I personally don’t think Jesus was ever divine (having God’s attribute) while He was living as a human being.
that was just a confirmation of the status of Jesus as the Son of God. If i might add my own interpretation on that passage (Luke 3:22**and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”), the voice of God and the Holy Spirit was heard and seen only by Jesus and nobody else. It is a confirmation for Jesus of who He was.
Miekhie, your own quoted text does not really support your claim here. I know it might appear that one could deduce that Jesus was not God, however, my understanding is that he simply chose not to use his Divinity (as is also referenced by the temptation he faced from Satan whilst in the wilderness where even Satan made the statement, “call upon the angels and they would come and bear thee up”)…Jesus still had total control over legions of angels all he had to do was speak and they would come rushing to do His bidding. Remember also the disciples when on the turbulent sea “who is this man, even the wind and the waves obey him”
What the text says is this…
6Who, existing in the form of God,
did not consider equality with God
something to be grasped,a
"God emptied himself "- this means that he willingly chose to become human, however it does not mean he was not still God! (I take note of the use of the words “likeness of men”)
Lets consider the following text:
Matthew 1:22All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23“Behold, the virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call Him Immanuel”e (which means, “God with us”f).
I am going to throw something into this which non-trinitarians will absolutely disagree with…
The “Lord” in Matthew 1:22, which is referring to a much older prophecy from Isaiah 7:14, was in fact Jesus prior to the incarnation. This stems from my belief that in the Old Testament, the use of the word “Lord” most often refers to the Son. This is also where the JW’s have an enormous problem, they have essentially gone through their bible with a search and replace function and changed Lord to Jehovah…however, when the two testaments are then combined the issues that any interlinear referencing causes when one simply replaces Lord with Jehovah causes huge theological issues for them…hence one will not find an example of an Old Testament Interlinear in the JW movement documents (they have a NT one, but not the Old and I believe this is one major reason why)
So what exactly is wrong with the Nicene creed? Please explain. How is the Apostles’ creed superior? Were the writers of the Apostles’ creed infallible?
They are wrong and therefore introducing error and falsehood to the congregation. It is important to the church that we all seek to believe what is true and reject what is wrong and false.
As with the scriptures, the creeds need some interpretation. None of the writers of the creeds was infallible. The longer the creed, the more details to interpret. That is why I personally prefer the shorter creeds.
The original version of the Nicene creed was fairly short and fine. The later modification (the 381 version) was longer and had more details to interpret. One detail in the 381 version is “we acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins”. Depending on how this is interpreted, I may agree or not agree. As you know, what happens in the baptism is one of those points where different branches of Christianity disagree.
It is good to remember that what is considered correct or wrong partly depends on the tradition of interpretation within the denomination. For example, RC church or the eastern orthodox churches would probably label ‘heretical’ some of the doctrines that are taught in Anabaptist/Baptist/Pentecostal churches - and vice versa.
It is an interesting thought that some of the doctrines of the RC church or the eastern orthodox churches might be called ‘heretical’. It all depends on what is the reference point.
Hi Adam, I never said that Jesus was not God. Jesus was/is always God. However, when Jesus become God incarnate (human), then we do need to understand in what way Jesus emptied Himself. Perhaps before we go any further, we should agree on what we mean when Jesus had divine nature and human nature. This is my quote from previous post.
Now, if we studied the text, we should also see what the text did not say.
Why did Jesus need to call legion of angels to do His bidding if He was fully God (divine nature)?
My own take is when Jesus was on earth, He was showing His disciples what a life of faith in God is like. My understanding is when after Jesus’s ascension, the disciples did many wonder and signs that were even greater than this. Even Jesus taught that if they really believed, they could even move mountain.
I think it meant more than that. Look at John John 17:5 And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.
What did Jesus leave behind when he came as God incarnate? Perhaps His glory and power
Look at the great commandment : Matthew 28:18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Jesus received those authority in heaven and on earth after His resurrection with His glorified body.
So, my understanding is that when Jesus came as God incarnate. He was fully human. He willingly surrender His God’s attributes (emptied Himself) and lived with the weaknesses of a man and yet without sin.