This is an old thread; there has been 218 posts prior to this one. I’m resurrecting it, because I would like to address the original question.
I wrote the following long ago, and so it is not addressing any of the previous posts. It simply expresses my answer to the question:

Is Jesus God?

The question is meaningful only if the questioner explains what he means by the word “God”. In the New Testament the word most frequently denoted the Father. Indeed it always denotes the Father if, in Greek, it is prefixed with the article and no other qualifier.

If one is using the word “God” to denote the Father, then the question become “Is Jesus the Father?” or more precisely, “Are Jesus and the Father the same Individual?” For many, the answer is “Yes.” The Modalist or Monarchist affirms that God is a single Individual who expresses Himself in three modes or appearances, like an actor who appears in a play wearing three different masks (προσωπα), and thus playing the part of what seems to be three different individuals. Αn early form of modalism was called “Sabellianism” named after Sabellius, a theologian from the third century. Modern modalists include the United Pentecostal Church and various branches of the “Apostolic Church.”

Trinitarians believe God is a compound Being consisting of three Individuals: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. If God is so defined, then the question becomes, “Is Jesus the Trinity?” Yet when Trinitarians affirm that Jesus is God, they clearly do not mean that Jesus is the Trinity. Neither do they mean that Jesus is part of the Trinity, for they affirm that the Trinity is undivided. They seem to mean that Jesus is of the same essence of the Father. Now many non-Trinitarians, including myself, believe that Jesus is of the same essence as the Father. But I feel uncomfortable with the statement “God was born as a human being.” What does that mean? That the divine essence was born as a human being?
But the divine essence is not a person. Does that mean that God is not a person? I just can’t get my mind around this seeming contradiction.

John 1:1 does not teach that the Logos was God Himself.
How could the Logos be with God and also be God? That’s not what the text says.

The first “God” is prefixed with the article; thus “the God” (meaning the Father, whom Jesus addressed as “the only true God”). The second “God” has no article. So it does not refer to the Father.

Because of the lack of an article, some think the sentence should read “and the Logos was a god”. This is also an incorrect translation.

That would be the case if the subjective completion had been placed AFTER the copula verb.
If John had meant “The Word was a god”, then the Greek words would have been:

ὁ…λογος…ἠν…θεος
the…word…was a…god

But this is not what John wrote.

If John had meant that the Word was God the Father Himself (as Modalists affirm), then the Greek words would have been:

ὁ…λογος…ἠν …ὁ…θεος
the…Word…was…the…God

Prefixing the word “θεος” with the article “ὁ” (with no other modifiers) would indicate that God the Father is meant. But that is not what John wrote.

Here is what John actually wrote:

θεος…ἠν… ὁ…λογος
God…was…the…Word

John placed the subjective completion BEFORE the copula verb! What did John mean? Did he mean that God the Father was the Word? No! If he had meant that, he would have prefixed the word “θεος” with the article “ὁ”. What then was his meaning? As a person who has studied Hellenistic Greek for several years and has even taught a self-devised beginner’s course to adults, I am going to propose a suggested translation, and then justify it by reference to other similar constructions in the New Testament.

A very crude translation could be “The Word was God-stuff”. However, this doesn’t sound very reverent. So I suggest “The Word was Divinity” or perhaps “The Word was divine”. He was divine because God begat Him before all ages as Another just like Himself! “God” or “Divinity” was the essence of the Word.

Let’s look at two more instances in the New Testament in which a subjective completion without a modifier is placed BEFORE a copula verb. In I John 4:8 and also in I John 4:16, we find the phrase:

ὁ…θεος… ἀγαπη…ἐστιν
the God…love…is

Here the subject is clearly the Father since the word “θεος” is prefixed with the article. But notice the subjective completion “ἀγαπη” occurs BEFORE the copula verb “ἐστιν”. The correct translation is: “God is love”. Love is the essence of God. This is analogous to saying in John 1:1 that Divinity is the essence of the Word.

One more example:

ὁ…λογος…ὁ…σος…ἀληθια…ἐστιν
the…word the [one]…of you reality…is

Translation: “Your word is reality”. God’s word is reality. There is never falsehood or unreality in what God says. Once again, the subjective completion “ἀληθια” comes BEFORE the copula verb “ἐστιν”. Reality is the essence of what God says.

Martin Luther, whatever else he may have been, had an excellent understanding of Greek. Concerning the phrase in John 1:1:

θεος…ἠν… ὁ…λογος
God…was…the…Word

Luther expressed quite succinctly what I have attempted to relate about the word order. He said:

“The lack of an article is against Sabellianism; the word order is against Arianism.”

Sabellianism was a form of Modalism, that God is a single divine Individual who expresses Himself in three modes: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Today, Modalism is represented by the United Pentecostal Church as well as the various sects of the “Apostolic Church”.

Arianism was and is thought by many to have been a position whereby the Son was a lesser god, and thus the translation “The word was a god”. This position is represented today by Jehovah’s Witnesses. The New World Translation actually renders the Greek phrase as "The word was a god.”

So I suggest the following translations as a good approximation of what the writer had in mind:

In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was divine.

b]In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was Deity.

It appears that Jesus Himself did not believe He was “true God”. In His prayer to His Father, he said,
“…this is lasting life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”

Not only did Jesus address His Father as “the only true God” but by using that little word “and” before his reference to Himself, He indicated that He was something other than “the only true God”.

However, it is important to note that just as the offspring of a man is “man” human, so the unique offspring of God was “God” (divine). Thus in the earliest manuscripts of John 1:18, John refers to the Son of God as “the only-begotten God.” The second-century Christian writers made similar statements, adding that the Father was unbegotten.

There is also the aspect that John is writing in a sort of metaphorical fugue. The interpretation of His words leave room for interpretation, but we get locked into certain perspectives by history and common belief- even among scholars.

For instance, in the orthodox trinitarian model(co-equal-consubstantial-co-eternal) there is really little room to move, but certain assumptions are essential to the model. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity#mediaviewer/File:Shield-Trinity-Scutum-Fidei-English.svg

If you would bear with me I’ll express my view on it, having been involved at various times with Trinitarians, Modalists and Untiarians and coming out with no comfort in any orthodox system on the issue and no particular axe to grind LOL

If you were to view God as a giant sphere, and He looked within Himself and conceived of a seed of Himself, to plant within a creation of His own making, but to be made by/through the agency of the seed(theLogos).

Could the composite of Himself(seed) be held in His affections as dearly as we would hold a child of our own? Even so much so that the entire plan of the ages would revolve around that Son? Especially if the purpose, His kind intention(eudokia) is to create an eventual ocean of beings with whom to share His boundless glory in friendship and love?

So, God subjects the creation to futility/chaos/sin and then speaks into the void, “Let there be light” - Jesus, and the light of the world becomes the “first-born of many brothers” in a cadre of priests with a mission to bring the whole creation back into the oneness that Adam, because of God’s design, corrupted.

When I hear the words “in the beginning was the word”- i see Christ crucified, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, the image of God, the first principle, or foundation of creation.

God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, 2 in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world. 3 And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power.

When God speaks, his expressed thought, the icon of Himself, the kernel of His plan, is Christ crucified- the revelation of perfect love. Everything else comes through that seed.

In the beginning the seed is in God, is with God, and is God in essence in that God shares all that he is with His beloved- even us eventually, when we shall know as we are known, when He is all in all, when we shall be like Him for we will see Him as He is.

But in Colossians i think it explains this when it says, “For so it pleased the Father to make all the fulness dwell in Him”, and “For in Him dwells all the fulness of deity in bodily form”. Also in 1 Corintihians 15:27 For He has put all things in subjection under His feet. But when He says, “All things are put in subjection,” it is evident that He is excepted who put all things in subjection to Him. When all things are subjected to Him, then the Son Himself also will be subjected to the One who subjected all things to Him, so that God may be all in all.’

I personally reject that Jesus is equal to the Father other than as the Father has given Him all authority in heaven and earth. His equality is given, it is an executive equality…

A trinitarian says to me, “Then He isnt God”, to which I reply, “Says who?” Whence came these little circular logics anyway? God transcends our intellects for sure but the mind-set that presents the Trinity as a logical absolute bothers me. God can do and be as He wants. He can break off a piece(son) of Himself, create everything through it/him and redeem everything back into a universal family of children to be an eternal chorus/harmony/rainbw/sea of love if He wants to. “Who has known the mind of the Lord and who has been His counselor”?

I do not reject the Son being co-eternal out right, Because as yet I do not see absolute evidence either way, but I lean towards a genesis, a birth, because he is the Son.

I think “in the beginning” speaks of a starting point, not “eternity past flowing backwards”, so when I read “in the beginning was the word”, I see the conception of Jesus as the seed of the whole creation plan from Alpha(without form and void) to Omega(God is ALL IN ALL) within God, a small circle inside an immense sphere, but a circle that is a full composite of the larger one. To me, this in no way violates the language of scripture, and in fact- I think it is what the scripture is saying.

I do not reject consubstantial because the Son was definitely out of the Father- and perhaps moreso than as I am out of my father, in that He is the “radiance of the Father’s glory and the exact representation of His nature”. Jesus explained like this, “I am in the Father and the Father is in Me and I am in you” and prayed that “You may be one even as I and my Father are one that your joy may be full”.

How shall we be one even as Jesus and the Father are one in the orthodox Trinitarian or Modalist models? I don’t see how myself.

But to present the “Shield of the Trinity” as a logical and theological absolute, from which to stray is heresy- I find that to be intellectual tyranny rather than truth- and i am not even saying that it is absolutely wrong, I am just saying it isnt an absolute logically or scripturally.

When jesus said, "I and the Father are one- He wasnt drawing a theological diagram for us, He was speaking of His being the “radiance of the Father’s glory and the exact representation of His nature”(hebrews 1;1-3), imo and that slays the trintiarian and Modalist models for me, so whatever i am, I am neither of those.

I have hung out with Anthony Buzzard, a proponent of a view called Biblical Unitarianism, and while there are things to reccomend in His writings, especially as regards the Shema of Israel- I think he goes to far in some other directions, saying it is not possible Jesus pre-existed His incarnation on a conscious personal form, but that He existed only as the Logos- but I disagree with that because Jesus asked the father to “Glorify me with the glory I had with you before the foundation of the world” which to me clearly states that He was.

So to wrap up( I know we can all go on forever because whatever position we hold is the product of much thought and prayer)…

I think eternity is wrapped around time like a big bubble around a small bubble. God created the small bubble, time, the ages, the kosmos, with through Jesus. He allowed things inside the bubble to go to hell, and then he sent Jesus into the bubble, to blow a bubble of life into anyone who believed in Him and then on the cross, He popped the bubble of time, so we could all get out, each in his own order, into the original bubble, which is God, who becomes all in all in all us lil bubbles through Christs work.

Eli, Eli, Laba samachthani!

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has the entry for ‘Trinity’ by Dale Tuggy. ESSENTIAL reading if you want to understand the issues and not just mouth platitudes. plato.stanford.edu/entries/trinity/

An excellent lecture on the lost history of early universalism by Dr. Tuggy: youtube.com/watch?x-yt-cl=8 … r_embedded

There are some excellent articles on this and other trinitarian questions at this blog: trinities.org/blog/

The essays I’ve read are neither trite nor irrelevant but, of course, I have not yet read them all.

If you’re up to it, philosophically, the many serious logical problems with the purported trinity have been addressed by Bill Vallicella (MavPhil). You can start with this post, and follow the various branches (be warned that the philosophical arguments in some of the posts are very intricate, subtle, and use a specialized vocabulary. If you have any training or reading in Aristotle, you will probably not have much problem) maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/ … radox.html
To see all the posts, search ‘trinity’ in the search box, of all places

I watched the video you posted of Tuggy. Really very good, well presented, informative in a suggestive rather than declarative way, objective facts based in evidence for the most part and I appreciate that approach.

I read the web-site, and found it to be mostly a rehash of philosophical arguments I have seen for 35 years, with hardly a word of scripture for support anywhere. I think Aristotle stated some solid things on reasoning, but unless the logic is set within a paradigm defined by the scriptures, is just runs around in circles endlessly.

I did like what the author wrote about Mysterianism as a meta philosophy(philosophy about a philosophy) because I think any perspective that seeks to absolutely define the Godhead intrinsicly involves a little Mysterianism -because the nature of the relationship between the Father and Son and the Holy Spirit is a truth with some fuzzy edges, seen to some extent through a glass darkly(imo).

Mysterians just ask you to accept their viewpoint based on the holiness of their particular perspective and the history by which it ascended to predominance among their “initiated” LOL. I have no problem with this as long as they are not making everyone else an infidel or an idiot for not receiving by faith their mysterious declarations of assumptions.

I have a simple presentation on the Godhead, creation and the restoration of all things at this URL 1drv.ms/1yGLIXg

It is just my perspective in brief.

I enjoyed your presentation very much. I’ll go over it again more slowly when I get a little more time. Thanks.

I am working on a more in depth animated version.

Here is a scripture-based and well-presented argument by a Christian Monotheist. Apologies if this has been referenced previously.
It’s a 25 page pdf so will take more than a few minutes’ reading - then again, it’s an important presentation and worth the time imho.

christianmonotheism.com/medi … usBook.pdf

This is an old thread and a longggggg thread. But the question, “Is Jesus God?” all depends upon what is meant by “God.” Which of the following does the question mean?

1. Is Jesus the same individual as the Father?
2. Is God a Trinity of divine Individuals, and is Jesus part of that Trinity?
3. Is Jesus of divine essence because He was begotten by God?

I reject #1 and #2 on the basis that Jesus addressed His Father as “the only true God” and then indicated Himself as someone other than “the only true God”:

(John 17:3 ESV) And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

Notice that little conjunction “and”? If Jesus had considered Himself as “the only true God” He wouldn’t have added “and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”

So my belief (like that of the early Christians) is that God’s only-begotten Son was begotten by the Father before all ages, the first of God’s acts. (See the letter of Ignatius to the Magnesians in which he affirms that He was “begotten by the Father before all ages”),

So this is the sense in which Jesus is God. Your father who begat you was a man, and so you are man (in the generic sense whether you are male or female). And so the Father was God and so the Son whom He begat was also God in the generic sense.

This is how I understand John 1:1 Jesus was with God (the Father) and because He was begotten by God He was God generically, a member of the “God Family” so to speak.

So Don will you conciliate that many times Jesus himself said that he came to show people the way to God…

Actually He said that He was the way to God.

Quote please?

Really?

Oh Yes…

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

So Don will you conciliate that many times Jesus himself said that he came to show people the way to God…

Which part of this am I wrong?

So you sgree, that’s good.
The way to God is only through Jesus.

I’m not sure I srgree, but if you are trying to say that Jesus came to show people the way to God, I will Agree

He came to say that only he is the way to God, not to show some other way. Don’t see the problem.

Well, I’ll have to ask, are all non Jesus believers unable to have any relationship with God?

I quoted Him, that’s it for now.