Kenosis Heresy

Of course it does, for it was created through Jesus' actions in his obedient life, death for sin and God's raising him from the dead and this works for God because God's foreknowledge of it was as real to God as if it happened in actual created time.

This is why Paul said the following words about Abraham and God Romans 4:17 below, for with God his foreknowledge is just as real with him as when it happens and the reason is, because what he foreknows is what he planned to be and what he planned to be will always happen.

17 (As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations,) before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were.

Genesis 17:5 No longer will you be called Abram (singular); your name will be Abraham (plural), for I have made you a father of many nations.


Notice, God told Abraham that he had already made him a Father of many nations, when Abraham didn't yet have even one single descendant or son and in fact he changed his name from Abram which is in the singular to Abraham which is the plural form of Abram.


This is also one of the reasons why he knows the end from the beginning and he even tells us this in Isaiah 46:9-10 below.


Isaiah 46:9-10

9 Remember the former things, those of long ago;

I am God, and there is no other;

I am God, and there is none like me.

10 I make known the end from the beginning,

from ancient times, what is still to come.

I say, ‘My purpose will stand,

and I will do all that I please.’



You are wanting to make the words "through and in" as in "all things were created through and in Him (Jesus)" to mean that he had to be there and have a hands on part in the creation and that is not what they mean or what they have to mean either.
Even if God's purposes cannot be thwarted, Christ's redemption had nothing to do with creation as expressed in Genesis: i.e. in the first six days of creation. Redemption is a Sabbath activity and belongs to a different day.


You need to stop attempting to understand God's infinite words with your finite human wisdom and reasoning processes, for this is the very reason why the trinitarians are also confused about God's word, for this isn't the way that God in his word told us we are to learn the truth

That is the problem however, you are going by your own mind instead of the mind that was in Christ Jesus from God by his Spirit that dwelt within Jesus and as Paul states in the passage below.

1 Corinthians 2:13-16

13 This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words. 14 The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. 15 The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, 16 for,

“Who has known the mind of the Lord
so as to instruct him?”
But we have the mind of Christ.



I am sorry but this has to be understood by the actual definition of what word "Logos" itself reveals, for the definition is what reveals in what sense the Logos was God without the definite article and it wasn't referring to an actual living person or being until the Logos was made flesh in Jesus Christ.
Christ testified, he had glory with the Father before he became a man. Such wasn't possible unless he had existed. This shows your theory to be erroneous:

Jhn 17:5

And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.
The Logos as defined, refers to God in his mind and thinking and therefore when John said "and the Logos was "pros" "towards" God, John is expressing the fact that God was thinking towards himself and in his foreknowledge concerning his plan (logos) to send Christ Jesus in the future and in order to justify his creating all things knowing in advance that sin would enter in and distort what he created.

And you believe that when it says the word came to the prophets, that it was an extra living person and being that The God sent to them?
No, I'm saying that the Logos was sustaining the world even before he came to earth, though the word of God given by the Spirit and by angels, though men did not know it was the Logos.

Heb 1:2,3 "... in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact
representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word."

You need to get free of the doctrines and teachings of other men, for the whole bunch of them are in apostasy from the truth and actually the Bible revealed that the true church will be only a small remnants of what appears to be the church to the world and he wasn't speaking of the Jehovah's Witnesses when he said this either, for they are part of the problem and not the solution.

I reject that instruction. You haven't addressed the point I raised. If the Logos only existed in God's foreknowledge, then he didn't exist at all. He wasn't the beginning of creation but the end of creation.

When it says God calls things that are not as though they were, he refers to things existing in the world. He is hardly going to call something in heaven as existing at a point when it didn't exist. That is absurd.

This doctrine of a non-existent Logos "in the beginning" is crazy stuff and repudiated by Christ himself.
 
Okay, you can call them Christophanies (which is odd for a Oneness...BUT I don't want to bunny trail this...Oneness in general say many things that seem to be at odds with their stated core beliefs). So these "Christophanies" have a morphe...and it is worth noting that Isaiah says, "For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts." Daniel says, "I watched until...the Ancient of Days was seated." Ezekiel says, "This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord." This last one is especially noteworthy as orthodox Trinitarians would tell you that Philippians 2:6-7 explains how the Son was able to appear to us without His glory...because human nature/beings do not inherently possess divine glory. I know you do not accept this so there is no point in us going back and forth on this for fifty posts.
I consider Christophanies to be prophetic visions of the future King Christ Jesus since none of the appearances is exactly the same.
Human nature ( the physical body) doesn't possess divine glory but the person inside does and Jesus revealed his divine glory on the mountain with Peter, James, John, Moses, and Elijah. Matthew 17.1-3
I will point out that many people in the Bible say they say God, including some I just quoted. In fact, Hebrews 11 says this about Moses:

Hebrews 11:27 (NIV2011)
27 By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger; he persevered because he saw him who is invisible.

The NASB translates it this way:

Hebrews 11:27 (NASB77)
27 By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured, as seeing Him who is unseen.

We all know the story of Moses and I just wanted to point out that the word "invisible" that you see in the NT can actually mean simply "unseen" as in "hidden." At any rate, whatever these appearances are they are "visually striking and incredible" to the one seeing (unless of course you don't think these have anything to do with God at all). And I so think you may be confusing morphe with eidos, or homoiōm, or schema. It is generally accepted that "morphe" generally has, shall we say, a "deeper" meaning. In Jn 5.37, Jesus tells them they have never seen the Father's "shape/eidos," He doesn't say "the Father doesn't have a shape to be seen." Notwithstanding, here in Phil 2.6-7 the "morphe of God" is to be contrasted with "the morphe of a servant/slave." Not the morphe of a "human" (though it goes on to point out that He accomplished taking the morphe of a slave by beginning to exist in the "likeness/homoiom" of human beings). This is the contrast made here. Again, if you disagree then we will leave it at that, I will pursue this no further.
Yes, I still disagree. I offer one more scripture. If you don't want to discuss it, that's fine with me.
1Tim 6: 14-16 KJV
14 That thou keep this commandment without spot, unrebukable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ:
15 Which in his times he shall shew,
who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords;
16 Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen.
Sure, pick your translation, here's the NKJV. And I wish all the questions were this easy, but surely you could have looked at an interlinear yourself.

Philippians 2:7 (NKJV)
7 but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men.

So the word you see as "coming" is also translated "born," and "being made," and so on. Here is the word:

gínomai; (strongs 1096) fut. genésomai, 2d aor. egenómēn, perf. part. gegenēménos, 2d perf. gégona, 2d pluperf. egegónein, aor. pass. egenéthēn for egenómēn. This verb is mid. deponent intrans. primarily meaning to begin to be, that is, to come into existence or into any state; and in the aor. and 2d perf. to have come into existence or simply to be. Thus egenómēn, egenéthēn, and gégona serve likewise as the past tenses of to be
Complete Word Study Dictionary, The - New Testament.

In Phil 2.7 this is a verbal participle/aor/mid/nom. So I made it a participle in the middle voice "beginning to exist." In addition, Jesus is the doer as the participles explain how he accomplishes the verb ekenosen (which is active).

The second word you ask about is "men" which is:

ánthrōpos; gen. anthrópou, masc., fem. noun. Man, a generic name in distinction from gods and the animals. In the NT, used to make the distinction between sinful man, whose conduct, way, or nature is opposed to God, male or husband.

(I) A man or woman, an individual of the human race, a person.

Complete Word Study Dictionary, The - New Testament.

I will not argue this either, it is a straightforward fact. If you don't accept it...then you don't.
Thank you for going through the word study. I was going to order the CWSD of the NT from Amazon but to my surprise it's on my shelf.
I don't accept it despite your well presented explanation because I believe the morphe of God in vs 6 has to do with Christ Jesus after the incarnation. The referent to this whole passage is Christ Jesus (who is God in the form of man.) When Jesus came into the world it doesn't have to mean it was from his preexistence as God but simply from his birth. I can see where you are coming from. I guess I could say the same even from my Oneness POV but I'm not convinced.
Thanks for the discussion.
 
Phil 2:5-8
In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

6 Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
NIV

These translation capture the meaning of the text in its CONTEXT.


New International Version
rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.

New Living Translation
Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form,

New King James Version
but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men.

King James Bible
But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:


Thayers Greek Lexicon
namely, τοῦ εἶναι ἴσα Θεῷ or τῆς μορφῆς τοῦ Θεοῦ, i. e. he laid aside equality with or the form of God (said of Christ), Philippians 2:7

Strongs Lexicon
From kenos; to make empty, i.e. (figuratively) to abase, neutralize, falsify -- make (of none effect, of no reputation, void), be in vain.

Louw Nida Greek Lexicon
87.70
κενόωb: to completely remove or eliminate elements of high status or rank by eliminating all privileges or prerogatives associated with such status or rank.

What Paul makes very clear in this passage is that in addition to being God, He became man. The Incarnation was not a subtraction of His deity but an addition of humanity to His nature. This passage does not say Jesus gave up His deity but that He laid aside His rights as Deity, assuming the form of a servant in verse 7. The text says He was in the form of God or being in the very nature of God in 2:6. Just as He took upon Himself the "form of a servant" which is a servant by nature, so the "form of God" is God by nature. The word "being" from the phrase: being in the very form of God is a present active participle. This means "continued existence" as God. What Paul is actually saying here is Jesus has always been and still is in the "form of God". If you continue reading the passage Paul really drives this point home so that his readers have no doubt what he is trying to get across to the Philippians. Paul says that every knee will bow and will one day Confess Jesus is LORD. Paul takes the passage in Isaiah 45:23 which clearly refers to Yahweh a name used for God alone and says this of Jesus. The fulfillment of YHWH in Isaiah 45 is none other than Jesus who is God(Yahweh) in the flesh.

He self limited His divine prerogatives via the Incarnation as per Phil 2. In other words did not use them to His advantage but was in submission to the Father for 33 years to accomplish our salvation. All the FULLNESS of DEITY dwells in bodily form. Col 1:19;2:9. Jesus was and is fully God lacking nothing in His Deity.

Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.

Even through Christ existed in the form of God He did not regard equality with God something that He needed to reach for or grasp. Why because it was already His and never gave that up for a millisecond.

Paul is using syllogisms from the text in Philippians 2.

Just as the term “form of God” in verse six does not mean “less than God” because of the phrase “equality with God" in the prior passage.

It goes to reason in the same way with the 2 phrases in the “form of a servant” and in the “likeness of man” in verse seven do not mean that Jesus was any “less than human,” but instead means He was the same or “equal with all humans.”

That is how the passage reads and how it is to be understood in its " CONTEXT ".

In Colossians 1:19 and Colossians 2:9 the Apostle Paul said, For in HIM (CHRIST) ALL of the “ fullness of deity dwells bodily. “Did Paul use the word fullness there to mean partially? NO as Jesus did not empty Himself of His Deity. Jesus Divinity is FULL, complete lacking in nothing. The ENTIRE Fullness of Deity dwells (is present) bodily in Jesus.

This is how one exegetes the passage rather than using eisegesis- reading ones own thoughts and ideas into the text.

hope this helps !!!

St. Chrysostom (died September 14, 407 A.D.), in his commentary explains this very well. You're right, the whole point was that just because Christ was "God" He didn't use that as an excuse as to why He wouldn't accept the will of the Father.
 
Even if God's purposes cannot be thwarted, Christ's redemption had nothing to do with creation as expressed in Genesis: i.e. in the first six days of creation. Redemption is a Sabbath activity and belongs to a different day.

ROFLOL, but he was looking ahead to the future and when did Jesus in the future to when he created all things?

It was on the Sabbath and so your opposition to this is incorrect.
Christ testified, he had glory with the Father before he became a man. Such wasn't possible unless he had existed. This shows your theory to be erroneous:
Jhn 17:5

And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.

There is a big, big difference entirely from Jesus and the Father having glory together in God's foreknowledge, than there is of him actually having a presence with God like you are being hoodwinked by the JW's to believe about it.

The glory that he is speaking of hadn't even come to pass yet in the finite dimension that we exist in, for the very context of verse 1 tells you what glory Jesus was speaking of and as I revealed from the word, God's infinite foreknowledge is as real to him as if it already happen in this finite dimension that we live in.

By the way, my Mother was a JW, so I know all about what you believe.
No, I'm saying that the Logos was sustaining the world even before he came to earth, though the word of God given by the Spirit and by angels, though men did not know it was the Logos.

Yes but the Logos wasn't an actual he yet until it was made flesh and John is only using the personification of the Logos to reach the Jews and Greeks who were involved in philosophy because that is what they do with the Logos also.

What John is doing with the Logos is nearly the same as what Paul did in Athens with the alter to the unknown God and Paul even quoted their own philosophers also.

Read it yourself for it is in Acts 17:22-31

Heb 1:2,3 "... in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact
representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word."

Being you don't know this, in Genesis 1:3 the first thing God spoke called forth was the light and we know that this light is not the light of the Sun, Moon and Stars because they weren't created until the 4th day, for that Light that God called forth was his foreknowledge of his plan in Christ Jesus' perfect sinless life and death on the cross for sin and his resurrection from the dead.

That was the light that was his foreknowledge of Christ and it was the hope in his foreknowledge of the redemption and restoration that he would send into the world in the future to remember the fall that he knew in advance would distort what he created.

It was his foreknowledge of the hope of it's redemption and restoration that would in the future come through Jesus Christ and without which God in his perfect righteousness would never have created anything that he did create while knowing that sin would distort it all.


Paul by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit even brings this to light in his words in 2 Corinthians 4:6 below.

2 Corinthians 2:6 For God, who said, “Light shall shine out of darkness, (Genesis 1:3)” is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

Notice, that Paul even calls the light by which we are redeemed and restored to God, "the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ".

The same knowledge that he called forth when he said "let there be light" in Genesis 1:3 and which was his foreknowledge of Jesus Christ, is the very knowledge that he shines in our hearts so that we can be saved.

By the way, don't think for a moment, that what Paul said wasn't given by the Holy Spirit so that we would know what that light in Genesis 1:3 was, for it most definitely was but only those who are being taught by the Holy Spirit will see these things in the scripture and not those who are taught by the apostate institutions of men and which I am sorry but the JW's are. .

I reject that instruction. You haven't addressed the point I raised. If the Logos only existed in God's foreknowledge, then he didn't exist at all. He wasn't the beginning of creation but the end of creation.

Hey all I am responsible for is giving to you what God has given to me and what you do with it after this is between you and God and out of my hands, for only God can open the eyes of the spiritually blind and that is not my job but only to sow and water the seed of the truth and which is what I am doing.

I have indeed addressed your point and the problem isn't that I haven't but the problem is the same problem that the Jews had, and it is that you are unable to understand the truth that I am giving you, for you are not being taught by God but rather by men who are being taught by the Devil.

John 8:43 Why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear My word. 44 You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.


By the way, here is a verse that relates what I am showing you from what I have already given you.

John 8:12 Then Jesus again spoke to them, saying, “I am the Light of the world (Genesis 1:3 and 2 Corinthians 4:6); he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.”
When it says God calls things that are not as though they were, he refers to things existing in the world. He is hardly going to call something in heaven as existing at a point when it didn't exist. That is absurd.
Hey dude, everything that you see in creation was calling into existence from nothing more than what God spoke and Hebrews 11:1 below states this also

Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

2 For by it the elders obtained a good testimony.

3 By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.


Romans 4:17 (as it is written, “I have made you a father of many nations”) in the presence of Him whom he believed—God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did;





This doctrine of a non-existent Logos "in the beginning" is crazy stuff and repudiated by Christ himself.

Who said anything about a non existent Logos, for the Logos in the beginning refers to Gods mind and his mind was centered on the future when he would send forth Jesus to died for our sins and bring redemption restoration of what God created back from the fall.

The problem here, is that you only hear what you want to hear and the rest is blocked from your understanding because the devil has blinded your eyes from the truth.

2 Corinthians 4:3-6

3 But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, 4 whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them. 5 For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your bondservants for Jesus’ sake. 6 For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.


Notice again, that Paul is speaking of that light, for again, it is the knowledge of the glory of God in the image and face of Jesus and it is the same light in Genesis 1:3 that in God's foreknowledge of it, he created all things.
 
Even if God's purposes cannot be thwarted, Christ's redemption had nothing to do with creation as expressed in Genesis: i.e. in the first six days of creation. Redemption is a Sabbath activity and belongs to a different day.
I sent you a reply to the other points already but I really messed up on my first reply with my typing and so I am going to straighten that out here with a better reply on the above.

Jesus was crucified during the Sabbath week and God was looking into the future to him on that cross in his foreknowledge as His basis for his creating all things.

So your point about the Sabbath doesn't stand because God was seeing ahead into the future during that Sabbath week when Jesus was crucified and God's foreknowledge of it was as if it had already occurred in created time because it was a done deal the moment he planned for it to happen in his Logos = Divine Mind.

By the way, I hope you realize that two of the earliest definitions for the Logos = are the Mind and Plan of God by which he created and orders all things, and if you do a search on the internet you will see that some of the resource will speak of this also.
 
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I sent you a reply to the other points already but I really messed up on my first reply with my typing and so I am going to straighten that out here with a better reply on the above.

Jesus was crucified during the Sabbath week and God was looking into the future to him on that cross in his foreknowledge as His basis for his creating all things.

So your point about the Sabbath doesn't stand because God was seeing ahead into the future during that Sabbath week when Jesus was crucified and God's foreknowledge of it was as if it had already occurred in created time because it was a done deal the moment he planned for it to happen in his Logos = Divine Mind.

By the way, I hope you realize that two of the earliest definitions for the Logos = are the Mind and Plan of God by which he created and orders all things, and if you do a search on the internet you will see that some of the resource will speak of this also.
Logos= The Son of God.
 
I sent you a reply to the other points already but I really messed up on my first reply with my typing and so I am going to straighten that out here with a better reply on the above.

Jesus was crucified during the Sabbath week and God was looking into the future to him on that cross in his foreknowledge as His basis for his creating all things.

So your point about the Sabbath doesn't stand because God was seeing ahead into the future during that Sabbath week when Jesus was crucified and God's foreknowledge of it was as if it had already occurred in created time because it was a done deal the moment he planned for it to happen in his Logos = Divine Mind.

By the way, I hope you realize that two of the earliest definitions for the Logos = are the Mind and Plan of God by which he created and orders all things, and if you do a search on the internet you will see that some of the resource will speak of this also.
My point about redemption being a Sabbath activity was in consideration of redemption being a 7th day activity. The creation took place on days 1-6, the redemption on day 7 (God's day of rest). Logically it doesn't belong to the first six days.

The problem with Logos being the "divine mind" is that this is a philosophical definition, not a theological position. It would also suggest that when Jesus came to earth, God was deprived of his mind, which doesn't seem sensible. However Jesus coming to earth on the 7th (divine) day, God's own day of rest, is a sensible proposition. Also, it is impossible and illegitimate to "subdivide God" in this sense. Rather the Logos was the agent through which all things came into being. If the Logos is to be defined in scriptural terms, it is said to denote the "wisdom and power of God" (1 Cor 1:24) and as to which see also Prov 8 for when wisdom itself was brought forth (as the first of everything).

To suggest that wisdom and power were not fully extant in everything that was created is wrong.
 
I believe that he came down from heaven also but he came down as a brand new created male seed that through the Holy Spirit was implanted into the womb of Mary and therefore born as the Son of God.

He wasn't in existence in any other form before his birth other than within God's Christ centered mind or Logos and therefore when the Logos became flesh, that is when what God planed within his mind became a reality in living flesh as a true human being and as Paul called him in 1 Corinthians 15:45-47 the last Adam and the second man.

If John was truly saying that the Logos was God and with The God in the beginning, then you have two God's that John is speaking of and there is no way that John as a monotheist Jews would ever have meant for us to understand his very spiritual words to mean that.

That is why one must give up on his own human intelligence and reasoning with the scriptures and be led and taught by the Spirit instead and just like Paul very clearly revealed we must in order to understand God's word in Spirit and Truth and as per 1 Corinthians 2:13-16 below.


1 Corinthians 2:13 This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words.

14 The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.

15 The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments,
Bible describes Jesus as prexisting with God the father, and Himself being also God!
 
My point about redemption being a Sabbath activity was in consideration of redemption being a 7th day activity. The creation took place on days 1-6, the redemption on day 7 (God's day of rest). Logically it doesn't belong to the first six days.

I know what your point was and addressed it, for that doesn't matter anyhow because God was looking ahead to the future where Jesus did die on that Sabbath week and was resurrected on the first day of the week after it also.
The problem with Logos being the "divine mind" is that this is a philosophical definition, not a theological position.
Yes but it was never used for theology either until in the NT in Paul's writings and also then in John's prologue of John 1, but before this, the word had its roots if philosophy and derived most of its meaning from philosophy and that is why John used it also, for he was speaking to those who understood the word from it's philosophical roots both Jew and Gentile also.

The Memra which is the Jewish equivalent to the Greek Logos, was used by the Jews as a personification and synonym for Yahweh and you can see this if you go to the Jewish Encyclopedia and read about it, but it was figurative and not taken to mean that Yahweh was more than one person like Trins and oneness do with it.
It would also suggest that when Jesus came to earth, God was deprived of his mind, which doesn't seem sensible.

LOL, no, because the Logos being made flesh means only that what was conceived in God's mind became flesh and not God's actual mind itself.

It was duplicated into the flesh of Jesus the same way that God's image was also duplicated into Adam when he first created him.

Furthermore in Hebrews 1:3 when it says of Jesus that he is "the express image of God's being" the Greek word for "express image" is "charakter" and this word "charakter" was used to refer to a copy of the image from one substance into another like the copy of the image of an emperor onto a metal coin.

So we are only speaking of a duplication of God's mind and character into the human being Christ Jesus and which only began when he was born but continued as he grew in his knowledge and resisted every temptation that men are tempted with also and without sin.
However Jesus coming to earth on the 7th (divine) day, God's own day of rest, is a sensible proposition.

Where are you getting this and why would you think that this was necessary or sensible anyhow, for it is nothing more than speculation, for there is no evidence in scripture to back this up with?
Also, it is impossible and illegitimate to "subdivide God" in this sense. Rather the Logos was the agent through which all things came into being. If the Logos is to be defined in scriptural terms, it is said to denote the "wisdom and power of God" (1 Cor 1:24) and as to which see also Prov 8 for when wisdom itself was brought forth (as the first of everything).
I can't help but laugh here, for it is obvious that what I am saying is going right over your head, for like I said and will again, the Logos was only duplicated into the human nature of Jesus and not that God gave up his mind or a part of his being to put it into a human being and which would be total nonsense.

As far as proverbs 8 goes, this is also a figurative personification of God's wisdom as a woman in contrast to the woman that the Psalmist calls foolishness and which is also a figurative personification and so this is not referring to a pre existing agent of God or Michael the Archangel or any other of that sort but it is only figurative personification of God's wisdom from his mind to express a point.

You do realize also that the Proverbs are also God given Philosophies and also good example of what John was also using the Logos to express in John 1 and in order to reveal to those of his day that were deeply involved with these philosophical ideas, how they relate to God's in his foreknowledge of Jesus?
To suggest that wisdom and power were not fully extant in everything that was created is wrong.
Of course they were but they never referred to an actual living being either, but only figurative personifications given to express the difference between the wisdom and power of God with the foolishness of man and his human strength.
 
But if this was so, how could the universe have been created "through him" (numerous passages including Jn 1:3 and 1 Cor 8:6)?


This is not correct. There is only one God with the definite article in Jn 1:1, in Jn 1:1b, and so it is the Father. In Jn 1:1c "God is The Word" without the article. This doesn't mean that the Word was trespassing on the rights and perogatives of the Father, but exercising them in being one with the Father.

The relation between Jesus and his Father is this: on earth Jesus exercises and reveals the power of the Father. In heaven it is the same but direct: the Word exercises and reveals the power of the Father in creation; and on his ascension judgement over all men. So there is only one God, the Father, but power of God is through the Word: hence the Word is "God" (no article) and in the form of God.


I just don't think you've got a good grasp of the Greek, especially in respect of the article usage (the Father) and anarthrous (non-article) use of God for the Word in Jn 1:1c, and in the distinctions as to what is going on in heaven (the Word working the power of God), neither do you understand that if the Word can exercise the power of the Father upon his ascension, he must also have done the same before he came down from heaven.

If He is One with God the Father in heaven (as Jesus asserted), the Word could not be denoted as anything else but "God" in reflecting that oneness. This doesn't infer that Jesus was more than a human, but it does mandate that his origination is in heaven, and his soul somehow fashioned from what came down from heaven.
The Logos as used by Apostle John described the Lord jesus as eternally existing with God the Father, and to being very God Himself, as there are many times in the Greek NT when father described without the Theos appearing, would that mean that father not God then, using your logic concerning Jesus?
 
All things being created through and in Christ Jesus is not referring to him having a hands on part in the actual creation itself but rather with the fact that it was only through God's plan and foreknowledge of Jesus' coming and perfect sinless life and his death on the cross for sin and his being resurrected by God, that God created anything at all while knowing in advance that sin would corrupt it all.


In other words, the future coming of Jesus to redeem and restore God's purpose for creating all things while knowing in advance that it would be corrected by sin, is the only reason why God in his righteousness could create the world and this is what is meant by "all things were created through and in him" and not that he was there with God creating them.


I know and therefore the words "and the Logos was God" have to be understood by the definition of the word Logos itself and the Logos refers to the mind of God and God's mind is also God isn't it?

When it says "and the Logos was "pros" = with God", it is referring to God reciprocating with his own mind and thoughts or in other words "his thinking "pros" towards himself and in his foreknowledge of his plan to send Jesus to live a perfect sinless life and then to die on the cross for sin and in order to justify His creating all things and while knowing in advance that sin would corrupt his creation.

I am not at all interested in what people think about my grasp of things but only about what God thinks and what he reveals to me from the scriptures by the Holy Spirit and what people think about it, I leave up to God and them to deal with, for I am not saved to please men but only God alone.
Paul calls Jesus the Creator of all creating things, so Jesus Himself was not a created being, but God!
 
No, that's not the way it works.

Rather the son of God is identified as pre-existing as the Word, that is God by virtue of being one with God the Father in heaven.

There is no such conception of God the Son. It doesn't exist in scripture because infers parity in all things with the Father, that is not taught.
Jesus was God before His Incarnation!
 
Civic, Here is the first scripture--
How do you explain John 8:28 ...that I do nothing of myself but as my father hath taught me, I speak these things.

Why does Jesus have to be taught anything if he has access to his omniscience while incarnate?

And the second--
Luke 2:52 And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.

Why did Jesus grow in wisdom? Isn't he the giver of wisdom?
He was both God and a sinless Human, and in his humanity experienced all the things that we do, including growing up and learning!
 
1. God, YHWH, the divine Spirit- these are all discriptors of the same person
2. after, morphe means striking the eye or being able to see the form
"being in the form" is the same thing as "existing in the form"
3 Persons in the Godhead, and the Second one chose to become human and walk among us
 
And not only "in" the form of God, but "existing" in the form of God...it is not possible for anything to exist in the form of God other than God...it just isn't possible.

TheLayman
Jesus cannot be anything less then God, as there are no "god" state, its either God or a created being!
 
I equate the form of God with the express image of God in Hebrews 1. God, as pure, invisible spirit, doesn't have a form.
Still existing/being in the form of God means that Christ Jesus is God existing as a man. Christ specifically is identified as Messiah, the anointed one, who is a man sent to the nation of Israel from God. This passage lets us know once again that Christ Jesus is ontologically God.
Jesus is God, as are also eternally the father and the Holy Spirit!
 
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