Religious Cults & False Prophets~ Discussions and DebatesOneness debateHere is another site that disassembles the Trinity with God's truth: Opposition to the Trinity is not confined to so-called "cults." That is a public myth. How many know what Sir Isaac Newton, John Locke and John Milton have in common? They are recognized as among the most intelligent Bible students of the seventeenth century. All objected strongly to the doctrine of the Trinity. These men cannot just be dismissed as ill-educated or prejudiced. They had very good reasons for what they believed and defended in writing. All three were vigorous anti-Trinitarians. So also was Thomas Jefferson, who examined the Trinitarian question carefully in the light of the Bible. How many know that Harvard University at one time expressed non-Trinitarian views? Many contemporary biblical scholars recognize that the Trinity is a post-biblical development.
http://www.mindspring.com/~anthonybuzzard/trinity.htm
From the same site: Is Jesus God?
Jesus never said "I am God." He always claimed to the Messiah, the Son of God.
"Jesus is not God but God’s representative, and, as such, so completely and totally acts on God’s behalf that he stands in God’s stead before the world…The gospel [of John] clearly states that God and Jesus are not to be understood as identical persons, as in 14:28, ‘the Father is greater than I’" (Jacob Jervell, Jesus in the Gospel of John, 1984, p. 21).
"Apparently Paul did not call Jesus God" (Sydney Cave, D.D., Doctrine of the Person of Christ, p. 48).
"Paul habitually differentiates Christ from God" (C.J. Cadoux, A Pilgrim’s Further Progress, pp. 40, 42).
"Paul never equates Jesus with God" (W.R. Matthews, The Problem of Christ in the 20th Century, Maurice Lectures, 1949, p. 22).
"Paul never gives to Christ the name or description of ‘God’" (Dictionary of the Apostolic Church, Vol. 1, p. 194).
"When the New Testament writers speak of Jesus Christ, they do not speak of Him nor do they think of Him as God" (J.M. Creed, The Divinity of Jesus Christ, pp. 122-123).
"Karl Rahner [leading Roman Catholic spokesman] points out with so much emphasis that the Son in the New Testament is never described as ‘ho theos’ [the one God]" (A.T. Hanson, Grace and Truth, p. 66).
"The clear evidence of John is that Jesus refuses the claim to be God…Jesus vigorously denied the blasphemy of being God or His substitute" (J.A.T. Robinson, Twelve More New Testament Studies, pp. 175, 176).
"In his post-resurrection heavenly life, Jesus is portrayed as retaining a personal individuality every bit as distinct and separate from the person of God as was his in his life on earth as the terrestrial Jesus. Alongside God and compared with God, he appears, indeed, as yet another heavenly being in God’s heavenly court, just as the angels were — though as God’s Son, he stands in a different category, and ranks far above them" (Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 1967-68, Vol. 50, p. 258).
"What, however, is said of his life and functions as the celestial Christ neither means nor implies that in divine status he stands on a par with God Himself and is fully God. On the contrary, in the New Testament picture of his heavenly person and ministry we behold a figure both separate from and subordinate to God" (Ibid., pp. 258, 259).
"The fact has to be faced that New Testament research over, say, the last thirty or forty years has been leading an increasing number of reputable New Testament scholars to the conclusion that Jesus...certainly never believed himself to be God" (Ibid., p. 251).
"When [first-century Christians] assigned Jesus such honorific titles as Christ, Son of Man, Son of God and Lord, these were ways of saying not that he was God but that he did God’s work" (Ibid., p. 250).
"The ancients made a wrong use of [John 10:30, "I and the Father are one"] to prove that Christ is...of the same essence with the Father. For Christ does not argue about the unity of substance, but about the agreement that he has with the Father" (John Calvin, Commentary on John).
"The Pauline Christ who accomplishes the work of salvation is a personality who is both human and superhuman, not God, but the Son of God. Here the idea, which was to develop later, of the union of the two natures is not present" (Maurice Goguel, Jesus and the Origins of Christianity, Harper, 1960).
"Jesus is never identified simpliciter [absolutely] with God, since the early Christians were not likely to confuse Jesus with God the Father" (Howard Marshall, "Jesus as Lord: The Development of the Concept," in Eschatology in the New Testament, Hendrickson, p. 144).
Peter wrote: 2 nd Peter 1:16-21
For we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty. 17 For He received from God the Father honor and glory when such a voice came to Him from the Excellent Glory:"This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." 18 And we heard this voice which came from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain. 19 And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts; 20 knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, 21 for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. NKJV
Peter walked and talked with the Lord and Peter never ever refers to Jesus as God or as God the Son.
It is ludicrous for you to post that you have used the plain language of Scripture to defend a doctrine that does not come from the plain language of Scripture but from the minds of men who, like many modern Trinitarians limit God's ability and sovereignty by saying what Jesus did on earth was impossible unless He is God.
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