Is Jesus God? Part 1

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Is Jesus God? Part 2

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The nature of God is a complex topic that has been at the heart of Jewish and Christian theology for centuries.
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The doctrine known as the Trinity teaches that while God is one, He is a plurality within a unity.
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The triune God eternally existed in three persons, Father, Son, and Spirit.
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At the heart of this issue is the identity of the Messiah. Is Jesus divine,
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God come in the flesh, or is He simply a created being who was designated as the
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Son of God? Tonight we debate this foundational doctrine. Four experts, two
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Trinitarians, who will argue that the triune nature of God revealed in the scripture as Father, Son, and Spirit, and the deity of the
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Messiah, are foundational truths essential to biblical faith, and two non -Trinitarians who will argue that the
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Trinity is not biblically sound, but rather has grown from historical church tradition rather than from biblical roots.
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In addition, they believe the Messiah, although the unique Son of God, is not himself a pre -existent divine being.
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Representing the latter position, let me introduce our two non -Trinitarians. First, we have
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Sir Anthony Buzzard. He's a graduate of Oxford University and Bethany Theological Seminary.
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He holds master's degrees in theology and modern languages. He served 24 years on the staff of Atlanta Bible College and serves as co -editor of a journal from the
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Radical Reformation. Joining him is Joseph Good, the founder and director of Hatikvah Ministries.
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He spent the last two decades learning and teaching Hebraic values and concepts, especially in the context of the non -Jew.
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His recent projects include very detailed research on the Temple from traditional
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Jewish historical and archaeological sources. Now, arguing for the
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Trinitarian position, Dr. Michael Brown is a published Old Testament and Semitic scholar, holding a
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PhD in Near Eastern languages and literatures from New York University. He's a well -known as a
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Messianic Jewish apologist and as the author of a five -volume series Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus, also serving as a professor at a number of leading seminaries.
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Joining him is Dr. James White, the director of Alpha and Omega Ministries. He's a professor of Greek, Systematic Theology at Golden Gate Theological Seminary, as well as various topics in the apologetics.
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He's the author of many books, including The Forgotten Trinity. Gentlemen, welcome to Jewish Voice.
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Let's give them a warm welcome. Now, let me explain how this debate will work tonight.
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There's going to be three main sections of which I will serve as moderator and host.
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Part one will begin with opening remarks from each team member. These remarks will be limited to two minutes each, followed by ten questions submitted in advance by our experts, five from each side.
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These are going to be in debate format. So I'll address a question to one team at a time, altering sides.
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The team addressed will have two minutes to give a response to the question. Now, when 30 seconds remain, you're going to hear a single bell.
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Everybody hear that? That's what it'll sound like. It's not signaling us to go to dinner, but telling us that we have 30 seconds remain.
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So this is going to signal that you need to wind down your response. Now, at two minutes, you're going to hear two dings of the bell.
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Bill? Okay, at which time you need to conclude, or I will stop you.
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Okay, the opposing team will then have 90 seconds to give their rebuttal. The original side, 90 seconds to respond, and the opposing team a final 90 seconds to give their final rebuttal.
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So the two exchanges back and forth for each question. Now, in each case, you're going to hear one ding when 30 seconds remain, and two when the time allotted is up.
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As moderator, I will hold the option of a follow -up question. If I use it, each side will be given 90 seconds to respond.
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We'll also then take a short break, followed by part two. Now, in this section, we're going to have a 30 -minute time limit.
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It'll be a free -form discussion of the two positions. I'll ask a series of questions, alternating between both sides.
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In this format, we'll take approximately four minutes for a lively discussion of the question from all sides, and then move on to the next question.
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Part three of the debate will feature a 30 -minute period of questions from our studio audience, which may be directed to either side or to a specific panelist.
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The individual or team addressed will be allowed two minutes to answer, and may be followed by comments, from the opposing side, of up to 90 seconds.
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We'll conclude the debate with closing statements from each of our experts, again, limited to two minutes, at which time
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I will conclude with prayer. So, gentlemen, if you are ready, we're going to begin with your opening statements.
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We flipped a coin earlier, and the non -trinitarian team won, so they have elected to go first.
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So, I'm going to turn it over to you, gentlemen, and Dr. Buzzard, I believe you're going to begin.
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Thank you very much, and thank you so much for coming to this extraordinary occasion. My point of view is simple, based on 40 years of looking at the
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Bible and saying, what did Jesus believe about God? And I think it's quite simple. He recited the Shema of Israel, which says that God is one
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Lord, a single Lord. Had we not abandoned Jesus, I think we'd be doing fine, but Christianity is the only world religion that's abandoned
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Jesus at its creedal statement. I think that's a serious matter. So, my point would be, study the
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Shema, read what Jesus said to the Jew when he asked about the Shema. He agreed with a
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Jewish expert, biblical expert, that the Lord, our God, is one Lord. Kilios Yis, one single
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Lord. That should be the end of it. Then, double that up with all of the thousands and thousands of singular pronouns, 62 ,000 singular pronouns in the
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Bible. I am God. Nobody is beside me. It's me. No one else before me. No one.
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That's really very simple. So, I don't think it's complex, but it's become complex over the years. Okay, thank you.
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Joseph Good, two minutes. Having expressed my faith in a Messianic Jewish context for about 32 years, a little bit plus,
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I've come to learn many truths about Hashem. One of the most important principles I've learned is that Hashem deeply loves his people.
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He longs for a relationship with them. One of the highest callings that an individual is to have is to know and to understand
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Hashem. In a near countless number of passages, Hashem has expressed that he is the one and only true
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God. This fact was ingrained into virtually every facet of the Jewish people's interaction with one another and with Hashem directly.
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For thousands of years, the Jewish people have been the ardent defenders of this truth. They have believed in Hashem.
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They long for the coming agent of Hashem's redemption, the Messiah. Nearly 2 ,000 years ago,
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Hashem's deliverer was revealed in the man Yeshua. Yeshua declared faith in and proclaimed the one true
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God. Yeshua lived a sinless life despite being tempted in all things like the rest of humanity.
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Yeshua was crucified. He was then raised from the dead by Hashem. His sacrifice has provided us our redemption to Hashem.
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The scriptures are clear. Hashem is not a deceiver, and he has been consistent throughout scriptures in declaring that he alone is
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God. No scripture clearly defines the Trinity. Nothing declares in a straightforward manner that one must believe in the triune nature of God.
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Nor is there a passage that insists that one must define Yeshua as the triune God, the
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Son. When seeking a solution to the controversy or problem, most often the simple solution is the truth.
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It does not require complicated theological exercises nor suspension of logic to believe that there is but one
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God, the Father, and that Yeshua is his Mashiach or his Messiah. I plead before you now that you listen to our discussion tonight with a heart that's willing to hear.
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Thank you, Joseph. Good. And now we're going to hear from the Trinitarian side, and we're going to begin with you, Dr. Michael Brown.
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The interesting thing tonight is that I'm the only Jew on the panel here, and with all my heart and soul,
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I hold to the Shema. I hold to the oneness of God, that there is only one
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God, and I would die for that principle. I'm captive by the scripture. Perhaps of anyone at this table,
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I'm the least moved by church history and church tradition, but I'm captive to the scripture. So when
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Thomas refers to Jesus as my Lord and my God, when he is explicitly called
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God in Psalm 45, and that is quoted in Hebrews, the first chapter, when the overwhelming witness of the
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New Testament is that the Son is eternally pre -existent, I have to bow down to the truth of the
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Word and recognize that the one God that I worship is complex in his unity. He is hidden and yet is revealed.
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He sits enthroned in heaven and yet fills the universe and can visit us on this earth even in bodily form.
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The scriptures are explicit that John says that Isaiah saw Jesus, saw the
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Son. The scriptures are explicit in multiple testimony, verse after verse, that it was through the
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Son that the universe was made. And it is Jesus who says of himself,
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I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. A created being cannot say this.
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Let me tell you why the stakes are so incredibly high. My friends here hold that you are to bow down before a glorified man and confess him as Lord.
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That the same praise, honor, and glory that goes to God in the book of Revelation goes to the
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Lamb, to a created being. To me, the notion that it is a created being that we should bow down, call
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Lord worship, and pray to, as based on the New Testament, is a heretical and dangerous notion that we need to distance ourselves from and recover who
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Jesus truly is according to the scriptures. Based on that, when we look at the person and work of the
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Spirit and put it all together, we get one God, only one God, complex in His unity, to which
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Jesus is the number one witness. Thank you, Dr. Brown. Dr. James White, two minutes.
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Thank you. Unitarianism requires us to look at the Bible with one eye closed.
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It says true things. We are biblical monotheists. I have stood in defense of the fact there is only one true
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Creator God many, many times. But the reason we believe in the doctrine of the Trinity is because we look at not only scripture alone, sola scriptura, but we look at tota scriptura, all of scripture.
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And the biblical testimony is very, very clear. We have to ignore the fullness of the
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New Testament revelation. Remember, the doctrine of the Trinity is revealed between the Old and New Testament in the incarnation of the
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Son of God and the pouring out of the Holy Spirit of God. The New Testament then becomes the very record of the religion founded in this revelation of the doctrine of the
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Trinity. That's why the doctrine of the Trinity simply pervades all of the New Testament records.
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And that's why you don't have explicit statements, but you have these statements that could not possibly be understood outside of a
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Trinitarian complex. And so we look at the scriptures and we see the testimony that Jesus Christ has eternally existed.
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He is the creator of all things. In Colossians chapter 1, when Paul is arguing against that early form of something called
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Gnosticism, he argues that Jesus Christ is the one who created all things, not because of him, but he is the very one for whom, in whom, and by whom all things were created.
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He is the one who, even before his incarnation, did not give consideration to holding on to that equality he had with God.
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But he set that aside, the ultimate example of humility for us, Philippians chapter 2.
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So when Thomas says, my Lord and my God, when Paul describes him as our great God and Savior in Titus 2 .13,
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when Peter calls him our God and Savior in 2 Peter 1 .1, when the church prays to him and worships him in religious context, they are simply following through with the revelation of the doctrine of the
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Trinity that has taken place in the incarnation and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. That's why we're here this evening, to look at all of what the scripture says with both eyes open.
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Gentlemen, thank you very much. I appreciate the opening statements. We're now going to turn to the questions, first addressed to the non -Trinitarian panel prepared by our
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Trinitarian panel. First question for you gentlemen is this. After the resurrection of Jesus, people address prayers to him, while in Revelation the same praises that are offered to God are offered to him.
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If Jesus is only a man, wouldn't this be idolatrous? According to Philippians 2 verses 5 through 11, every knee will bow to him and every tongue confess him as Lord to the glory of God the
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Father. How can this be said of a glorified man? Only God is to be worshipped as Lord.
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Gentlemen, two minutes to respond. Yes, that begs the question. If God ordains that his son can be prayed to and worshipped, in some sense not worshipped with God, then
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God can arrange that and I'll accept it. So it begs the question entirely. How can Jesus be worshipped and prayed and praised?
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A glorified man can and is being praised if God so ordains. That would be the answer.
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The passage from 1 Chronicles chapter 29 verses 20 through 23, you're referencing the book of Revelation chapter 5 where you have the lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world in the throne of God.
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We have a similar passage there in the Tanakh. It says, And that's an example that's very similar to what we have in the setting of Revelation chapter 5.
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And so there you have the same type of setting. You have the king sitting on the throne, but it's called the throne of the
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Lord. Thank you very much. Our Trinitarian panel, your rebuttal, 90 seconds.
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Okay, I'll begin quickly. First, the parallels are not there between 1 Chronicles 29.
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There's no question you can bow down before a king and the Lord. There's certain things you can do before both. But these words,
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To him who sits on the throne and to the lamb be praise and honor and glory and power forever and ever.
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That cannot be to a man. Otherwise, God is contradicting what he said over and over and over, that to him alone is that type of worship, adoration.
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And the man was not called God as Jesus was after his resurrection nor addressed as God.
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So parallels hardly work at all. Not only that, but at the end of Revelation chapter 5, you'll notice that every created thing worships he who sits upon the throne and the lamb, excluding the lamb from the realm of created things.
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Not only that, but the question mentioned Philippians chapter 2, the Carmen Christi. And at the end of that section, you have
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Paul quoting from Isaiah, where there God says, my glory
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I will not give to another. And yet here you have that same glory being given to Jesus. So at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow.
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Every knee will bow in the Old Testament to God. Here every knee bows to Jesus. Clearly, the context is that of truly heavenly worship, which is to be given only to God.
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And in fact, the verse that Paul applies in Philippians 2 and Isaiah 45 says, every tongue will confess, every knee will bow and confess to Yahweh.
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And here it is to Jesus. Either there is an identification between the two or we have idolatry.
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Your response, gentlemen, 90 seconds. I want to read an article out of the
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Jewish Encyclopedia. This is called Agent Shliach. The main point of the
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Jewish law of agency is expressed in the dictum, a person's agent is regarded as the person himself.
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We have several quotes from the Talmud. Therefore, any act committed by a duly appointed agent is regarded as having been committed by the principal, who therefore bears full responsibility for it with consequence, so forth.
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Now, an agent was given as much power, he was allowed to work as much power as was given to him.
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In the Scriptures, it tells us over and over that all power was given to Yeshua.
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He is the agent. He is the Messiah. He is in every way that he comes, he acts in the name of Hashem.
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And I think that's the context for what we have here. Anything to add to that? Yes, back to the point about worship.
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David was worshipped alongside with God. Same word, proskynia, using modern Greek pronunciation, not mispronouncing the
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Greek. Worship was given to David. Please note in the text that my colleague read. That's very important. There is a
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Greek word, latrevo, to do religious service to someone, which is not used of Jesus in the New Testament. That's significant.
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But again, the question is begged all the time. If God ordains that his immortalized son as lamb, as sinless lamb, human being, is to be worshipped and praised, so be it.
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I would suggest it's the devil, you see, who is not keen on man being elevated to that sort of height.
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But if the text says that Jesus is praised, then I would accept that. Thank you very much. A final rebuttal, 90 seconds.
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Scripture is so clear over and over and over that man is not exalted to the place of God and that no flesh glories in his presence.
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And yet these gentlemen are telling us that a flesh creature will receive the glory that is only due to God.
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That's a heretical, dangerous position. Not only so, Jesus is worshipped because of his actual nature.
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The demons said, we know who you are, the Holy One of God. And sacrifices were not offered to a man.
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They were only offered to God. Distinctions were made. You'll hear the same praise that goes to God goes to the
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Lamb. Not only that, but we need to recognize in the book of Revelation that when John tried to bow down and give proscuneo, worship the angel, in a religious context, the angel said, do not do that.
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Worship only God. The worship Jesus receives is not merely that which you would bow down before an earthly leader.
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It is always in the context of religious worship, which is reserved to God alone. And once again, the identity of Jesus as Yahweh on the part of the
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New Testament writers that is intimately connected with this worship demonstrates that the Old Testament prohibition against the worship of anything in the religious context but Yahweh himself would be very important at this point as well.
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And that's why the scriptures emphasize that Jesus, John 13, came from God, was returning to God.
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John 6, that he came down from heaven. We worship him because he is the exalted eternal son, not simply because of some nonexistent text somewhere that says
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God appointed a man to receive the worship and adoration and service only due to God. Thank you very much.
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Now our first question addressed to our Trinitarian panel from our non -Trinitarian panel. How many
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Lord, Yud -Heh -Vav -Hehs, is the Trinitarian position proposing?
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Not just how many gods, but how many Yud -Heh -Vav -Hehs is the Trinitarian position proposing? Two minutes.
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There's one Yahweh. Scripture's quite clear about that. Yahweh is complex in his unity, which is why in Genesis chapter 18,
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Yahweh, quite explicitly in Hebrew, is dialoguing with Abraham and Sarah here on the earth, one
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Yahweh, the same Yahweh who sits enthroned in heaven. So the Scripture's unambiguous about that, that there's one
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God only, one Yahweh only, and also there is one Father, one
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Son, one Spirit, who is all part of this one God, the way he's made himself known.
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So there's no ambiguity, no mystery, no difficulty, one Yahweh, complex in his unity, the overall testimony of Scripture.
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It is very important to recognize that the Greek term kurios is used of Jesus as his primary designation in the
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New Testament, and that is the very term that is used to render the divine name, the Tetragrammaton, in the Old Testament Yahweh, which is the specific identification of God.
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So in these texts in the New Testament that identify Jesus as Yahweh, we have inspired commentary that tells us exactly who
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Jesus is. We have Old Testament texts that tell us that Yahweh places the sins of his people upon the
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Messiah, and so clearly the Father is identified as Yahweh, and yet Hebrews chapter 1, verses 10 through 12,
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John chapter 12, there are numerous places where Jesus is identified as Yahweh, and of course the Spirit is the
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Spirit of Yahweh. So we have one name, and we have to allow all of the New Testament texts to speak.
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We can't start with the presupposition of Unitarianism and say, well, I'm going to enforce this upon the text.
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We have to allow the text to instruct us, and we have to allow for what took place between the
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Testaments in the incarnation of Jesus Christ, this great event which then forms the very matrix of the
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New Testament revelation itself. Gentlemen, thank you. Our non -Trinitarian panel, 90 seconds.
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If you identify Jesus as Yahweh, and you identify the Father as Yahweh, I leave you to count out how many
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Yahwehs are there. You identify Jesus as Yahweh, and you identify the Father as Yahweh, I think that makes two
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Yahwehs, that's dangerous. If you then say all three together are Yahweh, you've got another use of Yahweh.
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So you've got Yahweh X is Jesus, another X, the Father is Yahweh, Holy Spirit is also Yahweh, that's another
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X, those three Xs make one X, because they're calling, my colleagues, my good colleagues here are calling, all three together
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Yahweh. This word Yahweh is finding lots of reference, and I find that too difficult. Jesus said clearly, there's only one
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Lord, one Kirios. He never claimed to be Yahweh, he claimed to be Yahweh's agent, and he claimed to be the
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Lord Messiah of Psalm 110 .1, which governs the whole of our discussion, or should. Michael, you referenced in Genesis 18, that where Hashem spoke to Abraham, and you said that this very clearly was
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Hashem there speaking directly to him. For 2 ,000 years up to the time of Yeshua, or 1 ,500 years up to the time of Yeshua, the
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Jewish people never identified it in that manner. To this day, they still do not identify it in that manner.
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You're changing how these are looked at, these passages are looked at, from the way they have been through the ages, through the centuries.
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Now, when Yeshua came, he didn't come, this isn't something that he came and said, look, you've missed it.
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You've been misunderstanding everything. This isn't something that was addressed, that we have in the
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New Testament. Just to reply to that directly, Joe, with all respect, you completely misrepresented the
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Jewish position in that we don't have Jewish texts talking about Genesis 18 between the time it was written and the time of Yeshua.
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That's number one. Number two, Jesus did tell him to correct things, and he said, this is the father that you haven't known.
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You've read the scriptures and haven't seen him. And he made explicit identification of himself with Yahweh, John 8, 58, which
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I'm sure we'll come to, before Abraham was, I am. Not only so, Jewish scholars today, Benjamin Sommer, professor at Jewish Theological Seminary, says the plain reading of Genesis 18 is quite clear about Yahweh appearing in bodily form, and that any
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Jew faithful to scripture and Jewish tradition should have no problem with the Trinity. You should also check the
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Talmudic discussion of Genesis 18, because it points in this very direction of an identification, physical identification of Yahweh with the one who is there.
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But I'm beholden to the scriptural text, which is quite clear, but I wanted to correct the misrepresentation that you just gave.
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Not only that, but the scriptural text tells us in John 12, 41, after a citation of Isaiah 6, 10 in Isaiah's temple vision, these things
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Isaiah said because he saw his glory and he spoke of him. The only his in the context is
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Jesus. If you ask Isaiah, who did you see in your temple vision? Isaiah's response would be,
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I saw Yahweh. If you ask John, who did you see? His response is, Jesus.
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How can a monotheistic Jew who says the Shema identify a mere man as the one seen by Isaiah in his temple vision of Yahweh sitting upon his throne?
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One Yahweh, quite simple. You may make it difficult. It's quite simple for me. Complex in His unity because He's God.
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He's not a rock. He's Almighty God. Complex in His unity. Thank you. Ninety -second response.
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Yeah. One Yahweh is not so. If you're going to say Jesus is identified as Yahweh, that's one
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Yahweh. Now let's identify the Father as Yahweh. That's two Yahwehs. Now the third one is Yahweh. You've got three
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Yahwehs. You can go on saying all three together are Yahweh also. And I see. That's your understanding. But you're identifying each of the three as X.
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As Yahweh. And you're then telling me that all three together are still X. That doesn't make any sense to me at all.
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And I don't think it did to Jesus because a Jew agreed with Jesus in Mark 12, 28. Proved to me that that Jewish scribe was a
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Trinitarian and I'm with you. But unless one can do that, I don't understand anything about complex unity.
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I don't find that in any dictionary, any language that I ever learned, knows nothing about complex unity at all. Echad means one.
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One single. Check any lexicon. So all of this complexity about unity is meaningless to me. Until explained, much more fully than you've done so far.
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You haven't had a chance to do it yet. Very good. Thank you. The next question addressed to our non -Trinitarians by our
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Trinitarian panel. Another Yahweh question. The Tetragrammaton. In passages like Genesis 18,
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Yahweh appears to his people in the Old Testament in visible form and even talks with them face to face.
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Yet the New Testament teaches that no one has seen God. How do you reconcile these two truths?
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Continuation of the same discussion. Two minutes, gentlemen. The way that I see this, what he saw, what came and addressed to him was a
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Shiliach. It was an agent, an angel of the Lord that was represented.
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And we have this throughout the Scriptures, throughout the Tanakh, throughout Jewish understanding. Big difference
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I see between the Western world and the Eastern world is that the context of the agent is an overwhelming context.
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And it explains to me most of the passages that we have in the
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Scripture. We have many, many times where it talks about the angel of the Lord wrestling with Jacob.
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We have the angel of the Lord appearing to different ones. But it will have in the context that Hashem is there.
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But it's an agent. And that is just the way that we have other
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Scriptures. Rebuttal? Yeah, the problem I have with that is that the
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Bible could not possibly say it any more clearly. You simply can't accept it, therefore you have to reinterpret it.
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Genesis 18, in any plain reading, Yahweh along with two angels appears. The two angels go on to Sodom.
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Abraham stays with Yahweh. And it's him explicitly. It doesn't say an angel. It doesn't say Malachad or anything like that.
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Isaiah 6, Isaiah sees the Lord high and lifted up. He says, I'm undone.
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The seraphim cry out, Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh. They're worshiping Yahweh. And John 12 explicitly says that that's the one that Isaiah saw, who is
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Jesus. And we can't get away from that. Exodus, the 24th chapter, they saw the God of Israel and yet he didn't smite them.
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That's not a vision. That's actually seeing him. These things are quite explicit if no one has seen
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God at any time and these people saw him, who did they see? They saw the Son, the one through whom the
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Father is made known. It's wonderful. It's scriptural. It's true. It's exactly what the Apostle John writes to us at the end of his prologue of John 1, 18.
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No one has ever seen God. The monogenes theos, the only God who is at the Father's side, he has exegeted him.
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He has made him known. He has revealed him. I submit to you that a mere man who came into existence at a point in time in Bethlehem cannot be the one who exegetes, who gives a perfect revelation of the infinite
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God. The writer of the Hebrews said that Jesus is the exact representation of his being.
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That is too big a category for a mere creature. This one is identified as Yahweh.
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That is the way we must understand it. 90 seconds to respond. Yeah, the mere creature.
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I hope you'll catch that word mere. This begs the question all the time. If God ordains that his supreme, sinless
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Lamb can do all these things, so be it. He's not a mere creature. He's not just a man. He's a unique man.
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But back to the angel of the Lord. Stephen, you know, did not identify that angel of the Lord as the Son. He did not.
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He said an angel spoke to Moses. I would start with Stephen there. I would also go to Judges 16 where you'll find that the angel of the
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Lord is distinguished from Yahweh. If you want to offer a sacrifice to Yahweh, do it, said the angel of the
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Lord. He's not himself. The angel of the Lord is not Jesus pre -existing because you can't see God. So it makes no sense to say
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Jesus is God but they saw him. I'll say that again. You can't see God. Nobody's seen God and lived.
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So don't tell me then the Son of God was there, he's God, and they saw him. That doesn't make a lot of sense. So I don't think the writer of Hebrews was wrong when he said
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God spoke to a Son only in these last days, not before. Hebrews 1, 2, very important text.
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Over and over. There's just piles of passages.
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New Testament and the Tanakh of the Shliyach, of the sent one. Now, over and over,
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Yeshua makes statements, in fact, in the book of John. He says, I am the sent one from God.
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Over and over, he referenced God as his God. He, in the role of the
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Shliyach, he is totally representing Hashem. When you see him, you see the
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Father. He is the image. I agree with what you said. He's the same essence of the Father.
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He is the perfect image of the Father. And when you say a mere man, I don't see him as a mere man.
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He's as the first to Dom. He's as the first to Adam. Time up. Final response, 90 seconds. The fact is, you say he's created, therefore he is mortal, and the scriptures are quite clear that he is preexistent.
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It's so fascinating that the text you quoted are the ones we didn't quote. You quoted from Exodus 3 and Judges 16 that make reference to the angel.
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We weren't quoting that. We were quoting Genesis 18, which we haven't touched yet in terms of truly answering that,
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Exodus 24, Isaiah the sixth chapter. Those are quite explicit. And when you talk about echad earlier, let's just remember
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Genesis 2 .24 when Adam and Havad, Adam and Eve, the two become one.
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When the tabernacle is built in Exodus 35, that all of the pieces together become one tabernacle.
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Echad simply means one, and the God we worship is one, complex in his unity. I'm simply putting scripture together and saying,
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I believe what's written. I don't have to come up with all these different ways out because I accept what's written. It's, again, very simple.
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And as John said, Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke of him.
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That's a very straightforward passage. I think we need to have an exegesis of Isaiah 6 and John 12 if you're going to say, well, it's not really
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Yahweh, it's just someone representing Yahweh. How can that be his glory? It's very important to understand.
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You must listen to the presuppositions that are being brought to this discussion. You can't simply assume
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Unitarianism. I believe that the gentlemen across the table are assuming Unitarianism rather than proving
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Unitarianism. Both Unitarianism and Trinitarianism must derive itself from the inspired words of scripture.
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It can't simply be assumed and then read into the text itself. Thank you very much.
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Our next question addressed to our Trinitarian panel from our non -Trinitarians. In the time frame from Adam to the 1st century, did the
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Jewish people view God as existing in a triune form? God the Father, Son, Messiah, and Holy Spirit.
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Two minutes. We don't have a lot of Jewish literature that gets into theological discussion.
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Certainly it affirms the oneness of God. I affirm that. You may challenge that, but I'm affirming the same thing
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Yeshua affirmed and the same thing Paul affirmed and the same thing Isaiah affirmed. Most of the discussion has to do with either legal issues, which you'll find in Dead Sea Scrolls, some discussion there, or other eschatological issues.
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But certainly as far back as we can go in Jewish tradition, as it begins to evolve after the time of Jesus, we find things like the
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Shekhinah, the manifest presence of God on the earth. We find the developing theory of the spherot, which are the emanations of God.
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Because there's the constant question, how can the infinite, eternal, invisible God be manifest and touchable on the earth?
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So we have the answer through the gospel, the wonderful good news that the Son came into the world and revealed
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God to us as the sent one, of course. But other Jewish literature then begins to react against this in the centuries that follow.
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But I would agree with Professor Benjamin Sommer that any Jew who's true to the scriptures and Jewish tradition should have no problem with God's triunity.
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And I think we also need to look at the indications of that that are found in the Old Testament. I believe that the actual revelation takes place in the
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Incarnation and in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. That's when it actually takes place. But when you describe that one in Isaiah as El Gabor, and in the very next chapter describe
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Yahweh as El Gabor, you can't just simply say, well, that's a mighty hero or something like that. There are indications there in the prophecies of the one who is to come and what his nature was going to be.
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A son who is born to us, a child who is born to us, a son who is given to us. I think that's very significant as well.
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But I believe that the actual revelation of this takes place in the Incarnation and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
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Just as we're told, Paul writes to Timothy, that life and immortality are brought to life through the gospel.
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So that which was revealed in part in the Hebrew scriptures is now revealed in full in the New Covenant scriptures.
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Thank you. Rebuttal? I've got a book here, Nazarene Jewish Christianity.
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Ray Pritz, I don't know if you've seen it, but I've read it before. It goes into the church fathers.
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I'm not sure how to pronounce this. Epiphanius. Epiphanius, okay. In 347, he began writing a work called the
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Panorium. In this, he references the Jewish believers in Yeshua that have moved from Judea to the region of Pella.
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Now, they've been there all this time. They survived there up into the 500s. Now, in 374, he made this statement about them.
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He says that they're trained in the law and circumcision, Sabbath. With regard to Messiah, with regard to Messiah, they believe that he is a mere man.
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Then they emphatically declared that he was born of the Holy Spirit from Mary. Now, this is one of the earliest references that we have in this more or less blank period.
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But it appears that the Jewish believers, and these are the believers that descended from the
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Jerusalem church, that they believed that he was a man, that he was not
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God come in the flesh. They did believe he was the Messiah. They believed he was the anointed one of God.
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They believed that he was sent and empowered by God above and beyond any other person, creature, whatever, that he was given the power that was given to Adam in the beginning and that he's raised from the dead and that he is the king of kings, the
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Lord of lords. Thank you. 90 -second response. Yeah, once again, with all respect, I have to correct you. Ray Pritz is dealing with several different Jewish groups, the
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Ebionites, the Corinthians, and the Nazarenes. And Epiphanius' reference is to one of the heretical groups.
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Those groups were called heretical. According to Ray Pritz, the Nazarenes were ones who held to what we would call the orthodox doctrine about the preexistence of Jesus, etc.
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Some of the other groups denied the authority of Paul. They denied other issues. So that quote is one of the references to one of the heretical groups, and the
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Nazarenes were ones that we would call orthodox. This quote was to the Nazarenes. And if you'd like to hear what the early church said, for example,
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Ignatius writing around 107 -108 AD refers to our God, Jesus Christ, being in the
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Father as more plainly seen. His epistle to the Romans, Romans 3. To the Smyrnians, he said, I glorified
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Jesus Christ, the God who gave you such wisdom. And this is one of my favorite descriptions of Jesus Christ found in Ignatius.
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Again, this is the first generation after the apostles. There is one physician of flesh and of spirit, generate and ingenerate,
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God and man, true life and death, both from Mary and from God, first passable and then impassable,
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Jesus Christ our Lord. There you have the very two natures of Christ being laid out. These early Christians believed in the preexistence of Christ.
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They described him as God. That is the testimony that Ignatius gives us, and we could look at others as well. Final response in 90 seconds.
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Yes, back to a little history. We're throwing in some history here. Sir Isaac Newton would be pleased with what this side of the table is saying.
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John Milton, the three brightest brains of that century. Isaac Newton, and of course the famous hymn writer, Isaac Watts, who became a
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Unitarian towards the end of his life. The other one, John Locke. So it's not just a very small group of people who are not distinguished who believe this.
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But you know, on the point of preexistence here, I'm amazed that we don't go immediately to Matthew and Luke.
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You don't do calculus before you've done algebra, I gather, from your excellent book there. Let's start at the beginning, and talk about the begetting of the
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Messiah. When was he begotten? Go to Matthew, go to Luke. Don't go to John. You do that later.
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Go to Matthew, go to Luke. And it's very clear that the Son of God was begotten. And that word, beget, you now, oh, in modern
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Greek, in the modern Greek pronunciation, you now means to bring into existence, to give existence to. So a child reading that says, my goodness,
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Mary had a baby. A new Son of God came into existence. Nothing about that Son of God coming from outside the womb.
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That's very nasty and strange. Thirty seconds more.
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Oh, thirty seconds more. Wonderful. So, Matthew and Luke are to precede in your studies,
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I suggest, ladies and gentlemen. Precede John. This argument is going to be from John almost entirely, and isolated verses from John.
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I want to go to the beginning and the end of John. John wrote the whole book to prove he's the Son of God, the Messiah, and he introduces the
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Son as the King of Israel at the beginning. But Matthew and Luke were written to offset the idea that, my good friends here are giving us, that there was a pre -existing
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Son who entered the womb of Mary. Very strange. Next question addressed to our non -Trinitarian panel, from our
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Trinitarians. Jesus explicitly refers to His pre -existence in numerous passages in the
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New Testament, stating that He came from God and was returning to God, that He came down from Heaven and would return to Heaven, that He enjoyed glory together with God His Father before the world began.
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On what scriptural grounds do you deny His pre -existence? Two minutes. Great question.
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If you're reading the NIV, you're being misled. Let me say that slowly. If you're reading the NIV, you're being misled. No text says that Jesus returned to God.
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Does it? Do you know the difference between ipostrefo, to return, and poremme, to go?
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Check it out carefully. No text, except in the NIV, which is misleading, says that Jesus returned to God.
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Point one. John the Baptist was sent from God. John the Baptist was sent from God. Jesus said in John 7, 51,
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My flesh came down from Heaven. I want you to think about that very carefully. My flesh came down from Heaven.
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And think about what sort of language we're using. Is this literal or metaphorical? Go carefully with John. Do your homework first in Matthew and Luke.
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And put your stake in Matthew and Luke first. Anything to add to that, Joseph? Rebuttal, 90 seconds.
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I think it's very important to allow Jesus himself to answer this question. When praying to the Father in John chapter 17,
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He says, Now Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.
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Now, Sir Anthony, I've listened very carefully to your MP3s, your presentations. I've tried to understand your position quite accurately.
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You have often said, if you use a pronoun, you are a person, you're a singular person. Well, here Jesus uses a pronoun.
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And he says, with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.
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Now, this is a person who is speaking of a situation that existed before creation in which he was glorious in the presence of the
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Father. If that is not indication of the preexistence of Christ and his own understanding of his preexistence,
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I don't know what could possibly fulfill any kind of rule that would give us any text that would prove that Jesus Christ is preexistent.
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These are the words of Jesus. I think we need to believe what they say. John 13, 3, he came from God and was going to God.
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Call that returning, based on the Greek. He came from, he's going back. He repeatedly said, he came from heaven.
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Not only so, Matthew 23, to quote Matthew, that Jesus had been longing to gather the people of Jerusalem to himself for a long period of time.
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This is historic. Luke points it to God's wisdom preexisting, okay?
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So, and the constant phrase, I have come, I have come. Again, Jesus says to himself,
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I am the Alpha and the Omega, preexistence. Thank you. Response, 90 seconds. Yes, I have come.
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Nicodemus said to Jesus, we know that you've come from God. Did Nicodemus think he was a preexisting Messiah? I don't think so.
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Coming from God doesn't tell you anything about whether you were alive from eternity. So that doesn't work as an argument.
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The other point was wisdom. Jesus is the wisdom of God. He's what wisdom became.
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He's what word became. Not one to one equal with preexistent son. That's the trick. He is the wisdom of God.
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Walking wisdom. He's the walking word of God. The expression of God tells you nothing about when he started.
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Go back to Matthew, go back to Luke, and find out when he was begotten, brought into existence.
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And that's the key to the whole thing. Still have time left. In the, there's an ancient beretta, which, an ancient ruling that was handed down in different versions, enumerating six or seven persons or things created before the world came into existence.
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Number one, the Torah, which is the first, called the firstling of his way. Number two, the throne of glory, which is established of old.
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Number three, the sanctuary. Number four, the patriarchs. I'm going to go on down. Number six is the
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Messiah. Before the sun, his name sprouts forth, as you know, the Awakener. What I submit is that the references that we have, they're in this context.
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That it's only at a later time that we move away and the church starts to look at it in a different fashion, in a different mode.
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I don't know how that can be in light of the fact that Jesus' own prayer in John 17, 5 shows his own self -consciousness of his eternal pre -existence as a glorious being in the presence of the
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Father. We need an answer to John 17, 5. But I would like to point out for Sir Anthony very quickly that in the
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Greek of John 13, 3, when you have apah followed by pros and then you have hupagai, that's why translations that are fine translations say going back, because you have the two prepositions there.
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So I think you're being unfair if you say it's a mistranslation. In addition to that, let's keep looking at the evidence.
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Genesis 18 was clear about the appearance of Yahweh in fleshly form. Isaiah chapter 6 is clear about Isaiah seeing
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Yahweh slash Jesus. Those things haven't been touched. John 1, 3 that says all things were made through the
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Word. Who is this Word? Hebrews 1 tells us it's the Son. Colossians 1 tells us it's the
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Son. 1 Corinthians 8 tells us it's the Son. The testimony is so explicit, overwhelming. Now here's the other thing.
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James moments ago quoted from the first generation of disciples who identified Jesus as divine.
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You, sir, Joe, are quoting from later rabbinic texts hundreds of years later that deny the deity of the
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Messiah and blaming us for making up tradition or following tradition. It's quite the contrary. We're following the biblical witness.
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You're saying, but no Jew could possibly believe it based on writings centuries later. Again, the biblical witness is so clear and overwhelming.
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And I really do appeal to you to recognize your supreme error on denying the preexistence of the
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Son, the one that Hebrews 1 tells us in the beginning created the universe. Thank you very much.
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The next question for our Trinitarian experts from our non -Trinitarian panel.
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Did Yeshua directly present and teach others that God existed with the triune nature and that he himself was the triune
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God, the Son? Two minutes. Well, not obviously using that specific terminology, but look at the things that Jesus did.
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First of all, he distinguished himself from the Father, yet he identified himself and did things that only God can possibly do.
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We saw in John 17, his prayer that is found there, the claims that he made for himself, the fact that he accepted worship.
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And so he did things that indicated his own recognition of his own deity. And then in the commissioning of the disciples, sent them out and said to baptize in the name singular of the
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Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. I wish we had time to walk through, for example, John chapter 5, where Jesus emphasized the unity that exists between he and the
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Father. The fact that he's not off on his own. He's not off doing things as some separate God. The unity that exists between he and the
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Father. He says, I do nothing op healtu, from myself. But of course, none of the divine persons do something separate from, in distinction to, in contradiction to the other divine persons.
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And so the terminology isn't the issue. The fact that Jesus acts as the
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God of Israel, and he speaks in that way, and he even says, you've heard it said of old, the words of God.
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I say unto you. All of these things indicate that clearly he views himself in that way and wishes his disciples to view themselves in that way as well.
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And there are other verses as well. Jesus says, if anyone loves me, he'll obey my teaching. My Father will love him and we will come to him and make our home with him.
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And then he speaks of the counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name. Bear in mind also in John 5 and John 8, the
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Jewish hearers then took up stones to stone him. They wanted to kill him because of his very explicit identification with God.
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That's what they heard to the point of wanting to kill him. And when Thomas says to him, my Lord and my
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God, he doesn't rebuke him or say you're misguided. And yes, we put together the truth that the
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Father is Jesus God and that Jesus himself is God. God, complex in his unity, the scriptural witness which we are beholden to.
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Thank you. Gentlemen, 90 seconds for rebuttal. One comment on the passage with John where Thomas addresses my
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Lord and my God. The word that is used there in Greek is the counterpart to Elohim which is used not only for God but used for angels.
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It's used for mighty men. It's used for judges. So you can't make a case that he was saying my
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Lord and my God. Not in that passage. John 17, 5.
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Glorify me with the glory I had in prospect. Augustine, the great Trinitarian and Calvin's theologian agreed with us on that point.
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So do not assume that when you say give me the glory now that I had with you. You can have something in prospect.
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You have a reward with the Lord, it says in Matthew 6, 1. You have it. In the future you will say give me now the body which
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I have. Paul says you have an eternal body now. You have it. In the future you will say now give me the body that I had with you.
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Simply read as a Jew. Do not read as a western American and will understand John 17, 5 properly.
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I can't imagine how anyone hearing John 17, 5 originally would have read the word in prospect into what
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Jesus was saying especially when in prayer he's saying glorify me if you're just merely a human being who was supernaturally begotten.
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But I must respond and refute the falsehood that was just presented to you. Thomas said
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That's the exact terminology used in Psalm 35, 23 34, 23 in the Greek Septuagint as well as in Psalm 16 both about Yahweh.
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The idea that theos here has anything to do with a mere angel. If we looked at someone and said my
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Lord and my God at their resurrection and then they said have you believed because of this identifying it as faith?
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The idea that kurios and theos could be put together and that's an angel utterly impossible in the text.
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There's not a single instance in the New Testament where theos God is used the way you're arguing and in particular in John.
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So that's a complete impossibility of interpretation there. Not only so, Jesus says believe that I am in the
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Father and the Father is in me. What a wonderful description of God's unity expressed in Father and Son.
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You know, the constant mantra I'm hearing about read this through Jewish eyes and not through Western eyes.
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I am Jewish. I've studied with Jewish scholars. I immersed myself in Jewish literature and there's no possible way you could read this as written or if it was originally spoken in Hebrew or Aramaic, whatever and come to other conclusions.
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That to me is a Western reading trying to put something on a text that the text won't bear and even the alleged contradictions you can't bear.
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That to me sounds very Western as opposed to a Semitic way which would have no problem with these types of concepts.
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Sasinianism is not Western. It's quite modern and it's quite rationalistic. Thank you. Final rebuttal.
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My response would be that Augustine was quite a clever Trinitarian and he does not agree with you nor did Calvin's very sophisticated theologian.
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They don't read it that way. They read it our way. In the very context in John 17 if you look at verse 22 and 24
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Jesus says that you I'm addressing you you people weren't even born. Give that same glory to you.
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You weren't alive. It's glory in prospect in that very context. And I have a whole range of scholars I can't read them not with respect to agreeing with you at all.
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That's glory in prospect. Give me now the glory at the end of my ministry give me the reward of the glory which I had in your great plan in prospect.
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And that same glory has been given to you in AD 30 you weren't even born. In the 14th chapter of John Thomas failed to see it.
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If you've seen me you've seen God. Don't you get it? He didn't get it. If you've seen me you've seen God. He finally got it.
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My Lord Messiah and my God indeed. I see God in you. Of course. That's the only second time that he's called
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God in the whole New Testament. 1 ,300 times the Father has called God. 1 ,300 Unitarian statements.
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Twice for sure Jesus has called God. There it is. I see finally my God in you. Otheosmal. Very good.
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Next question addressed to our non -Trinitarians from our Trinitarians. On several occasions in the
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New Testament both in the Gospels and in the Epistles Jesus is explicitly called
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God. How do you explain these verses the grammatical meaning of most of which is quite straightforward.
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Two minutes. Okay, I would argue that Jesus has called God once for sure in the Psalm 45 quoted in Hebrews 1a.
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Thy throne, O God. Immediately there's a God on top of Him, by the way. And His God has given Him that throne.
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I'll grant that one. Scholars will argue till the cows come home we don't want to bore you with grammatical and syntactical issues in the other verses that claim that Jesus is called
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God. I don't think they're valid at all. Many Trinitarians I could cite to you do not think He's called
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God in the other 7 or 8 texts. So that's a matter of grammatical debate and it's rather tedious. He's not called
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God. The Father's called God 1 ,300 times. Those are Unitarian statements every one of them.
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And I find that rather simple. Joseph? My statement goes back to the same thing that He says
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I came in the name of the Father. He represents the Father in everything that He does. That He is basically the agent of the
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Father. Everything that He does He says I do nothing of myself. That what
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I do is what the Father gave me to do. What He's empowered me to do. Well, the faith of believers is found in Titus 2, verse 13
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Waiting for our blessed hope the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. Now, it's not obscure grammar and syntax to emphasize that here the
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Apostle Paul identifies Jesus as God and Savior. This is pointed out in two different ways.
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First of all, not only can we make a very strong argument based upon the Greek text that Jesus described both as God and Savior here.
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And I would refer you to Dan Wallace's fine work on this particular subject. But the context demonstrates that that is the only way to understand
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Titus chapter 2. You only have one person in view in Titus chapter 2. And when verse 14 goes on to say
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Who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.
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Those texts are all Yahweh texts from the Old Testament about the covenant God of Israel. Psalm 130, verse 8
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Ezekiel 37, 23 Exodus 19, 5 These are all about the things that Yahweh would do being applied to Jesus.
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So does it make any sense whatsoever to say well, in this text Jesus could not be called God and Savior when the very next sentence part of the sentence identifies
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Jesus as Yahweh. Jesus is identified as God over and over again in the New Testament. When you mention
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Hebrews 1 .8 quite explicit your throne, O God is forever and ever quoting from Psalm 45, 7.
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And then you say there's another God on top of it. It sounds as if you're talking about two gods I'm holding to one God. Let me go beyond that and say that as you continue reading it says about the
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Son He says, you O Lord in the beginning just like John 1 .1
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created, made the universe that will wear out. So there are many explicit verses.
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Thank you. Response? 90 seconds. Yes. There are lots of Yahweh texts from the Old Testament that apply to Jesus.
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He's his shaliach, his agent. Everything that Yahweh does in the Old Jesus can do in the
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New doesn't make him Yahweh. There's only one Yahweh. We keep talking about two Yahwehs. Very difficult. Only one
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Yahweh. That's the Father. Jesus does all this Yahweh stuff, the God stuff in the New Testament. Searches the hearts and the minds.
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Of course, as shaliach he's empowered to do it. That's wonderful. So I don't accept any of these arguments that this makes him literally
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Yahweh. He's representing Yahweh. If Joe sends me out on a job I am Joe in Hebrew thinking.
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Not Joe, but Joe. Final rebuttal? You know, if Joe sends you and you are
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Joe I'm sure when you go home to snuggle with his wife in bed she won't accept that. So let's recognize that the agent is not identical to the one sending.
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The agent can have the authority of the one sending. But they didn't see the alleged agent in the
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Old Testament. They saw God in the Old Testament who is identified as Jesus in the New. When you make reference to 1 ,300 references to the
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Father that say he's God, that's the very point. It specifically speaks of the
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Father over and over and over again because of God's trinity. The primary New Testament revelation is that the
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Father is God and Jesus is Lord. When you look at the texts that explicitly call him God I hope you both could say with Thomas to Jesus my
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Lord and my God. When you look at them explicitly the only answer is Trinitarian. Otherwise we have multiple gods.
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You're the one creating multiple Yahwehs not us. And you've got to understand the description of Jesus as Yahweh in Hebrews chapter 1 verses 10 through 12 cannot be made of a mere man because the attributes that are being described there from Psalm 102 are of his unchanging nature.
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The fact that while creation will pass away he himself does not age. He is immutable.
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That cannot be applied to a mere man. It has to be applied solely to the one who was the creator of all of those things in Psalm 102 and then applied to Jesus in Hebrews chapter 1.
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Thank you very much. Next question for our Trinitarian panel. Did the writers of the
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New Testament define and explain that Jesus was part of a Triune Godhead and that people are required to believe
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God exists in this form? If they didn't who did and when?
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Two minutes. They were quite explicit in their witness which when we put together we understand speaks of God's Triunity when
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Jesus instructs immersion to be in the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit.
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That is a Triune statement. When the end of 2 Corinthians 13 ends with a benediction including
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Father, Son and Spirit. That's a Triune statement. When John quite explicitly tells us in John 1 that what
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God was the word was and this word not a thing but a person who came to earth and manifested made known the one true
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God. We are required to believe that witness. And it was certainly understood clearly enough by the angelic host by every created being in Revelation 5 that falls down and worships this one.
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Revelation 22 tells us there is one throne for God and the Lamb and his servants will serve
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Him forever. One God Father, Son, Spirit.
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Quite explicit in the New Testament because we must believe what's written. Therefore we must believe these truths.
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And I think in answer to the question who defined this I think the church goes back to Jesus own statement in John 5 verse 23 that all may honor the
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Son just as they honor the Father. If you do not have the Son you do not have the Father is what
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John says in his short epistle as well. And so those who are trying to eliminate
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Jesus to either say He did not truly come in human flesh there was no true incarnation or to present a
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Jesus who is less than truly God Paul argues against them in the book of Colossians all of those would run directly up against the biblical revelation that you cannot have
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God the Father if you do not believe the revelation he's made of himself in God the Son.
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And that's I think where the concern that we have even to this day continues to come from. Therefore whoever denies the
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Son denies the Father as well. Okay. Gentlemen your rebuttal 90 seconds.
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I just have one comment. You're interpreting that whoever has that denies the
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Son meaning denies that he's God. I take it that it's saying whoever denies that he's the
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Redeemer that he's the Savior that he's the Messiah that came forth and accomplished the work that he was sent forth to do.
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And I don't see anything in there that says that you have to believe that he is
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God. Yeah if we go to Matthew and Luke I want to go back always to Matthew and Luke. Jesus said
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God made them male and female. He never claimed to be the creator of heaven and earth ever. Nowhere. The Lord God Yahweh made heaven and earth by himself.
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We know the text in Isaiah 44. That's quite clear. There are 50 texts which plainly say that Yahweh with one single
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Yahweh we're losing that so quickly made the heavens and earth. It wasn't Jesus. God made them male and female not himself.
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In Hebrews 4 .4 he, God rested on the seventh day not Jesus. Notice the assumption of Unitarianism that Sir Anthony just gave us in Isaiah 44 .24
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a text I've heard him use many many times that I use many times in debating my Mormon friends. Isaiah 44 .24 does say that Yahweh alone created the heavens and the earth.
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If you assume Unitarianism and ignore all the New Testament references to Jesus as Yahweh and then ignore the
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New Testament reference to the fact that by him were all things created whether in heaven and earth visible or invisible principalities, powers, dominions, authorities all things created by him and for him.
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He is before all things and in him all things hold together then you can come up with that position. But if you allow for all of those texts then you see that yes
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Yahweh alone created Father, Son, and Spirit. That's why all are identified as agents of creation in the
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New Testament. Final response? I would say that the reference that you have
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Father, Son, and Holy Spirit that this is a triune statement meaning that it shows the
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Trinity. I don't see that in that passage at all. I see that it's talking of the
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Father it's talking of his Son that he sent and it's talking of the power by which it was accomplished through his
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Spirit. And so I think it's an assumption that Yahweh to just say I mean just as you're accusing us of well we're looking at it through certain eyes you're looking at it through certain eyes also.
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My assumption is that 11 ,000 singular personal pronouns indicate a single person is it clear?
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That's my assumption. I'm saying I here. We have no trouble with it. There are 14 forms of the singular personal pronoun in Hebrew, Greek, and English.
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14 forms. 11 ,000 at least. I'm hearing a complex I. I three?
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I don't think so. I, I, I, me, me, me. These are simple ideas. Very simple and straightforward.
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Okay. Thank you very much. A final question for our non -Trinitarian experts from the
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Trinitarian panel for part one. Jesus spoke of the Holy Spirit as a personality who would teach and guide his people and elsewhere the scriptures speak of grieving the
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Spirit or enjoying communion with the Spirit. Who is the Holy Spirit?
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Two minutes to respond. Who is the Holy Spirit? The Spirit is the
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Spirit of God. The parallel in Luke and Matthew you have the Father's Spirit will speak through you when you're under pressure.
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The parallel is the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of my colleague is coming to me. It's him projecting himself.
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It's the operational presence and power of God or Jesus indiscriminately in the New Testament. Not, I think, a third person.
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You don't need that. You don't need a third person. Even in 385 A .D. the church fathers were undecided.
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Please note. They didn't know for sure. In 385 A .D. So don't tell me that triune thing was in place.
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It wasn't. The Holy Spirit is God's operational presence and power. God extending himself to his creation in a variety of different ways.
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The Holy Spirit is never worshipped and never sends any greetings. I was trying to follow the greetings part there but the
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Spirit is clearly identified as a person in 1 Corinthians 12 verse 11. All these are empowered by one and the same
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Spirit who apportions to each one individually as he wills. This is the action of an individual.
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And clearly though the New Testament differentiates between the Father, Son and Spirit it is the Father and the
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Son who together send the Spirit and by the presence of the Spirit manifest their dwelling within believers.
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And there's clear differentiation made yet the Spirit is sovereign in the giving of the gifts.
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The Spirit is the one who brings life in raising people to spiritual life et cetera et cetera.
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So clearly the Holy Spirit is identified as a divine person and is identified as divine in these scriptures as having a human
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I'm sorry as having a will the ability to give the gifts as he wishes. Hebrews the 9th chapter speaks of him as the
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Eternal Spirit. Joe you said you just made reference to him as power earlier with regard to Matthew 28 the baptismal formula.
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Of course he's more than power that's why it speaks of grieving him that's why it speaks of his will. And Anthony what you just did is refute it everything you've said up to now about so simple
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I I I I I I I I and then you say God but his spirit project you single person and yet your spirit project is that two people is that three in one are you body soul spirit are you multiple.
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I worship one God as described in scripture Father Son Spirit one and only one and I only worship one and the
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Holy Spirit comes in power and wills acts teaches in spirit instructs.
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Thank you. The Holy Spirit is the spirit of the father let me ask you if the spirit of Elijah is a different person from Elijah no.
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Nor is the spirit of God or the spirit of Jesus a different person from God or Jesus no. Masses scholars support what
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I'm saying here by the way I'm not making this up. The spirit of Elijah is that another person from Elijah no no. It's Elijah projecting himself
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God projecting himself Jesus projecting himself that's all we need. The comforter is in fact identified as Jesus too.
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As you know first John 2. Do you want to add to that? I have a question in Jewish writings do we have the wisdom do we have knowledge are these ever personified and are they perceived as a deity?
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Actually the rabbinic writings Talmud Midrash have quite a few statements where the Holy Spirit is clearly personified in such a way that's even stronger than New Testament witness and the
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Holy Spirit interceding with God on behalf of individuals. So the rabbinic writings actually point in this direction without them rightly even embracing what their own writings are saying.
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Not only so I'm not saying that the spirit of God is a separate person from God you are.
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I'm saying it is one God Father, Son, and Spirit. What's also fascinating is when you draw attention when you draw attention to the
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Holy Spirit never worshipped and we give you clear passages where Jesus is worshipped the same way with the same words that are given to the
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Father you blow that off. So I mean you have to have it one way or the other either accept that Jesus is worshipped as Lord and God in the
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New Testament or not. But the parakletos the helper the Holy Spirit whom the
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Father will send in my name He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.
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Again if pronouns prove something this proves that the Holy Spirit is a person and is not simply the
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Spirit of the Father in the sense of just the Father's power or something like that. Again we have to be consistent in the argumentation that we're using here.
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And we have to allow all the scriptures to teach. We can't look at scriptures with one eye closed and only see one part of the testimony.
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We have to see everything that the scriptures say. Thank you. And the final question addressed to our
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Trinitarian panel from our non -Trinitarian experts where does the word God in the
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Bible ever mean the Triune God? Two minutes to respond. Well you know
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I don't think that that's even a proper question to be perfectly honest with you because we believe that God is the normal term that is used of the
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Father. Kurios is the normal term that is used of the Son. And so while we see many places in the
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Old Testament where God acts in a generic sense where there's no indication that it's the
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Father doing this in opposition to the Son doing this or opposition to the Spirit doing this or anything like that. That's why we have no problem with the singular pronouns.
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God can act singly and before the incarnation the outpouring of the Spirit there would be what else would he use?
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Would he use plural pronouns? I don't understand how that would work so I don't see why that is even an argument.
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In fact I would like to point out I don't see that it's an argument that 1300 times the Father is called
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God how many times is he called Lord? Kurios is the more specific identification of the name of God in the
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Old Testament. Theos is the very generic term Elohim which is used of pagan gods and everything else.
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Does that somehow make an argument? I don't know. But the fact of the matter is that Os is used primarily of the
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Father and Kurios primarily of the Son. Those are their Trinitarian names. In addition to that we have explicit testimony in the
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Hebrew Scriptures where the Son is called Elohim the exalted Davidic King the
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Messiah is called Elohim in Psalm 45 that Elohim is seen in Exodus Chapter 24 and that in Genesis 1 -1 that Elohim creates the universe so Elohim refers to God period simple we believe that.
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Elohim can also refer to the Son either there are two different gods or one true God that we worship.
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When you expand on that into New Testament testimony and find that in Acts 5 for example lying to the
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Spirit is equivalent to lying to God and the Spirit is also identified as God so Father, Son, Spirit all identified as God that's
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Triunity. It's also fascinating that in Semitic languages to speak of power to speak of majesty you will also you will normally use a plural noun frequently a plural noun so we understand that Elohim when referring to God does not refer to God's plural but in Semitic language to refer to many power you can refer in plural.
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Thank you and 90 seconds for your rebuttal. Yes it seems to me extraordinary that one would not identify verse after verse after verse where God Elohim let's say
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Adonai Kyrios Theos the various words for God 11 ,000 of them all together clearly you'd expect if you believe in a triune
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God when you say Kyrios when you say Adonai when you say Theos when you say Elohim you mean the triune God but in your book
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Dr. White you mention this fact that God refers to the three but you don't give us a text you don't cite a text an example
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I'm looking for where does Theos mean the triune God in the New Testament this day?
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Ok your response 90 seconds Dr. White since the question was asked in my book I've given many many examples the
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Father is identified as God clearly the Son is identified as God in numerous places we didn't have any rebuttal to the text that we raised at that point in Titus 2 .13
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2 Peter 1 .1 and other places like that and the Spirit is the Spirit of God if you're looking for a single text where Theos is somehow meant to apply to all three every single text in the
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Old Testament where no differentiation is being made between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit would be that and any reference in the
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New Testament to the generic actions of God in the Old Testament would likewise it sounds like what's being said here we don't want to see the clear distinction and the revelation of the
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Father, Son and Spirit in the New Testament and we're going to reject the use of Theos of these other two persons and say give us a place where all three are identified by this one word that would require us to find a place where the word was not being clear enough to tell us who we were referring to which post -incarnation and the outpouring of the
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Holy Spirit would be the exact opposite of what we would expect to find I'd also point out that John 1, 1 the beginning was the word the word was with God the word was
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God either we have two Gods there or one God who is both God and the word
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I'd also point out that Genesis 1, 1 that says in the beginning God created the universe that the
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New Testament tells us in passages I've cited before explicitly speak of the Father and Son creating together explicit undeniable language if you want to talk about abundance of scholarship we can cite the abundance of scholarship so there'll be a landslide but it's clear it's clear and a final response 90 seconds yes we've got a lot of assumptions going here in the beginning was the word capital
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W where's that coming from let's look up the word word in the Old Testament the Hebrew background of John and find 1 ,200 examples where word is clearly in it my word is not another person so let's take the capital letter of word let's not translate all things are made through him because the eight
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English translations before that time said all things are made through it let's not assume it says in the beginning was the
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Son especially when at Fuller Seminary Colin Brown my colleague is saying it's patently wrong to read in the beginning was the
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Son patently wrong it's the word not the Son the Son is what the word became the word became the
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Son not one to one equivalent in John 1 .1 James Dunn 2010 lots of scholars to back us anything to add to that well that's the end of part one
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I thought that was fascinating I think our experts did an excellent job and I think we should show our appreciation thank you so much