THE ERROR OR HERESY THAT JESUS IS GOD
The Christian Church has taught from the beginning that Jesus
Christ was God himself in human form. This doctrine is against the
Bible.
The Bible never says that God is invisible or non-physical by
nature (John. 1:18, I Timothy 6:16, I John. 4:12. It only says we
don’t see him. It says that God is spirit, which is the same word as
the word breath. But there is no hint that God is thought to be a
spirit in the sense taken by the Church. The Church plucked the idea
from Greek philosophy that you have matter and you also have spirit.
Matter is stuff and spirit to all intents and purposes is not stuff
at all but is there. That is where you get the idea of minds
going about with no parts or brains. The notion of God being
that kind of spirit is needed by the Church to argue that Jesus was
both fully God and full man. They admit the idea seems
incoherent and that Jesus at times might not have thought he was God
but as spirit is a mystery they then can say, "O we do not
understand spirit anyway so it is a mystery."
That is why we should
take the statements of the New Testament that nobody has ever seen
God to be proof that Jesus was never God for people seen Jesus.
The earliest Christian writer Paul says God cannot and does not
condemn us for sin for Jesus has cleansed us. He says this in
Romans 8. In Verses 33 to 35 he asks who can condemn us as
evil and unfit for salvation? He says God has cancelled our
horrible fate. So who condemns then? He asks if
Jesus who died will do it? The answer is no. It is
evident from this that Paul considered Jesus and God to be separate
agents. It would make no sense to mention what Jesus thinks if
he is the God who does not condemn us.
Jesus said that a seat at his right and a seat at his left in Heaven
was not his to give (Matthew 20:23).
Philippians 2:6-9 when it says Jesus was in the form of God didn't see himself as equal to God but emptied himself. This is to be seen as saying he was the opposite of Adam who was in the form and image of God but who took the fruit to try and become equal to God.
Isaiah 9:6 - For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government will be upon his shoulder, and his name will be called "Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace". This says the person will get those names not that he will be them. Though God is supreme and not a messenger he is often called Angel or Messenger. See Exodus 23:21-22, Judges 2:1, 13:21-22, Exodus 13:21 Psalm 8:5 Hebrews 2:7, etc.
John 1 denies that Jesus is God. It
says that in the beginning was the word and the word was with God
and the word was God and the word became flesh. Word means
communication. In the beginning was the communication with us. The
communication was with God and the communication was God.
Your personality is your communication. You are your communication
and your communication is separate from you at the same time. Your
communication can become your telephone but that doesn’t mean your
telephone is you. John makes it clear by saying that the word was
with God and the word was God that the word with God is God’s
communication as distinct from him and that God is his
communication. Jesus is the divine communication separate from God.
Jesus reveals God but he is not God.
John says the word
became flesh. But this is not the same as saying the word and Jesus
were the same person. The word is a message not a person.
John 10:30 where Jesus says he and the Father are one does
not necessarily mean one person or being, Jesus described a
man and his wife as one flesh or person. It is not literal
necessarily. John 20:28 where Thomas says to Jesus "My
Lord and my God" should be understood in the light of where Jesus
pointed out that though he is not the Father to see him is to see
the Father for they are so intimately close. That explains his
claim to be one with God.
Read John 8:17-18. Jesus quotes from the law given by God that
evidence, to be valid, must be agreed upon by two witnesses. Jesus
states that the two witnesses are himself and God. Two, not one. If
Jesus were God, there was only one witness, and if Jesus says there
are two, then he and God are not one.
The believers in the
Trinity say God is three persons, Father, Son - Jesus, and Holy
Spirit. They cannot say that Jesus meant that though he and the Father
were one being they were two separate persons in that being for they
teach that the Trinity is not made up of three literal persons but
that there are three there and calling them persons is the nearest
we can get to describing them. They are not three individuals.
There are a number of reasons revealed by God, if the
Bible is to be believed, why believers in
the divine Jesus of Christendom cannot be saved.
Their Jesus
is not a proper man for his temptations are not real. The apostles
declared that deniers that Jesus came in the flesh meaning as a real
man were antichrists and wouldn’t be saved. If Jesus were God
he could not be tempted by evil (James 1:13-15). Feeling
an urge is not a temptation. It is just a feeling.
Feeling you want to kill your bawling baby is not a temptation for
you love your child and there is no chance you will do it.
One good argument is, "If we sin we consent for evil to exist. If we
do good we consent for good to exist. To consent to evil is to
consent to loss of control. In other words, when you will evil to
exist, you are trying to create something that is bad and
uncontrollable which is why sin is so bad. You intend everlasting
destruction. We always have some sin in us says the first Letter of
John. This is why we cannot earn salvation and Jesus had to come
without sin to earn salvation for us by being resistant to sin even
as he died and thus obedient to God. We only get saved as a
gift. There is no need for Jesus to be God for this. In fact
to say that Jesus is God is to deny that his offer of salvation is
any good. God cannot sin and if Jesus was God he couldn’t sin so he
didn’t turn away from sin for us to save us. He could not really
offer up resistance to sin as a sacrifice to God. The Jesus of
Christendom cannot save. To go to him for salvation is to give up
any chance of obtaining that salvation." This has awful
consequences for the Catholic doctrine that the Mass perpetuates the
sacrifice of Jesus and saves us.
Their Jesus
forces us to lie and pretend that his temptations were temptations.
And we end up falling into evil for we pretend that his example was
really an example. It was a performance.
Their Jesus is an idol and idolaters cannot be saved. He is
worshipped as God though he is not God.
Idolatrous religion cannot save. Jesus went as far as to say
that worshipping God in spirit and truth means following what God
has said and keeping out of heretical religion such as Samaritanism.
So worship of God on the face of it does not exclude you from the
suspicion of idolatry.
If I were I believer I would write,
"How much less can idolatry
masquerading as God’s truth save? Making an idol of the Son of God
is the masterpiece of Satan and whoever supports this masterpiece is
supporting the worst idolatry of all. Satan skillfully mixes truth
with evil and heresy for the destruction of souls. To worship an
idol is to turn away from God. NO matter how sincere you are, if you
have the wrong God you have not touched the God of love and you do
not have him dwelling within you."
It is divine law
that only the good works of those who have reasonably correct faith
count as evidence of the work of God according to the Bible.
If so then Christendom is exercising human goodness and pretending
it is something special.
Conclusions: The Bible regards Jesus as God's message in bodily form and as the picture of God. He is treated like God but is not God.
