> Transcripts of Ray's Audio's and More Teachings
More of Ray's Teachings
Kat:
In a Bible study (April 1, 2007) This is a reasonable facsimile of the chart Ray used.
DATES TO REMEMBER
[A short timeline of important Bibical dates]
Things make a lot more sense if we can put them into some sort of a frame of reference.
Mobile -- south USA -- North America -- earth -- solar system -- Milky Way Galaxy.............
We will start with Adam and Eve and move forward:
Adam and Eve --------------------------------------4000-BC
Cain murders Abel ----------------------------------3900- wheel is
Methuselah is born----------------------------------3250- invented
Adam dies age 930 ---------------------------------3000+ 3700
Noah is born ----------------------------------------2885
Noah's flood [Methuselah dies at 969] ------------2285
Babel, languages confused ------------------------2150+ copper & gold
Abraham born --------------------------------------1995 mined
Noah dies age 950 [500 pre&post flood]----------1935
Sodom & cities burned -----------------------------1900-
Isaac [Abraham's (100 yrs old) first son] is born -1895
Jacob & Esau born ----------------------------------1835
Jacob & Leah have 6 sons in 7 yrs -
[first children of Israel] -----------------------------1777
Joseph viceroy of Egypt [famine ends] ------------1700
Israel prospers in Egypt for 150 yrs ---------------1600 King 'Tut' reigns
Israel slaves of Egypt for 175 yrs ------------------1450 9 yrs - 1350
Moses leads exodus [Ten Commandments]--------1275
Israel invades Canaan and
walls of Jericho fall ----------------------------------1234 Pyramid building
Philistines in Canaan --------------------------------1190 in Mexico
Samson is born -------------------------------------1090
Samuel leads Israel for 40 yrs ---------------------1050-
David born at Bethlehem ---------------------------1034
Saul first king of Israel -----------------------------1025
David king of Israel - rules for 40 yrs. ------------1000+
David dies at age 69 and
Solomon rules 40 yrs - begins building temple -----965 Greek writer
Solomon turns all Israel to idolatry ------------------935 Homer - 800
Elijah & Baal priests ----------------------------------860+
Jonah - Assyria's enemy -----------------------------777 Hanging Gardens
Israel falls to Assyria ---------------------------------700 of Babylon,
Babylon takes Judah - Temple burned Buddha in China
Ezekiel, Daniel, Jeremiah -----------------------------600- Confucius - 550
Zechariah calls for new Temple ----------------------520
Worship restored by Malachi, Ezra & Nehemiah -----450 Plato in Athens
Books of OT are now called Scripture ----------------350 Socrates 400
Temple built in Samaria and
Alexander conquers Palestine peacefully -------------333
Egypt rules Palestine 100 yrs., many Jews in Egypt -300
Septuagint: the law from Hebrew to Greek ----------250
Antiochus III of Syria conquers Palestine ------------200
Antiochus IV defukes Temple - burns the Law and
dedicates it to Zeus -----------------------------------167
Antiochus V rescinds decree against Jewish Law and
Temple is rededicated = Hanukkah ------------------164
Rome rules Judea --------------------------------------64
Herod the Great is made king of the Jews and
rebuilds the Temple -----------------------------------37 world population
Jesus is born ------------------------------------------4-3 250 million
Resurrection -----------------------------------------30AD
Titus demolishes Jersalem & Judea ------------------70
Kat:
Email about the creation account in Genesis
http://forums.bible-truths.com/index.php/topic,12719.0.html
Genesis one does NOT state that "angiosperms (or plants that are today classified in that category) -- existed before any animals whatsoever." His assumption is based on the spurious King James translation: "And it was so" (Gen. 1:11). The Hebrew reads: "...and it did come to pass so," or "and it came to be so." Clearly it doesn't say that it "WAS" (passed tense) so at that moment, but rather this was the start of vegetation which continued then for millions of years. Yes, all of these creations "did come to pass so," over a long period of time. These were not 24-hour time periods as young earth creationists falsely assume.
Genesis one does NOT say "birds." The King James has "fowls," which are birds, but the Hebrew word used here is "oph" (Dr. Strong's # 5775 which comes from #5774 and is defined as "covered with feathers, or rather covering with wings"). Yes, fowls are "ophs," but not all ophs are fowl or birds. Notice that Dr. Strong's definition says that this word "rather" means "covering with wings," rather than "covered with feathers." Only one time out of thirty some times this word is used in the O.T. does it refer to fowl rather than to something that flies or the act of flying. Birds are not "covered with wings," but flying insects have four wings rather than just two as birds have. Flies have two functional wings, but they have two homologous appendages which may have been another set of wings in the past.
The Concordant Literal Old Testament translates this word "oph" as "winged flyer," for that is what they were.
Likewise, contrary to popular belief, Genesis one does not speak of the creation of fish. God did not tell the waters to bring forth "fish," but rather "moving [living] creatures" [Heb: sherets], but this was on the 5th day time period. It was later, after the creation of mankind in verse 26 (millions of years after) that God makes the declaration to the humans that they should "...have dominion over the FISH of the sea." Fish in this verse is not the "sherets" of verse 20, but rather the Hebrew is "dagah," which does mean "fish."
. It does not say that the sun was "formed" on the fourth yom (time period--yom means time, not day) period. It is just stated that there were to be lights in the firmament to shine on the earth. They were created back in verse 1, but now they are shining through the dense clouds and chaos which surrounded the earth for millions of years before the atmosphere was cleared enough for these lights to shine through to the surface of the earth. King James says, "And God made two great lights..." But that is not the proper tense in the Hebrew Manuscripts. It should read: "And God HAD MADE..." That is, He "had [already] made" these lights. Yes, of course, He made them back in verse one before He even began to fashion the earth suitable to be inhabited.
Chapter two does not contradict chapter one. The order in chapter one is plants, animals, and then humanity. Is this not the order found in the geologic table? Chapter two does not recount the creation of humanity, but rather the creation of Adam and Eve. In Genesis 1:26 God "made" [Heb: 'asah'] male and female. In Gen. 2:6 God "formed" [Heb: 'yatsar'] Adam--two difference Hebrew words: two different formations. Notice that it doesn't say in chapter 2 verse 3 that there was no man on earth at this time, but rather that there was "no man to till the ground." There were men, but they were hunters/gatherers, not farmers. God is now going to make a more advance human to cultivate and farm the land.
The phrase "dress it and keep it" in verse 15, is "tend and cultivate." God is teaching Adam to be a farmer. When in doubt, read a proper translation. God did not create the animals AFTER He created Adam. Notice a proper translation from the Concordant Literal Old Testament: "And furthermore, Ieu Alueim ['the Lord God'] HAVING FORMED [yes, having ALREADY formed, millions of years in the past] all field life and every flyer of the heavens." God is bringing to Adam the Animal species which He had already created millions of years in the past, to have Adam give names to them. This obviously took years. Some, such as the dinosaurs (the reptilian 'tannyin, tannyim,' of Gen. 1:21 had already been extinct for many millions of years. These were decidedly not, "great whales," as the King James erroneously translates it).
It was from this first group of humanity that Cain apparently got his wife, cities were built, etc.
Chapter two does not cover the creation of plant life. That began hundreds of millions of years earlier. What God is doing in Chapter two is He is planting a garden for the man to cultivate, farm, and harvest. The word "planted" in Gen. 2:8 is from the Hebrew meaning "to sprout." God "sprouted" newly planted trees, etc. They were mere buds, which would require years to produce fruit to eat. What was Adam expected to eat until these trees matured?
Kat:
Dear Readers and Members of the Forum:
Somehow I got pulled into this Joshua's long day debate. I think it is fine to disagree on such matters, but it is not fine to resort to name-calling and suggesting that someone is an heretic or blaspheming God by having an opposing view. It has been suggested by one that there are a plethora of Scientific proofs that the earth does not move, and only a few indications that it may possibly move. I think I can say for certain that it is just the opposite: there are a few indications that the earth is stationary, but multiple scientific experiments and observations that show that the earth revolves around our sun.
When I was a youngster of about 14, we visited the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, Pa.
They had there a tall winding staircase with a large metal ball hung on a cable suspended a few inches over the floor. From the top of the staircase you could see the metal ball very slowly swing back and forth. This is known as Foucault's Pendulum (named after its French inventor). The floor had a sort of North-South/East-West pattern painted on it to help one orientate the swing of the ball. This we were told was proof that the earth underneath the ball is moving.
There appear to be many more complicated and mathematically challenging proofs that our earth moves within the solar system, and that the solar system moves within one of the outer arms of the Milky Way Galaxy. Although to be fair, there are elements of both a geocentric and heliocentric universe that can be supported by known data. But whether the earth actually moves or not, I believe there is little doubt I searched the Scriptures to see if I could find another example of something that has been found to contradict science. Well I found one such amazing example. I'll present it at the bottom of this email. Below are some examples supporting a moving earth and the earth orbiting the sun rather than the sun orbiting the earth.
From: http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=190
Isaac Newton has stated: If gravity works, Earth and other planets have to go around the Sun, because it is much heavier.
-----------------------
There was no straightforward proof for the motion of Earth until 1725 when James Bradley discovered stellar aberration. This is the (apparent) yearly change in positions of all stars in the sky due to Earth's own motion. Aberration arises due to adding up of the speed of light coming from the star and Earth's own speed. This is a very complex phenomenon and its description requires some math.
-----------------------
Another, much simpler, consequence of the Earth's motion is stellar parallax. If the Earth changes its position relative to the stars, than the stars should appear to change position in the course of the year.
A common experiment illustrating parallax is just looking at a close object (a finger, a pencil etc) with one eye at the time. When you switch from one to the other eye, the object will appear to move against the background. The closer the object is to your eyes, the more pronounced the effect is.
Parallax should not be confused with aberration: parallax arises from the change of Earth's position and depends on the distance to the star, while aberration is caused by Earth's great speed and does not depend on how far the star is.
Parallax of a star was first measured by Bessel in 1838. It was not measured before because this change of a star's apparent position is very small (the stars are very far from us). This was a very important discovery because Aristotle himself mentioned the lack of observable stellar parallax as the proof that the Earth is not moving (he didn't have a telescope and didn't know that the stars are so distant).
--------------------------
A third discovery proving Earth's motion was that of Doppler effect. Wavelength of the light that we receive from objects moving relative to us becomes a little shorter (i.e. bluer) when we approach the source and becomes longer (i.e. redder) when we move away from the source. When the Earth moves toward a star, the star will appear slightly bluer (only high-tech instruments can measure this) while it will appear redder when Earth is on the other side of the orbit and moves in the opposite direction. This effect proves that Earth has a velocity relative to the stars, similar to aberration.
--------------------------
So, aberration (slight change in stellar positions due to Earth's speed), parallax (slight change in stellar positions due to Earth's changing position) and Doppler effect (slight change in color of stars due to Earth's speed) all prove that Earth is moving around the Sun, and not the other way round.
-----------------------------
From: http://en.allexperts.com/q/Astronomy-1360/2010/4/earth-moves-round-sun-2.htm
The solar system is Heliocentric. The Sun is at the center. Most of the disproved alternate theories have the Earth as the center of the solar system, where the Sun orbits the Earth.
If I ever doubted the accepted scientific definition of the Heliocentric Solar System with the sun being the center and the planets revolving around the sun and the moons of a planet circling the planets, I would have been convinced of this truth by an exercise I did in the mid 1980's.
The proof was my visual observation of the moons of Jupiter. It was a long but worthwhile experiment. I found and plotted the motions of the four largest moons of Jupiter to see if I could reconcile the data with known information.
I was playing "Galileo" in order to see if I could get the feeling of being a discoverer. [Galileo was the original discoverer of the four big moons of Jupiter]. This is proof by way of observation. I took no pictures, but I did sketch everything. I was able to determine orbital periods, elongation dates and many other things about the four moons. I could find no way to explain this except to accept the fact that the solar system is as described in modern day, Sun centered, Heliocentric.
Here you have a person that has actually proved to himself that the Earth revolves around the sun. In this Jupiter moon study mentioned above, there were several times that the moons circling Jupiter would enter and exit from the planet's shadow as they orbited around the far side.
The times of the occurrences matched predicted timings. They coincided with the accepted view of Copernicus' layout of the solar system, with the sun being at the center of gravity, and the Earth and Jupiter circling the sun and the four moons of Jupiter circling that planet.
All this data observed also pointed to the fact that the Earth and Jupiter circled the Sun in specific time periods at predictable distances.
-------------------------------
From: http://en.allexperts.com/q/Astronomy-1360/earth-revolves-around-sun.htm
If the Earth revolves around the Sun - and is not static in space - then it must be true that over the course of a year say, we observe differences - for example in:
i) the stars that appear at the same time in the night sky
ii) the altitude and azimuth (position with respect to the horizon's N, S points) of the Sun.
The first is easily verified, say over the course of obseving the night sky at the same time (say, 8 p.m. local time) each night. You will therefore see a procession of different stars, objects as time goes by.
This is the first indicator that Earth must be moving through space and not stationary.
A further observation to reinforce this is *revolution* and not merely linear displacement is obtained by repeating said observations *year after year* and making notes of the objects seen.
In the same 6-month period, therefore, you ought to see the same objects in the night sky at the same time.
This implies repetitive motion, and hence that the Earth is not merely linearly moving in space, but returning time and again to the same relative position in space (e.g. in it s orbit)
-----------------------------------
There are numerous Internet sites which support a motionless earth.
Some of the "Motionless Earth" societies quote Psalm 93:1 as proof that the earth cannot
possible orbit the sun because it says the earth cannot "be moved."
Psalm 93:1 "The LORD reigneth, he is clothed with majesty; the LORD is clothed with strength, wherewith He hath girded Himself: the world also is established, that it cannot be moved. "
Is this verse a scientific statement of fact that proves the Earth does absolutely does not move? The Hebrew word translated "moved" is mot, and is defined by Dr. Strong: "waver; by implication to slip, shake, fall: - be carried, cast, be out of course, be fallen in decay, X exceedingly, fall (-ing down), be (re-) moved, be ready shake, slide, slip."
God said that the earth cannot 'BE moved," or "caused to slip, shake, fall, be carried, be out of course, be fallen," etc., not that it doesn't move under God's direction. And, of course, it is man that does not have the ability to move the earth. God can and does.
Someone on the Forum suggested that God would not make us believe that the Sun
moves, if indeed it does not. First of all, Joshua's long day is not written for our scientific enlightenment. God is not teaching in these verses that the earth is stationary in space, and the sun orbits around the earth. But God does at times do things that cause men to believe things that are not true. It was God Who authorized the "lying spirit" to deceive. It is God who sends "strong delusion that they should believe A LIE" (II Thes. 2:11). And remember Jesus on the road to Emmaus where we read this: "And they drew night unto the village, whither they went: and He [Jesus] MADE AS THOUGH He would have gone further" (Luke 24:26). Jesus made them think that He was going to travel down the road further, but all the while, He knew that He wouldn't.
To say that the sun rises and the sun sets, even if it can be proven scientifically that it is the earth that rotates which causes the appearance of the sun moving across our sky. is nonetheless perfectly justifiable. From our perspective, that is exactly what it does--it rises above the eastern horizon in the morning and moves across the sky until it disappears below the western horizon in the evening. To this day we refer to "sunrise" and "sunset" millions of times a day around the world. Question: Just how would the weatherman say "sunset this evening will be at 6:15," without using the word "sunset? He would have to say something like: "This evening at 6:15 pm the sun will appear to go down over the horizon, but this perceived movement really is caused by the earth rotating on its axis toward the east that only makes it appear as though the sun is moving below the horizon in the west." Let me know if someone has a shorter version in replacing "sunset?"
To state that the sun rises and sets or stating that "the sun stood still" does not in any way contradict science. The sun appears to rise and set, and the sun appeared to "stand still" in Joshua's day. And to report what they SAW is not a lie. At evening in Key West many tourists gather at the pier to watch the beautiful sunsets. They watch THE SUN SET! I personally watched with them on many occasions and saw with my own eyes, THE SUN SET. Now then, for those who like to argue over accuracy saying that the sun does not rise or set and the sun could not have stood still in Joshua's day, please answer me this: If I didn't watch the sun SET, you tell me what I did see? No seriously, tell me--what did I SEE? All elements of a statement do not always have to be scientifically correct in order for the statement itself to be true.
If we say a certain perfume makes someone smell great, is that a scientifically accurate statement? Scientifically, is it the person that smells great or the perfume that smells great? A dress or article of clothing may indeed, scientifically, cause a woman to "look" better, but a perfume does not necessary cause a woman to "smell" better. I remember once when someone said to me: "You smell great, Ray," I kiddingly responded by saying: "Well thank you, but it's not me but my cologne." Is that the way we must always talk in order to be "scientifically" correct? Nonsense.
Now for another example of the Scriptures making unscientific statements:
Gen. 1:26--"And God made two great LIGHTS; the greater light to rule the day [this has to be the sun], and the lesser light to rule the night [this has to be the moon, because next we read...]...He made the stars ALSO." So the "lesser LIGHT" can only be the moon. But notice that God calls it "a LIGHT."
Isa 13:10 "For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine."
Eze 32:7 "And when I shall put thee out, I will cover the heaven, and make the stars thereof dark; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give her light."
Mar 13:24 "But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light."
Now then, is the moon really a "light?" Does the moon produce its own light? Does even God Himself believe that the moon has its own source of light? Well, there are those in the "Motionless Earth" groups that do indeed teach that according to the Bible, the moon has its own light source, and they believe it! Amazing. No, the moon does not have its own light source. It is, in fact, a mirror for the light of the sun. So is the Bible wrong and unscientific? Imagine God having His Word read: "And God made one light and one reflector of light; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser reflector of sunlight to rule the night." Or imagine Jesus saying, "Immediately after the tribulation of those days, shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not reflect the light from the sun...."
Maybe God should have inspired Isaiah to say: "For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause the light from the sun which shines on its surface to be reflected."
What in the world would the readers of Scripture have thought of such verses before enough scientific knowledge came to light so as to understand the reality of these things. What pray tell would the phrase "reflected light" of the moon have meant to early readers of Scripture? These things are accurately stated in Scripture. If the sun did NOT "stand still" over Gibeon that fateful day back in Israel, you tell me just what did the sun do that day? It matters not that the earth rotates causing the appearance of the sun moving across the sky, when that rotation stopped, THE SUN STOOD STILL OVER GIDEON!!
The sun stood still in relation to it's position in the SKY from the viewing point of THE EARTH. The moon most assuredly gives off light regardless of the fact that it is reflected light from the sun, and it is right and proper to state it as such.
One last observation concerning the little matter of gravity:
It does not seem conceivable that the tiny insignificant gravitational pull of the earth
could possibly hold the huge mass of the sun (93 million miles away) in orbit! Listen: The sun would have to travel at approximately 24,000,000 miles a hour (400,000 miles a minute) to circle the earth in 24 hours. How pray tell could our tiny earth hold the giant sun travelling at 24 million miles an hour from flying out into space at that phenomenal speed? Obviously the sun has many times more gravitational pull on our tiny earth than our tiny earth has on the sun.
Try this silly little experiment: Tie a medicine ball to a string long enough that you can swirl the ball in a circle over your head. You remain stationary while the ball swirls round and round. Question: If the tiny gravity of the tiny earth can hold the huge sun in orbit, why is it that when you swirl the medicine ball on the string that instead of the ball orbiting your body why doesn't your body orbit the ball! your body may be only ten times heavier than the ball, whereas the sun is 300,000 times heavier than the earth. Anyway, to me it seems almost silly to believe that our huge heavy sun could travel at 24,000,000 miles an hour, 93 million miles away, could be held in its orbit by the small gravitational pull of our tiny planet.
Now let me get back to more important things.
God be with you all,
Ray
Kat:
Email self explanatory. Ray's comments will be in blue.
Let me make a few COMMENTS.......in your email.
Hi Ray, I hope this is a good day for you. I have been thinking a lot about the things you brought out in the last Bible study, really interesting stuff. I thought an email might be the best way to ask you about this, of course only if you feel like looking at it. I know you are studying this subject of 'the Father' and what He is and all, so it would not hurt my feelings at all if you do not feel like you can't go into this right now or do not have the time. But I will present this and if you find any point worth commenting on that would be nice.
I will start with this Scripture.
John 5:37 And the Father Himself, which hath sent Me, hath borne witness of Me. Ye have neither heard His voice at any time, nor seen His shape.
I understand that we have not heard the Father's voice, yet many did hear Christ and He represented the Father completely and was "the Word of God."
Rev 19:13 He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God.
So is it wrong to think that when we hear Christ we are hearing the Father? Not literally, but in essence it is the Father?
COMMENT: Yes, of course, we hear the Father through Christ. Jesus is the "Word" as you point out, which is really the "expression," the "statement," and the "representative" of the Father. The meaning of "logos--word" is more than just a single word as we see defined in a dictionary, but historically represented the message of the messenger. Jesus is the Bridge between the spirit realm of God and the physical universe.
John 12:49 For I have not spoken on My own authority; but the Father who sent Me gave Me a command, what I should say and what I should speak.
v. 50 And I know that His command is everlasting life. Therefore, whatever I speak, just as the Father has told Me, so I speak."
I do want you to know that I realize that Christ is not the Father, and the voice that spoke at the baptism of Christ was not His (Jesus') own voice saying those things, it was "a voice," as you have stated before, of an angel/messenger.
The other part of John 5 also says "you have neither heard His voice at any time, nor seen His shape." Yet Christ seems to be stating that the disciples did see the Father when they see Him.
COMMENT: He not only "seems to be stating," He literally IS stating. But if the Father is invisible spirit, how can He be seen through visible humanity?
Are we to believe that somehow the Father looks like a man? And doesn't the Bible say that "God is NOT a man?" Actually, it doesn't. We are yet allowing the theology of Christendom to influence our thinking. I have used Numbers 23:19 myself in the past as a verse that shows that "God is not a man." But that is not really what this verse or I Sam. 15:29 are saying at all. There is no period (.) after the word "man" in either verse.
When one sees a comma or a semi-colon, it means that there is more to follow, and often brings out a totally different textual meaning than is meant by presenting only fragments of a sentence. The same is true with teaching that God never changes. What proof do we have for this? Why Mal. 3:6, right? Wrong! Read it: "For I am the LORD, [comma] I change NOT; [semi-colon--ah, there's more to follow that shows in what WAYS God does not change]..." More on all these things later in my study.
John 14:7 "If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him."
v. 8 Philip said to Him, "Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us."
v. 9 Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, "Show us the Father'?
v. 10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works.
Col 2:9 For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.
COMMENT: How could anyone believe this verse and yet believe that Jesus was just a "lucky Jew" who was chosen to be the lottery winner of the universe! Just believe God, live a few years of a sinless life, and this Jewish man will be given ALL THE POWER IN HEAVEN AND EARTH FOR ALL ETERNITY! We should all be so lucky! Nonsense! No mere mortal could EVER fill the shoes of God the Father and be given control (including all judgment of all humanity) of God's universe for all eternity. Jesus Christ was a billion times more than just a mere moral man! More later..........
Col 1:15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
COMMENT: Yes He is. But think about this: As Jesus is the image of His Father, His Father MUST HAVE AN IMAGE. Not only is Jesus the image of the invisible God, but He made humanity likewise: "Let Us make man [Heb: 'humanity'] IN OUR IMAGE" (Gen. 1:26). I have known for thirty years that the Hebrew word for "image" always means "form, image, and shape," and never means "spiritual or moral character." So how can humanity be made in God's "image" if He doesn't have an image?
So I am wondering if the simple statement of fact "I and My Father are one" says it all?
COMMENT: Maybe not quit all, but pretty close once we understand all the facts and contexts of that statement.
Is the bond of oneness between the Father and Son such a perfect oneness of mind, that to hear or see Christ is to see or hear the Father, in essence anyway?
COMMENT: Yes, of course (I would leave off the phrase "in essence anyway").
So I'm wondering about the statement in Kings "Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You," isn't this the Father?
COMMENT: I Kings 8:27 does say "God--Elohim" in verse 27, And we know that it is the "LORD--Jehovah" which Moses saw at Siani, therefore this is Jesus and not the Father. Besides, Deut. 10:14 states that the "heaven of heavens" are the "LORD'S thy God," and so again, that is Jesus.
Maybe He can't be brought down into a "shape" or a being,
COMMENT: But then again, maybe HE CAN!
so could it be that Jesus Christ was created to be the image of the Father to meet the need we (humanity) would have to 'see' God? So are we actually seeing the Father through Christ?
COMMENT: There is a problem here not only with tirinitarianism, but with most all other isms as well, if we try to make two Beings (or Persons, although I am not comfortable with the word person as its first definition is "a human being") out of the Father and Son, and that is, if Jesus is God and the Father is God, we then have TWO GODS and the Scriptures are plain that there is but "ONE GOD."
I use to think the word "Elohim" solved the problem, seeing that is plural for "El" which means "God" or the "Deity." After all didn't God (Elohim) say, "Let US...after OUR...." (Gen. 1:26)? Yet, but in Gen. 11 it was "the LORD--Jehovah, Jesus" Who said, "let US go down," not Elohim. Likewise, the Shema of Deut. 6:4 says: "Hear O Israel the LORD thy God is ONE LORD." It doesn't say that the "LORD thy God is one ELOHIM." No, it says "one LORD--YHWH." And YHWH is singular, not plural.
So according to Paul, the One God must be "the Father," not?
Didn't Paul say: "But to us there is but one God, THE FATHER" (I Cor. 8:6)? Yes, but once again, the sentence doesn't end there with a period (.), does it?
If we take out all the descriptive phrases we have this: "...there is one God, the Father...AND one Lord Jesus Christ..." Before everyone shouts "heresy," let me finish my research. What would happen if we were to replace the comma (,) after the word "Father" with a colon ( : )? "But to us there is but one God: the Father...AND the Lord Jesus Christ...." But wouldn't that mean then that the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ (the two of Them) are ONE GOD? Yes of course, isn't that what John 10:30 says: "I AND My Father ARE ONE"?! There's much more to this, but I will save it till later.
COMMENT: I believe that Christendom has failed to teach us what it is that God the Father wants and desires FOR HIMSELF. Why did He make a "physical" universe? Was it only to have and bring children into His Kingdom? We really need to reconsider how much was involved in God acquiring the Wisdom necessary to build His universe and create a suitable Family for His Kingdom.
God be with you,
Ray
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[*] Previous page
Go to full version