Jesus Proclaims the Jewish Jubilee

From a Question on Quora

What is the implication for Luke 4:18-19?

In Luke 4:18–19, Jesus read Isaiah 61:1–2. The passage in Isaiah refers to the typology (symbolism) in Leviticus 25’s command to hold a year of Jubilee. (The wordings in Luke and Isaiah do not line up word-for-word because our English translation of Isaiah usually comes from the Hebrew manuscripts whereas our English translation of Luke’s quotation comes from the Greek, which probably translates from a Hebrew or Aramaic manuscript that Jesus read.)

One of the answers inserts an interpretation of verse 19 by a self-proclaimed prophet from 1800’s America. According to that prophet, verse 19 refers to his prophetic work; however, the context and language trace the language back to Isaiah, Moses, and something that was fully understood 3500 years ago and was never “lost.” The Bible we already have can interpret itself.

Colossians 2:16–17 explains that Old Testament ceremonial rules symbolized truths about Jesus Christ. For example, Hebrews 4:8–11 clarifies that the rest from work on the Sabbath symbolized entering into a rest from working to establish one’s own righteousness before God. Good that one does after entering that rest becomes a gift of love and thanksgiving rather than an attempt to earn grace.

Similarly, the Year of Jubilee had more than practical applications. God commanded Israel to hold a Year of Jubilee. The Hebrew calendar had seven sets of seven years (7x7=49), with each seventh year being a “Sabbath year” (Leviticus 25:1–7) The fiftieth year after the conquest of Canaan, and every fiftieth year after that, was to be a Year of Jubilee (Leviticus 25:8–17).

During the Year of Jubilee, on the feast day called the Day of Atonement, a number of things should have happened. For example:

In Bronze Age Mediterranean culture, people often sold themselves or family members in order to pay off debts or to avoid starvation. Many Bible translations use the word slaves, but they were more like indentured servants in early American history. During the Year of Jubilee, all such Hebrew slaves were to be freed.

As Israel conquered Canaan, the land was divided among the twelve tribes, and the tribes divided their lands among their families. Over the course of 49 years, some prospered and others did not, so lands were sold. During the Year of Jubilee, all lands were to be returned to the original owners to preserve their inheritance.

Now that we have a path from the ceremonial symbols in Leviticus, through the prophetic preaching of Isaiah, to Jesus’s proclamation in Luke, we can consider the passage phrase by phrase.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me

Anointing was a ceremonial act analogous to, today, ordaining a minister. It meant that a person was authorized and empowered to perform a service such as priesthood, prophecy, or leadership. God anointing Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit was like, not just giving a policeman a badge, but giving him the whole utility belt. God the Holy Spirit verified Christ’s identity by empowering His miracles as well as working on the hearts of those whom Jesus served.

to proclaim good news to the poor

Jesus preached good news not just to the favored religious people, but also to despised poor. Metaphorically, the poor represented humble people who lacked a “treasury of grace,” but who, rather, confessed their moral poverty and cast themselves upon God’s mercy in total dependence.

He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives

The Old Testament “slaves” represented people who were in bondage to sins and its consequences. There is a twisted idea that the sinner is in bondage to the devil, and the devil will torment sinners in hell. That is not a Christian idea. We are born with an inclination to sin; which sin is optional, but sinning is inevitable. For this reason, we are all subject to the penalty for sin. Hell can torment us all by itself without any devils’ help. In fact, Hell will be the place of the devils’ torment, too.

As long as we rely on our own righteousness, ceremonies, sacrifices, or self restraint, we remain in bondage to the consequences of sin. Jesus came to proclaim liberty to that captivity. He did what we could not and offers that act to us as a gift. We can ignore or reject it and remain in our prisons, or we can walk out and enjoy the liberty God offers. It’s our choice.

recovering of sight to the blind

Israel had apostatized so severely (even practicing child sacrifice) that God allowed other nations to conquer and scatter them. Only a remnant of a few tribes survived, primarily Judea — or, the “Jews.” When Assyrians allowed Jews to return home, they had learned their lesson. But they took it too far. They became legalistic, shifting their focus from God to the Mosaic Law. It became part of their religion to try to establish their own righteousness. Metaphorically, they blinded themselves to the larger point concerning humility and dependence on God for redemption. You see Jesus contending with the Pharisees about this throughout the gospels. And you still see it in major “Christian” churches, too.

Through His teaching, Jesus repeatedly drove home the point that only those who performed the inhuman feat of achieving sinless perfection could enter heaven. The logical conclusion was that we are all condemned and must, in humble repentance, entrust ourselves to God’s promises. This lesson does not come naturally to us. Our pride blinds us to it. Recovering sight of it is a work of the Holy Spirit through Jesus’s message. He restores sight to the blind.

to set at liberty those who are oppressed

All these phrases interrelate. When we see ourselves through God’s eyes, or compare our lives to the spirit of the Mosaic Law or Ten Commandments, we see our condition. Guilt weighs us down. The Roman Catholic Church does a good job of this; I’ve encountered many who have completely shut themselves off to any discussion of spiritual topics because that load of guilt is so crushing.

That weight of guilt is a good thing when it drives us to rely on God’s mercy by trusting in the redemption that God offers through Jesus’s sacrifice. The first-century Jewish establishment had so weighed down its people with rules and regulations that the weight became unbearable. Jesus fulfilled the Mosaic Covenant. His self-sacrifice lifts guilt’s oppression off of those who entrust themselves to Him and sets them at liberty.

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor

Because of the connection through Isaiah, we know that “year of the Lord’s favor” refers to the Year of Jubilee. The Bible does not record that Israel, or later, Judea, ever celebrated the Year of Jubilee. If it had been proclaimed in accordance with Leviticus 25:9, it would no doubt have been recorded because it would have been a very big deal. For the first time, Jesus proclaimed it. “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21). He did not merely proclaim the legal, religious holiday, but its symbolic fulfillment.

Those elements of the passage have another layer of implications. Jesus could proclaim Jubilee only as a High Priest or Prophet. He could set people free from guilt’s weight only as a Redeemer. He could serve as sufficient sacrifice for our sins only as perfect man and as infinite God. That identity could only be verified by the power and works of God Himself. And liberty from guilt, sight, freedom from legalism’s oppression, and favor of God are offered to all who will practice a “sabbath” rest from self-justification and receive the Gift as a free gift from the great Giver of gifts.

Copyright 2020, Richard Wheeler. Use freely for non-profit use, but please give credit where credit is due.

Who is Jesus?

From a question on Quora:

Who is Jesus, and who is God?

First, let’s describe God.

This question is a bit like pointing at a picture of Joe and asking two questions. First, you point at Joe’s face and ask, Who is that? Then you point at Joe, as a whole, and ask, Who is that?

Since God created the universe, which includes time and space, God exists outside of time and space. (Philosophers debate about whether God exists timelessly or in super-time-and-space dimensions.)

When God created time and space, God chose to enter His creation. He could have used His creative power over time and space to enter as one Person or as billions.

According to Christian scriptures, God chose to exist in and experience His creation as three Persons. (Being both Creator and Spirit, the physical laws that prevent two people from occupying the same space at the same time do not apply to God. It is probable that God existed as three Persons outside of time and space, as well. I have not seen any commentary on that question.)

These three Persons voluntarily differentiate into three roles: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The three roles demonstrate relational truths to us and met God’s relational needs before He created man. (God is relational. If God did not exist as three Persons, God would have an unmet need for experiencing and exercising relational attributes such as love.)

The three Persons have one and the same substance and all attributes in common: God. Existing “before” creating the universe is hard enough to deal with. Existing both outside of and within time and space is a mind-blower.

Then we can describe Who Jesus is.

Jesus is Creator of the Universe. According to the apostle Paul, by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. (Colossians 1:16–17) Another follower who was personally trained by Jesus for three years wrote, All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.

As a Person of God and as Creator, “Jesus” seems too familiar at times. He has the title of Messiah (Hebrew) and Christ (Greek), both of which mean Anointed One. Jesus is both fully human and fully God. To emphasize Jesus’s humanity, we often call Him Jesus Christ; to emphasize His deity, we often call Him Christ Jesus or God the Son.

Anointed One refers that not only is Jesus God in the flesh, but the full wisdom and power of the Holy Spirit rested upon Him. Jesus normally refrained from using His power as God, and instead allowed the Holy Spirit to perform His miracles. Through such action, the Holy Spirit bore witness to the hidden identity of Jesus.

Part of Jesus’s role is to be the representation or metaphorical face of God to humans. Jesus’s disciple John said, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. This resolves Genesis chapter 1′s cryptic, “In the beginning Gods (plural noun) created (singular verb) the heavens and the earth…. And Gods (plural noun) said (singular verb), “Let there be light, and there was light.”

The Word (Greek: Logos) expresses that Christ Jesus is the earthly revelation of God. For this reason, Paul called Christ Jesus the image of the invisible God, and the unknown writer of the scriptures epistle to the Hebrews wrote, Christ Jesus is the radiance of His (God’s) glory and the exact representation of His (God’s) nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power. The words the exact representation literally mean, in the original Greek, “the exact, three-dimensional imprint and representation of the substance of God.” Note that it does not say Jesus reflects or channels God’s glory; rather, He is the radiance of God’s glory. Christ does not depict God, but is the exact representation of God’s nature. To do so, He must have the same nature as God.

The Watchtower organization (Jehovah Witnesses) adds the indefinite article a into John 1:1 so that it reads, “the Word was with God, and the Word was a god.” Greek grammar does not allow this. In fact, in the Greek the word order is, the Word was with God and God was the Word.

The Watchtower also mistranslates firstborn in the second half of Colossians 1:15. After He is the image of the invisible God, the text says, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.

Firstborn has two meanings. The obvious meaning is first one born. However, in Hebrew culture, the word became a metaphor for preeminence. That is why the original Greek text says, firstborn OVER (not of or among) all creation. He is the preeminent one over all the things He made. As the text continues in verses 16 and 17, For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.

The Watchtower teaches that Christ Jesus is a created being, less than God the Creator. Notice that this demotes God the Son to the same level as the fallen angel, Lucifer (AKA Beelzebub, the devil, and Satan). That is why they have to twist the scriptures to say Christ was a god (which contradicts their belief in only one god) and to say Jesus Christ was the first one born among all creation. They cannot make an honest case, so they tamper with the evidence.

That God the Son took on a human nature has already been addressed. The writer of Hebrews wrote in chapter 4, verses 14 and 15, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.

In his human body, Jesus suffered growing pains, tummy aches, stomach flu, and the loss of loved ones (specifically Joseph, his adopted father, and Lazarus, his friend). He suffered splinters, fatigue, blisters, hunger and thirst, and the attempts of aunts to match Him up with a nice Jewish girl — just like all of us. He suffered false accusations, opposition, attempts on his life, and finally ridicule, torture, and execution. He can fully empathize with us in all our trials and temptations. Together with His divinity, His humanity makes Him the ultimate High Priest for us.

So Who is Jesus? Jesus is a Person of God within space and time who added human substance to His divine substance. He is Almighty Creator, Judge of the universe, and the exact representation of God — not just what God is like, but what God is. He is the Anointed One who suffered in our place to provide us the sole way of escape from the consequences of our wrong thoughts and actions. And He is the ultimate intercessor and representative between us and God.

Copyright 2020, Richard Wheeler. Maybe posting this on Quora voids the copyright. I still expect people to give credit where credit is due.

Could God Be a Monad?

Can God the Father be God without Jesus or the Holy Spirit?

(From a question on Quora)

The question is asked in present tense, and it is a bit ambiguous. I take it to mean, Is God the Father able to remain God if God the Son and God the Holy Spirit were split off, eliminated, or retracted from the universe?

Your question could also be taken to mean, Could God the Father have chosen to be a unitary God without having also existed as Jesus or the Holy Spirit?

Based on the relationship between God and the universe, I would say yes with respect to His substance but no with respect to His character. The same answer applies to either interpretation of the question.

One of the arguments for the existence of God is known as the Kalam Cosmological Argument. It states:

• Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
  
• The universe began to exist (around 13.8 billion years ago)
  
• Therefore, the universe has a Cause. 

From the nature of the universe and related arguments, one can derive (without turning to revealed information such as the Bible) that the Cause is timeless, spaceless, non-contingent, unimaginably powerful, volitional, and unfathomably intelligent. In other words, God.

According to General Relativity, time, space, matter, and energy are so intertwined that if God created the universe, He created time and space, as well. Creative power over time and space allows their Creator to be omnipresent and omnitemporal — which explains omniscience with respect to both every location and every time.

Creative power over time and space also allows God to enter and experience time and space as one Person (or center of consciousness) or as a billion Persons, yet remain One God outside of the Universe. As it happens, He chose to exist in time and space as three Persons. Those three Persons, while remaining in every way equal, voluntarily took on different roles and titles: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Due to the feat of entering time and space, all three Persons have the same substance (spirit). If God were a creature of the universe, this would be counter intuitive. However, with God having His “home” or “natural” existence outside of time and space, all three Persons can consist of the same spiritual substance.

We would be bothered by the physical law that two things can simultaneously occupy the same space at the same time. However, God’s substance is Spirit, not physical; so He is not subject to the same limits as we are.

Since all three Persons consist of the same substance, eliminating one or two of the Persons would not affect the existence of the third Person. Neither would it affect the existence of God outside of time and space.

So, with respect to God’s substance, one Person of the Trinity could exist without the other two.
But is this consistent with God’s character? God is relational and loving, and He has no needs. To exist as a unitary Person (a “monad”) would leave a relational God without any source or object of love until He created intelligent life. If God has no needs, then this makes it probable that God existed as three Persons even “before” creation. As Genesis 1:1 says, In the beginning, Gods (Elohim, “gods”) created (singular) the heavens and the earth.….

If the Son and the Holy Spirit ceased to exist in the universe, God the Father would still be God. However, He would cease to be “the Father” because you can’t be a father without at least one person in the role of “the Child” (or “the Son”).

Also, the roles of the three Persons teach us about relationships and solve problems that I won’t go into now. (For example, how can God remain untouched by corruption and at the same time experience incarnation? Or how can God simultaneously express His wrath and be the subject of that wrath in our place?) God would have to either fulfill the functions of all three Persons or eliminate some of those functions.

If God is God, then He is maximally great. If God is maximally great, then any other form in which He existed in the universe would be less than maximally great. By definition, a less-than-maximally great god would not be God.

To Modalists such as Oneness Pentecostals and to sects such as the Watchtower (Jehovah’s Witnesses), Oneness is not a problem. Modalists believe God is a quick-change artist, switching between three hats in order to deceive people into thinking He is three Persons. But that makes God a deceiver. The Watchtower teaches that only the Father is God because the Son is just an exalted archangel and the Holy Spirit is just an impersonal force of God.

But we are approaching this from the view that all three Persons are God, so a lonely, God is an unsolvable problem for Modalists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Jews, and Muslims.

So my final answer is that, if two Persons ceased to be, the third Person could continue to be God. However, as a monad, God would have had or might still have unfulfilled needs and would be less than maximally great, so without the Son and the Holy Spirit, He would not be God.

Copyright 2020, Richard Wheeler. Since I originally posted this answer on Quora, I probably lost the right to claim copyright. However, I ask that if you use this material, please give credit where credit is due.

A Partial Case for the Trinity

God is Jesus, God is the Father, but Jesus Is Not the Father

I wrote this for someone on Quora who seemed unsure about whether Jesus is God, but not the Father.

Science tells us that, when God made the universe, it had to involve creating energy, matter, space, and time. Having creative power over space and time, God entered time to experience it in three roles. From our perspective, God is three Persons, yet one God.

It is, as we used to say, mind-blowing! Here is just a sample of of the biblical evidence:

• Jesus called Himself “I Am” (John 8:58).  God called Himself I AM (Exodus 3:14) 
  
  (Note: Through translation from Hebrew to Greek to Latin to English, YHWH turned into “Jehovah,” which has little resemblance to the original word. For this reason, sects that make a big deal out of knowing the name “Jehovah” are founded on a myth.)
  
  
• Jesus claimed to have existed before Abraham, who lived about 1900 years earlier. (John 8:58)
  
  
• John wrote that God the Son (“the Word”) made all things that have come into being. (John 1:3)
  
  
• Paul wrote that God the Son created all things, and He is what holds all things together. (Colossians 1:16-17)
  
  (Note 1: In verse 16, one very bad translation inserts the word “other” so it reads, “created all other things.” They insert the word because they deny that the Son of God was created and not the Creator.
  
  Note 2: Some will say, “But look at verse 15! It says he was the first one born, so He was created. However, the Greek word translated “firstborn” in verse 15 does not mean “first one born.” It means Preeminent One. If you search the scriptures, you will find men who were called firstborn but were not the first ones among their siblings to be born. They were “firstborns” despite not being first ones born.)
  
  
• Jesus existed with the Father before creation, sharing in God’s glory. (John 1:1-2, John 17:5, John 17:24)
  
  
• If you read the last reference in context (John 17), you will notice that Jesus talks to the Father as separate Persons. The Father sends, glorifies, give authority to, gives followers to, gives a mission to, and shares glory with the Son. The Son prays to, glorifies, receives glory from, accomplishes work assigned by, shared and will share the glory of, conveys the words of, goes forth from and returns to, the Father. And that’s just the evidence from one chapter that, although the Father is God and the Son is God, the Father and the Son are two distinct persons.
  

As I said, this is just a sample of the evidence. Many scoff at the Trinity, but they have to twist hard to get the scriptures to indicate that the Son and Holy Spirit are not Persons of God, or that God just switches identities to trick us into thinking a single Person doesn’t pray to Himself, delegate to Himself, send Himself, go forth from Himself, and obey Himself.

Here’s why this is very important: If you were saved by the wrong God, you still need to be saved.

Separation from God, and Reconciliation

How was Adam separated from God?

God is perfectly holy, and His presence is sacred. Think about what it means for something to be sacred. It means that a thing is dedicated to holy purposes and not to be used for an unholy purpose.
We’ve seen Muslim extremists in Iran riot and kill after somebody allegedly defaced a Quran or drew an image of Muhammad. While we can judge the reaction as unacceptable, we can recognize that they respect the concept of sacredness in a way that people in the West no longer recognize.

We can see respect for sacredness in Roman Catholic churches. During communion, the priest allegedly turns the communion wine and wafer into Jesus’s blood and flesh. That makes the wine and wafer sacred to Catholics. To prevent defiling Jesus’s body by letting it fall to the floor, an assistant holds a plate at mid-chest level in front of the person receiving the wafer to catch Jesus in case his alleged flesh falls. This prevents defiling the sacred.

Through Adam and Eve’s disobedience to God, they did, as God had warned, die. It was not a physical death, although it made physical death inevitable. It was a spiritual death. Whereas physical death is separation of a person’s spirit from their soul, spiritual death is separation of a person’s spirit from God.

We inherit that condition from our ancestors. Although we are all born physically alive with functioning spirit and body, we are all born spiritually dead with spirit separated from God.
Separation from God means that fellowship with God is broken and needs to be restored. Sacred, holy God cannot just ignore sin. The Bible describes the situation several ways.

• Sin incurs a debt that we cannot pay. We owe obedience and all good deeds to God, so we cannot pay for sins with what we already owe. That would be like paying the bill from last month with what we saved up to pay for this month’s bill. That is why our good deeds could never cancel or outweigh our sins.
  
• The penalty for sin holds us for a ransom that we cannot pay. (Contrary to myth, Satan does not hold us hostage; God’s justice does.) The penalty is proportional to the importance of the one you offend. If I lie to my wife, I might have to sleep in the doghouse. If I lie to the government, I might go to prison. If I lie to infinite God, the consequences are infinite or everlasting.
  
• Sin defiles me, so if I stood before God without having been redeemed, then I would defile God’s presence, which God will not tolerate.
  
• Sin’s defilement changes my nature such that if I were thrust into God’s presence without having been redeemed and reconciled, I would try to flee from His presence.

This is why Jesus’s time on the cross is so crucial to us. When God created the universe, that included creating time and space. Having created time and space, God chose to experience time and space as three centers of consciousness or “Persons.” Each Person voluntarily took on a distinct role: Father, Son, or Holy Spirit.

The titles Son of Man and The Word: God the Son is called the Word because His role was to be the expression of God to human beings. When the time was right, the Son donned a human body and lived as the man, Jesus of Nazareth. As the Son of Man, Jesus experienced all the temptations and torments of life and death as our representative.

The title Son of God: Being God, Jesus lived a perfect life, never sinning. Thus, He had no sins to pay for. This kept Him free to become our substitute. Like a big brother taking the whoopin’ for his little brother and sister, Jesus took our place and bore sin’s penalty.

The title Savior: Whereas the penalty for sinning against infinite God would have destroyed us, Jesus could not be held by death. He rose from the dead, proving that He was divine, that God was satisfied with the payment, that God would restore us to spiritual life, and that God can one day raise everybody from the dead. Thus, God offers this gift of redemption to all who will receive it as a gift. Those who receive the gift as a gift receive forgiveness and spiritual life, but those who refuse the gift will be sent into separation from God’s presence, forever stuck in their guilt and anger.

You might have been bothered by an apparent redundancy, receive the gift as a gift. The point is important because all the world’s religions depend on achieving or earning something to receive redemption. Within “Christianity,” many denominations swerve off into the world’s religions by teaching that one must do something to earn the gift — which is self-contradictory.

If someone suggests that you have to take part in a ceremony or do good deeds or persevere in the faith to earn or retain grace, their teaching lies outside of explicit biblical teachings. It even lies outside the definition of “grace?”

To receive the gift, you need to do exactly two things:

• Understand in your heart your need for the gift,
• Trust God to endow you with the gift.
• Any more than that turns the gift into something you could never earn in a million lifetimes. And God will not stand for having His generosity insulted.

One of the characteristics of separation from God is a lack of His immediate presence and influence in one’s life. When one is redeemed and restored to relationship with God, God sends the Holy Spirit. Before Jesus’s resurrection, the Holy Spirit came “upon” people to achieve a specific purpose such as prophesying, giving strength and skill in battle, or leading a nation. Since the resurrection, the Holy Spirit has indwelt believers to begin transforming them into holier people, give them insight when reading the scriptures, empower them to serve God and each other, and intercede for them when they don’t know how to pray.

To summarize what “separation from God” means, it means that a person who has not received the gift of redemption as a free gift has none of the blessings of forgiveness or intimate relationship with God. Unless he receives the gift as a gift, he remains forever outside of relationship with God.


I first posted this as an answer to a question on Quora. If quoting, please give credit where credit is due.

Where the Popes and Cardinals Are in the Bible

The Short Answer

The best answer is simply that the Bible says nothing positive about popes and cardinals. It doesn’t take many words to point out an absence of evidence. I will require many words, however, because it is not so simple to refute rationalizations for violating what the scriptures do say.

Titles Are Not "Wrong"

In a hierarchy, it is desirable to give titles to different levels. For example, in a corporation, you might have a president, several vice presidents, managers, and supervisors. Even Moses, upon the advice of his father-in-law, appointed levels of supervision. The New Testament has words such as deacon, elder, shepherd, and bishop, and they are used descriptively rather than as titles. Man focuses on titles, but God focuses on the work.

Industry, especially the software industry, is returning to the model of allowing people to self-organize, at least at the bottom levels, because they know what needs to be done and how best to accomplish it. This trend is called “Agile” and helps produce more value sooner, especially in changing environments. 

Similarly, the New Testament is intentionally ambiguous so that creating offices such as Pastor, Bishop, and Cardinal is left to individual churches. Not every model, such as independent churches versus worldwide denominations, fits every political and cultural environment. So the fact that the scriptures do not spell out a title is not enough reason to reject it.

The Unbiblical Title and Role of Pope 

The title of Pope, however, is strictly anti-biblical — and worse. Jesus said, Call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. (Matthew 23:9) One rule of Bible interpretation is, if the plain sense makes good sense, any other sense is probably nonsense.  It is not only anti-biblical to call a priest Father, but also to call a man Pope.

Further explanation ought to be unnecessary, but I anticipate heated objections, so I’ll elaborate.

When we consider the title, Pope, we must first recognize that it comes from Greek papas, father. This is echoed in another title of the pope, Holy Father. In Mark 10:18, Jesus said, Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone. 

There are many similar statements with the term holy, such as 1 Samuel 2:2, There is no one holy like the LORD, Indeed, there is no one besides You, Nor is there any rock like our God. Goodness and holiness can be ascribed to God alone. Peter would have been appalled at being called Father or Holy Father.

Do you see a trend, yet? 

In John (see 14:16, 14:26, 15:26, and 16:7), Jesus gave a descriptive title to God the Holy Spirit: Paraclete, which has the meanings of comforter and advocate. He described the Paraclete (Holy Spirit) as coming in His place, to be His vicarious Presence. That meets the definition of Vicar of Christ (substitute for Christ). 

Catholicism puts these usurped titles into action by placing its “Fathers” between believers and God, discouraging non-clergy from fully enjoying the personal relationship that God desires to have with his children. All three members of the Triune God fulfill the relationship without human interference:

• The Son -- He [God the Son] is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them. Hebrews 7:25
  
• The Spirit -- In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with unutterable groanings; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to [the will of] God. Romans 8:26–27
  
• The Father -- Let us then approach God's [the Father’s] throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. Hebrews 4:16

The system instead inserts itself between people and God, encouraging people to bring their prayers to its priests, to believers in heaven, and to angels — as though they had the omnipresence and omniscience that allows God to receive all prayers.

No First Pope

Before closing, one more issue, and a tangent, need addressing. You will observe circular reasoning that Peter was the first pope, so the papal office is legitimate, so the first pope was Peter. 

First, nobody called Peter a pope until hundreds of years later. The proof text, Matthew 16:15–19, used by Catholic teachers, simply does not call him pope, and it does not give him the extent of authority they claim.

Christ Is the Rock

The rock on which Christ said He would build His church is Peter’s confession. You can see Peter as being the rock only if you are biased to see it that way. In the Greek, Peter is masculine gender petros whereas rock is feminine gender petra. A petros is a stone whereas a petra is a monolith. If Jesus had meant Peter was the rock, He would have used the same word, saying You are Peter (petros) and on this rock (petros) I will build my church, not on this rock (petra). 

To the contrary, the Bible gives the title of Rock to God the Son, as in 1 Corinthians 10:4, that rock was Christ, and as in 1 Samuel 2:2 (above). Even Peter himself identified Christ as the Rock toward the end of 1 Peter 2:4–8, and anyone who grasps biblical metaphor can understand that “rock,” Christ, extends to the recognition of whom Christ is — the core of the gospel. Again, Catholic teaching misapplies a title that belongs to God alone to a human.

Keys to the Kingdom Fulfilled in Acts

Catholic teaching says that the keys to the kingdom and the power to bind and loose refer to total authority over the church. That is inconsistent with the rest of the New Testament. Act 1:8, the theme verse of that book, declares, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.  Acts describes the expansion of “God’s people” from the disciples, to Jews in Jerusalem, to Judeans, to Samarians, to the gentiles. Peter was present for each of those expansions, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit were opened up to those concentric groups through him. 

However, Peter did not remain at the head of the church’s earthly hierarchy, as it had another president long before Peter left the scene (Acts chapters 15 and 21).

Catholic Bishops are Unqualified

Second, the Catholic explanation avoids the apostle’s description of a bishop’s qualifications. The Catholic will say that the bishop is married to the church, but Titus 1:4–9 specifically speaks of not only a wife, but also children. Indeed, Paul pointed out how Peter, Jesus’ brothers James and Jude, and other apostles each had wives, and had a right to have wives, in 1 Corinthians 9:5. Paul clearly teaches that God makes some people for marriage and others for single lives. Imposing celibacy on all clergy is strictly anti-biblical.

On a metaphorical level, it violates common sense for the church (the body of all believers) to take multiple human husbands when it is already the future Bride of Christ. (Ephesians 5:25-27, Revelation 19:7-9) Likewise, it makes no sense for the married apostles to have both earthly and corporate wives. Thus, the Catholic priesthood usurps yet another title and role of God, that of divine Husband.

The Sin of Papal Veneration

Catholicism gives to its chief the titles and roles of Holy, Holy Father, Pope (papas), Paraclete, Vicar of Christ, intercessor, husband of the church. It delegates those roles and titles, in reduced form, to its local representatives. These titles all belong to God. Catholic priests may have been taught that God delegates these to them, but the claims contradict the Bible. I am the LORD, that is My name; I will not give My glory to another, Nor My praise to graven images. Isaiah 42:8 Usurping the titles and roles of God is a severe form of blasphemy.  

Over a millennium of rationalizing does not make the rationalizing any less sophistic. It is worth considering whether allegiance to an organization that creates new standards (traditions that morph with the culture) in order to justify contradicting the unchanging original standard (the scriptures) is the right choice.

Another Illustration of the Trinity

Tri-une God, a Scientific Possibility

According to physicists and cosmologist, when the Universe was created, not only were mass and energy created, but so were time and space.  In other words, God has creative power over time. To Him, our past, present, and future are all one.  If He wishes to enter into time and space from three different "directions" and experience our "reality" as three Persons, He can do so; and yet, in that place outside of time, He remains a united God of one Mind and united substance.

The new illustration

Remember, no illustration using the physical can adequately represent the spiritual.  Even I see gaps in this illustration; but perfection is not my aim.

Imagine a Carpenter building a dollhouse with three openings. Then he creates puppets to inhabit the dollhouse. This Carpenter inserts his head through the front opening, his right hand through a side opening, and his left hand through the other side opening. 

 

Moreover, on his right hand, he dons a puppet costume so that his hand looks just like the occupants. His right hand has not changed its form; rather, it has taken on additional form.

Inside the dollhouse, the Walter puppet says there are three Carpenters. He counts, "One, two, three Carpenters." No connection between them can be seen; the Right Hand has a visibly different nature than the other two; and they have a clear hierarchy.

 

The Achmed puppet says, "The Head is God, the left hand is his angel, and Right Hand is his prophet. Headahu Akbar! Alalalalalalalalalalalal!"

The Lamb Chop puppet says. "All three are the same Carpenter: Carpenter the Head, Carpenter the Right (who has taken on puppet form), and Carpenter the Left. The three act independently, yet in perfect coordination, all of the same mind."

Obviously, the Carpenter represents God; the dollhouse represents His creation of time, space, mass, and energy; and the puppets represent His human creations. The face, left hand, and right hand represent how we perceive God's entry into and interaction with his creation, and the right hand's donning of the hand puppet represents Christ's incarnation. 

Naturalism makes the mistake of saying that we are only flesh. Some forms of Eastern religions make the mistake of saying that we are only spirit, and flesh is an illusion.  One variation that combines those those says that Jesus changed forms. Jehovah's Witlesses say He was angel, then man, then a god. Mormons say He was spirit child, then a man, and then a god (or will become a god, and so will all the rest of the "good" Mormons). 

The Trinitarian view holds that Christ was God from the beginning, and that never changed. At the incarnation, He added human form, although he refrained from exercising His divine abilities, most of the time. Within the dimension of time, He ever has been God and ever shall remain both God and human; and outside time, he is eternally One with the Father and the Spirit.

(One fine point that I have not seen addressed is whether Jesus consists only of divine spirit and human flesh, or additionally consists of human spirit. TMI?)

My purpose is not to "prove."  Many minds greater than mine have already gone over the evidence in greater depth than I can comprehend.  "Proof" is another subject entirely, but the mind cannot accept the proof of something that seems impossible.  My purpose is merely to stretch the mind, open the minds of non-tri-unitarians, and make them more comfortable with what has been revealed.

 

Copyright  2015, Richard Wheeler -- Permission granted for personal use; Please give attribution in group settings.

Bad Logic and Errors of Those Who Reject the Trinity

Denial leads to further denial.

One non-Christian belief holds that Christ Jesus is not God the Word come in the flesh (John 1:1, 2, 14). One symptom of this is the denial that their Jesus took part in his resurrection. They hold that their Jesus was entirely passive. Conceding that Christ had a part in raising Himself would imply His deity. Therefore, they must contradict the evidence.

My convention: The human Jesus of the deniers of Christ is he. The Christ Jesus of the Bible is He.

He really did say it.

Christ claimed to have the power to rise from the dead (John 10:17-18). Before the fact, He demonstrated the truth of His claim by raising others from the dead. This is crucial to us because Christ promised that He would raise believers from the dead in the Last Days. 

If Christ lacks such power, then He is a liar. Even worse, He is a blasphemer because He promised to do what only God can do. But if Christ can do what God can do, then He must be God. This is the truth that anti-Trinitarians must deny.

In Mark 8:31, Mark 9:9, John 2:19, Christ used active voice, meaning that he would do the raising -- I will rise or I will raise; and in Luke 18:33, He used middle voice, meaning that He would perform the raising on Himself -- I will raise myself. (1) 

One cannot deny that Christ Jesus said He would raise Himself without either treating the gospels as unreliable and non inspired or else contradicting Him. And one cannot contradict Christ without implying that He was a false prophet who did not keep his word. 

Non-Trinitarians would not openly call their Jesus a false prophet. They would not openly call the gospels non inspired. But their doctrine requires either one or the other.

If God says I will, does He need to say I did?

They argue that nobody in the New Testament says, after the resurrection, that Christ had an active role in raising Himself. This is false both factually and logically. 

It is true that throughout Acts and the epistles, the authors do not use active voice (He rose). They usually state that God raised Christ from the dead. Grammatically, however, this is not a solid claim. Many occurrences of the verbs are ambiguous; they could be translated as either passive voice (He was raised) or middle voice (He raised Himself).

To a Trinitarian -- or to a Jew -- the statements that God the Father raised Jesus illustrate the Father's seal of approval on the Son. Christ stated that the Holy Spirit bore witness to His identity through the miracles He performed. Similarly, the Father's involvement in Christ's resurrection validated Christ's identity, so a Trinitarian expects many references to the Father's involvement. Congruent actions of Christ and the Father give evidence of Christ's divine nature. Admitting to this would undermine the non-Trinitarian view, so they must deny it.

Factually, Mark wrote that Christ rose (active voice in Mark 16:9), and the resurrected Christ Jesus Himself explained to the disciples that the Old Testament prophesied that the Christ would rise out from the dead (active voice in Luke 24:46; see also John 20:9). If only the Father were involved those sentences would all have used the passive voice (he was raised).

Logically, if Jesus Christ is the Truth (John 14:6), then He cannot lie; neither can He prophesy falsely. If He said something before the resurrection, it stands, regardless of whether somebody else later confirmed that He kept His word. To say otherwise is to call Jesus a liar, to call Jesus a false prophet, or to deny the reliability of Mark, Luke, and John.

Pitiful Logic

Another facet of their contradiction of what Christ said points to the many statements in Acts and the epistles that God raised Jesus Christ from the dead. According to their faulty reasoning, if God the Father raised Jesus, then Christ did not. 

Such pitiful logic follows an either-or relation and rejects, without justification, an either-or-and relation. In logic, or does not preclude the possibility of both propositions being true. (If one and only one out of two alternatives can be true, it is call an exclusive or.) Their reasoning is like looking at a quarter and concluding that it either has the face of George Washington or it has the image of an eagle, but it cannot have both. Their logic is faulty because both descriptions are true.

A Trinitarian can reconcile saying both that Christ does something and that God does it because Christ is God the Son. God the Son can raise Jesus' body from the dead, God the Father can, and the two Persons can do it cooperatively. Thus, Trinitarians do not have to attack the character of Christ or the gospels, nor do they have to use faulty logic as the non Trinitarians do.

Warning

Christ's involvement in His resurrection has an importance greater than that regarding the future resurrection of believers. According to 1 Corinthians 12:3, one who does not confess, Lord Jesus -- which implies His deity -- does not have the Holy Spirit. Rather, according to 2 John 1:7, the person who denies that Christ Jesus came in the flesh -- which is meaningless if we do not accept His pre-existent deity -- is guided by antichrist. 

Beware Unitarians, liberal mainliners, Jehovah's Witnesses, or any other theological cult that denies the deity of Christ. You don't want to follow that spirit.

Copyright 2015, Richard Wheeler

Differences between the Persons of the Trinity

Differences between the Persons of the Trinity

Raymond, a Oneness Pentecostal, challenges the Trinity. If the Father, Son, and Spirit are One in nature and One in substance, how can we tell them apart? If there's no difference, the Trinity must be pointless and a Unitarian God makes more sense.

Oneness refers to the Unitarian belief that God exists as only one Person. Some Unitarians believe that God is a quick-change artist who switches costumes to appear as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Others believe the Father is God, the Son was just a man, and the Spirit is an impersonal force.

Raymond says no Trinitarian has ever answered his question, How can we distinguish between the Persons or personalities of the Persons of the Trinity? With that claim he implies that the Trinity does not make sense.

Differences in Person

The question has two answers because it has two parts. By Person, we mean all that makes up the Father, Son, or Holy Spirit. There is no reason to expect any difference in nature (the characteristics) or substance (whatever spiritual stuff they are made of. If there are differences, no mortal mind could grasp them.

We except from that statement the body of Christ Jesus. God translated the body of Jesus from physical form into spiritual form when Jesus ascended to Heaven. So the Son may have that additional "substance."

I'm sorry, but I have to hedge even on the exception. Jesus said, "I am in the Father, and the Father is in me" (John 14:11). Also, after His baptism by John, Jesus "returned from the Jordan [river], full of the Holy Spirit" (Luke 4:1). Therefore, the Father and the Spirit may share the the body of Jesus in Heaven. That brings us back to the Three having identical substance, even during and after the Son inhabited a physical body!

More than one in one

How does one program in a computer differ from another? They share the same hardware. They share access to all the power, interfaces, and data within the computer. Since a computer's existence is limited to the physical universe, the programs have to take turns checking the keyboard buffer, executing instructions in the CPU, storing data to or retrieving data from RAM, displaying information on the monitor, and so forth.

They differ not in substance, but in information. Each contains instructions and data that correspond to their roles. You cannot look at a computer and see the programs. Even if you examined the magnetic states on the hard drive, the logic states in the CPU, or the electrostatic states in the RAM, you would need yet more information to know where to look and to decode it. 

One, but more than One

Since God is spirit in nature, omnipresent, and eternal, it would be unrealistic to think we could "look" with our mind's eye at God or at the three Persons of God, let alone have the ability to recognize differences in what we see. It's not like the Father would have flowing white hair and a bald spot, the Son would wear gold chains and would have his pants hanging down below His butt, or the Holy Spirit would wear a butler's uniform.

The difference until the incarnation would appear to have been strictly informational. The three Persons have self awareness and, although we could not tell them apart, they know each other. Even if there were no differences in nature between the three in their transcendent reality, each would still be able to distinguish the other two because, to the extent that they exercise such knowledge, they know each others' minds (for example, Romans 8:27, "He [the Father] who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit"). 

As a result of accepting different roles and executing the functions of those roles, the three Persons accumulate differentiation in "their" memories. Yet even in that I must again hedge because, since the Trinity shares a common substance, the three Persons can share in each other's experiences.

Differences in Personalities

I would define personality as the aggregate of inward and outward attributes. Inward attributes would stem from one's nature. Having the same nature and shared substance, the three Persons of the Trinity would have identical inward attributes.

Outward attributes would result from the combination of the inward attributes and the Person's role. Whereas inward attributes express the nature, outward attributes put the role into action consistent with the inward attributes.

Listing the personality differences between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit rockets past my pay grade (if I had one). Having just enough knowledge to be a danger to myself, though, I'll attempt to name at least one unique outward attribute for each Person.

Personality of God the Father

• Christ said that not even He knew the day or hour of the end of the age; only the Father knew, so the Father is the Planner.
• The Father deploys the Son and the Spirit to execute His plan, so the Father is the Coordinator.
• The Father receives Change Requests from the Son and Spirit and issues Change Orders, so He presides over the Change Control Board.

These tell me that the Father is the Manager among the Three. Although the Father delegates certain judgments, He takes responsibility for the divine plan and its execution. Would He be better than the other two at those roles? No, His leadership does not indicate a difference in nature; but we perceive a recognizable outward attribute that ensues from a difference in role.

Personality of God the Son

• Since the Father fulfills a role of Leader, the Son and the Spirit fulfill roles as Followers. 
• Following requires obedience. While the Spirit obeys, the Spirit does not need to obey sacrificially. For a time, the Son forsook the glory of Deity and the comfort of Heaven. He took on the weakness and vulnerability of a child and a man, took upon Himself the weight of the guilt of the world, and suffered torture and physical death. He "learned obedience," not just as a matter of being obedient by nature, as all three Persons are, but by experience.
• As a follower of the Father, the Son demonstrates humility by representing and obeying the Father.
• As one who experienced the discomforts, risks, temptations, and agonies of earthly life and death, the Son understands our experience, so He has empathy.

This tells me that, although the nature of any of the three persons would have led to identical behavior, the Son acts with humility and grace in ways that the other two members do not have opportunity to express. Moreover, all three Persons can sympathize, but only the Son can empathize with us because He shared the human experience. As we consider the Son's sacrifice and see His humanity and brotherhood, which presents God as accessible, relateable, and an object of affection.

Personality of God the Holy Spirit

• The Spirit enlightens man that he might see and births believers into life.
• What the Son demonstrated, the Spirit enables. The Spirit imbues and empowers spiritual gifts in accordance with the Father's plan.
• The Spirit glorifies not Himself, but the Son and the Father by teaching, through the Sword of the Spirit, the written Word of God, all spiritual knowledge that we need.

This tells me that the Spirit enacts the quiet humility of a servant, teaching and equipping the saints for their own role in the spiritual economy that they might enjoy the benefits of God's love and glorify their Father and Brother.

The difference is also intuitive

It should be obvious to anyone that, although the Trinity is one in substance and its members are equal in nature, if we relate to the Father as our Father, to the Son as our Big Brother, and to the Holy Spirit as our Teacher, Quartermaster, and King's Messenger, we innately recognize differences of personality, even if we fail to consciously recognize them.