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Re: Lesson Study #1 - The Personality & Divinity of the HOLY SPIRIT
#17494
03/28/06 02:11 PM
03/28/06 02:11 PM
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Colin, quote:
There is no beginning to the Word's existence, since the Father's expression is his Word; yet, the Son of God is begotten of the Father.
But the same can be said of the Son of God, that is, that He has no beginning:
“Without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life -- LIKE THE SON OF GOD” (Hebrews 7:3)
Besides, “children derive life and being from their parents” (ST, September 10, 1894 par. 5), but “in Christ is life, original, unborrowed, underived” (DA 530).
I agree with you that in the teachers’ notes there are some inaccurate expressions and comparisons. That comparison about the multifunctional products and the multitask maternity role could be confused with modalism (God is a single person who, throughout biblical history, has revealed Himself in three modes, or forms). And that expression you mentioned, “God's triune Being” is a Catholic concept – that God is one Being in three persons. This is not our position – for us there is one Godhead in three beings:
“Here is where the work of the Holy Ghost comes in, after your baptism. You are baptized in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. You are raised up out of the water to live henceforth in newness of life--to live a new life. You are born unto God, and you stand under the sanction and the power of the three holiest beings in heaven, who are able to keep you from falling. You are to reveal that you are dead to sin; your life is hid with Christ in God. Hidden "with Christ in God,"--wonderful transformation. This is a most precious promise. When I feel oppressed, and hardly know how to relate myself toward the work that God has given me to do, I just call upon the three great Worthies, and say; You know I cannot do this work in my own strength. You must work in me, and by me and through me, sanctifying my tongue, sanctifying my spirit, sanctifying my words, and bringing me into a position where my spirit shall be susceptible to the movings of the Holy Spirit of God upon my mind and character.” {7MR 267.2}
As to 1 Tim 6:14-16, the text could apply to both God the Father and Christ, but the context of Ellen White’s writings seems to favor the application to Christ (see the article “Christ the Life-Giver”, 1 SM 296-300; ST, April 8, 1897).
quote:
Obviously Jesus is divine and has immortality, but Scripture is simply clear that he has that from his Father. Jn 5:26 for starters
Repeating what I said in my first post of yesterday, John 5:26 does not say that God gave to Christ the life that is in Him, but that God gave Christ to have life in Himself. The clear meaning is that God allowed Him to have life in Himself. But the context makes clear that in this text Christ was speaking of His mission as the Messiah, not of His pre-incarnate state _ He explicitly uses the words Son of Man:
"For, as the Father hath life in himself, so He gave also to the Son to have life in himself, and authority He gave him also to do judgment, because he is Son of Man" (John 5:25, 26, Young's Literal Translation).
Therefore God granted, or allowed, the man Christ Jesus to have in Himself, as a human being, the eternal life He had possessed in heaven before becoming a man, and to manifest it to the world:
“The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us” (1 John 1:2).
quote:
John 1:1 has Jesus, the Word, described as divine, not called divine, and not called God, which the Father is called in that verse.
Not called God? Colin, the text says, “the Word was God”. You don’t agree with this translation?
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Re: Lesson Study #1 - The Personality & Divinity of the HOLY SPIRIT
#17495
03/28/06 02:13 PM
03/28/06 02:13 PM
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quote:
So if the Holy Spirit is a third God as distinguished from "God the Father" and "God the Son", can I pray to the Holy Spirit and go directly to "God the Holy Spirit" without a mediator and have my sins forgiven? If "God the Holy Spirit" is fully God in the sense that "God the Father" is fully God, he should be able to forgive my sins shouldn't he?
Dr. Glenn,
The Bible doesn’t say that the Father or the Son convince us of sin, but I suppose they could do it, however each of the members of the Godhead assumed a role in the plan of salvation.
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Re: Lesson Study #1 - The Personality & Divinity of the HOLY SPIRIT
#17496
03/28/06 03:14 PM
03/28/06 03:14 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Dr.Glenn:
Sorry, I meant to say Colin do you have any other scriptures to show that the correct translation of "monogenes" should be "begotten"?
Your original post was quite clear! Tom doesn't disagree with "begotten", BTW. His view of it is a little different, though.
There is no better or other text, since the thinking is about the roots & meaning of words - which is never the answer (see below). Here's a bit from Lee Irons that is helpful, that I found just now. Irons supports Sunday theology, so I shan't post his website quote:
Traditionally, the doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son was supported by an appeal to the five Johannine texts in which Christ is identified as monogenes (Jn 1:14, 18; 3:16, 18; I Jn 4:9). As early as Jerome's Vulgate, this word was understood in the sense of "only begotten" (unigenitus), and the tradition was continued by the Authorized Version. However, most scholars of this century reject this understanding and believe, instead, that the idea behind the word is more along the lines of "only" (RSV) or "one and only" (NIV) [3]. One of the main arguments is that the -genes suffix is related to the verb ginomai rather than gennao, thus acquiring the meaning "category" or "genus."
Unfortunately, this argument requires a selective reading of the evidence. It ignores the wealth of lexemes [i.e. words] that have the -genes suffix. After searching Thesaurus Linguae Graecae on CD-ROM (a comprehensive collection of all extant Greek literature up to the 6th century AD), my estimate is that there are approximately 120 such words in the Greek vocabulary. Of these, 30% are not listed in Liddell and Scott [a pro-'begotten' book], but the lexicon's glosses of 55% contain such words as "born" and "produced." For example, neogenes is glossed as "newly produced," and theogenes, "born of God." A mere 11% involve meanings related to "kind" (e.g., homogenes means "of the same genus"), while the remainder of usages have miscellaneous meanings. The sheer preponderance of the evidence would indicate that monogenes in the Johannine literature could very well mean "only begotten." At least, it cannot be ruled out on the basis of etymology [i.e. genuine or literal sense of a word]. [4] Footnote[4]: Those who use etymological considerations to support their revisionist exegesis would do well to remember that arguments from usage are far more relevant than arguments from etymology. James Barr, The Semantics of Biblical Language (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961). A comprehensive study of the usage of monogenes supports the traditional translation. John V. Dahms, "The Johannine Use of Monogenes Reconsidered," New Testament Studies 29 (1983) 222-32.
The Biblical uses are pretty unanimous.
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Re: Lesson Study #1 - The Personality & Divinity of the HOLY SPIRIT
#17497
03/28/06 03:53 PM
03/28/06 03:53 PM
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quote:
Colin, quote:
There is no beginning to the Word's existence, since the Father's expression is his Word; yet, the Son of God is begotten of the Father.
But the same can be said of the Son of God, that is, that He has no beginning:
“Without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life -- LIKE THE SON OF GOD” (Hebrews 7:3)
Besides, “children derive life and being from their parents” (ST, September 10, 1894 par. 5), but “in Christ is life, original, unborrowed, underived” (DA 530).
Whether the Son of God has a beginning or not isn't disclosed in the Bible, but his begetting is disclosed, so we shouldn't go beyond Scripture in our precision. As for Melchisedek, his lack of Biblically recorded genealogy, etc., is a matter of human record, symbolising the Son's eternity, not a description of the Son's lack of a Father. Don't take the text beyond what it presents, please.
That DA 530 sentence is taken out of context if used as you have - our scholars led in that example, so this is nothing against you but against bad, very bad scholarship presented to us to use. She wasn't addressing Jesus' divinity and his begotten Sonship in eternity - which she completely taught: she was addressing his gift to us of eternal life since he has divine life of his own, being divine. It was a sentence she wrote in Signs of the Times about Jn 3:16's "eternal life" which we do not have naturally, but Jesus does.
1 Tim 6:14-16 certainly mentions both Christ and the Father, but v.15&16 are patently about the Father. That the Father gave Christ permission for all sorts of miracles, including his own resurrection - but also his own death, as God, isn't all that Jn 5:26 refers to: unless that happened in heaven before creation began then it could not happen on earth.
What about Heb 1:1-5 and 8T 268? It really is very simple: the Son of God was literally such before Bethlehem.
As for Jn 1:1, it is idiomatically "the Word was God", but literally it is "the Word was divine": the grammar gives that "God" a qualitative meaning, not an absolute meaning, while "with God" has an absolute meaning. Just taking both angles.
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Re: Lesson Study #1 - The Personality & Divinity of the HOLY SPIRIT
#17499
03/28/06 06:22 PM
03/28/06 06:22 PM
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quote:
Dear Tom:
You state: "This is not sound logic. Let's say "monogenes" may be translated "unique" or "begotten". "Unique" may apply to either animals or humans whereas "begot" can be applied to only humans.
If one uses the word "unique", then one, like Tom, can say that the SON was not the literal divine Son of God before he was born of Mary but was merely one of the three divine beings who was playing a role in the plan of salvation. If one uses the word "begotten" then one, like Colin, can say that the SON was the literal divine Son of God before he was born of Mary and thus was not playing a role in the plan of salvation.
Tom, do you have any scripture to back up your position? In other words do you have other scripture besides the verses referred to in order to back up that the correct translation is "unique"?
If you look at what I wrote, you will notice that I did not take issue with translating "monogenes" as "begotten." You're not being accurate in suggesting that translating "monogenes" as "unique" is my position.
I was pointing out that the logic Colin was using was incorrect. I explained why. If you are not following my argument, I can develop it in more depth. I think the argument is easily followed, however, so I just presented it briefly.
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Re: Lesson Study #1 - The Personality & Divinity of the HOLY SPIRIT
#17500
03/28/06 07:27 PM
03/28/06 07:27 PM
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Re: Lesson Study #1 - The Personality & Divinity of the HOLY SPIRIT
#17501
03/28/06 11:26 PM
03/28/06 11:26 PM
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quote:
That DA 530 sentence is taken out of context if used as you have - our scholars led in that example, so this is nothing against you but against bad, very bad scholarship presented to us to use. She wasn't addressing Jesus' divinity and his begotten Sonship in eternity - which she completely taught: she was addressing his gift to us of eternal life since he has divine life of his own, being divine.
Christ can only give us life because He is life – this is obvious. How could someone be defined as life if there was a time He didn't exist (that is, before being "begotten")?
Ellen White is not addressing Christ’s earthly life, which was derived from Mary, so “underived” here refers to what, if not to His pre-existence? If He had been literally begotten by God, His life would obviously have been derived from God, no matter how you slice it.
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1 Tim 6:14-16 certainly mentions both Christ and the Father, but v.15&16 are patently about the Father.
Please read the following quote and note the similarity of words and ideas with 1 Tim. 6:14-16:
“All created beings live by the will and power of God. They are recipients of the life of the Son of God. However able and talented, however large their capacities, they are replenished with life from the source of all life. He is the spring, the fountain, of life. Only he who alone hath immortality, dwelling in light and life, could say, ‘I have power to lay down my life, and I have power to take it again.’" {YI, August 4, 1898 par. 2}
quote:
What about Heb 1:1-5 and 8T 268? It really is very simple: the Son of God was literally such before Bethlehem.
Speaking about good scholarship, 8T 268 is speaking about the personality and individuality of God and Christ, not about sonship.
As to Heb. 1:1-5, the best interpreter of Scripture is Scripture itself. What I see here are two messianic OT passages which refer to the future, not to some point in past eternity. How does THE BIBLE say they were fulfilled?
First let's examine the second text alluded to in Hebrews, which is 2 Sam. 7:
"When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom for ever. I will be his father, and he shall be my son" (2 Sam. 7:12-14).
Here Solomon is used as a type of Christ. How is he used as a type of Christ? By being literally begotten by God or by having his throne forever established by God?
Now let's examine the first text alluded to, Ps. 2:
"'I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill.' I will tell of the decree of the LORD: He said to me, 'You are my son, today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron, and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel'" (Ps. 2:6-9).
What is Ps. 2 speaking about? Generation or kingship? What is founded upon a decree? The kingdom of the Messiah is founded upon a decree, an eternal decree, of God the Father.
Yahweh, in the passage, declares His purpose to set His King on Zion, and the language is that of a solemn consecration to the kingly office. How was this decree executed? It was executed, or carried into effect, by Christ's resurrection from the dead and by the exaltation consequent on that:
"This He has fulfilled to us their children by raising Jesus; as also it is written in the second psalm, 'Thou art my Son, today I have begotten thee'" (Acts 13:33).
"And designated SON OF GOD in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord" (Rom 1:4).
It was after Christ's ressurrection that He said: "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me" (Matthew 28:18). And this was confirmed by His exaltation, when, besides a King, He became also a High Priest:
"So also Christ did not exalt himself to be made a high priest, but was appointed by him who said to him, 'Thou art my Son, today I have begotten thee'" (Hebrews 5:5).
So, what I see is that THE BIBLE says Ps. 2:7 was fulfilled by Christ's resurrection and exaltation as king and high priest. Why would I apply it to a literal generation of Christ?
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As for Jn 1:1, it is idiomatically "the Word was God", but literally it is "the Word was divine": the grammar gives that "God" a qualitative meaning, not an absolute meaning, while "with God" has an absolute meaning. Just taking both angles.
How much do you know of Greek and which is the grammar you are quoting from?
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