Comments on: Your emerging view(s) of Jesus, please?

By: dh

dh — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 14:34:35 +0000

To me I think it is easy to overly seperate the Trinity when in fact they are all three seperate natures but one as the three in one. I have always thought the three forms of water was the closest example of the Trinity. Ice(Father)=H20(God), water(Jesus)=H2O(God) and steam(Holy Spirit)=H20(God). When Jesus says “when you see Me you have seen the Father” I think He is referring to the Trinity in that when you see anyone of the three you have seen God. When Jesus says “I AM” He is also acknowledging the Trinity. To me Jesus at all times and while on earth was at and is all times God. I Believe He took on the form of man but that is different than being human in everyway. I Believe He was tempted but I Believe that He was God with the ability, which we don’t have, to not sin. I Believe He knew all things being God while He was on earth. I don’t believe He had like a cloak but it was a form of that not in the extreme sense. If you have questions or give insight from my statements it would be great. To me the explainations of a more human Jesus take away His true nature of being fully God on earth. Hense, “when you seen Me you have seen the Father”.

How can you see Moses questioning the nature of God? Moses never said God wasn’t God. Moses might have thought He wasn’t worthy or had the ability but that is different than saying “I don’t Believe you are God”. Also, in the end Moses agreed with God to be the messenger to Pharoah.

By: Paul

Paul — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 00:57:55 +0000

DH (64), i am intrigued by your comment that you:

“feel the Father is the image of all three, Jesus is the image of all three and the HS is the image of all three; thus making it thethree in one.”

I would love it if you would unpack your thoughts a bit more for me about what you mean/think? Thank you.

By: Paul

Paul — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 00:53:12 +0000

DH (63), thanks very much. I read Graham more as not questioning God per se but more our own understanding of God’ judgement. Although we like to reduce these to down to a logical set of steps that can often feel cold/unconnected when as St Paul says himself he only knows in part. We know a part and can act on that part as much as we comprehend it but that doesn’t mean that I when I know in fullness won’t mean I won’t be saying Doh, doh, doh – i totally assumed the rest of it wrong :).

I can see where you are coming from on God/Moses but to me Moses questioning God’s judgement in choosing him his questioning the nature of God i.e. God you are wrong about me, about this plan etc. Just my take and no less susceptable to a case of Doh’s than anythinge else I’ve said.

By: dh

dh — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 15:32:41 +0000

I thought I would add a true story of aremote village. In Papua New Guinea, it was during cannebalism. A young man became dissillusioned with his people yet he followed to a tea the religion of the people. Hisdisillusionment reached a point where he prayed. God if the god I worship is not the true God send someone to tell me. If not I will follow my own god and know it is teu. I will give you 30 sunrises and 30 sunsets. It happened after praying for 29 days that he was hunting he met a white faced man. The white man was scared but the native gave his the sign of peace. He shared with him in his native tongue all about Christ. At that point He knew who God was and in the end the whole village came to Christ.

I believe every person who has the heart of this native will have Christ revealed to Him. I have Faith to know that all people are without excuse. It may not seem possible that every person who seeks after God will have it revealed to them but I by Faith Believe it. That also is not to say that everyone who has Christ revealed to Him will Believe but everyone who seeks Him will have it made available to them while on earth just like God’s Word says.

TAS, on side note, I feel the Father is the image of all three, Jesus is the image of all three and the HS is the image of all three; thus making it thethree in one. So I agree and totally love your post but I would add this little clarification.

By: dh

dh — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 14:45:28 +0000

Graham, I see what you are saying but that God’s revelation is always consistent to the Word of God. God can reveal things to people outside of the Word of God but what He reveals to them is from the Word of God. It is through the Word of God that discernment is made. Many times I will hear things praying and when talking to God. When I hear something I always compare that to what God says and how it is consistent to Gods Word.

Graham how are we to say that God’s judgement is unjust? At the same time I believe all of us are without excuse. When onereads Romans 1 one can get an understanding of that. I also don’t limit God to think that God won’t speak to all who seek Him. I Believe that to all who seek Him wherever they may be on the planet that Christ will be revealed to all of them. I haveFaith to Believe that everyone is without excuse and that Christ is the only way as God says in His word. Even God says “there is no other way that one can be saved.” If He says this should we not Believe it or think there is another way when He says there is only one way? I don’t think so. However, everyone on this planet who seeks after God, Christ will be revealed to those people and at that point they are without excuse and either accept or reject.

Paul, I admit Moses questioned but the questioning was never of the nature of God. He at all times Believed that God was/is God but it was the circumstances that he was trying to determine God’s will in. With Jesus, being that He was all times God, His questions were one of the pain and the events He was facing. He was saying “I know there is no other way to accompish this but if there were I would want that over this”. The “why have you forsaken Me.” Jesus being God He knew so He wassaying “Your forsaking Me is so difficult.”

I believe that Jesus was at times God. He was more than human empowered 100% by the Holy Spirit. He was 100% God with 100% human nature. I just don’t believe there were things He didn’t know.

By: Paul

Paul — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 12:11:50 +0000

tas (60) welcome to the conversation and thank you for your (preliminary) thoughts. I think you raise something of that mystery/disclosure that I put in my last comment (61).

I think you give touch on something of that in terms of Jesus who is the image of God (if you’v seen me you’ve seen the Father) and the human who was empowered 100% by the Holy Spirit and thus divine in nature although not all seeing, knowing etc. Jesus then for me almost turns the spotlight back onto the other members of the trinity as much as the other two turn it back on him – so that there are moments like Jesus baptism where they seem to be sharing joint revelation and other moments where it fades to black apart from Jesus – some of the moments on the cross remind me of that…

That then makes me wonder about how Jesus adds to the mystery of the trinity – and also what he discloses about the nature of God – in some sense that for me is again something mysterious about atonement the interaction of God is hidden and I see it like i am looking the wrong way thru a telescope, clutching at metaphors to even begin to comprehend it… on the other hand i know God is personal, incarnational, relational because that is what Jesus embodies, God who wants to be known in a way that we can comprehend and copy…

Hmmm what do other folks think about what the spotlight of the trinity reveals about Jesus and what Jesus reveals by shining the spotlight on the other members of the trinity…?

By: Paul

Paul — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 11:59:28 +0000

Graham (59) – thanks for your thoughts. I think it is an important issue you raise which is the balance between Christ the revelation of God and how much comprehension/connection we have with him the Revelation through relationship. It is in the context of that relationship, to follow him in participating in the Kingdom of God that we begin to know something of him, i would suggest but the context of the Kingdom of God is an eternal one, a life now and eternal life to come. In that sense just as I swing between the humanity and divinity of christ i also find myself pulled between the mysterious nature on the one hand of Christ and his self disclosure nature on the other.

Trying to find a balance between the 2 is hard and I for me my faith journey is often about stepping out of that place of tension to one leaning or anther only to find that does not match the experience of the relationship so to step back in again if that makes sense?

How do you and other people find that tension? What do you do in response to it?

As for how Jesus reveals himself, St Paul is an excellent example of direct revelation of Christ. I have also met someone in the last few yrs who had a dream of Jesus and followed him even tho she had never read a bible, was a muslim by ancestrol faith but lived in communist albania. Interestingly enough in her story it turns out that some missionaries posing as tourists had visited her town when she was little and taken her picture and had been praying for her. With the collapse of communism these missionaries came back and she remembered them – they were pretty surprised to find this gal following Christ she had no other way of knowing except thru his direct revelation…

Mystery…self disclosure/revelation – what part do we play in being little christ’s, offering both to the world, I wonder?

By: tas

tas — Sun, 29 Oct 2006 21:05:50 +0000

thanks for kicking off this discussion paul, (i know i’ve joined it a bit late) something I’ve been mulling over a lot recently is the mysterious and not-often-discussed-enough trinity.
I think for me it is hard to seperate the three persons but i often do. It may be a whole other tangent but how about our emerging views of Jesus as the image of all three – Father, Spirit, Son?
And Jesus as the key guide in our search to be included in the Holy Community of Three (Trinity).
i know this is a slight different tack but I feel it is relevant as a huge thing for me about my emerging/whatever-you-want-to-call-them views of God is that they are trying to be holisitic, and definitely holistic rather than balanced. because if God is a community of 3-in-1/1-in-3 there will always be tensions, some characteristics come forward more at some times in our life than others. and also it seems that if we look at the broad sweep of time God does seem to interact differently as time progresses (forgive generalisation but it seems to flow)…
Creator/Father/Yahweh etc
then Messiah/Jesus/Christ
then Holy Spirit/Spirit of Christ in all of us(church)
i digress, but those are few of my (preliminary) thoughts!

By: Graham

Graham — Sun, 29 Oct 2006 20:46:17 +0000

Having read DH’s posts, I would like to share a thought: Do we have the right to limit Jesus to only that which we read of and think we understand from the Bible? I mean, if Jesus is the Word, the creator, and we are mortal men and women, sinners cut off from God by our self-centredness, our understanding of him is pretty miniscule, compared to his magnitude. We know that the best way to know him is through the Cross and faith in his work of Shalom. But how do we know that he can’t and doesn’t speak to others through other means?

I’ve always stuggled with the unjust condemnation of people to eternity apart from Christ, because they never got a chance to hear the Gospel (something that’s even a reality in our own British society today, if we’re to believe some commentators) and respond in faith.

Who am I to say that he won’t use other means to reveal himself to these people, giving them the opportunity to know the truth and respond to it?

I’m not being a universalist, because I still believe he is the way to God. I’m just not sure that we understand or know enough about that which is beyond our very limited human understanding to dogmatically say “our way is the only way” and, thereby, we begin to limit Christ to our level (not that we ever can, thank God!).

This is one of the issues that has perplexed me for many years, but the more I’ve become aware of the radicalness of Christ, the more I’ve felt peaceful about my lack of understanding of him and the possibility that he is far greater than I can ever comprehend and is able to reach people in ways we would never believe or understand.

By: Paul

Paul — Sat, 28 Oct 2006 10:53:33 +0000

DH (55), thank you for your sharing. I admire your unquestioning of God. I understand what you are saying and i appreciate the distinction you make between God/circumstances. i can see how that can be most helpful in processing faith journey.

Personally for me I think I follow a God who invites me to question him, joining a long line of questioners from Moses to Jesus and on to me today. I appreciate that some people do not think it is right to question God, afterall he’s God but to me for the reality of my faith I think I need to do both question circumstances and where God is in those circumstances – I think for me that is the dynamic of my faith that makes it real rather than some sort of protected bubble which it has been in the past which all it need was put a great gulf in my life betweeen faith and reality.

This is of course a great mystery because to question God is to have faith in him to begin with even if that faith is not particularly great or perhaps from a God perspective it is greater as it is not me just tryin to trust me even when all circumstances seem against my faith and add more and more doubt.

I think what I appreciate most about this conversation is that it reminds me again that I can not objectively know Jesus – I can’t stick him in a vacum and study him – the reality is that I am in a relationship with Jesus and know his revelation from that relationship. Which is a useful thing to reminds my self of.