Red-letter Bibles can be both a blessing and a curse – a blessing because they highlight the important words of our Lord Jesus, but a curse to the uninformed reader because occasionally the words highlighted in red are not actually the words of Jesus! One influential example of this may be found in the book of Revelation. In the New American Standard Bible, Revelation 1:8 is highlighted in red, suggesting that the following words are the words of Jesus. This verse reads “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.” This red-letter emphasis conveys the idea that Jesus is the Lord God, the Almighty. However, a careful reader of the book of Revelation will question the accuracy of this red-letter emphasis, which is an editorial interpretation and not of the authoritative inspiration of God.
Both the Gospels and the book of Acts make a clear distinction between the Lord God, the Father, and His Son Jesus, the Lord Messiah. Luke makes this apparent in his birth narrative, by identifying two distinct persons, each identified by the title “Lord.” He writes that Jesus, “the Lord’s Christ” (Luke 2:26), “will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of his father David” (Luke 1:32). He would be begotten by the power of the Most High, and designated “Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:11). From this, it may be seen that by His power the Most High, the Lord God, created a human child in the womb of Mary who would be known as the Lord’s Christ, or Christ the Lord.
I read this article awhile back and found it interesting. And I thought it would be good to post here on the KR Blog. I hope you find it interesting as well. Enjoy!
Biblical Unitarianism from the Early Church through the Middle Ages
by Mark M. Mattison
The term “biblical unitarianism,” as used in this journal, denotes a non-Trinitarian theology which is consistent with the inspired Word of God. It is our belief that this understanding of the Scriptures is not new, but has been propagated at various times and places throughout church history. The purpose of this article is to lay a foundation for the future discussion of this topic.
First, however, we must define our terms.
Read the rest...(3707 words, 1 image, estimated 14:50 mins reading time)
Click here to listen to “The Doctrine of God and Christ” mp3 [52:40].
Steve Katsaras, pastor of the Red Words Church in Australia and contributor to this blog, recently gave a thoroughly biblical exposition of the doctrines of God and Christ.
Yahweh is one, not two or three, and there is no God besides him. The Bible uses singular pronouns in reference to God thousands upon thousands of time, a fact that clearly teaches God is a singular individual. This one God is the eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent creator of heaven and earth.
Jesus is given many “titles”, or “designations”, in Scripture. Most of those titles are well known to Christians. However, from what I have seen, the exact meanings of those titles are not very well understood by many Christians.
In other words, some Christians do not understand the meanings of some of Jesus’ titles – and that can cause Christians to draw inaccurate conclusions about who Jesus actually is.
Of course, it stands to reason that followers of Jesus should want to have an accurate understanding of his identity. So, let’s examine some of the most common titles that are given to Jesus – and then explore what those titles actually mean.
To understand this term, one must also seek to understand other closely related phrases, like sons of men and children of men. Firstly, all of these terms are applied to mankind in general. These terms indicate the difference between God and the human race. The phrase son of man is the strongest way to distinguish between deity and humanity!
Psalm 115:16 (usage – children of men)
Consider the contrast between God and mankind: God dwells in heaven; man dwells on the earth.
Psalm 145:10 – 13 (usage – sons of men)
Here’s another contrast between God and mankind: God is big, strong, powerful and eternal; man is small, weak and temporal.
Well, it’s been quite awhile since I’ve posted an article here. Far too long in fact. I apologize for my hiatus. No real good excuses, just the usual things in life that pull us in all directions – job, kids, family commitments, home projects, watching too much football (yes I really do enjoy watching college and professional football – maybe too much), etc.. And probably the worst and certainly dumbest thing is just getting out of the habit. Of course it seems that may be the case with a lot of my fellow KR contributors. But let’s see if I can start a trend of coming back to the well here. Let’s see if I can start off easy and work back into pushing out some fresh content for those have kept coming here and visiting the site.
Read the rest...(637 words, 1 image, estimated 2:33 mins reading time)
In this clip that has been edited by Jeff Campbell (a basic unitarian and fellow facebook friend to many of us here on the KR blog), he takes a segment of a debate featuring Sir Anthony Buzzard & Joseph Good vs. Dr. James White & Michael Brown and then does his own video commentary on Dr. White’s points.
Basically in the debate, Anthony was presenting the terrific argument he has brought up for years, that Psalm 110:1 shows two different lords. See the following links from Anthony for greater detail:
Well, it’s been quite awhile since I’ve posted an article here. Far too long in fact. I apologize for my hiatus. No real good excuses, just the usual things in life that pull us in all directions – job, kids, family commitments, home projects, watching too much football (yes I really do enjoy watching college and professional football – maybe too much), etc.. And probably the worst and certainly dumbest thing is just getting out of the habit. Of course it seems that may be the case with a lot of my fellow KR contributors. But let’s see if I can start a trend of coming back to the well here. Let’s see if I can start off easy and work back into pushing out some fresh content for those have kept coming here and visiting the site.