The Bible Teaches Jesus is God

At John 20:28 Thomas was not exclaiming "Jesus Christ!" or "Oh my God!" in astonishment because it would break the third commandment against calling God"s name in vain. (Exo 20:7) Even now Christians know this practice is wrong. It was not part of monotheistic Jewish culture to scream out God"s name in such a loose way. "Thomas" utterance cannot possibly be taken as shocked profanity addressed to God (if to anyone), a kind of blasphemous version of a stunned "My word!" Despite its popularity with some modern Arians, such profanity would not have been found in first-century Palestine on the lips of a devout Jew." (D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John, 1991, 658) Con would have us believe Thomas was swearing; the very thing Jesus commanded him not to do in Matthew 5:33-36. If Thomas was swearing in this way, Jesus would not have blessed him for what he said. (John 20:29) The fact that Con stoops to such a level of accusing Thomas of sinning, and implicating Jesus in it when he blesses Thomas for what he said, shows how desperate he is to escape the clear affirmation of Christ"s divinity in calling him "my God." Regarding John 1:1 Pro asks: "how many god there? Two at least." Then he goes on to quote Isaiah 45:18 which proclaims there is only one God in complete contradiction to Con"s interpretation. Isaiah 45:6 also says "I am the first, and I am the last; and besides me there is no God." So who is the mighty God at Isaiah 9:6? Again Con has avoided this scripture even though I included it in my opening argument. Because he knows that if he says this is the true God, then he has to admit the Almighty was a child (Jesus); and if he says it was not God, then he believes there is another mighty God besides the Lord, which contradicts Isaiah 45:6. Con cannot escape the two horns of this dilemma, that why he hasn"t answered it. All these passages fit well with trinitarian theology, but not with Con's interpretation. He also says: "From this verse I can say that God alone was the Creator and no one else, not even jesus ,participated in the creation." But again he contradicts Hebrews 1:1-2 which tells us that the Son is the one "by whom also he [God the Father] made the worlds." It also contradicts Genesis 1:26 where God said "let us make man in our own image;" who is the "us" if the Father had no help in creation? Con says the Word in John 1:1 is the divine reason of pagan philosophy; so when verse 14 says "the Word was made flesh," how is it that divine reason was made flesh? Revelation 19:11-16 describes a person which most Christians believe to be Jesus. He is called the King of Kings in verse 16. No doubt, clear reference to a person, not some pagan concept about philosophy or abstract reason. Yet verse 14 tells us HIS name is the Word of God. So the Word is a person! In John"s gospel Jesus is also called the bread, the door, the way, the road, the life; why can"t he be called the Word? John 1:10 says about the Word that "the world was made by him." Did reason make the world, or a person? John 1:1 says "the Word was God." I can see how a person could be God, I can"t see how reason itself could be God. Con, what does it mean to be God? How could reason, be God? Your doctrine sounds more mysterious than the trinity! Con says: "You cannot be self-sufficiant and not self-sufficiant all at the same time." But Con, why can"t the human side of Jesus be dependant on the self-sufficient divine side of Jesus? Where is the contradiction in this? Because Con cannot refute what the Bible teaches about Jesus being God, he is driven to deny the Bible itself. He says: "If you assume that everything in Bible must have true and originated with jesus and his early followers , but this is not the case." So now he says that its NOT THE CASE that everything in the Bible is true. This violates the rules of this debate that both debaters agree that the entire Bible is the word of God. How could God"s word not be true? Con hasn"t returned to defend himself against the charge that he misrepresented what the Illustrated Bible Dictionary and the Encyclopedia Britannica were saying. I provided links giving readers the context of those statements, showing these sources do support the trinity. Con now turns to a long list of sources outside the Bible. Maybe this is because he can"t prove his case from the Bible, so he needs to venture outside as if the opinion of theologians can take precedent over the word of God. Again, he deliberately misrepresents his own sources to mislead the readers. He quotes the Shaff-Herzog Encyclopedia as saying: "The doctrine of the logos[word] and the trinity received their shape from Greek fathers......were much influenced by platonic philosophy ,its strong point was pagan theological speculations. [The new Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of religious knowledge by Samual Macauly jackson,1911.vol.9.p-91]" Now it is simply ridiculous to claim that the editors are saying that the trinity was borrowed from paganism, because Phillip Shaff and his co-editors Clemens Peterson and Samuel Jackson were Trinitarians. Notice what the full quote really said: "And many of the early Christians, in turn, found peculiar attractions in the doctrines of Plato, and employed them as weapons for the defense and extension of Christianity, or cast the truths of Christianity in a Platonic mold. The doctrines of the Logos and the Trinity received their shape from Greek Fathers, who, if not trained in the schools, were much influenced, directly or indirectly, by the Platonic philosophy, particularly in its Jewish-Alexandrian form. That errors and corruptions crept into the Church from this source can not be denied." (New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia, Platonism and Christianity, p91) The author"s point is not that early Christians borrowed their doctrine from Plato, but that they employed Platonic language to convey Christian truths for illustrative purposes. Samuel Macauly Jackson also denied outright that the trinity was borrowed from paganism: "The Socinian and rationalistic opinion, that the church doctrine of the Trinity sprang from Platonism and Neo-Platonism is therefore radically false. The Indian Trimurti, altogether pantheistic in spirit, is still further from the Christian Trinity" (Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church New York: Scribner's, 1924, vol. 2, p. 566) You can read full quotes in detail at this link http://search.tb.ask.com...; So Con is being very dishonest in this debate by trying to make his sources look like they aresaying the opposite of what they are really saying! Shame on you kaisor! And since you believe the Bible was changed to teach the trinity, then how do you even know what the original said? How do you know what Jesus said? Con accused me of bringing up 1 John 5:7. I challenge him to quote the sentence I ever made about it. The passage I did mention was 1 John 5:20 where Jesus is called the true God. Con never responded to this one because it so powerfully asserts that Jesus is God; so he brings up a verse I didn"t use that he finds easier to refute, and spends time explaining away that one instead of dealing with the arguments I actually did make. Con asserts that Jesus is never called God in the book of Acts, so I ask, whose blood was shed in Acts 20:28? God purchased us with HIS OWN BLOOD, that ought to settle it. Finally Con argues that God cannot die, and of course he can"t; but his physical body did die, which is the same thing that happens to us. Con, when your body dies, will not your soul continue living? Matthew 10:28 says: "Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul."