It would be better to deal with him now, than later, just in case this is true. See the website, www. Jesus thought he was the person appointed by God to bring in the climactic saving act of God in human history. He believed he was the agent of God to carry that out—that he had been authorized by God, empowered by God, he spoke for God, and he was directed by God to do this task. So what Jesus said, God said. What Jesus did was the work of God.
There is a strong connection between a man and his agent whom he sends on a mission. Well, Jesus believed he was on a divine mission, and the mission was to redeem the people of God. The implication is that the people of God were lost and that God had to do something — as he had always done — to intervene and set them back on the right track. But there was a difference this time. This was the last time. This was the last chance.
Did Jesus believe he was the Son of God, the anointed one of God? The answer is yes. Did he see himself as the Son of Man? Did he see himself as the final Messiah? Did he believe that anybody less than God could save the world?
Barnett, Paul, The Birth of Christianity: Eerdmans Publishing Company, Zondervan Publishing House, Here's Life Publishers, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Pelikan, Jaroslav, The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine. University of Chicago, John , Greenwood, South Carolina: Baker Book House, Crossway Books, , 67—81; Wright, N. Eerdmans, , , citing Stauffer, E. Crossway Books, , This strongly suggests that he considered himself to be a person of authority above and beyond what prophets claimed to be.
He could attest to his own truthfulness and speak on his own behalf, and yet his words were to be taken as having the same or greater authority than the divine words of the prophets. Here was someone who thought he possessed not only divine inspiration, like David … but also divine authority and the power of direct divine utterance. Fortress Press, , That would simply mark priority, the priority of existence. But the 'I am' claims the eternity of existence, antedating the whole of the Hebrew economy, existing in the eternal Being.
These are the words of the most impudent blasphemer that ever spoke, or the words of God incarnate. Eerdmans Publishing Company, , The LXX translators did so with the use of the form we have here. It is an emphatic form of speech and one that would not normally be employed in ordinary speech. Thus to use it was to recognizably adopt the divine style.
I think it's completely implausible that Matthew, Mark and Luke would not mention that Jesus called himself God if that's what he was declaring about himself. That would be a rather important point to make.
This is not an unusual view amongst scholars; it's simply the view that the Gospel of John is providing a theological understanding of Jesus that is not what was historically accurate. Your purchase helps support NPR programming. Right at the same time that Christians were calling Jesus "God" is exactly when Romans started calling their emperors "God. I don't think this could be an accident that this is a point at which the emperors are being called "God. When Constantine, the emperor, then converted to Christianity, it changed everything because now rather than the emperor being God, the emperor was the worshipper of the God, Jesus.
That was quite a forceful change, and one could argue that it changed the understanding of religion and politics for all time. Christians had a dilemma as soon as they declared that Christ was God. And when you throw the Holy Spirit into the mix, doesn't that make three gods? So aren't Christians polytheists? Christians wanted to insist, no, they're monotheists. Well, if they're monotheists, how can all three be God? So there are various ways of trying to explain this, and one of the most popular ways It's called modalism because it insisted that God existed in three modes — just as I myself at the same time am a son, and a brother and a father, but there's only one of me — well these theologians said: That's what God is like.
He's manifest in three persons, but there's only one of him, so he's at the same time father, son and spirit.
So he's in three modes of existence, so there's only one of him. What I try to teach my students is that history is not the past. There are a lot of things in the past that we cannot show historically. The unwise think they are wise, the wise know they are unwise.
The foolish think they are clever, the clever know they are but fools. The insane believe they are sane, the sane realize they are mad. The sinner thinks he is a saint, a saint knows he is but a sinner. It is the foolish who judge everyone else and believe they themselves are perfect. The awakened know that no matter how much they try they will never be perfect. Walking up the hospital stairs I run into Jim again.
I tell him I am beginning to ponder real questions to ask Sebastian as if he really is speaking as the Source, or channeling it. What you are saying makes absolutely no sense to me, and yet somehow it affects me deeply. That is just the way it should be. You are hearing Me with your heart and soul and not your brain.
You listen with your mind, you are hearing with your heart. As I have often said, you cannot grasp what I am sharing with you with your head, it is too small. Open your heart and listen and you will hear Me. Your mind is limiting you. Just be and remain open and flexible and you can truly hear Me. Listen with your whole body, not just with your brain.
What a great creative way to bridge the gap of the duality the mind aspires us to believe and live. Looking forward to read the rest even though it will be banal, simple, and definitely imperfect. Carry on madman carry on.