If it all be possible, let this cup pass from me

So Jesus did not have to be aware of ‘future human theology’, did he.

We’ve been talking about Jesus’ self-awareness that he was the Son of God. If he was not aware of it, then what in the world was he thinking about “All authority on heaven and earth has been given to me”?

I think I have already made it pretty clear that I am on your side with regards to the disagreement you have with others here about Jesus’ awareness and doubt. Superhuman? no. But average joe? definitely not. 100% human yes. But raised and taught by the Father. And 100% God because being God does not require power and knowledge. Yes God is omnipotent and omniscient but not because He has to be in order to be God. He can set aside any of this and be what He chooses to be at some point of time and space, and it does not change the fact that He is the creator of the universe when He does so.

The fact that doubt is natural and healthy doesn’t mean Jesus had doubts about everything. And just because the incarnated Jesus was not omniscient doesn’t mean He has no awareness of who and what He is.

I’m drawing a distinction between “divine consciousness” and Jesus’ self-understanding. Regarding the former, Jesus wasn’t omniscient during his incarnation. The Holy Spirit could reveal things to him, but the same is true of all the prophets. Jesus had to learn like the rest of us. At some point in his earthly journey, Jesus came to understand his identity as the Son of God. Whether that was by revelation or inspiration we don’t know, but it was this self-understanding that Satan challenged in the desert and on the Cross.

It had to have begun as nothing, unless you are saying Jesus was born with that knowledge and aware of his divine origin even as an infant.

Agreed, especially having doubts about his Sonship. That is not something he had to doubt to share our humanity.

 

Don’t you mean that just because he does not have full omniscience, so to speak, not having all knowledge in his humanness? If he were ‘fully’ omniscient, of course he would be fully aware of who and what he is.

Typo which I fixed.

100% human does mean there is a limitation to the human brain’s abilities to process and retain information. So I don’t think He was any kind of omniscient. But in a close relationship with the Father, He could still know a great deal more than most.

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We disagree. Satan was challenging him, but not about his understanding of his Sonship. He was challenging, daring him because he knew that Jesus knew who he was and would not doubt. He was not trying to evoke Jesus’ doubt, he was tempting him to sin (remembering that doubt is not sin). Neither was Jesus doubting on the cross.

Like pregnancy – you am or you ain’t. What other kinds are there? :slightly_smiling_face:

No. I have not been arguing that Jesus was the son of god. I was disagreeing that Jesus viewed himself as God.

That’s how I see it. Where I disagree is that I don’t believe Jesus thought of himself as God. I don’t think he had memories of when Abraham was around. I don’t believe that Jesus was ever convinced of anything more than his father is Yahweh and that Yahweh was the one throughout the entire Torah and that Jesus believed all his power and authority came from his father and his god.

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Ah. I forgot that you do not believe in the Trinity. Correct?

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Agreed. He did not know ‘that day or hour’.
 

I was explicitly not saying.

Since you’re explicitly not saying that Jesus was born with innate knowledge of his pre-existent Sonship, then he learned it at some point. It’s fine if we ultimately disagree. It’s a pretty arcane point of Christology. But that’s enough of a crack for me to take one more crack at persuading you. Assuming anyone on the internet is persuadable …

Take a second look at the text. “If you are the Son of God, then (prove it).” The temptation was the same when he was hanging on the cross. “If you are the Son of God, then save yourself.” It’s a direct challenge to his understanding of himself as the Son of God. Coming at the beginning and the end of Christ’s mission, Satan directly challenged Jesus at the crucial point. “Did God really say …?” Doubt isn’t sin, but it’s the doorway to sin. Temptation to doubt isn’t sin, but surrendering to doubt is sin.

Over the years, I’ve seen a lot of visitors to the BL Forum describe their loss of faith. A common story is that doubt was introduced, and they prayed and prayed for a sign that God was real, but no sign was given, so they concluded that there is no God. Christ shows us the faithful response. As the author and perfecter of our faith, like us he walked by faith, not sight.

I don’t believe that the Trinity is the right way to understand it.

  1. The Trinity ignores the angel of lord / the angel of God. When it pays it attention the angel attention they claim it was a pre-incarnate Jesus . Then that angel became Jesus and had its memory wiped or something. I’m not sure.

  2. They teach that Jesus, existed in some pre-incarnate form. Then had his memory wiped or something and turned into a man.

  3. They teach that the Holy Spirit is a actual being with its own will, personality and thoughts as opposed to being a power. I believe that the Holy Spirit is a power, the power of God, the same power he used to create the universe, the same power thst whispered into the ears of the prophets, the same power that influenced the apostles and the same power that fills up christians and that power of god , his words, conceived a child in Mary and that boy was the power made flesh. Jesus.

:grin:
 

We were not talking about surrendering to doubt indefinitely. You have added a condition. We were talking about merely doubting at all. You could call it temporary surrender, if you like, but that is semantics. That is not a sin.
 

That is not a temptation to doubt. One more time: it’s a dare, a temptation to sin by doing something else that he, the sinless Agnus Dei, should not be doing. If you, since you, are the Son of God… Your presumed temptation is to save himself, not doubt himself. He would have been sinning against his Father’s will (remember Gethsemane) if he had saved himself. There’s no doubt about it.

If they actually had said faith, but that’s another topic.

You misread, I’m afraid.

Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, “You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! Come down from the cross, if you are the Son of God!” In the same way the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders mocked him. “He saved others,” they said, “but he can’t save himself! He’s the king of Israel! Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him."
 
Matthew 27:39-52

Those were taunts and mocks, not temptations. My Savior went to the cross resolutely (he had crossed that bridge in Gethsemane, please recall), not hesitantly, knowing full well who he was. If anything, the taunts, “If you are the Son of God…”, made him more resolute.

I do not understand why the insistence on his awareness of his Sonship is what he had to doubt. Maybe you missed this, above:

In fact, that is something he could not share with humanity. I could certainly see him doubting his ability as an apprentice carpenter, especially when sent on his first job alone, for instance.

 

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
 
Hebrews 12:2

I cannot believe it is a coincidence that Jesus quoted Psalm 22 where it describes exactly the same situation. Psalm 22 begins with, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

Psalm 22:7 All who see me mock at me,
they make mouths at me, they wag their heads;
8 “He committed his cause to the Lord; let him deliver him,
let him rescue him, for he delights in him!”

And in fact all the rest of the Psalm is focused on this very situation, where these mockers are described first as bulls then as a lion, and then as dogs. And the Psalm continues on to say that the Lord will save him, and all the earth will turn to the Lord as a result of it, proclaiming His deliverance to future generations. This is, of course, fulfilled with Jesus by the resurrection.

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(Of course, as I mentioned earlier, Psalm 22 is a prophetic, Messianic Psalm, and Jesus is fulfilling the prophecy. I don’t think Jesus in the depths of his agony is doing any reciting.)

None of the verses you are quoting from John are probably historical and that Jesus thought he was God’s Son in a special sense in no way demonstrated he believed he was God. We all call God Father.

As I have been saying, the NT teaches two different things here. It’s plain as day.

Vinnie