Part 2 - The Bible Does NOT say that Jesus is Almighty God in the flesh

Pro has said in the comments, and in his arguments, that I do not have a sufficient amount of study into Greek. This is true, and so I have found this debate challenging, yet at the same time, educational, since I have been able to experience the fascinating study of New Testament Greek. I apologize if I have annoyed Pro with my arguments, but given my inexperience with Greek I am just doing the best I can. I might also point out that in the first debate, Pro laid out the rules, and an in-depth understanding of Greek was not among them. Regarding the Holy Spirit, I agree with Pro that discussing it is off topic. With that said, I will not give any new arguments, especially since, if I read Pro’s post correctly, he did not give any new arguments, at least none that contend with. Pro says that in Hebrews 1 and throughout the Pauline epistles, there are major differences between quotes from the Old Testament and the actual readings from the OT. He also says this: “Unfortunately, many of Paul's teachings (and the doctrines from them) are based on twisted portions of OT Scripture.” He then goes on to talk about Paul’s use of the Septuagint, which he claims paraphrased Old Testament verses in translation. Regarding this, I would ask my opponent to clarify. Are you saying that the teachings of Paul and the other authors of the Bible have written are incorrect? 1 Timothy 3:16: “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness.” It is clear: the Bible is inspired, and therefore God inspired its authors. If Paul or Matthew had conveyed the wrong message in their writings, would God not have prevented it from being included in the Bible, or better yet, inspired them to write something else?I realize that this argument is not getting into semantics like other topics in this debate, but even so, I challenge Pro to counter it. Even if the quotes in Hebrews 1 and Matthew aren’t exact quotes from the Old Testament, does that truly mean that the teachings of Paul are incorrect? As for AKOLUTHEO, I cannot stay on this topic for long because, like Pro pointed out, I don’t know enough about Biblical Greek to form a “sufficient” argument, if you know what I mean. I am not saying that I don’t believe such an argument exists, I’m saying that I don’t know enough about Greek to make one. Therefore, I shall simply address one or two things about my previous arguments regarding what Pro said in this round. Pro provides the definition of AKOLUTHEO as it is laid out in Strong’s concordance.In his argument, he mentions that it is sometimes translated as “follow” or “reach.”It appears that Pro left out that these two words are at the end of the definition in Strong’s. My point in the previous round was that the definition allows for a meaning of “follow” (since it is in Strong’s definition), and that since “disciple” is defined as “student”, the correct interpretation of the word indicates some kind of following. PLEASE note that I’m not making a new argument here, simply clarifying what I said in the previous round. Instead, I will address Pro’s points about us being like Christ, which Pro claims would be impossible if Jesus was God. In the course of reading Pro’s paragraph about God’s nature, many things obviously caught my attention. I feel that the best way to address Pro’s points is to go through them and discuss them. “At one point, He wanted to destroy the people of Israel, but Moses had to remind Him of His promises. This throws into question some of the things we think about God. God wasn't faking his emotions to "test His people" as some pastors have actually claimed, because twice the Bible says that God CANNOT lie.” This is true. As you may have seen from my profile, I am a member of the Church of Christ, and those claims from pastors are not what we believe. “Jesus made the difference there. It's easier to be like him because he was a human who was perfectly capable of sinning but chose not to.” I mostly agree with this. Let me explain. Because Jesus took the form of a human, He was indeed more relatable than the God of the Old Testament, who spoke from the skies and was never seen by human eyes (with the exception of Moses, who saw his back). However, I question whether he was “perfectly capable of sinning.” As a human being, He definitely had the capacity to sin, but with his Godly nature, He had no motivation to. “My theory is that God, being so perfect and holy, doesn't truly know what it is to face temptation and sin. He doesn't know how to fail as we do.” Yet God knows our hearts (Ps 44:21, Acts 15:8). God knows the power of temptation and indeed realizes its effect on weak creatures such as ourselves. Satan obviously knows how powerful temptation is, so would it not make sense to say that God does as well? Going on, Pro makes the claim that if Jesus is God, it would ruin the point of intercession. Again, I can explain this with scripture, and in fact, the same that I used in the previous round.Hebrews 2:14 states that Jesus took on the form of flesh and blood, because, as the verse says, the children were of that nature. I also stated that Jesus retained some of his human nature when he ascended into Heaven and became the Intercessor. This all ties into God’s more relatable nature as a man, Jesus. As for “setting the standard too high,” consider Ephesians 5:1: “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children.” We are commanded to imitate God! This poses a problem to Pro’s argument that if Jesus were God, it would be impossible to imitate Him. It is impossible to imitate God or Christ. Yet God has mercy, realizing that we as humans can never reach His perfection. We are also commanded to imitate Christ, in 1 Corinthians 11:1, where Paul says “Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ.” So Paul has instructed us to imitate both God and Christ. As for no tou article in Philippians 2:6, try looking at Matthew 14:33. “And those who were in the boat worshiped Him, saying, ‘You are certainly God’s Son!’” There is no article before God there either. So Jesus is the son of a god? Matthew 4:4, where Jesus says that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. No article. I don’t see how no tou article necessarily means that the god being referred to is simply a god. Going further, look at Colossians 1:15, where it says that Jesus is the image of the invisible God. In this verse, the article is actually present. I’ll leave it at that. I never said the Hebrews 2:9 says Jesus is equal to God. I meant that Jesus was temporarily reduced to a status lower than the angels, that is, human form. I used this to explain why there is an apparent separation between Jesus and God. Pro states that in the language used in the Bible, nowhere does it say that Jesus lowered or raised himself, that someone else did it. I do not see how this detracts from Jesus being God. If Jesus became a human, then it would make sense for God to both lower His status temporarily and then raise Him from the dead. 1 Corinthians 15- Pro seems to be arguing against my use of language more than he is my actual argument. Perhaps I should have rephrased- was Adam ever given the title of intercessor? Pro agrees that Jesus is better than Adam. That is all I am trying to prove- that Jesus was superior, and that they were only equal in that they were both in human form at one time. I have little space remaining so I will have to quickly address 1 Timothy 2:5. Pro seems to be disputing my claim that Jesus became a part of God’s creation by citing Colossians 1:15, which, if I understand Pro correctly, is supposed to mean that Jesus was a part of creation already. Pro seems to agree, however, that Jesus was there at creation. So how could Jesushave been a part of creation then? Verse 16 says that by Him all things weremade. Jesus, then, was undoubtedly pre-creation.