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| A man who most characterizes who God is | | |
Sponsor |  lesoldham | Mar 8, 5:29pm | If you strip off all religion and look for a man who most characterizes who God should be I still think you will come up with Jesus.
What characteristics of Jesus the man are characteristics that God should have? Please no omni characteristics. |
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Sponsor | | usmjam | Mar 10, 10:26am | The only thing one can come up with is that Jesus is eternal and holy, i.e. without sin. All other "characteristics" are of the humanity of Jesus which can never come close in comparisons to God the Father who is pure spirit.
The following is a good summary of the fallaciousness of trying to abscribe characteristics of mankind to God, or vice versa:
From the page: "Looking at who's image Christ is in, Col.1:15 "He is in the image of the invisible God." Christ alone is this image. Man will not be what Christ is in his nature, even when we are glorified.
The Greek word for image is eikon indicating a perfect image. It is related to his nature and substance, It is a spiritual image. Meaning he is the very substance and nature of God. In Jn.14 when Jesus used the expression "if you have seen me you have seen the Father" he is meaning that as the Son he is expressing his nature. Making the Father known. Meaning he is the very substance and nature of God. An exact reproduction we can see, because before that he states no man has seen the Father.
Heb.1:3 "who's being the brightness of his glory and express image of his person".
He is the perfect representation of another person therefore he too is a person of like nature. Jesus is the exact image, the word used is an illustration of an engraving tool that would stamp its impression on a coin or seal. It bears the image produced by it having the exact reproduction of the original. Yet the image is not the same identity as the seal. Neither is the Son the identical person as the Father except in his nature.
In Rom. 8:29 we are told that we are "to be conformed to the image of his Son." This is a continual process even though it was started the time we were born again. When we a renewed we don't become God nor will we be exactly like him in the resurrection. We are creatures and will stay this way. We shouldn't strive to be something we clearly are not . If the faith teachers would learn from the mistakes of the cults they wouldn't be so prone to repeat them!" |
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Sponsor | | lesoldham | Mar 10, 1:57pm | Hbr 1:3 And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature,
Hbr 2:17 Therefore, He had to be made like His brethren in all things, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.
1Jo 3:2 Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.
Gen 1:26 Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness;
This should be enough to refute the self contradictory statements that you have presented. However my intent was to throw off religion and to look at the nature of God as represented by Jesus.
Was Jesus loving, kind, faithful, honorable, honest, courageous, loving the truth?
These are characteristics of holiness. We strive to share these characteristics with Jesus and insofar as we yield to the Spirit we have these characteristics as well.
My further intent was to differentiate between Jesus and other religious leaders like Mohammad, or Gandhi. |
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|  JRyanStevens | Mar 10, 2:21pm | I really dislike Mt 10:34-37ish.
"Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn
" 'a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her motherinlaw--
a man's enemies will be the members of his own household.'
"Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me...
Leaves a very "ungodly" taste in my mouth.
It also reminds me of the sacrifice of Isaac. God actually tells Abraham to sacrifice his son?? I don't care if it is a test; isn't the right answer "NO!"?! Even if you were offered eternal life for killing your son, isn't the moral answer, "Hell no!"?!
I hate the Isaac story. Sorry, I know it's a bit off topic. |
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Sponsor | | lesoldham | Mar 10, 7:24pm |
JR, This is the context for the statements you quoted.
Mat 10:22 "You will be hated by all because of My name,
but it is the one who has endured to the end who will be saved.
Having said this, the rest of Mat 10 is an explanation of
the kinds of things those who follow Jesus would have to endure.
Mat 10:34 "Do not think that I came to bring peace on
the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. Mat
10:35 "For I came to SET A MAN AGAINST HIS FATHER,
AND A DAUGHTER AGAINST HER MOTHER, AND A DAUGHTER-IN-LAW AGAINST HER
MOTHER-IN-LAW; Mat
10:36 and A MAN'S ENEMIES WILL BE THE MEMBERS OF HIS
HOUSEHOLD. Mat
10:37 "He who loves father or mother more than Me
is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not
worthy of Me.
Jesus knew that there would be extreme resistance to what
He was teaching and was honestly warning his disciples of what they could
expect. He was essentially saying that "if you don't have a full understanding
of who and what I am then you won't be able to endure the consequences.
The Key verses to
the story of Abraham's offering of Isaac are
Gen 22:8 Abraham said, "God will provide for Himself
the lamb for the burnt offering, my son." So the two of them walked on
together.
And
Gen 22:14 Abraham called the name of that place The LORD
Will Provide, as it is said to this day, "In the mount of the LORD it will
be provided."
Abraham believed that God would provide and prophesied to
his son. (by the way, the word "for" is not in the Hebrew text and Gen22:8
would be more properly interpreted "God will provide Himself the lamb for the
burnt offering" indicating that not only would he provide the sacrifice but
that the sacrifice would be Himself.)
In Gen 22:14 Abraham calls the place The Lord Will Provide
because at this point Abraham has learned that God never intended that we have
to sacrifice to please God but that He would provide the sacrifice.
The story is not about God testing man (the word interpreted
"test" can also correctly be defined as "prove" or "refine.") but about God
revealing to mankind that He would not ask them to give up their firstborn but
that He would give up His firstborn.
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| | JRyanStevens | Mar 10, 8:07pm | Les, thank you, but I've read the context many times before and it's still horrid.
No amount of explaining makes those stories benign or appealing. I didn't find anything good about them even as a believer... oh I tried, but they're just so plainly absurd!
Jesus says he did not come to bring peace... but isn't that what God would do? Why come to set a man against his father? I mean, he is God, right? Why not come to resolve issues and help people out? Why not heal more sick people? Why does it sound like the purpose for which he came is to cause these problems? He came to remove sin, AND to cause fights? If the fights are just a result of his coming and not necessarily something he wants to happen, why not say that? This passage sounds particularly Islamic, e.g. "Paradise is found in the shadows of swords."
God actually explicitly tells Abraham to sacrifice his son. "Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about." Abraham fully expects to kill his son; "he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son." Abraham tries to kill his son BEFORE he calls the place "The Lord will provide." God has to stop the fool! After God stops him, he says "Now I know that you fear God..." Shouldn't he have known that BEFORE he told Abraham to kill his son? The whole thing is ridiculous.
This story is deplorable and God is made to look a trickster. Why would he tell Abraham to sacrifice his son, if he never intended for that to actually take place? That's not God-like.
LOL. I guess these stories (in a round-about way) did show that Jesus characterizes God pretty well. God is an absolutely hilarious prankster who'll ask you to kill your son just to see if you'll do it (even though he already knows the answer), and Jesus would like to cleanse our sins before he breaks apart loving families.
Speaking of which, if he were God, couldn't he figure out a way to cleanse our sin AND to bring peace? I mean, why of all things would you choose to impregnate a woman with yourself, so that you can grow up and sacrifice yourself to yourself, knowing that it'll cause people to hate one another? |
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Sponsor | | lesoldham | Mar 11, 10:17pm | Hbr 11:8
By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place
which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not
knowing where he was going.
Hbr 11:9
By faith he lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign
{land,} dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the
same promise;
Hbr 11:10 for he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.
Hbr 11:11
By faith even Sarah herself received ability to conceive, even beyond
the proper time of life, since she considered Him faithful who had
promised.
Hbr 11:12
Therefore there was born even of one man, and him as good as dead at
that, {as many descendants} AS THE STARS OF HEAVEN IN NUMBER, AND
INNUMERABLE AS THE SAND WHICH IS BY THE SEASHORE.
By this point God had already proven Himself faithful to Abraham both in the help He showed Abraham and in the promises fulfilled.
Hbr 11:17 By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten {son;}
Hbr 11:18 {it was he} to whom it was said, "IN ISAAC YOUR DESCENDANTS SHALL BE CALLED."
Hbr 11:19 He considered that God is able to raise {people} even from the dead, from which he also received him back as a type.
So Abraham had a track record to go by even though the request was extreme. And he assumed God was good and that his son would not end up dead. God was not capricious but had an important statement to make to Abraham and to every one of his descendants after him. That statement was that He would never asks us to give up our loved ones to please Him.
How then did Jesus make such a statement in Matthew? Jesus did come to bring peace to the world and He gave his life to accomplish peace between God and mankind. But He knew mankind that they loved the darkness rather than the light. Therefore he had to warn his disciples that their life would not be any bed of roses and this he did in Matthew 10. He was speaking there man to man as honestly as he could. He was not giving a Divine Command that every human should hate his parents. He knew and revered the word "honor your father and your mother." and would not contradict that.
My point is just this. Any interpretation of scripture that casts Gods character as capricious or evil is a willfull misinterpretation. This Abraham did not do even though God asked such an outrageous thing of him. But Abraham considered God to be good as the text from Hebrews explains.
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| | JRyanStevens | Mar 12, 12:45am | Les, do you consider me unreasonable? I am NOT willfully misinterpreting anything.
It's not hard to see God's capriciousness. He floods the earth and kills every human being and animal because he's upset that they're evil (even though he already knew they were going to be evil). He kills nursing mothers and old widows, he murders little children (evil children remember!); he even murders unborn babies (those evil, evil babies whose "thoughts are only evil all the time"). And what's with the animals? Why kill them? If he was pissed at man, why not just kill man? Why not just kill the evil men? It's capricious to be so reckless and destroy everything in a temper tantrum.
Ok, so Abraham considered God good; but should he have? This is the same God that spared Lot from fire and brimstone, a man who is described in 2 Peter as righteous even though he offers his virgin daughters to a mob of sex-crazed men! The same man who impregnates his daughters while drunk!
When Jephthah is trying to conquer the Ammonites, he promises the Lord the first thing that comes out of his house if he wins. Well, he wins, and he sacrifices his only daughter as a burnt offering. And God accepts? He didn't stop this sacrifice!
I could go on and on... I mean, this is a deity that enjoys the smell of burning animals...
In Numbers 16 God makes the earth swallow hundreds of men and woman and children. What did the children do?!
He causes two of Aaron's sons to fall dead because they made an offering with "unauthorized fire."
To atone for an unsolved murder, God wants a heifer which has never been worked from the town closest to the body, lead through a valley that has never been plowed with a stream. Then break the cow's neck and wash your hands over the cow's body. Surely this is the definition of capricious!
Or what about this: if two men are fighting and the wife of one of them comes to rescue her husband and grabs the assailant by his "private parts," God wants her hand cut off.
Or what about the rules for a woman's period in Leviticus 15. She is "unclean" for 7 days and anyone who touches her or touches anything she has touched will be "unclean." After the 7 days she is supposed to take a couple of doves to the priest to sacrifice and "make atonement" for "the uncleanness of her discharge." I have to wonder, what did she do wrong? Is it her fault she has a period, or God's fault? Why is she forced to repay for this "wrong" when she has absolutely no decision in the matter?
And I've wondered, in Jesus' sermon on the mount, he says he has not come to abolish the Law of the Prophets... does that mean he approves of all those grotesque rules and inane regulations?
Jesus also criticizes the Pharisees in Mark for "setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions." He cites Moses: "Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death." Does Jesus really approve of this?
I don't think he does, but that's the point. In the context of the passage, he declares all foods "clean." This is a far cry from the capricious bully of the Old Testament. |
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Sponsor | | lesoldham | Mar 12, 7:18am | I mean, this is a deity that enjoys the smell of burning animals...
The smell of meat on the grill, I like it too.
"Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death." Does Jesus really approve of this?
I don't think he does, but that's the point. In the context of the
passage, he declares all foods "clean." This is a far cry from the
capricious bully of the Old Testament.
This really begins to address the intent I had for starting this thread. That is, stripping off religion (ie, the law of Moses) who best represents the character traits that God should have? If your idea of God is that of a capricious self absorbed character then even if miracles occur that character should not be trusted or honored or followed. If that is who god is then he is no different than the Ori in the Stargate stories. And indeed traditional religious views (christian views) have depicted god in just that way. These are false images of god and are rightfully rejected. ("you shall have no images of false gods" is better interpreted "no false images of god")
Jesus began to strip off the religion. He hung out with the common people, even the"scum," he drank wine at their parties and was accused of being a drunk, he loved the people, he healed them if they would let him. Yet he honored this "capricious" God of Moses because, like Abraham, he was able to see through the religious to the real character of God. The God who was still in the Old Covenant as he showed Moses.
Exd 34:6 Then the LORD passed by in front of him and proclaimed, "The LORD, the LORD God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in
lovingkindness and truth;
Exd 34:7 who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin
The God who is lost in religion and found in the hearts of those who insist that He must be good.
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| A man who most characterizes who God is | | |
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