John urges us to believe in a Jesus who is authentically a human being, not an angel who became man, nor an eternal Son of God who became a man.

Throughout the New Testament we are exhorted to believe that Jesus is the Christ. The Church is to be founded on Peter’s confession of Jesus as the Messiah (Mat. 16:16). John wrote his entire gospel to persuade us to believe that “Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God” (John 20:31). The early church in Acts “kept right on teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ” (Acts 5:42). Paul “proved that this Jesus is the Christ” (Acts 9:22, cp. Acts 17:3, 18:5, 18:28). It is the “Man Messiah” who is the one mediator between the One God and man (I Tim. 2:5). No wonder, then that the spirit of antichrist denies that Jesus is the Messiah. This is the arch-lie: “Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ?” (I John 2:22, 5:1).

It is crucially important to understand that the Messiah promised by the Old Testament was to be a real descendant of David (II Sam. 7:14). God would be the Father of this descendant, according to the promise, but the Messiah would be “the fruit of David’s body” (Psalm 132:11). There is no hint here or elsewhere in the Old Testament that God had been the Father of the Messiah for all eternity, much less that the Messiah was to be the uncreated member of an eternal Trinity. Rather, he was to be a “prophet like Moses” raised up from an Israelite family (see Deut. 18:15-18, Acts 3:22, 7:37). The traditional Jesus of the creeds is alien to this Biblical picture of the Messiah. (See also our article, “Luke 1:35: Systems in Conflict.”)

The real Jesus of history in whom Luke believed was the Son of God, not because He had been God from eternity but because of his miraculous conception. In Mary’s womb a real human person came into existence. Note the direct causal link between Jesus’ coming into being as the Son of God and the miracle which happened to Mary:

“The holy spirit will come upon you [Mary] and the power of the Most High will overshadow you, and for that reason the holy offspring shall be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:35).

This Jesus is a genuinely human person, though supernaturally conceived. He is the descendant of David. If he were not he could not prove his claim to be the Messiah. If, however, this person is actually God, putting on “impersonal human nature,” why would his descent from David matter? Could one not receive “impersonal human nature” from a mother of any nationality? The theory that the person of Jesus is not that of Mary’s Son begotten by the Father in Mary (Matt. 1:18, 20), but that of a preexistent person surely destroys both the genuineness of Jesus’ humanity and his descent from David.

The Jesus of Trinitarian and Chalcedonian theology is officially not a human person — ”man” but not “a man.” Such theological jargon, as many realize, is in desperate need of revision. The most important question of all is whether the Chalcedonian Jesus, in whom millions profess belief, qualifies as the one who came “as a human being” (I John 4:2). The difference in John’s mind between the real human Jesus and the one who only appears to be a man is the difference between light and dark, Christ and antichrist. One may profess to believe in Jesus as Messiah but negate this confession by denying that he is a fully human person. This the ancient creeds, so long hallowed by tradition, appear to do.

A theologian who discussed the history of belief in Jesus claimed that most of the so-called orthodox leaders of traditional Christianity were in fact Apollinarians. Apollinarius was convicted of the heresy of denying that Jesus was fully a human being (Dr. C.E Raven, Apollinarianism, cited by O.C. Quick in Doctrines of the Creed, p. 178). In other words “orthodoxy” has harbored a subtle form of a heresy which it condemned in others — that Jesus was not authentically human. Maurice Wiles, formerly Professor of Theology at Oxford University, was right when he said:

“The church has not usually in practice (whatever it may have claimed to be doing in theory) based its understanding of Christ exclusively on the witness of the New Testament” (The Remaking of Christian Doctrine, p. 55).

The following extraordinary admissions by prominent Trinitarian writers, experts on the creeds, should be carefully noted:
“In the debates of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Leonard Hodgson (The Doctrine of the Trinity, 1943, pp. 220,223) points out that ‘the unitarians [those who believe with the Bible that the Father only is the True God, John 17:3; 5:44; I Cor 8:4-6] as well as their opponents accepted the Bible as containing revelation given in the form of propositions, and concludes that ‘on the basis of argument which both sides held in common, the unitarians had the better case.’ And yet for all that it was not the unitarians who won the day. Christological doctrine has never in practice been derived simply by way of logical inference from the statements of Scripture” (Maurice Wiles, The Remaking Of Christian Doctrine, p. 55, emphasis added).

Protestants who claim to derive their faith exclusively from the Bible should give careful attention to this remarkable statement!

John’s Truth-test (I John 4:2, II John 7) is critically relevant to our times. Belief in Jesus as the Christ, a real human descendant of David is still the Biblical criterion for proof that one is drawing inspiration from the spirit of Truth. It remains as true as ever that the fundamental doctrinal test of the professing Christian has to do with his view of the person of Christ. The denial of the humanity of Jesus is the fatal flaw detected by the Johannine test. God’s Son is the Son of Mary and of David. Of sonship prior to His conception in history the Bible has nothing to say. Such a notion is destructive of Jesus’ genuine humanity and genuine descent from David. Jesus, the Jewish-Christian Messiah, needs urgently to be reinstated at the heart of Christian devotion. Belief in Him and in His Father, the only true God, leads to salvation (John 17:3).

Source

frosbel: John urges us to believe in a Jesus who is authentically a human being, not an angel who became man, nor an eternal Son of God who became a man.

Throughout the New Testament we are exhorted to believe that Jesus is the Christ. The Church is to be founded on Peter’s confession of Jesus as the Messiah (Mat. 16:16). John wrote his entire gospel to persuade us to believe that “Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God” (John 20:31). The early church in Acts “kept right on teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ” (Acts 5:42). Paul “proved that this Jesus is the Christ” (Acts 9:22, cp. Acts 17:3, 18:5, 18:28). It is the “Man Messiah” who is the one mediator between the One God and man (I Tim. 2:5). No wonder, then that the spirit of antichrist denies that Jesus is the Messiah. This is the arch-lie: “Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ?” (I John 2:22, 5:1).

It is crucially important to understand that the Messiah promised by the Old Testament was to be a real descendant of David (II Sam. 7:14). God would be the Father of this descendant, according to the promise, but the Messiah would be “the fruit of David’s body” (Psalm 132:11). There is no hint here or elsewhere in the Old Testament that God had been the Father of the Messiah for all eternity, much less that the Messiah was to be the uncreated member of an eternal Trinity. Rather, he was to be a “prophet like Moses” raised up from an Israelite family (see Deut. 18:15-18, Acts 3:22, 7:37). The traditional Jesus of the creeds is alien to this Biblical picture of the Messiah. (See also our article, “Luke 1:35: Systems in Conflict.”)

The real Jesus of history in whom Luke believed was the Son of God, not because He had been God from eternity but because of his miraculous conception. In Mary’s womb a real human person came into existence. Note the direct causal link between Jesus’ coming into being as the Son of God and the miracle which happened to Mary:

“The holy spirit will come upon you [Mary] and the power of the Most High will overshadow you, and for that reason the holy offspring shall be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:35).

This Jesus is a genuinely human person, though supernaturally conceived. He is the descendant of David. If he were not he could not prove his claim to be the Messiah. If, however, this person is actually God, putting on “impersonal human nature,” why would his descent from David matter? Could one not receive “impersonal human nature” from a mother of any nationality? The theory that the person of Jesus is not that of Mary’s Son begotten by the Father in Mary (Matt. 1:18, 20), but that of a preexistent person surely destroys both the genuineness of Jesus’ humanity and his descent from David.

The Jesus of Trinitarian and Chalcedonian theology is officially not a human person — ”man” but not “a man.” Such theological jargon, as many realize, is in desperate need of revision. The most important question of all is whether the Chalcedonian Jesus, in whom millions profess belief, qualifies as the one who came “as a human being” (I John 4:2). The difference in John’s mind between the real human Jesus and the one who only appears to be a man is the difference between light and dark, Christ and antichrist. One may profess to believe in Jesus as Messiah but negate this confession by denying that he is a fully human person. This the ancient creeds, so long hallowed by tradition, appear to do.

A theologian who discussed the history of belief in Jesus claimed that most of the so-called orthodox leaders of traditional Christianity were in fact Apollinarians. Apollinarius was convicted of the heresy of denying that Jesus was fully a human being (Dr. C.E Raven, Apollinarianism, cited by O.C. Quick in Doctrines of the Creed, p. 178). In other words “orthodoxy” has harbored a subtle form of a heresy which it condemned in others — that Jesus was not authentically human. Maurice Wiles, formerly Professor of Theology at Oxford University, was right when he said:

“The church has not usually in practice (whatever it may have claimed to be doing in theory) based its understanding of Christ exclusively on the witness of the New Testament” (The Remaking of Christian Doctrine, p. 55).

The following extraordinary admissions by prominent Trinitarian writers, experts on the creeds, should be carefully noted:
“In the debates of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Leonard Hodgson (The Doctrine of the Trinity, 1943, pp. 220,223) points out that ‘the unitarians [those who believe with the Bible that the Father only is the True God, John 17:3; 5:44; I Cor 8:4-6] as well as their opponents accepted the Bible as containing revelation given in the form of propositions, and concludes that ‘on the basis of argument which both sides held in common, the unitarians had the better case.’ And yet for all that it was not the unitarians who won the day. Christological doctrine has never in practice been derived simply by way of logical inference from the statements of Scripture” (Maurice Wiles, The Remaking Of Christian Doctrine, p. 55, emphasis added).

Protestants who claim to derive their faith exclusively from the Bible should give careful attention to this remarkable statement!

John’s Truth-test (I John 4:2, II John 7) is critically relevant to our times. Belief in Jesus as the Christ, a real human descendant of David is still the Biblical criterion for proof that one is drawing inspiration from the spirit of Truth. It remains as true as ever that the fundamental doctrinal test of the professing Christian has to do with his view of the person of Christ. The denial of the humanity of Jesus is the fatal flaw detected by the Johannine test. God’s Son is the Son of Mary and of David. Of sonship prior to His conception in history the Bible has nothing to say. Such a notion is destructive of Jesus’ genuine humanity and genuine descent from David. Jesus, the Jewish-Christian Messiah, needs urgently to be reinstated at the heart of Christian devotion. Belief in Him and in His Father, the only true God, leads to salvation (John 17:3).

Source

italo: John 1:

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.

14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.

italo: John 1:

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.

14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.

italo: John 1:

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.

14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.

Goshen360:

And the attack against the deity of Christ continues

Why don't you start from the verse first verse of John the Apostle

italo: John 1:

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.

14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.

plappville:

Why are you taking it as an attack? This man is doing a good work for God.
John 1 is telling you that Christ is the "word" of God, He revealed God to us when He came to earth.
And the word was God, God wouldn't be revealed if not for Christ. Its not telling you that God came to earth to die for you, for God cannot die.

Besides, you cannot use only one varse of the bible to balance ur claim.

Goshen360:

Okay. There is a difference in using "w" as a lower case to describe the word. Jesus is NOT the word with lower case "w", that will mean a literal word used to express our thought and communication. I am NOT here to play on words, am here to defend the fact the Bible by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit calls Christ God. The question to you is, IF CHRIST IS JUST A LITERAL WORD USED TO EXPRESS THOUGHT AND COMMUNICATION, WHY DID JOHN IN VERSE TWO PERSONIFIED THE WORD AS "HE".......He was with God in the beginning. John 1:2. I haven't built theology on one verse mind. I have got many scripture that calls Jesus God. However, I believe Jesus is NOT the Father.

frosbel:


how about v14 where John clarified what he meant in John 1:1 :

v14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Let us dissect this important verse :

1. Word became Flesh
2. Made his dwelling among US
3. We have seen his GLORY
4. Glory of the one and ONLY SON.
5. Who came from the FATHER


Seriously Goshen bro, can you after reading this verse still confess that JESUS is GOD without laughing ?

Goshen360:

Very Good. The point here is this, the Word that was called God in verse 1 and personified as "He" in verse two proves that it is NOT a literal word used in expressing thought. He is a being! The same "Word" that was called God BECAME FLESH, that became human. This means when he became human, what He is called in human form, after He became flesh is "Son"....from the Father. What glory is John talking about Jesus himself answered this question,

New International Version (©1984)
And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began. John 17:5

frosbel:

wrong.

Jesus became a being when he was conceived in his Mother's womb.

plappville: Daniel 7:13: “I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of Man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of Days, and they brought Him near before Him.” A discription of Christ is given here.

We find here that the “Son of Man” (Christ) approached the “Ancient of Days” (the Father). Christ was not approaching Himself. What is described here is Jesus Christ being “coronated” and given dominion and power over the nations of earth. A prophecy that is to be fulfilled in no distance of time.

The "word" is forever [Jesus is forever].

italo: Jesus: "before Abraham was, I AM!"

Frosbel: 'before Abraham was, He wasn't'

italo: Jesus: "before Abraham was, I AM!"

Frosbel: 'before Abraham was, He wasn't'

italo: John 1:

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.

14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.

Goshen360: @ plappville sweerie,

I get your message. Herein is the issue. First since you believe Jesus is divine. I might not have much issue with you unless you also want to enter a debate with me on the deity of Christ. My issue with Frosbel is denying the deity of Christ and the title of this thread says "Jesus, A Real Human Being". This same Jesus was presented to us in many different aspects in the Gospel. John presented him as God who BECAME a human to reveal the Father and give us eternal life. He is NOT the Father but was from the Father and he was called God. Luke presented as the "son of man" tracing his genealogy to Adam. When he "became" human, taking human nature is where and when he is called the Son of God. When God begat, he begat one like himself. That is why we believers are also called the sons of God. We carry God in our new birth and spiritual being even though we walk human on earth.

italo: I'll just let the Bible speak for itself.

italo: John 1:

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.

14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.

italo: John 20:28: 'Thomas said to him, "my Lord and my God"'

Frosbel & Plappville: 'Shut up Thomas! He's not your God.'

italo: John 20:28: 'Thomas said to him, "my Lord and my God"'

Frosbel & Plappville: 'Shut up Thomas! He's not your God.'

ijawkid:

Who is your God??

Yahweh or Jesus??

frosbel:

You are running desperate and left with nothing else but random cherry picking of verses.

For us to believe in your rubbish called the Trinity we have to throw away 3/4 of the Bible from the OT to the NT where again and again, the Prophets, the Jews, the Apostles , Jesus Christ and even GOD himself says that GOD is ONE.

ONE means ONE.


Hold on to your pagan 3 gods, I am just fine with my ONE GOD.

italo:

I am not cherry-picking and it is not random. I'm picking passages that show that Jesus is God. Isn't that very relevant to the topic being discussed?

You haven't, meanwhile, given any passage that says "Jesus is not God." If you have one let us see it.

italo:

John 1:1: ...and the Word WAS God

plappville: He is the word of God, "NOT GOD"

frosbel:

I suggest you go for an emergency eye test !!!