Greetings again Yeshua1 and DHK and greetings Jordan Kurecki,
I appreciate all of your comments and without quoting them all, they mainly dwell on Jesus being worshiped, his ability to do miracles and forgive sins and John 8:58 compared with Exodus 3:14.
In brief response to these, God gave Jesus the power to do miracles and authorised him to forgive sins.
Acts 2:22 (KJV): Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know:
There is no hint in the above that Jesus performed these miracles because Jesus was God the Son, but the one God, the Father, did these miracles in and through Jesus, thus showing his approval of Jesus. God has also given Jesus the authority to forgive sins.
Looking at your quotations and your comment:
Mark 2:3 And they come unto him, bringing one sick of the palsy, which was borne of four.
4 And when they could not come nigh unto him for the press, they uncovered the roof where he was: and when they had broken it up, they let down the bed wherein the sick of the palsy lay.
5 When Jesus saw their faith, he said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, thy sins be forgiven thee.
--This is a key point in this event. He forgave this man's sins instead of healing him.
Mark 2:6 But there were certain of the scribes sitting there, and reasoning in their hearts,
7 Why doth this man thus speak blasphemies? who can forgive sins but God only?
--They were orthodox and correct in their thinking. If he was not God, and only human, he had no authority to forgive sins. ONLY GOD can forgive sins. This is key. God alone can forgive sins.
Mark 2:8 And immediately when Jesus perceived in his spirit that they so reasoned within themselves, he said unto them, Why reason ye these things in your hearts?
9 Whether is it easier to say to the sick of the palsy, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and take up thy bed, and walk?
10 But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (he saith to the sick of the palsy,)
11 I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy bed, and go thy way into thine house.
For Christ, God in the flesh, the miracle of healing wasn't any more difficult than the miracle of forgiving. He could do both. He was God. He demonstrated his power to forgive by his power to heal. No other man could heal and do miracles as he did. Only God could do those miracles. His miracles demonstrated his deity, that he indeed had the power to forgive--the power that only God has. Christ is God.
In the normal realm of things, man does not have the power to forgive sins, only God. When Jesus forgives sins, does he claim to be God? Is he rightfully able to forgive because he is God? Rather notice above in Mark 2:10 Jesus uses the title “the Son of Man”. An important source of this title is from
Psalm 8:1,3-8 (KJV): 1 O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens. 3 When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; 4 What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? 5 For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. 6 Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet:
Here is Yahweh, God the Father, Lord of heaven and earth, giving birth to the Son of Man, Jesus, who was made lower than the angels. Then Yahweh, God the Father crowns Jesus with glory and honour, as King-Priest, sets him as Lord over the creation, and puts all things under his feet. Part of this exaltation is to make Jesus as Judge and Ruler and able to discern the hearts and minds of man, and to forgive them their sins. He is able to forgive sins because he is “The Son of Man” of Psalm 8. No other “man” has this ability or authority.
I have detailed my understanding of the “I AM” passages of John’s Gospel in “The Trinity” thread Page 15 Post 148 – there has been no reasonable response to this post. I have discussed Exodus 3:14 claiming that the correct meaning of ehyeh asher ehyeh is I will be who I will be as per the margin of the RV and RSV, and also given an explanation of the development of the Yahweh Name in “The Trinity” thread Page 4 Post 37 and page 5 Post 41– again there has been no reasonable response to these posts.
If I could try to illustrate two views.
The Trinitarian View
God the Father
-------------------------------------------------------------- God the Father
God the Holy Spirit
-------------------------------------------------------- God the Holy Spirit
God the Son
---------- |..............................
---------------------- God the Son
.................................
| ............................
|.
.................................
| ............................
|
.................................
| ............................
|
............Jesus as a babe
--------------------- Jesus at resurrection
One God the Father, Jesus is the Son of God
God the Father
-------------------------------------------------------- God the Father
.................................. .
|.............................
|------------ The Son of God,
God the Father descends...
|.............................
| seated at the right hand of God
By means of the Holy Spirit.
|............................
|
.....................................
|............................
|
God with us in the form of .
.--------------------- Jesus at resurrection
Jesus as a babe, the Son of God
because God was His Father, by means of the Power of the Holy Spirit Luke 1:35.
I don't think anything could possibly convince this guy that Jesus is Jehova God in the flesh.
Even if there was a passage that said Jesus Christ is Jehova, he would simply explain it away by saying that "Really this means Jesus Christ is the fulness or image of Jehova, but is not Jehova himself."
This is called UNBELIEF and twisting the plain meaning of scriptures.
I do not accept the word “Jehova” as I believe the true representation of YHWH is Yahweh. If you consider my explanation of the Yahweh Name, as “I will be who I will be” or “He who will be” then you may understand that I believe that Jesus is Yahweh, and that Yahweh has become Jesus. What I cannot accept is that God the Son somehow lost all his Divine attributes when he became a babe, and then some time later recovered these attributes so that he could heal and forgive sins. The early records of Matthew, Luke and John do not speak of this shrinking of God the Son into a babe, but speak of the birth and development of the Son of God – refer Matthew 1:20-23, Luke 1:30-35, 2:40,52, John 1:14. During his ministry he was of one nature, human, but but he was also Yahweh, God in the flesh. After his exaltation he is Yahweh, God in the Spirit. The greatest and clearest expression is that our Lord Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
Jesus needs to be worshipped because he is the Son of God, and this redounds to the glory of God the Father as Philippians 2:11 reveals, as discussed earlier. The ultimate purpose of God is that the earth will be filled with God’s glory Numbers 14:21 and then God will be all and in all 1 Corinthians 15:28, thus fulfilling the Yahweh Name.
Kind regards
Trevor