate from the brain. So the mind would be an immaterial That works with the physical brain. How they interact i'm not 100 sure but there seems to be a interaction between the mind and brain.

Between the physical and or material and immaterial.

But when you think of something even well, let's it can be practical thoughts, I suppose. But when you think of something like how you want to Perform An act or how you want to think about something How do you create that thought?

You.

I'll cut to the chase. You don't know how you create it because it's not yours. You didn't create it. So who created it all?

Well.

All thoughts are all lies all the time. So who who? Who is the great deceiver who who comes up with lies? Who's the original liar?

I know you're referring to Satan.

Right.

That's who that's where your thoughts come from. So did jesus have thoughts. He had god inside of him. God was like think of god like okay. This is what this is what god did. God came. God came to earth and he put on a giant jesus overcoat.

And walked around.

Okay.

So.

Do do we as christians have the spirit indwelling us?

Which spirit?

The holy spirit the the promised spirit that we see in jeremiah. And ezekiel for the promise of the new covenant that the spirit would Would be within us and teach us god's word. We would no longer need a a priest.

A priesthood because the spirit would reveal god's word to us.

Uh.

Some do yeah.

So then are those thoughts then divine?

Yeah, wait jesus.

You would say that we can have divine thoughts. Would that make us divine?

No.

No, your thoughts are not your own. But so you can't you can't claim them as your own or you can't claim them as your identity because they're not yours.

Were they jesus's?

God was inside of him doing all the work. Yes.

But if god was inside of jesus doing all the work and god is the holy spirit is within us. Are we then god the way jesus was?

No.

No, we are not his only begotten son. We are adopted, isn't it?

Well.

I I guess we could get into a discussion of what it means to be the only begotten son.

No, I was born. You know, I had a mother and a father and I was conceived and you know grew up. Just like every other person. But uh, i'm not. I wasn't begotten by by the father, okay.

But.

Okay, so I don't want to go down the road of the the thoughts too much. But it it was it's interesting but.

I just want to hit you with that hot take and take a take a little break from uh, Uh one god, but i'm happy to go back to to what we started with. Yeah.

Yeah, no, I mean I I'm trying to track with you and and I haven't heard that before so it's interesting and so part of me Is i'm naturally curious so i'd probably want to spend a lot of time on that. And the audience be like hey you made it switched us but um.

So so.

You believe the spirit Indwelt jesus. So jesus was a A physical being that was born and created. You you don't believe that. Let me ask it as a question instead as a statement. Do you believe that jesus? always existed.

The spirit not the body.

Okay.

Okay.

And and that's what makes me go to what is the person right. Because I mean I I would say that jesus Is god? And the person of jesus the person of the son took on flesh Had an existence before. Right, um.

So.

It's what makes jesus God that he was indwelt with the holy spirit.

Well, let me. Let me ask let me answer the first part of what you just said and maybe it'll clear up the second part.

So.

What I teach is word for word In the scriptures and we can get to that if you like.

But.

Uh, my opposition to trinity is that it is not word for word in the scripture. It must be brought out through a process that that you'll call exegesis. What the the things that you profess with trinity are not word for word.

And now when we when we when we have a witness. To say a criminal proceeding. We will always take the side of the eyewitness Over second-hand witness or hearsay. In fact hearsay is often disregarded in a court of law, but if somebody has word for word firsthand knowledge of something that takes precedent over any style of interpretation of the bible.

So when the bible says to us Hear oh israel. Our lord. God is one lord. That takes precedent over anyone that thinks that there are three persons because three the word trinity the word three persons Never appears in scripture.

Okay, but one lord is. I could give you Right off the top of my head without even working hard. I could give you 10 verses that say that there is just one lord. There is none beside him.

He has no equals. He has no rivals, but we're not gonna we're not going to disagree with that. We believe there's only one god.

So that so since we know that We can now we know that there's just one we know that there's none next to him. He has no equal. There's not a pre-existing second person. Because we know that he has one and there's not there's none next to him.

Do you. Do you believe that. Would you. You believe in the bible.

Every word word for word.

Do you believe that god is omniscient?

We we call it holy scriptures, by the way, because there's no there's nothing that says it's a bible. We like to say holy scriptures. Okay, do you believe. Because that's how exact we are about the scriptures.

If that gives any indication, okay.

Yeah, so do you believe god's omniscient?

Yes.

Do you believe he's omnipresent.

Omnipresent. Yes.

Okay, and yet neither of those words are in the bible.

Or in the holy scripture. That's correct. Good job.

So so what we do with that is.

I'm, sorry. Go ahead. No, no.

Absolutely you go. Yeah, I was just gonna say so what we do is we see where it says he he knows all things and we use a A big word maybe to impress people but um omniscience just means all all knowing right?

So we use that term or label to define something That we see in scripture. Do you think that's a wrong thing to do?

No, I do not okay, but There's nothing That I read in scripture That indicates that there's two gods or two personalities but I do read in scripture where god is.

In.

Is in multiple places he has multiple functions. Uh, he's he he knows all. There's nothing that's hidden from him.

So.

To to make. That's an assumption you can make because It says it in many places there there's nowhere that you can that you can pull out that says multiple gods. Or there. Because oh. Because there's nothing there's nothing that says the opposite.

That's what I meant to say. Okay. There's nothing that says the opposite. That's that's the. That's how you tell the difference. So there's nothing that says that god is not everywhere. If there was That would be a problem.

But there isn't but there there is something that says that there is one god and there's not one next to him.

Yeah, but we we agree with that. We don't believe in three gods. We believe in one god.

You said you believe in the pre-existence of The person of jesus. Yes the person of jesus so where's he at. Separate god so where's he at.

Well.

He would be he would be in heaven. Or in you know in the heavenly host along with the father and the spirit. Technically he'd be everywhere. Because god is everywhere.

Right.

So.

The trinity is is something that was Formulated to solve a problem that we see. As as you and I both agree that the father is is god Jesus the son is god and the spirit is god.

Now.

We can agree with that and we're we're maybe we're we're honing in on our differences is.

You know.

You would say that they're.

One.

Person one being. It seems like and I would say there are three persons in one being so it's what we're both saying one godhead.

But.

Oh, you sure good. No, okay. Yeah, I would disagree with that. Um, the godhead is often Mischaracterized as all three of those things together functioning separately Existing at the same time sometimes in the same exact location.

That's incorrect. The bible tells us that all the fullness of the godhead resides inside of christ.

In him and so that's it's just the spirit. That's it. So so when jesus was being baptized.

Good, let's get to that. He's baptizing him.

The spirit is in jesus at that time.

The spirit is not the dove. Let's put it that way. But well, there's no there's no there's no dove there. There's not even a dove in in in the in the scene.

No, it's the spirit coming down like a dove. Yeah, like a dove. That's good. We still see the spirit coming down, correct?

It's a spirit.

Okay. So is that the holy spirit?

It's god. What's the difference. What's the difference. God is holy and god is a spirit. There's no difference.

But is the spirit in jesus or is it outside of jesus. In jesus? It's in jesus, but john can see it outside of jesus. Where do you get that. Because john's the one seeing the spirit descending as a dove so.

No.

No, that's a misinterpretation.

How's it a misinterpretation.

Because you're you're saying that there's a literal. Either a sight of a dove or or of another entity. Descended as a dove like a dove which means peace which means peacefully calmly.

So.

Well, let's let's look at this is i'm just going to read matthew 3 16. It says after being baptized.

Um.

It was this. Uh, yeah, uh after after being baptized jesus came up immediately from the water. And behold the heavens were opened. And he so this is speaking of john saw the spirit of god Descending as a dove not saying he was a dove.