We are now looking at questions 10-11
I'll highlight your questions as I see my font colour won't change to red as I had hoped it would.
Did God the Son surrender His omnipresence, his eternal, immutable, unchangable Character in order to come to earth.
I think this was answered in the previous post Omya.. in no way did God the Son stop being God, but in order for our salvation, He "clothed Himself in flesh".. but that is all He did.. His Divine nature did not stop being Divine, just because He was a man. Had He not raised from the dead, he would have only been a man, His resurrection is the sign of His Deity.. only He declared He was the "resurrection and the life" (John 11:25) and he needed to rise from the dead...
" If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we would be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God, that He raised Christ from the dead. 1 Corinthians 15:14
and when he did rise he did more than just accomplish man's salvation, look at the other result...
"He forgave us all our sins, having cancelled the written code, with it's regulations, that was against us, and stood opposed to us, he took it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross."
Only as God, could Jesus not only destroy the power of sin over the lives of humans, and bring about complete salvation.. He also as God, destroyed the Devil and His Angels and made a public spectacle of them. The long awaited prophecy of Genesis 3:15 that the off spring of the woman "would oneday crush the serpents head" From the moment Jesus died on the cross and rose again, Satan's power was destroyed.
12 are there two Sons?"
Definitely not, There is only One Son.. and I think/hope I have explained the true doctrine on the natures of GOD-MAN.. separate yet inseparable, as are Father, Son and HolySpirit.
13 Who do we pray to? If you listen to Christians pray, you will notice they pray to Father, Son and Holy Spirit, yet at all times they worship Father, Son and Holy Spirit as God. Other Christians pray to God. Who should we pray too?
Remember.. Jesus said that "God is Spirit and must be worshipped in spirit and truth". He didn't say we had to worship Father only, but He did teach His Disciples how to pray using the Lord's prayer "Our Father". Before His crucifixion, Jesus wouldn't allow anyone to worship Him. Do you know why? Do you know why He wouldn't allow the Disciples to tell people what they were gradually understanding... He was the Christ the Son of the Living God?
The key is in the post resurrection appearance of Jesus to Mary in the Garden in John 20:17 "Do not hold onto me, for I have not yet returned to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God"
Jesus as the Son of Man prior to His death, never asked for and refused worship and always gave the glory to His Father in Heaven. Jesus as the Son of God was/is forever God and therefore worthy of praise. Stephen saw Jesus as the risen Lord Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up and saw the glory of God, and Jeus standing at the right hand of God. " Look," he said," I see heaven open, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God." ......Stephen prayed.. "Lord Jesus receive my spirit".
14. Can there be more than three persons in the Godhead".
Absolutely not. The Godhead is complete in itself.. Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and has never, nor will never have any other Persons in it. God changes not. That means the Message of the Old Testament is the Message of the New Testament, and I have shown you repeatedly that is so. Remember again, we are not talking individual Gods.. we are talking One God.. One Entity, but three persons, separate, yet indissolvably united.
In Isaiah 48:16, God is speaking against idolatry.. and creating idols.. in other words against the very thing you are discussing here.. adding to the Godhead.. or rather, the ONE GOD and breaking the first Commandment "you shall have no other gods before me".
In Colossians 1:3, 2:2 and the other verses, again have been taken completely out of context and don't even begin to suggest anything remotely Trinitarian. To apply Trinitarian logic to them would be doing what God in Isaiah 48:16 warned against.. making idols. The prayers he asks to be prayed are addressed to only one Person.. God, the Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ. (by the way, the use of the word saints in Colossians 1:4, is not indicating the so called saints being prayed to by Catholics around the world. The saints here, are the believers.. it's a synonym word for Christians. In the Biblical sense all believers are saints and he is asking for prayer FOR them and not TO them).
15
are there three spirits in a Christians heart?
Christians have long used language which even to our ears sounds silly. Actually, Christians though they "invite Jesus into their heart" and have the Holy Spirit placed with them as a gurantee of all God's promises, don't really mean that at all, but understand it to be ..
1. Acknowledgement of the need to submit totally to God voluntarily and recognize that without Him, there is no hope. It means to Submit to His Control of your life, and recognize that Jesus's death on the cross and His resurrection has provided THE only door to salvation and the promise of eternity with God. This is what it means to "invite Jesus into their heart"... He is not their in a literal sense as Jesus, but as God.. The Holy Spirit is "the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption" Ephesians 4:30 "God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us". Romans 5:5 "If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ he does not belong to Christ And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead, will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit, who lives in you." Romans 8:9-11 "The Spirit bears witness with our Spirit, that we are the children of God" Romans 8:16
Now, where did the idea of Jesus being in your heart come from ... it's from Romans 10 where it says
The word is near you and it is near you, it is in your mouth and in your heart. That is, the word of faith we are proclaiming, That if you confess with your mouth "Jesus is Lord" and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved." For it is with your heart that you believe and with your mouth that you confess and are saved."
16-17there is only one throne in heaven. who sits on it? I answered this one earlier. Hopefully my answer answered yours. All I want to add is that these are pictures of the oneness of the Godhead. God sits on the throne.. but as God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, are they not all on the throne? Even the lamb is on the throne. Does it matter who is seen? All are seen at different times, but God is ON the throne..
18 Is Jesus in the Godhead or is the Godhead in Jesus. By now you should know the difference.. Jesus is in the Godhead. .. He is the Second Person of the Godhead.. forever God
19 Why did the apostles constantly baptise both Jews and Gentiles, using the name of Jesus, even to the extent of rebaptism.
Like it is in Muslim countries when you become a Christian, there was great danger to convert. Remember, the great persecutions were in place and to be a Christian was almost certain persecution and death. The need for Baptism was not for salvation, it was for identification. When a believer truly believed in Jesus (and some of the earlier baptisms, were for the remission of sin, but did not know Jesus to acknowledge His Lordship", the Lord, and then the Apostles instituted Baptism as a means of publicly identification, what had happend on the inside. See the threads on baptism in the forum if you want to follow it more closely. Baptism as the Bible says is a command of the Lord.. the first thing any new believer should commit to, as it is as circumcision was, a sign of the covenant relationship between man and God.
20 who raised Jesus from the dead? We discussed this in another topic.. hopefully it was enough to answer this question.
21. If the Son and Holy Ghost are co-equal persons in the Godhead, why is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit unforgivable but the blasphemy of the Son is not".
Look at Matthew 12:32 and Mark 3:29 as well, as they say the same thing. This one again needs to be looked at in context to be understood.
He is talking of persecution here, and the expectation that they will suffer persecution. It is talking of there being some who will blasphemy over their rejection in this lifetime of Christ by virtue of the pressures they find themselves under, but whatever the reason for the blasphemy, it can be forgiven. .. however, the role of the Holy Spirit is to convict and bring repentance..
John 16:8 states " when he comes, he will convict the world of guilt, in regard to sin and righteousness and judgement. In regard to sin, because men do not believe in me, in regard to righteousness because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer, and in regard to judgement, because the prince of this world, now stands condemned. "
Can you see the importance of the paraclete now? if as Jesus says his role is to convict the world of guilt, and if the only unforgivable sin is to blaspheme Him by deliberately rejecting His call to salvation in Christ. The more you do this, the more insensible you become to spiritual things.. literally your heart is hardened. This is why Jesus was so scathing of the Pharisees who said his miracles were from Satan not God.
To keep rejecting the inner calling of the Holy Spirit to respond to God through Jesus, is to reject the ONLY hope of salvation. .. to cut yourself off from the only source of forgiveness and peace with God. Jesus produces the way of Salvation, but the Holy Spirit convicts you of your need for it.
How can we escape if we ignore so great a salvation? Hebrews 2:3
22. If the Holy Ghost is a co-equal member of the trinity, why does the Bible always speak of Him, being sent from the Father, or from Jesus.
Never is the Holy Spirit an it.. for as co-equal member of the Triune Godhead he is always He. Notice to .. it's not Trinity.. it's Triune God Head.. one God.. three Persons .. but always ONE God.
Again, this is in regard to roles in the Triune God Head.. All are God.. One God, and all have different roles. Within the Godhead.. Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the Father, gives authority to the Son, the Son gives glory to the Father, and the Son sends the Holy Spirit, but He makes the words of the Father known to them, by writing them on the hearts of believers. God is not separate.. and this is again, the Triune Godhead working as one, it's the proof of the Biblical doctrine if you like.
23 Does the Father know something that the Holy Spirit does not know?" if so, how can they be equal?
Again, look at the context of this, it's before the ascension, and Jesus is still speaking as the Son of Man.. and giving and pointing to the Father. Again, He is not asking for worship, whilst on this earth.. The day for His worship will come when He returns with the angels to judge the world.
Notice, though, even though Jesus declared that only the Father knew the times and days of the Last Days.. He certainly prophesised as to what it would be like at that time.. His own role as the Christ was certainly under scrutiny and it's the image of the Son of Man coming in all His glory that he describes.. The Father calls the events into being, but the Son and Holy Spirit are no less involved or aware of the events. (Matthew 24).. to furthur emphasise this Revelation 5 speaks of there at first glance being no one worthy to bring about the occurences of the events that are prophesised in the scroll sealed with seven seals. "Who is worthy".. "Do not weep, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has triumphed, He is able to open the scroll.. then I saw the Lamb, looking as if it had been slain...."
24 "did the Trinune Godhead make the Old and New Covenants"?
No.. the one covenant is the same.. please read Hebrews 8-10 as it will explain it all.
By asking if all three had to die, you are again referring to three persons being God.. no.. God had to die.. and He did, in the person of Jesus Christ the God-Man.
25-26 I hope that the entire answers here answer these questions. Again, this is assuming three persons.. there is ONE God and Father, Son and Holy Spirit are ONE GOD yet three Persons within that One God.. each has His own role.. The Father sends the Son, The Father and Son send the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit takes the Word of Father and Son and makes them know to us.. to ignore or to reject that teaching is the unforgivable sin.
You see, inequality exists only when we try and understand the Triune Godhead through our human understanding.. as we can't comprehend what the Bible teaches of God, how can it not lead us to worship Him even more. As a Muslim, you won't accept Jesus is the revelation of God, despite Him saying to you "If you have seen me you have seen the Father." why? because Islam teaches that God is beyond understanding and His ways are above your ways.. His will is enough for you. Yet, Christians are not allowed the same right? God IS is all that I need. I don't need to understand the Triune Godhead, but I believe it, for to reject it, is to reject the entire Bible, and to do that is to reject God, for it's his word. If the Qur'an tells you to look in it to find understanding, shouldn't you?
I'm closing this post. I hope I have covered these questions enough. Please let me know if I haven't Omya. and thankyou for helping me spend the day searching the scriptures for the truth. I am learning so much in our discussions.
Carol[/b]