Jesus never claimed to be God.

Thank you for that response. I'm going to go back and do a point-by-point rebuttal.However, before I begin, I'd like to point ou that my opponent dropped my 5th point. He grouped 4 and 5 together and only addressed 4. Point 5 was concerning the significance of Jesus being God, and I made the point that the New Testament can only be true if Jesus was God. The message that we are saved by God's grace is a lie under my opponent's side of the resolution. It was not refuted in the last round; therefore, it must be a conceded point.1) We need to remember something. My opponent doesn't want to take the entire Bible literally. I don't disagree, for example, Proverbs was not a rule book, and Revelation wasn't meant to be taken literally after the letters at the beginning.My opponent is taking this passage literally. Instead of it being a sentence referencing the dualistic nature of Jesus (being God in spirit and human in body) that actually equates Jesus' spirit with God's, he's taking it literally. So if we can't take all of my verses literally, I don't see why we can take all of my opponent's verses literally.Let me go to the original Greek text.Later in that verse where it says "dwelleth," the original Greek word is meno, which has roughly three different meanings. It could mean "continue," "to dwell," or "to wait for or stay" [1].So it's probably not the last one, but if the word can mean "to continue" or "to dwell." If you're not necessarily taking this literally, as Jesus often spoke kind of subtly or in an artistic manner. So if you take it this way "God continues in Jesus" what can that mean? Well it can be a more shallow meaning like when someone's memory continues in someone else, but it can be taken that God is Jesus, and that's how he is furthering or continuing himself on earth.2) Going back to the same verse in the original Greek, Jesus is not using the term I Am to refer to God other than himself [2]. I is said as ego, which is always used to identify onesself, and eimi, which is always used as "to be" or "to exist." This is the statement God makes to imply self-sufficiency.This is the signficance of making that statement. God is self-sufficient, meaning he needs nothing to survive. For God to say "I am" means that he is no matter what. He is self-sufficient. Everything else "is because..." but God just "is."Jesus said it in the same way that God does. He makes the self-sufficient statement of God. Before, Abraham was born, Jesus was.3) My opponent disagreed with the Bible.The Bible specifically said that Jesus equated himself with God. Jesus made a statement that equated himself with God. That's what the Bible says. My opponent must explain why that specific phrase there is not true or is not to be taken literally if he is to defeat this argument. And again, to address the original Greek, isos does mean "equal," "on an equality," or "consistent."4) Prepare for a long quote:"After being baptized, the Lord baptized, not with that baptism wherewith He was baptized." Wherefore, since He Himself baptized with His own baptism, it follows that He was not baptized with His own, but with John's baptism. And this was befitting: first, because John's baptism was peculiar in this, that he baptized, not in the Spirit, but only "in water"; while Christ did not need spiritual baptism, since He was filled with the grace of the Holy Ghost from the beginning of His conception, as we have made clear above (Question 34, Article 1). And this is the reason given by Chrysostom (Hom. de Bapt. Christi). Secondly, as Bede says on Mark 1:9, He was baptized with the baptism of John, that, "by being thus baptized, He might show His approval of John's baptism." Thirdly, as Gregory Nazianzen says (Orat. xxxix), "by going to John to be baptized by him, He sanctified baptism." - Augustine (Super Joan., Tract. xiii)Allow me to provide a summarized and hopefully more clear version. Augustine is saying that the whole point of God sending his spirit was to affirm what John said. John had said that he baptized with water, but God would baptize with the spirit. God also sent His spirit down from heaven to publicly announce that Jesus was the Messiah.Back to the original Greek, God's Spirit is described as being his pneuma, which is just the form of his spirit. Most often it's used to describe a disembodied spirit or a spirit being distinguished from a physical being. And the word descending, katabain!3;, just means to come down or fall down [3]. The verse doesn't say anything about God suddenly inhabiting Jesus' body with his spirit.5) As stated above, my opponent dropped this entire point.6) My opponent must have misread my point. I never claimed that there were any other God's besides God himself. All I did was describe the different jobs of God in the trinity, but they are all still one God. My opponent even agrees with one of them. The Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost is just God's spirit directly interacting with Man. It's different than God's usual personality or job, so we can define it as the Holy Spirit. That doesn't make it a different person. It's just another way in which God relates to us.When Jesus says to baptize in the name of The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit, he is implying that God is definable as three different persons. Himself, The Father, and the Holy Spirit.It's not unbiblical, and it's not something that implies there are three Gods. I did my best to explain this in the last round.Perhaps if my opponent could explain what it is that I'm not clear on, I could better explain my point.R1) I agree not all Gospels say the same exact thing. However, the difference between Christ and Messiah is arbitrary. Both were derived from the same Greek work Christos in the text. As for Jesus not saying, "I am" in all the texts, he basically says it in other ways in the other texts. In the other texts where he says "you say that I am" Jesus actually uses the word hoti, which in most cases actually means "because" or "seeing that."If you put the sentence back together that way, Jesus essentially says "I am," and Mark put it in more plain terms.R2) On the Messianic expectations.Actually in Isaiah 9:6 it says, "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace."This is one of the Messianic prophesies. Jesus brought the new "government," which means he replaced the Levitical Law with the New Testament (or the new covenant). Keep in mind, this is something he could not have done if he had not been God. This point remains true as it is unrefuted.Aside from that, an angel confirms the identity of Jesus in Luke 2:9, "this very day there has been born to you, in the city of David, a savior who is Messiah, the Lord." The word for Lord "Kyrios" is also used for God specifically [4].These verses are intended to fulfill the Messianic prophecy, that Jesus is God.R3) Line-by-line analysis of what Jesus said.John 8:54 - the word doxazo is also used to say "adore" or "to worship" when it says glorify or "honoureth". God would only use such a strong word for Himself. So we can conclude that Jesus simply means that God affirms Jesus as being Himself while He is setting an example for the rest of them.In other words, Jesus doesn't find signficance in his human actions but in the fact that he is God.John 13:16 - I don't see the significance here. Jesus is saying he's not greater than God the Father. That doesn't mean that he's less than God either. It just means that God the Father should not be considered any less important than Jesus.John 12:49 - This is just Jesus reaffirming his authority. He had to tie himself to God the Father in order to establish credibility. Jesus is saying he's not just a man.Think about it like this. Jesus had the body of a man and the spirit of God. So Jesus, speaking from his dualistic nature again, says that God is the one that is using the body of Jesus to fulfill his commandments, even as far as to say the Messianic prophecies.John 14:18 - this verse doesn't say "for my father is greater than I" therefore, I cannot properly refute the point.John 10:29 - God has spoken in third person before. It's not ridiculous to think that God in the form of Jesus made the statement "God is greater than all" and just be referring to everyone else.Luke 18:19 - Jesus was making a point by asking the question. Why would someone call Jesus good if he wasn't God? Jesus responded to a lot of statements with thought provoking statements. In this case, he's not shifting goodness to someone other than himself. He knew the intentions of the rulers heart was still self-centered, and maybe Jesus just wanted to get him to think about what he was saying.John 8:40 - The word "of" comes from the word "para" that can actually mean several different things, but all of them are more significant than just receiving information. It implies a source of origin, it implies kinship or direct relation, it implies his own substance, and it even implies that he is with or in God. All of these things imply a very profound connection with God the father way beyond just receiving information.I hope I have cleared this up by explaining some of the original text. These books were originally written in Greek not English. Hopefully by showing that these words aren't exactly the way my opponent has them translated in the KJV and aren't entirely accurate in the way they may be represented in other translations.Sources:[1] https://www.biblegateway.com...[2] https://www.biblegateway.com...[3] https://www.biblegateway.com...[4] https://www.biblegateway.com...