Dear Quentin: I will try to COMMENT in your email.............
Ray, you didn't answer my last email, but I know you are busy.
Please answer this one, as it has caused me some problems.
I have recently had another look at your trinity essay. God the fatehr is God. Jesus is Lord. There are two passages which appear to contradict this.
First, John 1:1 (I checked this verse in three translations including the KJ, and each one read word for word the same) says that the word was God. Does this mean Jesus was God?
COMMENT: Yes, and Jesus still is God.
Did Jesus cease to be God when he became incarnate?
COMMENT: I really dislike questions like this. It's kinda like "Have you stopped beating your wife?"
What do you MEAN by "cease?" One day Jesus WAS God and the next day Jesus WAS.......what? A different person? A different being? The Bible tells us that Jesus came in the "likeness" [similarity,not exactness] of
sinful flesh, but didn't sin, and was emptied of His internal powers so that He would be subject to death, and to
live a life in the flesh that we are to emulate, etc. But I would never use the term "He CEASED to be God."
Why do you ask that? Do you think Jesus "CEASED" to be God. Jesus did all that He did in the flesh through and by the power of His Father. But, having His Father by His side, He could do anything He wanted to: walk on water, heal the sick, conquor the world, raise the dead.
Second, Genesis 32. Jacob wrestles a man, and then says he has seen the face of God. If he has wrestled God the father, then he has seen the face of God, and it says elsewhere in the Bible that no one ever sees the face of God. If Jacob wrestles Jesus, which I believe to be the correct interpretation, then surely this passage says that Jesus is God.
COMMENT: For sure it wasn't God the Father, right?
I don't know what else you want me to say or comment on.
God be with you,
Ray
I await your reply, and may God help you to find the time and the strength to answer all the emails you receive.
In His name, Quentin
