@pretradition thank you for your reply. If you read what I am about to tell you with the same attitude that you have asked me. You will see where I am coming from.
What is clear to you, might not be so clear to me. Here's why:
First of all I'm not going to argue God the Father because you believe in him so that would be wasted breath.
However, going to Gen 1:26... it depends on the translation you use... If you use the NASB which is known to be much more accurate than the KJV or NKJV I'm not sure which version you are using... but historically the NASB is known to be the most accurate of the well-known Bible translations. Its a fact, not even opinion. Looking at that verse in that translation it shows
Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” Gen 1:26 NASB
This specifically shows with the capital O that God is not talking about the angels. Furthermore, in Genesis 1:27 it says,
God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
Nowhere in the Bible, and I challenge you to find a place does it say that we were created in the angels image.
In fact! Many know Psalm 8:5 which states,
For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. Psalm 8:5 KJV
I used KJV right here to show you that in the original Hebrew the word for "the angels" is אֱלֹהִים which is pronounced 'elohiym. Elohiym in known as the original name for God in the Hebrew Language.
See it never even says that the angels were above us. Rather it says that we were made slightly lower than God, and crowned with Glory and Honor.
Nowhere does it say that God was referencing the angels in that text and furthermore from what I just showed you there is more cause to thinking God was talking to the other parts of the Trinity.
Furthermore, in your point about John 3:16, it says gave. It never says created him that whoever believes in Him, no it says gave him.
In John 1 it states:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. John 1:1-5 NASB
A few verses later it states:
And the Word became flesh, anddwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of [l]the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. John 1:14 NASB
This right here shows, the Word was God, and then the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Furthermore it says that The Word was with God in the beginning. Further proving that God was talking to the other parts of the Trinity.
I think I've given enough proof for now. For the most part I think that we can agree on the Holy Spirit side of things. For the most part... there were a couple statements I didn't agree with but it seems like you have about the right idea with that.
Almost all translations were made by trinitarians so of course there is bias in the translation. I do like the KJV personally.
I want to focus of the word in John 1. I believe the word is not a person or being. It is God's word. God created all things through His all powerful word just as all things are created through His wisdom and yet wisdom isn't a person or being either. God's word is life. The word was made flesh. Jesus is the living word of God. That doesn't mean that the word was Jesus in some pre-existent form.
Any other understanding makes a mess of the Bible in my opinion.
These discussions have been going on from the very beginning so I don't expect to change your mind about God in one or two comments. I just hope that I can give you something to think about. I believe that in a simple reading of the Bible we can see that no writer thought Jesus was God, no Jew expected the Messiah to be God, and it is only through persecution and murder that the doctrine of the trinity reigns in the church today.
I believe that a good number of trinitarians will be in the many who will say Lord, Lord..
I don't expect to change your mind either.
I do want to bring to your attention a couple of things. First of all you never really addressed what I said about the Covenant, man sinned and only God passed through the animals. Therefore, Jesus' death could not have fulfilled that covenant if he was only man. Rather he had to be fully man and fully God. If he was not fully God then he would have had a sin nature and therefore would have sin, making his own sacrifice worthless because he had sin of his own.
Also... With John 1. You can't make the assumption that "I believe the word is not a person." If that were the case the Bible would not have said in the beginning was The Word, and the Word was with God, and The Word was with God. HE was in the beginning with God.
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
Realize that I put emphasis on HE. He didn't say it. Because an it would mean that it wasn't a person. No it says He. Meaning The Word was a person and it dwelt among us. Sure The Word became flesh, but it still means that The Word has always been and always will be. The Word was in the beginning.
Furthermore, I understand how a lot of people prefer the KJV. It is known to not be as accurate as the NASB which I just proved in my previous post. Therefore preference doesn't have too much of a bearing on it, because truth is the truth. And that has no bearing on one's preferences.
Have a blessed day. I hope that I gave you stuff to think about as well.
You don't need to change my mind. I believe in the God of the Bible, the Creator of all things.
You guys get all messed up trying to follow Babylonian style Christianity.
Your website says:
Then a couple lines down it says:
The triune God sent His son to earth? It really makes no sense whatsoever.
You may not accept what I say but it truly is the truth. You are too caught up on little things. Every Bible before 1600 had translated John 1 as "it" not "he" or "him", and that was done by trinitarian translators. Don't let simple words become a stumbling block for you.
As for the rest, I'm not sure what you are saying. The Bible clearly teaches that Jesus was a man and he had to be a man to atone for mans sins. If he were God in any sense, salvation and the Scriptures stop making sense. He didn't have man's sinful nature because he was not of Adam. He was of God and had God's nature, but to make him equal to God is to have two gods because truly the Father and the son are two separate individual beings. He was the perfect man chosen from the beginning to be our Savior. He died to atone for our sins and God raised him from the dead and God exalted him and made him Lord. If you want to lead people to salvation, you must understand.
You feel like you must change my mind, as I feel the same way about you. Okay so you keep talking about "trinitarian translations" and how perverted they are according to you. Then show me a non-trinitarian translation because according to everything that I have seen, the Bible points towards a Trinity. Furthermore, I don't see how you would say that it is "Babylonian Christianity" because that was a concept I would say that the Trinity is a term the Catholic Church first coined. Second... How do you explain Matthew 28:19 which states
Jesus himself said this. Meaning that if he was not truly God, then him commanding us to do that would be sacrilege and evil because now we are doing something, which is supposed to be for God, but for God and a normal man who just happens to be from God. If all of the scriptures are supposed to be accurate and divinely breathed by God... then this doesn't make sense. However, if we look at all three parts fully 1 God, but still three different entities with their own roles... it lines up correctly.
If you want a translation of the Bible that is not made by Trinitarians, look up The Scriptures (2009) which was written by a group of well-known respected Hebrew Rabbis who took their knowledge of the Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic and translated the Bible as literal as possible. It was published by the Institute of Scripture Research.
Please check that one out. It's about the most literal, including the fact that they keep all of the original Hebrew nouns. God becomes Elohim, Moses becomes Mosheh, and so forth. I actually prefer this translation because its the most accurate I have ever read.