Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Response to those who think Jesus is not God

Dear Mr.Pastor,
First of all I would like to ask you, “What does it mean to be a Christian?”
Second I would like to define who God is. God is made up of three entities God the Father, Jesus Christ (God the Son) and the Holy Spirit. This is what we call the trinity or the tri-unity. Although this word is never used in the Bible we see that there are three entities that make up God.
Third, one of the rules for understanding the Bible is that Scripture interprets Scripture. Another is to look at the context.

[1 John 4.15]
You say that Jesus is “the Son of the ONE God”. First of all it does not say “the One God”. It says the Son of God. This verse in 1 John 4:15 can also read that Jesus is God the Son.

John 10.36
If you look at the whole passage you can see that in John 10:30 that Jesus claims that He and the Father are one or another definition for the greek word is “a unity”. If Jesus claims to be one with the Father but then it says that He is the Son of God how can that be? The only answer is that Jesus Christ is both God and man. He is Son of God and part of the trinity Otherwise your claim says that the Bible contradicts itself.

(1 Cor 8.4,6)
You have neglected the last part of these verses. “When Paul says that there is one God, the Father, and one Lord Jesus Christ, he does not mean that the Lord Jesus Christ is not God. Rather he simply indicates the respective roles which these two Persons of the Godhead fulfilled in creation and in redemption.” (Believers Bible Commentary)
If you are saying that God can only be used of the Father then you have to say that “Lord” always refers to Jesus. What about when it says Lord in the Old Testament.
If Jesus was just a man he could not have been perfect.

He learned to obey the Father day by day. He went through the same things you and I went through, the same temptations but He remained perfect through them. He came to earth perfect, He did not deserve to have the sins of the whole world laid on Him but He willingly took them on Himself so that we could have a perfect stand before God. I don’t believe that He came to earth knowing how to do everything. He had to learn how to walk and talk. He had to learn how to read. It didn’t just come instantly. He had to learn to obey the Fathers will because there was temptation not to.
If you had studied Greek translation of this verse you would know that this translation of the word “perfect” is an unfortunate translation. The word here should be “complete” instead of perfect. Jesus was always perfect. He had to suffer and that is what made Him the complete sacrifice for our sins. Without His suffering there would have been no sacrifice and without a sacrifice there would have been no salvation and no Christianity. If you must insist on using the word “perfect” then you can still say He is the perfect sacrifice for all time. (Hebrews 1-13) How I get this is because it talks about Him being the author of eternal Salvation later on in the verse and before it talks about His suffering. In between His suffering and the authorship was His death, the sacrifice of His life.

Now if you are saying this you are saying that Jesus was just a man. If Jesus was Just a man then we should all give up Christianity. There is no way that Jesus Christ could be sinless. You see in the Old Testament the Sacrifice for a sin offering had to be unblemished and spotless. If Jesus was just a man and not God, He could not have been unblemished and spotless. Jesus Christ is the second Adam. The first Adam had the chance to be perfect but he messed it up and sinned. Jesus Christ was perfect and through His perfection He was able to be the perfect, complete sacrifice to satisfy God’s wrath. These verses are talking about Jesus coming down to earth as a man. Jesus Christ gave up His glory in heaven and came humbly to earth as a man because God the Father wanted to show His love for us by sending Jesus Christ to die on the cross for my sins.


This man, Colin Brown, needs to study his Bible a little more. Let’s look at the Beginning.
Gen 1:26 Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."
Who is the OUR speaking of here? It has to either be more than one God or there has to be more than one being that makes up God.
If Mr. Brown had looked farther down in His study of John 1 He would have seen verse 14. But first I want to look at verse 2. HE was in the beginning with God. Who is HE? The Word is HE. If you say that the He is God you are saying that God was in the beginning with God. It doesn’t make sense. “All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.” Apart from HIM nothing has been created. Now in Verse 14 “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.” The Word became flesh. The Word was in the beginning with God and was God. If the Word was with God and was God and then the Word became flesh there is no explanation but that the Word is the pre-incarnate Christ. This proves that Jesus Christ is God. The Word dwelt among us and we saw His glory. The glory of the Only Begotten from the Father. This proves that Jesus Christ was both God and man.

If the Word was not a living being (but only a Word or Thought), then that Word / Thought was called God. You have just defied a Word and called it God.

If we are talking about the deity of Christ then let’s look at Colossians 2:9 “For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form,”. Try to explain away that one. Jesus Christ fully God and fully man. I know that it is hard to understand and even I cannot understand it fully. It is just like thinking of eternity. It will go on and on forever. There is no way to explain it. There are many things that we cannot explain. We would like to try to explain them away and understand everything.

John 5:18 “For this reason therefore the Jews were seeking all the more to kill Him, because He not only was breaking the Sabbath, but also was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God.” The Jews wanted to kill Jesus because He was making Himself equal with God. Jesus claimed that He was equal with God. The only way this could happen is if He was part of the Godhead.

These verses say that Jesus is God.
Colossians 1:15 “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.”
Hebrews 1:3 “And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power. When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,”
Titus 2:13 looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus,
These verses make the claim and the Greek connects God and Savior into one person -- Jesus Christ.
Consider Revelation 22:13 along with Isaiah 41:4; 44:6-8; 48:11-12.
Jesus Christ is talking in Revelation 22. If you decide to overlook these things then you are picking and choosing what scriptures make up your stand. You are not looking at scripture as a whole. You are only taking what you want, what fits your view. You are not letting your view be fit by what is in scripture.
Sir I have already found the truth. The truth is that Jesus Christ, both fully God and fully man, died on the cross for my sins, was buried and rose again to show that He had conquered sin and death. If one puts their faith and trust in Jesus Christ they shall be saved. If they don’t they will be damned in Hell for eternity. You deny that Jesus Christ is God then there is no way to heaven for you because there is no way that He could save us unless He was perfect. If you refuse to believe this what are you going to do about John 10:30? Are you going to Say that Jesus is a liar? If He is a liar then He is also a sinner and therefore cannot be the perfect sacrifice and cannot take away the sins of the world. If He is a liar then there is no hope of salvation because there was no perfect sacrifice. If Jesus was lying then there is no Christianity. Just something for you to think about.

Also if you want to learn more listen to the message The Triune God and look at the study notes at this website. http://cbf.thelivingword.us/Messages/StudyDays/TheologyProper/TheologyProper.html
Scott has posted the verses for you to look at and if you cannot accept them to be true then you are saying that the Bible contradicts itself and therefore you cannot be a Christian.
I have presented my stand. I have showed you what God’s Word says. If you have questions I would be happy to answer them.
T.J. Kerttula

Saturday, February 13, 2010

As I Am Over the Ocean and Over the Sea

As I am over the Ocean and over the Sea
I want to bring you back with me
To a land that is foreign to both you and I
To a land that needs love from a new supply
To a land that needs Jesus as the Christ
And all that His love has given for a price
That we might have compassion and strength
To carry the load of the sleeping saints
That have died in the jungle giving all their life
To the work that has given hope to many lives
To the work that has given hope to many lives
As I am over the ocean and over the sea
This what I pray for you and me

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Let Your Light Shine

I was thinking about a discussion we had on Monday night it was very interesting. It was on Matthew 5:26. Let your light shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify the Father who is in heaven.
Your light is not your works. It is how you do your work. If you are going it with a cheerful heart and do the best you can do then you are letting your light shine through you. If your work is glorifying to God then your light is shining but if you grumble and complain then your light is not shining in you. If your work is glorifying to God then it is worthy to be glorified. Notice all the glory goes to God the Father who is in heaven. It is not glory to yourself it is glory to God. If you work for God’s glory then God will get the glory. What an amazing verse to think on. So let us glorify God in our work because He deserves all the glory for saving us from our sins.