I already told you what jesus taught. If you look at the context that you copied that quote of me from your see I stated he did not teach about dualistic concepts of doing good for goodness sake or any morality.
He taught that what you see you shall also reap, and to do into others as you would have them do to you .
Jesus never said he is God, let alone "literally".
I will ask you to provide the verse where Jesus called him self God. He never said "I am God",.
He definitely spoke as if he were not, and a separate entity than God:
Luke 23: 44 “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” And having said this he breathed his last.
Mathew 27:46 “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Luke 23:34 . “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing”
And this verse is full of things that exposed fault in what you are saying:
Luke 22:41 "41 He withdrew about a stone’s throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed, 42 “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” 43 An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. 44 And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.[c]"
He has a separate will from God, he ask why God has forgotten him, he ask God to take his spirit and an angel strengthens him. How does an angel strengthens God, and how do any of these direct statements from Jesus imply that he claimed to be God?
He never claimed to be God once. He never said "I am God" but he did make statements that directly imply that he was separate entity, he even says that he sits beside his father in heaven.
As far as the concept of good, The only thing Jesus ever says on the topic of being good is
Mark 10:17 "17 As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
18 “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone"
So as I said Jesus actually rejected being called good and said that no one is good and no one can be good.
God alone. Not a separate will of God that sits next to him, but God alone.
What Jesus did say
Mathew 11:27
"27 “All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him."
Again speaking of himself as separate, and yet again in
John 14:
" 6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you really know me, you will know[b] my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”
8 Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”
9 Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. 11 Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves. 12 Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
He does not say he is the father, he says the father is in him, and he is in the father, never once claiming to "literally" be God as you put it. He even uses an analogy that definitely divides them, father and son.
Are you a father or son. I am both and know that although my son and I are greatly intertwined and close he is not me and I am it him, but I know that when he goes out he represents me to some degree, and people know me through him. I home school him so he does not go to school and is this less aif a product of the world and more of a product of me so he represents my gathering when he goes out, but like Jesus said of himself and his father, he has a separate will and is this a separate entity.
And the last thing he said in the Bible in Revelation 22
"16 “I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you[a] this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star.”"
He claims that he is the offspring of David just as the old testament (Isaiah) prophecized that the messenger of God would be. The prophecy never claimed God would come, but claimed he would send his messenger who would be of the linkage of David.
You are clearly not super familiar with the scriptures. You've probably looked at the Bible but never read it.
You are arguing a belief of a religions that you were taught to believe, but you won't find scripture to back it up.
You will not find Jesus saying these things. At best you will find Paul saying the things that your religious beliefs are based on, but Paul is not Christ and was not sent as God's messenger. He was a self appointed apostle who contradicts Christ over and over.
What did Christ teach? To love your enemy, that what you see you WILL reap. He said to give away All of your belongings or you can not call yourself a christian. The bulk of his teaching was to get rid of all you owned and to stop working for the system.
The early christians did do this, but christianity was bastardized and the version of christianity going around is an image based off of the catholic belief system that is nothing like what Christ taught or what the early christians believed.
When you understand this the verses that describe only 144,000 people being saved and that many are called but few are chosen.
These are also statements of Christ that the religious beliefs deny and say are untrue.
Most of what Jesus actually said is denied and brushed aside, but Paul's teaching was embraced. Jesus is described away by Paul's teaching, but I do not believe Paul's teaching over rides christ.
The church has clung to the forbidden fruit and still eats off of the tree of knowledge and does not see the tree of life.
No, not a jehovah's witness. It is literally what the bible says.
Why are you assuming/projecting that I'm angry lol?
Not angry.nif your referring to my pointing out your lack of understanding in the scriptures I was not trying to insult your intelligence. I was basing on that for your saying that Jesus came to teach morals, and not knowing that he rejected being called good and that he said no one can be good.
And also your claiming that he "literally" said he was God
Most (religious) Christian's look at bible verses, but have not read the Bible and so they believe things that aren't actually in the bible without ever having verified it for themselves. Things like the story of lucifer being cast down from heaven, and Jesus coming to proclaim that he himself is God are not in the bible. Things that ARE in the bible are often ignored inorder so the religious can still believe their religion.
Also, just because the Jehovah's believe something that the bible literally says does not make that a religious beliefs that belongs to them. Again that is literally what the bible says, and cross reference ld with other things that are written in the bible it can be seen that it is likely true. Things like Jesus saying that few will be chosen, that he will say that he never knew many who say they knew him, and that none can call themselves christians unless they have given away everything rhey own, which if you read his words was the bulk of his teachings.
Many times that Christ was asked how to attain eternal life he did not say that the christians say. He said on more than one occasion to follow the commandments in particularly to love God and your enemy and to give away all you own. That according to the word of Christ is how to attain eternal life.
Yes you can find him saying something else but nothing divergent and so just like with the other things you've posted you have to cross reference it, you can not just ignore it to suit your religious beliefs.
When you cross reference every single thing you posted with the verses I posted it should put it in perspective for you.when Thomas "the doubter"says "my Lord and my God" remember that Jesus told them all that the father was in him, and he was in the father none of them believed that they had seen the father in him. The father was working through him and so to see those acts were to see acts of God.
When jesus resurrected Thomas then believed however that does not mean that Jesus was God that he referered to as God alone". Remember also that Elijah also rose a child from the dead and that was also an act of God, and not an act of Elijah himself. It literally was God when Elijah rose her from the dead, but that does not mean Elijah was God. But to witness that act was to witness God.
When Jesus said "I and the father are one", but also says that he is in the father and the father in him this is equal he is God's message he is mostly inseperable from an act of God. Almost his whole life was an act of God, but remember he even stated that he had a separate will from God's will, and did not will the same as God, and even asked God why God had forsaken him, and prayed to God to not make him go through with what God sent him to do.
So when he says he is one with the father remmebr that he also says that the father is not one with him, but in him.
Again, you are ignoring many verses in order to cling to religious beliefs, and you still have not answered why Jesus rejected being called good, and why he said no one can be good and did not teach people to make actions based on morality but instead base them on what you want done to you instead. He is teaching about God's laws and the workings of the universe, not on morality.
Also, if good and evil exist, and people can be good and Jesus came to teach morality why is it that bad people can go to heaven and good people can go to hell? That is what christianity teaches.
Yes Jesus said he was eternal, (before Abraham was, I am) but he says the same about everyone white eternal life (whose names were written in the book of life.
Also Jesus said he did not know the exact time of the end, and claimed only God knew that. That does not sound like he is claiming that God is himself, does it? Would that statement lead you to believe he was claiming to be God.
Mathew 24: 36" “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son,[f] but only the Father."
You have not attempted to address anything I've said in any of my posts except when I asked you to provide the verse where Jesus "literally" calls himself God (although you could not and admitted to that)
Forgive me if it sounds to you like I'm angry, I'm not just wondering what you have to say about the lack of a moral teaching, especially when you look at the whole thing instead just isolated verses, and the verses about God being separate out numbering the ones that in isolation make it look like Jesus is claiming to be God?
What I see is that because I look at all of them, I can easily reconcile the verses that you provide with my understanding without creating contradiction, where as you can not reconcile the verses I've provided with your understanding . There are many contradictions in religious christianity when compared to the word of Christ and the bible. Most christians have not read the Bible so they have not studied it. They look at isolated verses out of context only to support a belief that is not prescribed by christ or the bible. Their church leaders guide them through the bible saying read this section and that section but never urge to read the whole thing front to back even though Jesus was well versed in the Jewish texts and doctrine.
Speaking of Jehovah's, they take the bible quite literally which is why they strictly believe in the number 144,000. I personally think that is a representation, although I certainly see it as contradicting conventional christian thinking. Many christians also do not believe that they will be judged by their works even though the bible literally says God will judge everyone by their works, not their faith.
But the Jehovah's who take all the word of the bible very literally and study it much more thoroughly than the average christian do and does also did not come to the conclusion that Jesus was claiming that God was himself, but instead believe he is his only begotten son.
The JWs do not believe in the trinity because it's not in the bible. The idea of God being a trinity arose some time in the 3rd century some 200 years after the catholics had appropriated and bastardized christianity.
That is one of the reasons I said that christianity is just a mirrored image of catholicism and is not like the original church. All they did to change it was take the powers away from the priest but they kept the same basic belief system which is not actually in the bible and is not based on Christ's teachings but is actually based on Paul's teachings which contradict Christs word..
The founder of the JWs decided that having a translation of a translation of a translation of translation of the bible was not the best idea, especially considering that most of those translations we're done by catholics and we're translations of Catholics translations.
So he went back to the original Hebrew, of the old testament, and the original Aramaic of the new testament and translated them directly into modern english. He fixxes many of the flaws in the older english translations, namely where they did away with God's name and simply replaced it with "the Lord" which they also called men I. Those days.
Even the JWs do not put all the names of God where they belong. God has different names in different context. There is even good reason to believe that Satan is literally a hand of God, a part of God yet separate similarly to Jesus based on things written in the old testament. Again as a religious christian that may be hard to swallow based on beliefs about the devil, but most christian beliefs about the Devil are not based on the bible and aren't in the bible.
The scary thing about religious christianity is that you are made to think that if you dare to believe something else, or not believe what the religion believes you will go to hell. This is another left over belief from the Roman Catholic days.
Remember, modern christianity was not born out of early christianity or the words of Christ, it was born out of Catholicism which was a government narrative used to control the people by their own beliefs and they mostly used the words of Paul to achieve that control, not the words of Christ.
If you have a religious beliefs you do not have a personal relationship with God.
Again I am not angry, but often times when a person experiences cognitive dissonance it makes them think the other person is being mean and they become defensive even a little angry themselves as part of the dissonance. You will not really find any anger in what I've said, but
You may experience dissonance because that is exactly what happens when something contradicts a strongly held belief, especially if it contradicts that belief with irrefutable facts.
I already told you what jesus taught. If you look at the context that you copied that quote of me from your see I stated he did not teach about dualistic concepts of doing good for goodness sake or any morality.
He taught that what you see you shall also reap, and to do into others as you would have them do to you .
Jesus never said he is God, let alone "literally".
I will ask you to provide the verse where Jesus called him self God. He never said "I am God",.
He definitely spoke as if he were not, and a separate entity than God:
Luke 23: 44 “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” And having said this he breathed his last.
Mathew 27:46 “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Luke 23:34 . “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing”
And this verse is full of things that exposed fault in what you are saying:
Luke 22:41 "41 He withdrew about a stone’s throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed, 42 “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” 43 An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. 44 And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.[c]"
He has a separate will from God, he ask why God has forgotten him, he ask God to take his spirit and an angel strengthens him. How does an angel strengthens God, and how do any of these direct statements from Jesus imply that he claimed to be God?
He never claimed to be God once. He never said "I am God" but he did make statements that directly imply that he was separate entity, he even says that he sits beside his father in heaven.
As far as the concept of good, The only thing Jesus ever says on the topic of being good is
Mark 10:17 "17 As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
18 “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone"
So as I said Jesus actually rejected being called good and said that no one is good and no one can be good.
God alone. Not a separate will of God that sits next to him, but God alone.
What Jesus did say Mathew 11:27 "27 “All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him."
Again speaking of himself as separate, and yet again in
John 14: " 6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you really know me, you will know[b] my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”
8 Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”
9 Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. 11 Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves. 12 Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
He does not say he is the father, he says the father is in him, and he is in the father, never once claiming to "literally" be God as you put it. He even uses an analogy that definitely divides them, father and son.
Are you a father or son. I am both and know that although my son and I are greatly intertwined and close he is not me and I am it him, but I know that when he goes out he represents me to some degree, and people know me through him. I home school him so he does not go to school and is this less aif a product of the world and more of a product of me so he represents my gathering when he goes out, but like Jesus said of himself and his father, he has a separate will and is this a separate entity.
And the last thing he said in the Bible in Revelation 22 "16 “I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you[a] this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star.”"
He claims that he is the offspring of David just as the old testament (Isaiah) prophecized that the messenger of God would be. The prophecy never claimed God would come, but claimed he would send his messenger who would be of the linkage of David.
You are clearly not super familiar with the scriptures. You've probably looked at the Bible but never read it.
You are arguing a belief of a religions that you were taught to believe, but you won't find scripture to back it up.
You will not find Jesus saying these things. At best you will find Paul saying the things that your religious beliefs are based on, but Paul is not Christ and was not sent as God's messenger. He was a self appointed apostle who contradicts Christ over and over.
What did Christ teach? To love your enemy, that what you see you WILL reap. He said to give away All of your belongings or you can not call yourself a christian. The bulk of his teaching was to get rid of all you owned and to stop working for the system.
The early christians did do this, but christianity was bastardized and the version of christianity going around is an image based off of the catholic belief system that is nothing like what Christ taught or what the early christians believed.
When you understand this the verses that describe only 144,000 people being saved and that many are called but few are chosen.
These are also statements of Christ that the religious beliefs deny and say are untrue.
Most of what Jesus actually said is denied and brushed aside, but Paul's teaching was embraced. Jesus is described away by Paul's teaching, but I do not believe Paul's teaching over rides christ.
The church has clung to the forbidden fruit and still eats off of the tree of knowledge and does not see the tree of life.
No, not a jehovah's witness. It is literally what the bible says.
Why are you assuming/projecting that I'm angry lol?
Not angry.nif your referring to my pointing out your lack of understanding in the scriptures I was not trying to insult your intelligence. I was basing on that for your saying that Jesus came to teach morals, and not knowing that he rejected being called good and that he said no one can be good.
And also your claiming that he "literally" said he was God
Most (religious) Christian's look at bible verses, but have not read the Bible and so they believe things that aren't actually in the bible without ever having verified it for themselves. Things like the story of lucifer being cast down from heaven, and Jesus coming to proclaim that he himself is God are not in the bible. Things that ARE in the bible are often ignored inorder so the religious can still believe their religion.
Also, just because the Jehovah's believe something that the bible literally says does not make that a religious beliefs that belongs to them. Again that is literally what the bible says, and cross reference ld with other things that are written in the bible it can be seen that it is likely true. Things like Jesus saying that few will be chosen, that he will say that he never knew many who say they knew him, and that none can call themselves christians unless they have given away everything rhey own, which if you read his words was the bulk of his teachings.
Many times that Christ was asked how to attain eternal life he did not say that the christians say. He said on more than one occasion to follow the commandments in particularly to love God and your enemy and to give away all you own. That according to the word of Christ is how to attain eternal life.
Yes you can find him saying something else but nothing divergent and so just like with the other things you've posted you have to cross reference it, you can not just ignore it to suit your religious beliefs.
When you cross reference every single thing you posted with the verses I posted it should put it in perspective for you.when Thomas "the doubter"says "my Lord and my God" remember that Jesus told them all that the father was in him, and he was in the father none of them believed that they had seen the father in him. The father was working through him and so to see those acts were to see acts of God.
When jesus resurrected Thomas then believed however that does not mean that Jesus was God that he referered to as God alone". Remember also that Elijah also rose a child from the dead and that was also an act of God, and not an act of Elijah himself. It literally was God when Elijah rose her from the dead, but that does not mean Elijah was God. But to witness that act was to witness God.
When Jesus said "I and the father are one", but also says that he is in the father and the father in him this is equal he is God's message he is mostly inseperable from an act of God. Almost his whole life was an act of God, but remember he even stated that he had a separate will from God's will, and did not will the same as God, and even asked God why God had forsaken him, and prayed to God to not make him go through with what God sent him to do.
So when he says he is one with the father remmebr that he also says that the father is not one with him, but in him.
Again, you are ignoring many verses in order to cling to religious beliefs, and you still have not answered why Jesus rejected being called good, and why he said no one can be good and did not teach people to make actions based on morality but instead base them on what you want done to you instead. He is teaching about God's laws and the workings of the universe, not on morality.
Also, if good and evil exist, and people can be good and Jesus came to teach morality why is it that bad people can go to heaven and good people can go to hell? That is what christianity teaches.
Yes Jesus said he was eternal, (before Abraham was, I am) but he says the same about everyone white eternal life (whose names were written in the book of life.
Also Jesus said he did not know the exact time of the end, and claimed only God knew that. That does not sound like he is claiming that God is himself, does it? Would that statement lead you to believe he was claiming to be God.
Mathew 24: 36" “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son,[f] but only the Father."
You have not attempted to address anything I've said in any of my posts except when I asked you to provide the verse where Jesus "literally" calls himself God (although you could not and admitted to that)
Forgive me if it sounds to you like I'm angry, I'm not just wondering what you have to say about the lack of a moral teaching, especially when you look at the whole thing instead just isolated verses, and the verses about God being separate out numbering the ones that in isolation make it look like Jesus is claiming to be God?
What I see is that because I look at all of them, I can easily reconcile the verses that you provide with my understanding without creating contradiction, where as you can not reconcile the verses I've provided with your understanding . There are many contradictions in religious christianity when compared to the word of Christ and the bible. Most christians have not read the Bible so they have not studied it. They look at isolated verses out of context only to support a belief that is not prescribed by christ or the bible. Their church leaders guide them through the bible saying read this section and that section but never urge to read the whole thing front to back even though Jesus was well versed in the Jewish texts and doctrine.
Speaking of Jehovah's, they take the bible quite literally which is why they strictly believe in the number 144,000. I personally think that is a representation, although I certainly see it as contradicting conventional christian thinking. Many christians also do not believe that they will be judged by their works even though the bible literally says God will judge everyone by their works, not their faith.
But the Jehovah's who take all the word of the bible very literally and study it much more thoroughly than the average christian do and does also did not come to the conclusion that Jesus was claiming that God was himself, but instead believe he is his only begotten son.
The JWs do not believe in the trinity because it's not in the bible. The idea of God being a trinity arose some time in the 3rd century some 200 years after the catholics had appropriated and bastardized christianity.
That is one of the reasons I said that christianity is just a mirrored image of catholicism and is not like the original church. All they did to change it was take the powers away from the priest but they kept the same basic belief system which is not actually in the bible and is not based on Christ's teachings but is actually based on Paul's teachings which contradict Christs word..
The founder of the JWs decided that having a translation of a translation of a translation of translation of the bible was not the best idea, especially considering that most of those translations we're done by catholics and we're translations of Catholics translations.
So he went back to the original Hebrew, of the old testament, and the original Aramaic of the new testament and translated them directly into modern english. He fixxes many of the flaws in the older english translations, namely where they did away with God's name and simply replaced it with "the Lord" which they also called men I. Those days.
Even the JWs do not put all the names of God where they belong. God has different names in different context. There is even good reason to believe that Satan is literally a hand of God, a part of God yet separate similarly to Jesus based on things written in the old testament. Again as a religious christian that may be hard to swallow based on beliefs about the devil, but most christian beliefs about the Devil are not based on the bible and aren't in the bible.
The scary thing about religious christianity is that you are made to think that if you dare to believe something else, or not believe what the religion believes you will go to hell. This is another left over belief from the Roman Catholic days.
Remember, modern christianity was not born out of early christianity or the words of Christ, it was born out of Catholicism which was a government narrative used to control the people by their own beliefs and they mostly used the words of Paul to achieve that control, not the words of Christ.
If you have a religious beliefs you do not have a personal relationship with God.
Again I am not angry, but often times when a person experiences cognitive dissonance it makes them think the other person is being mean and they become defensive even a little angry themselves as part of the dissonance. You will not really find any anger in what I've said, but You may experience dissonance because that is exactly what happens when something contradicts a strongly held belief, especially if it contradicts that belief with irrefutable facts.