I thought I would publish here on KR an excellent paper by Ken Westby. Ken runs the great One God website www.Godward.org – also known as “The Association for Christian Development”. This paper actually just ran as a paid-for full-page ad in “The Journal”. This is the little newspaper that the Churches of God put out. And the interesting thing here (some might call it a bold move), is that the Churches of God (off-shoots of the Armstrong World-Wide movement) are decidedly Binitarian (the “God Family” belief). Ken sent a pdf copy of the entire newspaper (link is here) along with a note saying that his article (on page 19 – and printed here below), was followed up by a 9 PAGE rebuttal in support of the binity belief. I think he may have struck a nerve!
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:
I was taking a break from most everything when I was out-of-town on vacation last week. This week I’m taking a break from getting into the second section of my paper/series to post something I ran across on the web awhile back. While I haven’t fully had a chance to dig real deep into this site’s content, what I have found I believe to be quite good.
Biblical Common Sense – Jesus – Not Equal, Not the Same!
The following common sense arguments regarding how The Bible clearly demonstrates that God and Jesus are not the same being are ones that tend to come up quite often among those promoting Jesus as God. Many times I have been told in discussions with those wishing to support a Trinitarian or even a Oneness/Modalist viewpoint that these are simply tired old arguments. Yes, the arguments are centuries old and people often tire of them. But that doesn’t mean that they still aren’t valid objections. And their validity remains all the more significant due to the fact each of these are easily answerable when one uses common sense as their guide.
The Apostle Paul wrote in Romans and 1st Corinthians detailed comparisons of Jesus and Adam. Paul even termed Jesus the “Last Adam”. This is because he recognized critically important parallels between these two individuals. Adam, the father of the human race brought death upon everyone because his disobedience took away the ability for humans to live eternally. The perfect obedience of the Last Adam, Jesus the Messiah, gave humanity a way to overcome death and live eternally as originally planned.
Throughout the “Original” Testament God goes out of his way to say over and over that He is the one and only God of the universe and that He alone is responsible for all of creation. But God also reveals something else there and then confirms it later in the New Testament. God says that he CAN NOT be seen by man. In Exodus 33:20 God flat out tells Moses that “no man can see me and live”. Then in the Gospel of John we have collaborating texts like “No man hath seen God at any time” (John 1:18) and “You have neither heard His voice at any time, nor seen His form” (John 5:37). And in 1st Timothy we have the added facts that God is “invisible” (1 Tim 1:17) and that He “dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see” (1 Tim 6:16).
Read the rest...(511 words, 1 image, estimated 2:03 mins reading time)
Biblical Common Sense – Jesus – The Messiah is suppose to be…
Then there’s the Biblical expectations regarding the Messiah. The Hebrew people have historically viewed (as Judaism still does to this day) the Messiah as someone that would be a real human being directly descended from the lineage of King David. And they have this view point because that is just what Scripture clearly describes – a real human man was promised, not God acting as a man.
Biblical Common Sense – Jesus – The Anointed of God
The term Messiah is the English translation for the Hebrew word “Moshiach” (or “Mashiach”), which means “God’s anointed, or “the anointed one (of God)”. The term was used to describe anyone who was “anointed” with holy anointing oil (e.g. Israel’s Kings, prophets, & priests) to signify being chosen for a task ordained/authorized by God. And in a deeper eschatological sense, Messiah also stood for the coming of THE final “Moshiach” from the Davidic line who would usher in the Messianic age (the “Olam Ha-Ba” or “the world to come”) and whose “kingship” would reign forever.
Read the rest...(296 words, 1 image, estimated 1:11 mins reading time)
instead of a 1st century Jew, he might have sounded something like this humerous little cartoon. Jesus’ reply to the absurdity of Peter’s faux response here is exactly what anyone in their right mind would/should say. “What???”
There are two different events recorded in the New Testament where God himself vocally indicates that Jesus is His son. First at his baptism we have the accounts the three synoptic gospels.
Matt 3:16-171 After being baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove and lighting on Him, and behold, a voice out of the heavens said, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased.”
Read the rest...(515 words, 1 image, estimated 2:04 mins reading time)
(Installment #4 in the series.)
