Is the Holy Spirit just an aspect of God?

[polonius]

In Catholic dogma, when did the Holy Spirit become a "person" of the Trinity such as the Father and Son?

[Claire Evans]

[Replying to post 61 by Claire Evans]

You completely ignored my reference to the blind man at John 9:9 who used the same words Jesus used at 8:58----"ego eimi."

If that man said the exact words Jesus used a few verses before, then shouldn't the blind man be God as well?

They said the same words, so what? It's just that they must have understood that Jesus was calling Himself God. They were infuriated. To say one was there before Abraham is hardly going to make them see red.

[Claire Evans]

[Replying to post 61 by Claire Evans]

No, Jesus wasn't taking credit for himself when he said things like "I am the way, the truth and the life." He was saying just what his Father told him to say.

"I have not spoken out of my own impulse, but the Father who sent me has given me a commandment as to what to tell and what to speak....The things I speak, just as the Father has told me, so I speak." (John 12:49,50)


So when Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth and the life," he was doing so on his Father's orders. It was true, also, that Jesus was the means by which the Father saved the world of mankind, so he could rightly say that he was the way to be saved. The Father had supplied NO OTHER way to be saved.

So the Father told Jesus to say that only He was the way, truth and life? If Jesus is only that, then what is God?

And if Jesus wasn't God, why did He allow Himself to be worshiped?

Matthew 14:33
Verse Concepts
And those who were in the boat worshiped Him, saying, "You are certainly God's Son!"

Hebrews 1:6
Verse Concepts
And when He again brings the firstborn into the world, He says, "AND LET ALL THE ANGELS OF GOD WORSHIP HIM."


Matthew 28:16-17
But the eleven disciples proceeded to Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had designated. When they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some were doubtful.


Look at the OT verse:

Exodus 34:14
Verse Concepts
--for you shall not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God--


Then to Paul:

Acts 10:25–26
Embed
25 When Peter entered, Cornelius met him and fell down at his feet and worshiped him. 26 But Peter lifted him up, saying,“Stand up; I too am a man.�

Therefore, why didn't Jesus rebuke them for worshiping Him?

Both Jesus and the Father are the Lord:

1 Chronicles 16:25
Verse Concepts
For great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised; He also is to be feared above all gods.


Revelation 4:8-9
And the four living creatures, each one of them having six wings, are full of eyes around and within; and day and night they do not cease to say, "HOLY, HOLY, HOLY is THE LORD GOD, THE ALMIGHTY, WHO WAS AND WHO IS AND WHO IS TO COME." And when the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to Him who sits on the throne, to Him who lives forever and ever,

John 4:23
Verse Concepts
"But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers.

Can we worship both Jesus and the Father if they are not one?

[Claire Evans]

[Replying to post 61 by Claire Evans]

I don't agree with your version of John 10:34-36. He was saying that God had called human judges "gods," so why were the Pharisees so uptight because he merely said that he was God's SON? They were obviously up to something. They looked for ANY excuse---fabricated or not---to accuse him of blasphemy (and when that ultimately didn't work, they accused him of being a traitor to Caesar).

That is not the case. How could He compare Psalms with the Pharisees if the Psalms only say they are gods and not sons of God? Surely claiming to be the Son was enough for them to be angry with Him? Why falsely claim that He was claiming to be God, also?

He never said that he and the Father were the same individual. "I and the Father are one" simply means that he and the Father were like-minded. They agreed on everything. Have you noticed that Jesus asked his Father to watch over his disciples and sanctify them, because he was sending them forth into the world, and that they might "all be one, just as you, Father, are in union with me and I am in union with you, that they may also be in union with us....I have given them the glory that you have given me, in order that they may be one just as we are one." (John 17:18-22)

It's pretty clear from that what Jesus meant by being "one" with somebody. If we go by your version, then the disciples are also God, because they could be "one" with God and Jesus.

No, Jesus was not claiming to be God.

If he is, then the blind man is God and so are the disciples.

This is the context of Jesus being one with the Father and what He meant that the disciples could be one with God.

"That they may be one, as we are."

This clause depends upon the words, “Keep them in Thy name.� They had so far realised the revelation of God that they had known Christ’s whole life to be the utterance of God to their spirits (John 17:6-8). He prays that they may be kept in this knowledge in order that they may so know the Father through Him, as to become themselves one with the Father.

http://biblehub.com/commentaries/john/17-11.htm

They must have the same relationship with God (be one with God) as Jesus did and that only happened when the Holy Spirit came into the world. They can continue to have a relationship with Jesus through the relationship they will have with the Father when He is gone.

[onewithhim]

[Replying to post 80 by onewithhim]

Sorry, but I cannot let this pass.

Here is the time-line in our discussion: (1) Jesus' creation; (2) all other things created, including angels, and eventually Abraham.

Jesus is not part of God's creation.

He is the only-begotten of the Father.

That is how and when God became his Father and he "became flesh".

John 1:14

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of The only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

I thought we had progressed far beyond this basic truth of Jesus' origins. He indicated throughout the Gospels that he originated previous to his 33 years on Earth.

"No man has ascended into heaven but he that descended from heaven, the Son of man." (John 3:13)

"He that comes from above is over all things." (John 3:31)

"I have come down from heaven to do, not my will, but the will of him that sent me." (John 6:38)

"You are from the realms below; I am from the realms above. You are from this world; I am not from this world." (John 8:23)

"So now you, Father, glorify me alongside yourself with the glory that I had alongside you before the world was." (John 17:5)


His Apostles wrote of the same:

"He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation." (Colossians 1:15)

"These are the things that the Amen says, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation by God." (Revelation 3:14)



Jesus was the very first thing created by Jehovah. All other things were created through Jesus. (I Corinthians 8:6)

[onewithhim]

[Replying to post 61 by Claire Evans]

You completely ignored my reference to the blind man at John 9:9 who used the same words Jesus used at 8:58----"ego eimi."

If that man said the exact words Jesus used a few verses before, then shouldn't the blind man be God as well?

They said the same words, so what? It's just that they must have understood that Jesus was calling Himself God. They were infuriated. To say one was there before Abraham is hardly going to make them see red.

You say, "So what?"?? It's quite important to understand that if Jesus and the blind man said the same words, then that means that what Jesus said at John 8:58 DOES NOT MEAN THAT HE IS GOD, or else THE BLIND MAN IS ALSO GOD.

The Jews did NOT understand that Jesus was calling himself God. They knew that he always claimed to be---not God, but---the SON OF GOD. (Matthew 27:43) Regardless, they always searched for a way to bring him down, and they used false witnesses against him. (Matthew 26:59; Matt. 27:18; Mark 14:55-59)

If you look up those scriptures and do not ignore them, you will see that the Pharisees were looking for ANY WAY to get him out of their hair, and resorted to false witnesses. Therefore they TWISTED everything he said and FALSELY accused him of claiming to be God.

They were outraged at him as the passage in John shows, but not for claiming to be God, which they knew wasn't true. They were highly incensed that he would claim to be in existence BEFORE THEIR GREATLY ESTEEMED FOREFATHER ABRAHAM. As one Bible scholar has said: "It is Jesus' claim to be superior to Abraham, and to have a superhuman longevity, NOT A CLAIM TO BE GOD, that enrages his audience." (Truth in Translation, Jason BeDuhn, page 111)

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[onewithhim]

[Replying to post 61 by Claire Evans]

No, Jesus wasn't taking credit for himself when he said things like "I am the way, the truth and the life." He was saying just what his Father told him to say.

"I have not spoken out of my own impulse, but the Father who sent me has given me a commandment as to what to tell and what to speak....The things I speak, just as the Father has told me, so I speak." (John 12:49,50)


So when Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth and the life," he was doing so on his Father's orders. It was true, also, that Jesus was the means by which the Father saved the world of mankind, so he could rightly say that he was the way to be saved. The Father had supplied NO OTHER way to be saved.

So the Father told Jesus to say that only He was the way, truth and life? If Jesus is only that, then what is God?


Can we worship both Jesus and the Father if they are not one?

Jesus is the only way to be saved because that is what the Father, God, has determined. Jesus is God's way of salvation. How can you say, "what is God?"? God is the One who planned mankind's salvation and instructed His Son in what to say and do. That's quite a lot, wouldn't you agree? Jehovah is the SOURCE of salvation, and that salvation COMES THROUGH JESUS.

We do not worship Jesus the same way that we worship the Father. "Worship" basically means to respect. First century people worshiped high officials, and they didn't necessarily think they were worshiping them as God Almighty. We "worship" Jesus with honor and respect as the Son of God, not God. We worship the Father, God, as God Almighty---the only true God, above all others. (Psalm 83:18, KJV; John 17:3)

When Jesus said that he and the Father were "one," (as I have explained before) he was saying that they were always in agreement. He said the same thing about his disciples (John 17:21,22), and yet the disciples are not also God, are they?


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[Benoni]

[Replying to post 94 by onewithhim]

You do not believe in the Spirit of truth will lead and guide us into all truth either?

[Benoni]

That is right you believe in the JW religion will lead and guide you into all JW truth.

[Claire Evans]

[Replying to post 61 by Claire Evans]

You didn't answer the question. You said that Jesus had to have been God to have existed before Abraham. I said WHY? Angels existed before Abraham and none of them are God. So why would Jesus have to be God to have existed before Abraham?

But Jesus wasn't claimed to have been around in the beginning like the angels in Genesis. Is Jesus mentioned in Genesis? And the angels were never claimed to have been creators of the world like Jesus was.

Colossians 1
15 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him.

This Colossians passage does not say Jesus is or was God Himself.

What Paul wrote elsewhere tells us who God is and is not.

1 Corinthians 8:

4 Therefore, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that “an idol has no real existence,� and that “there is no God but one.�

5 For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as indeed there are many “gods� and many “lords�—

6 yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.

Paul was not making a distinction between Jesus and God.

"Lord" referring to Jesus is translated as kyrios. Normally it would refer to a master but the context is different based on the Septuagint. The Jews knew the Lord as Adonai which when translated into Greek was Kyrios. Thus the early Christians who could speak where familiar with the Septuagint and would have understand Adonai has Lord Jesus.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyrios

And furthermore, how could God create the world through Jesus?

[Claire Evans]

Claire Evans wrote:

Lets look at Colossians 1

15 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him.

And if Jesus was created, then He could not have claim preexistence as He did when He said He existed before Abraham.

emphasis added by me.

Col. 1:15 does NOT say "firstborn OVER all creation. It simply and clearly says he is the firstborn OF all creation.

http://biblehub.com/interlinear/colossians/1-15.htm

He was the very first (firstborn) creation. Then every other created thing was made THROUGH him.

I doubt that there is any place in scripture that says firstborn OVER anything.

First of all, Jesus is said to be the image of God. Image is translated as eikon which also means form in English.

http://biblehub.com/greek/1504.htm

Being a firstborn in this scripture is not literal. For example, Jesus is described as being the born from the dead.

Revelation 1:4-5New International Version (NIV)

Greetings and Doxology
4 John,

To the seven churches in the province of Asia:

Grace and peace to you from him who is, and who was, and who is to come, and from the seven spirits[a] before his throne, 5 and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.

To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood,

It is deriving from the OT of what they believed the first born was.

Deuteronomy

17 but he shall acknowledge the firstborn, the son of the unloved, by giving him a double portion of all that he has, for he is the firstfruits of his strength. The right of the firstborn is his.

Thus the first born was special status.

Israel was depicted as God's first born son:

Exodus

22 Then you shall say to Pharaoh, 'Thus says the LORD, Israel is my firstborn son,

Thus Jesus is the "new Israel".

New Testament references:

For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. (Romans 8:29)

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. (Colossians 1:15)
He is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. (Colossians 1:18)

When he brings the firstborn into the world, he says, “Let all God’s angels worship him.� (Hebrews 1:6)

The firstborn of the dead means Jesus was the first to be raised from the dead and have a glorified body.