The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Does Julie think Jesus is God? How will Evangelicals react?

There are a lot of ideas out there about Arianism. I’m inclined to think that a number of them is false. In the following letter to Eusebius, Arius himself wrote that the Son of God is fully God. That being the case, would he have considered the worship of Jesus as idolatry?

Letter of Arius to Eusebius, Bishop of Nicomedia ---- A.D. 321

Nice find, Paidion. Arius’ letters are quite interesting. When I first read them I was quite surprised.

Wow, Cindy! 18 below (-28ºC.) on Dec. 6 in South Dakota! Even wayyyy up here in the backwoods of North-Western Ontario, the low was only -24ºC. on that date. However, it did go down to a low of -33ºC. (27 below F.) on Sunday, Dec. 8. We didn’t even venture out to go to church. We kept the home fires burning.

In September I went out into the woods, cut down 3 cords (not “firewood cords” REAL cords) of wood and hauled it to the house in a small trailer attached to the quad. I needed 6 cords for the winter, but being nearly 76, I didn’t have the energy to get up the rest, and so I bought 2.4 cords of ash from a neighbour. I was hoping that would be enough, but the temperatures so far seem to indicate that we’ll be out of wood before the winter is over.

Just thought I’d share this photo from a few years back of me and my beloved wife, Jepne:

i1098.photobucket.com/albums/g374/Paidion9/Photos/DonandJeannie-J_zps23a9b02d.jpg

That’s a good picture, I always like to see the spouses of people I correspond with.
I’d be happy to cut 3 cords but at 65 would not find it easy.

youtu.be/_ecgkxevoYI

Great photo, Paidion. We ozzies, particularly in the far north, have nothing but blue skies and sunshine with calm tropical beaches.

Thanks Stef.

Ozzies? Is that an alternate spelling of “Aussies”?

Yes. The land of Oz. I would put some photos up, but I don’t know how to. :slight_smile:

Here’s one way to post photos, Stef. Go to photobucket.com and join (free). Then you can upload photos to that site. After your photo is uploaded, click on that photo which is now in photobucket. At the right you will see “links to share the photo.” Click on “IMG URl=http:/s etc.” and the site will save the URL address to your clipboard. Go to the message in which you wish to post the picture and press “Shift-insert”. The URL will appear on your message. But when you post your message, only the photo will appear.

Thanks Paidion. I used to know all this stuff, but after an accident… I had cognitive and memory problems. I use the topics here to re-capture my memory, and to rehabilitate my brain. I haven’t yet started on my ‘IT’ memory… I used to work in IT, but knowing God get’s my attention first. :slight_smile:

Almost all translations add “full , God…”, following Opitz, HG who makes the emendation: not pleres theos, ‘fully God’, but pleres charitos kai aletheias, theos, ‘full of grace and truth, [a] god’ (in his seminal translation Werke III (1934); emendation referenced here: Williams, R (2001) ‘Arius: Heresy and Tradition’, p.309. Do we have any resident Germans who might be interested in translating his reasons for the correction? Werke III can be read here.

I strongly suspect that Arius considered Jesus to be fully divine. And even fully god. But not fully The God.

Of course not. Only One in the New Testament is called “the God”, and that is the Father.

Jesus also called Him “the only true God” in His prayer to His Father:

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

Today only modalists (such as those in the United Pentecostal Church) would consider Jesus to be “the God” (and maybe Trinitarians who consider “the God” to be a compound God consisting of three divine Persons). But ins the New Testament the term “the God” where there are no other modifiers of “God” ALWAYS refers to the Father only.

JasonPratt wrote:

This is only for clarification, and you may have been kidding (if so, whoops). The reason he is omitting the breathing sound is because he is speaking with a modern Greek pronunciation. They don’t use it. :slight_smile:

Grace and peace.

Paidion (after looking at your picture):

Are you going to get me that iPad I asked for Christmas? :stuck_out_tongue:

I know I’m very late in this game, but I do wish to comment on a couple of things in regards to this issue

  1. One has to do with a comment made by AllenS way back near the beginning of this thread. Specifically:

But Jesus didn’t just die as a suffering servant, He died as God’s Son. And that is just as much as a sacrifice of love as it would be to give of yourself. even more so, since in most cases, a man would rather die than send his own loved one to die. I don’t know the dynamics of how the relationship changed in the process of Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection, if at all, between the Father and the Son (regardless of what view one might have of His Nature), but it appears to have had huge consequences regardless. Jesus was forsaken by God at one point on the Cross. How bad a schism was this? What eternal implications did it have in the Godhead?

And of course, we see this kind of sacrifice in the historical precident of Abraham and his son Isaac. The parallels are quite striking because the death of Isaac would destroy everything: Abraham’s legacy of blessing all the nations of the earth, as promised by God. Yet Abraham was willing to do so in obediance to the Divine command. How much more in the picture of Christ is God sacrificing His Son on the Cross, FOR THE SAME EXACT REASON??!! So that all the nations of the world would be blessed!!

So reasoning that God couldn’t show love by not sending Himself doesn’t wash when considering that He could just as well sent His Son.

Not that this proves unitariansm, but just saying.

For the record, I’m not convinced with the arguments against trinitarianism. I would like to share one other set of verses that leans me more toward the Trinity:

The first thing to note, of course, is the phrase “Alpha and Omega”. Once we establish the identity of this reference, we will get a clearer idea of who is speaking. This phrase hearkens back to the first chapter of Revelation:

“Alpha and Omega”, being the first and last letters of the Greek Alphabet is the equivalent to term “the first and the last” in Isaiah 44:6:

This speaks not only of His eternal nature, but also His exclusiveness to being God. There are no other gods besides Him. And no only this, but He apparently does not share in His glory:

As we keep that in mind, let us consider the term “the Almighty”. This is a clear reference to Almighty God (Gen. 35:11, ) and is connected to Jehovah (YHWH) (Exodus 6:3).

So there can be no doubt that this Alpha and Omega is YHWH, the Almighty God.

[size=150]B[/size][size=150]U[/size][size=150]T[/size], look at Rev 1:11-13:

This SAME voice that has been established as Almighty God appears to John in a description throughout the rest of the chapter as the glory of one like the Son of Man. And furthermore the SAME voice states:

So this Son of Man, who is called “the Alpha and Omega”, the Almighty God, tells John that He lived, then died, and behold lives forevermore. There is ONLY ONE PERSON who has ever risen from the dead and is still living. And if that is not enough to convince you that the identity here of Son of Man (aka the Almighty God) is Jesus Christ, you can reference in the Rev 1:13-16, with the description in Rev 19:11-16 (with the eyes as the flames of fire, and the sharp two-edged sword), as the KING of KINGS, and LORD of LORDS, the WORD of GOD!

So going back to Rev 21:6-7, the Alpha and Omega, who is Jesus Christ, will be to him "that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son, a direct reference to Ezekie 37:27, the covenanial God who will dwell in the tabernacle of His people.

Now if you don’t believe the book of Revelation, I don’t know what to tell you, but the inferences as rather strong pointing to one God, with Jesus Christ as that God.

:laughing: Paidion, you’ve got me beat. Especially as that doesn’t happen here all that often. We did get down to -22 F, though I don’t know what it was in the wee hours. Some years are like that, but it usually starts later. Alas, we don’t have to go far to cut our firewood. probably 90% of the trees are dead and seasoned, all around us, from pine beetles. :frowning:

Nice pic! Your wife looks like a sweet lady and you look like a blessed man!

In connection with the Titus 2:13 and 2 Peter 1:1 verses, you may wish to consider these articles:

angelfire.com/space/thegospeltruth/trinity/verses/Titus2_13.html

angelfire.com/space/thegospeltruth/trinity/verses/2Peter1_1.html

I am not suggesting that this writer has the correct non-Trinitarian answers. Indeed, I think his explanation of Titus 2:13 is a stretch.
He correctly states that the NASB has the following translation:

…looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus…

Notice where the comma is placed. He indicates that the “the glory of our great God and Savior” is Christ Jesus. That is, Jesus is the glory of God, the comma putting “Christ Jesus” in apposition to “the glory of our great God and Savior”. Of course, it is true that God is called our Savior many times. The phrase “God our Savior” occurs in I Tim 1:1, 2:3, Titus 1:3, 2:10, 3:11, and Jude 1:25. However, it is probable that that NASB translators did not mean it that way. They probably meant that “our great God and Savior” is Christ Jesus.

However, the writer has a point concerning 2 Peter 1:1. He states that codex sinaiticus has “the righteousness of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”
He also has a photo of the relevant verse in the manuscript with the abbreviation for “Lord” circled. Now I happen to have photos of the entire codex sinaiticus and went to the verse, and yes, it is “Lord” rather than God.

However, I also have transcripts of all NT passages from Greek papyri prior to 300. The passage occurs in papyrus 72. Mind you, this papyrus is dated from around 300, and so it’s a little late to suppose it necessarily corresponds to the orginal.

I think I like this “heretic chick” (as she described herself).

It is a pity she is not ten years younger and single :slight_smile:

As for Jesus, I can believe He was divine (God’s temple) but it is hard for me to buy the concept he pre-existed eternally with the father because it seems clear that the synoptic Gospel writers did not hold that view.

If we agree that the scriptures cannot be broken, then- anytime there appears to be a conflict between on portion and another, the seam where the truth integrates is “further in” than we have currently been.

Therefore, the synoptic gospels and the gospel of John cannot be in any fundamental disagreement- nor Colossians 1 or Hebrews 1(He is before all things…All things were created through Him and for Him…through whom(Christ) also He(Father) created the worlds)

or the scriptures are broken and there is no authority within them.

My point is this. It is not clear. Whether Jesus Christ existed and in what form He existed may also be unclear- but any supposed fact that He did not pre-exist His incarnation/birth is certainly not made clear by statements of any kind in the synoptic gospels- unless perhaps you can show something that says otherwise in the gospels you are using as authority?

I am not an orthodox Trinitarian(co-equal/co–substantial/co-eternal) and I am not in particular disagreement with elements of several different views, but after years of study and meditation I have not seen anything “clear” against Jesus being pre-existent or even against His being co-eternal. Is their a Godhead discussion thread on the forum? I’d like to check it out. As this is an evangelical forum with a statement affirming the Trinity I would want to be considerate in discussing the topic.