He represents God's will and authority.
Like Jesus is as much God as a man can be.
Not really. Christ is the image of God. In other words, Christ is transparent so when you see the son you're actually seeing the Father.
How much God can a man be?
A man cannot be God because God is the orign of being, and the origin of being cannot exist apart from being. It's the difference between being and becoming.
We have limits and Jesus was most of all one of us .
No, Jesus denies himself. We don't. There is no comparison. Christ is all that remains when one denies themselves, and Christ is most of all the image of God.
That Jesus was one of us says more to me than that he is God ,
Jesus denied himself so he was never one of us. He didn't come to be one of us, but to make us like Christ; to be conformed into the image of God.
indeed he is not God the Father, he is the Son,
Yep.
What does Jesus as the Son mean in relation to the Father. We are getting into the meaning of the trinity here aren't we. The reason we have a trinity is because Jesus and the Father are separate persons.
I don't know the chronology of events in the development of the trinity, but i do know that there's some contradictions going on, and i don't know which statements are primary and which are secondary. The creed states, "one in being with the father", but then most people i hear talking of the trinity refer to three persons. I'm inclind to go along with the creed because it matches the texts.
In other words, the father is the origin of existence while Christ is the means of existence. Christ is the ground of being, and therefore God can't exist apart from Christ, and Christ can't exist without the origin. It should be pointed out that the terms "origin" and "beginning" are practically synonymous, but only with regards to things. Prior to the existence of things, orgin denotes source while beginning marks when something begins. The word exists prior to the beginning of what exists, e.g. time, space, things etc.
The meaning is relational. You can't have a son without a father, and you can't be a father without a son. The thing that i find most interesting here is that Paul and John seem to be pointing out that the word/Christ aren't God at all, but that the existence of God can only be found in the Son/the word/Christ.
I see a trinitarian aspect to the texts, and reality itself, but not necessarily with regards to God. There are not three persons. There is only one person, and that person is Christ/the word. God is found dwelling withing as the source of being, and God exists exclusively within the word. God cannot exist apart from being. This is simple logic and it seems to be what John and Paul are both pointing out. I think Jesus is saying the same thing when he says, "if you have seen the son you have seen the father". He is the image of God, but God's image isn't God. It's God's image. Look in a mirror and you see your image, but your image isn't you. It isn't who you are, it's an image of what you are.
God and Christ aren't a "what" or a thing. They are both a "who", and yet Christ's essential nature in being doesn't allow him to transcend being while he exists. Christ does transcend though because he says that he returns to the father. The father is transcendent so Christ eventually does transcend being.
