Jesus was never prayed to once in the Bible

[Arial]

Or perhaps if he's like a human in every way then he's just a human after all.

Do you even read your Bible or just those verses that are given in Unitarianism as proof texts?

Gen 32





24 So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. 25 When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. 26 Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.”

But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

27 The man asked him, “What is your name?”

“Jacob,” he answered.

28 Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel,[a] because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.”

29 Jacob said, “Please tell me your name.”

But he replied, “Why do you ask my name?” Then he blessed him there.
30 So Jacob called the place Peniel,[b] saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.”

Gen 18

18 The Lord appeared to Abraham near the great trees of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance to his tent in the heat of the day. 2 Abraham looked up and saw three men standing nearby. When he saw them, he hurried from the entrance of his tent to meet them and bowed low to the ground.

13 Then the Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Will I really have a child, now that I am old?’ 14 Is anything too hard for the Lord? I will return to you at the appointed time next year, and Sarah will have a son.”

16 When the men got up to leave, they looked down toward Sodom, and Abraham walked along with them to see them on their way. 17 Then the Lord said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?

God appeared often in the OT, sometimes as a man. These are called a theophany. A manifestation of God to man by actual appearance. This takes place in the OT as a theophany before the incarnation. With the incarnation it is not a theophany, but His actual presence with us, as flesh and blood like us. When Jesus says nothing is impossible with God, that means NOTHING is impossible with God.

 

[Arial]

Doesn't that mean he isn't God?

Just the opposite. If He is created, He did not make Himself anything. If He made Himself something, He must be eternal and self existent, and was something before He made Himself something other than what He was. If He made HImself in human likeness, He must not have been in human likeness before He made Himself in human likeness.

 

[Arial]

This is a lot of talking, but ultimately means a whole lot of nothing in regards to the OP. Don't derail this thread with your soapbox rants about what you think is the proper way to exegete a passage.

So since you can't properly address what is said, insult what is said and dismiss it entirely. Well. that shows that a person came into the forum and the thread, with no intention of doing anything other than arguing without an iota of substance, the beliefs of others. Also known as a troll in internet language.

When someone makes a statement that in John 1, John's use of Word when He is identifying who Jesus is in the prolog to his gospel, means words; and then defends their position by saying that it can't mean Jesus is God because the Bible often uses words poetically, and words aren't literal people; then it behooves the person it is said to, if they have the necessary tools and knowledge, to rebut that nonsense with facts. So it may be slightly off the path of the OP title, but it is not off track of what you have been saying, for quite a few pages. If the author of an OP himself goes off track, it is assumed that is the track he wants to follow. And as long as he is doing it, others will respond accordingly. It was probably your one comrad in the thread who sent it in this direction by simply saying, "Jesus is not God."

 

[Dave_Regenerated]

The life is in the blood, and a life has to be exchanged for another person's sins. This was Christ. Christ, and no other human being, can save millions of people for their sins against God, since Jesus was born of a virgin which means he was half human and half God. The earliest Christians understood this simple fact, but apparently the Unitarians came along in the 19th and 20th centuries to correct them. (give me a break!)

 

[Dave_Regenerated]

So since you can't properly address what is said, insult what is said and dismiss it entirely. Well. that shows that a person came into the forum and the thread, with no intention of doing anything other than arguing without an iota of substance, the beliefs of others. Also known as a troll in internet language.

When someone makes a statement that in John 1, John's use of Word when He is identifying who Jesus is in the prolog to his gospel, means words; and then defends their position by saying that it can't mean Jesus is God because the Bible often uses words poetically, and words aren't literal people; then it behooves the person it is said to, if they have the necessary tools and knowledge, to rebut that nonsense with facts. So it may be slightly off the path of the OP title, but it is not off track of what you have been saying, for quite a few pages. If the author of an OP himself goes off track, it is assumed that is the track he wants to follow. And as long as he is doing it, others will respond accordingly. It was probably your one comrad in the thread who sent it in this direction by simply saying, "Jesus is not God."

I already explained that Logos is a Greek masculine pronoun and not an "it". But instead of admitting this, he reiterated dogmatically "it is an it" without any kind of rebuttal whatsoever!

 

[Runningman]

No I wasn't. That is why I don't go around saying they "Never prayed to Jesus."

I go with what the internal witness of the Bible is. No one ever prayed to Jesus. There aren't any Biblical examples of that happening. When people stop saying otherwise then there won't be a problem.

John 1:1-3; John 1:10; 1 Cor 8:5-6;Col 1:16;Heb 1:1-2

And none of those say Jesus was in the beginning.

1:1-3 talks about the logos of God, an it.

John 1:10 says "he was in the world" but Jesus wasn't in the world. John 3 and 6 say he came down from heaven. The world isn't heaven.

1 Corinthians 8:5-6, hilarious you would quote that one since that says the one God is the Father and everything came from Him. That means Jesus isn't God.

Hebrews 1:1,2 says that God didn't speak through the Son until these "last days." The means speaking through the Son in the beginning isn't how God created all things. The word for universe there isn't kosmos, it's aeon. It refers to time.

I never said a human created the universe. The Bible not me, says attributes creation to Jesus and does so in a number of places.

When properly understood in their contexts you'll find there is nothing of the sort in scripture. Please quote any other examples where you think that's what the Bible says.

Which of course, means He is God come to us as man. You are the one who says Jesus is only human and not an incarnation. Those scriptures speaking of Him in connection with creation say ALL things, not the church.

Jesus isn't God. Please show scripture saying he is God. So far, you have not quoted any claims by Jesus that he is God or any clear declarations of him being God. Nor have you shown where Jesus is in the Old Testament saying or doing anything. You have someone who is a man who died, who God raised from the dead, who God took to heaven, who people never prayed to or worshipped as God, and you keep saying he's God? Nevermind all of the sin of idolatry and commandments against worshipping created things or creatures like a human. Please think of what you're saying.

The Father God.

Yes God is the Father. Correct. The Bible explicitly says the Father is God numerously while it never says "the Son is God" or "God the Son" etc.

No. Not Jesus while present in His earthly mission, before He had been crucified and returned to where He was before (John 17). Question: Is "Father" the thrust and meaning behind that prayer, (the instruction He was giving them)---is that the only thing you got from it? I ask because using that as a proof text for saying we are only to pray to the Father and not Jesus is shallow.

Perfect. Jesus isn't the Father, the Son isn't the Father, etc. They aren't the same person. One is God and the other isn't. Do you believe God is a person or are you one of those who has converted God into a substance or essence that is distributed among members of a godhead of three persons?

So do I. Jesus is the second person of the triune God.

Not according to scripture.

Jesus said "room" not "home". And is that the only place your pray? After all Jesus said "When you pray go into---".

Homes have rooms. Where do you think Jesus was talking about? The bathroom at Wal-Mart? Get real.

Now you equivocate. If it is a model prayer, why is "Father" not also a part of that model?

Praying to the Father is the model of prayer. That is mostly what this thread is about. Why are you arguing so much against this?

Would you consider talking to Jesus or the Father, communing with them, prayer. Would you consider praise to them prayer? If the Bible tells us that the Father does certain things, the Son does other things, the Holy Spirit yet other things, (and it does, surely you don't deny that) and we are offering thanksgiving---do we thank the Father for dying on the cross? Do we thank Jesus for sending the Father to die? Do we thank the Holy Spirit for going to the cross? Or do we thank each for what they specifically did in our redemption? Or do we never acknowledge in our thanksgiving any but the Father?

You can thank God the Father who in His set plan and foreknowledge allowed Jesus to be crucified. You can thank God for His sacrifice, etc.

Ephesians 5
20always giving thanks to God the Father for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Colossians 3
17And whatever you do, in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.

etc,

 

[Runningman]

When ever I'm home my doors are shut....I would imagine so are yours....What's your point? Do you have to change the meaning of the verse??? You anti-christ people always seem to do that.

You said that I need to pray with my door closed and I do. You also called me a hypocrite for allegedly not doing it. Now you're back tracking and saying you also pray with your door closed. You're all over the place. Be a man and give me the money you lost fairly or are you going back on your word now?

 

[Dave_Regenerated]

Jesus used the I AM declaration. This was recognised by the Jews as blasphemy because "he made himself equal to God". You cannot get around that.

 

[Runningman]

Do you even read your Bible or just those verses that are given in Unitarianism as proof texts?

Gen 32





24 So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. 25 When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. 26 Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.”

But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

27 The man asked him, “What is your name?”

“Jacob,” he answered.

28 Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel,[a] because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.”

29 Jacob said, “Please tell me your name.”

But he replied, “Why do you ask my name?” Then he blessed him there.
30 So Jacob called the place Peniel,[b] saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.”

Gen 18

18 The Lord appeared to Abraham near the great trees of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance to his tent in the heat of the day. 2 Abraham looked up and saw three men standing nearby. When he saw them, he hurried from the entrance of his tent to meet them and bowed low to the ground.

13 Then the Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Will I really have a child, now that I am old?’ 14 Is anything too hard for the Lord? I will return to you at the appointed time next year, and Sarah will have a son.”

16 When the men got up to leave, they looked down toward Sodom, and Abraham walked along with them to see them on their way. 17 Then the Lord said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?

God appeared often in the OT, sometimes as a man. These are called a theophany. A manifestation of God to man by actual appearance. This takes place in the OT as a theophany before the incarnation. With the incarnation it is not a theophany, but His actual presence with us, as flesh and blood like us. When Jesus says nothing is impossible with God, that means NOTHING is impossible with God.

Funny you ask me about if I read the Bible when I may ask you the very same thing. Did you read Hosea 11-12? They say that God isn't a man and that the one who Jacob wrestled is an angel. You think Jacob could stand a chance in a wrestling match with God and/or an angel?


Hosea 11
9I will not execute the full fury of My anger;
I will not turn back to destroy Ephraim.
For I am God and not man—
the Holy One among you—
and I will not come in wrath.

Hosea 12
2The LORD also brings a charge against Judah.
He will punish Jacob according to his ways
and repay him according to his deeds.
3In the womb he grasped his brother’s heel,
and in his vigor he wrestled with God.
4Yes, he struggled with the angel and prevailed;
he wept and sought His favor;
he found Him at Bethel
and spoke with Him there —

 

[Runningman]

Just the opposite. If He is created, He did not make Himself anything. If He made Himself something, He must be eternal and self existent, and was something before He made Himself something other than what He was. If He made HImself in human likeness, He must not have been in human likeness before He made Himself in human likeness.

If you're saying Jesus emptied himself of "being God" then that means the hypostatic union is false and Jesus isn't God. One can't have their cake and eat it too, here.

Philippians 2
7but emptied Himself,
taking the form of a servant,
being made in human likeness.

 

[Runningman]

So since you can't properly address what is said, insult what is said and dismiss it entirely. Well. that shows that a person came into the forum and the thread, with no intention of doing anything other than arguing without an iota of substance, the beliefs of others. Also known as a troll in internet language.

When someone makes a statement that in John 1, John's use of Word when He is identifying who Jesus is in the prolog to his gospel, means words; and then defends their position by saying that it can't mean Jesus is God because the Bible often uses words poetically, and words aren't literal people; then it behooves the person it is said to, if they have the necessary tools and knowledge, to rebut that nonsense with facts. So it may be slightly off the path of the OP title, but it is not off track of what you have been saying, for quite a few pages. If the author of an OP himself goes off track, it is assumed that is the track he wants to follow. And as long as he is doing it, others will respond accordingly. It was probably your one comrad in the thread who sent it in this direction by simply saying, "Jesus is not God."

Eisegesis would be a reading into the text, a kind of reading between the lines, to form a deduction or theory about what it possibly means.

Circumstantial evidence does not trump the explicit declarations about who God is in the Bible. Jeremiah 10:10, John 17:3, 1 Thessalonians 1:9,10, Ephesians 4:6, 1 Corinthians 8:6, 1 John 5:20, and much more explicitly and directly say the only true God is the Father and that Jesus' God is the Father.

None of them say Jesus is God. Your theology about who Jesus is is based on interpretation and an appeal to an "incomprehensible mystery" known as the trinity. Meanwhile, Unitarianism is right there explicitly stated in scripture. No one in the Bible described a trinity, explained it, or explicitly referred to it.

 

[Runningman]

I already explained that Logos is a Greek masculine pronoun and not an "it". But instead of admitting this, he reiterated dogmatically "it is an it" without any kind of rebuttal whatsoever!

Deal with the fact that 1 John 1:1,2 refers to the "word of life" as an it in nearly every translation because the Greek and the context require it. Do you go against the teams of Greek experts who translated 1 John 1:1,2? Fascinating you say I am the one with a "dogma" when I am just quoting what the Bible says. You're the one saying 1 John 1:1,2 doesn't call the word of life an it.

 

[Runningman]

Jesus used the I AM declaration. This was recognised by the Jews as blasphemy because "he made himself equal to God". You cannot get around that.

Jesus did not claim to be the I AM. "Ego eimi" is used all over the New Testament not in regards to being God. For example, in John 9:9 a man said "ego eimi" and the translators translated it as "I am the man" or "I am he" or "I am the one," etc.

Read Acts 3:13 and Exodus 3:14,15. Jesus isn't the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Therefore he isn't the I AM. There is no wiggle room to get around this.

 

[Dave_Regenerated]

Jesus did not claim to be the I AM. "Ego eimi" is used all over the New Testament not in regards to being God. For example, in John 9:9 a man said "ego eimi" and the translators translated it as "I am the man" or "I am he" or "I am the one," etc.

Read Acts 3:13 and Exodus 3:14,15. Jesus isn't the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Therefore he isn't the I AM. There is no wiggle room to get around this.

Why did the Jews want to kill him? The Bible says "Because he made himself EQUAL to God". Answer that.

 

[Runningman]

Why did the Jews want to kill him? The Bible says "Because he made himself EQUAL to God". Answer that.

Do you think the Jews were rightly understanding him or looking for a reason to dispose of him under a false blasphemy charge? Jesus directly said he isn't equal to God when he said the Father is greater than himself in John 14:28.

Furthermore, Jesus directly contradicted all of his false accusations.

For example, in John 8:40, contrary to the accusations against him he said that he is a man with the truth he heard from God.

In John 10:33-36, contrary to the accusations against him, he said he is the Son of God.

Jesus denied it all.

Answer that.

 

[CrowCross]

You said that I need to pray with my door closed and I do. You also called me a hypocrite for allegedly not doing it. Now you're back tracking and saying you also pray with your door closed. You're all over the place. Be a man and give me the money you lost fairly or are you going back on your word now?

No, not quite.

You said in a very matter of fact way....Jesus said you should ONLY pray to the Father. If you were so MATTER OF FACT about that then when you pray you should ALWAYS go to your secret prayer closet....as you very well know it was presented along with the Lords Prayer.

But once again the unsaved present the bible in a misleading way.

 

[CrowCross]

Why did the Jews want to kill him? The Bible says "Because he made himself EQUAL to God". Answer that.

Yes, Jesus was claiming (showing Himself to be God) to be God through what He said and did.

If Runningman were alive back in the time of Christ...He would have been in line to hammer a nail through Jesus' hands and feet.

 

[Arial]

Eisegesis would be a reading into the text, a kind of reading between the lines, to form a deduction or theory about what it possibly means.

??? I said nothing about eisegesis and I know what it is. It is all you ever do. Do you know what exegesis is and how to do it?

Circumstantial evidence does not trump the explicit declarations about who God is in the Bible. Jeremiah 10:10, John 17:3, 1 Thessalonians 1:9,10, Ephesians 4:6, 1 Corinthians 8:6, 1 John 5:20, and much more explicitly and directly say the only true God is the Father and that Jesus' God is the Father.

I gave no circumstantial evidence so what are you referring to?

Those passages do say that and I agree 100%. So what is your point? Jesus coming as a man in order to make propitiation for man, does not change that. And as a man, He would call Father the one who fathered Him, the One from whom He came. That would be the Holy Spirit who also must be God as it is said that the Holy Spirit would overshadow Mary and she would conceive a child, and He would be called exactly what He is----the Son of God.

None of them say Jesus is God. Your theology about who Jesus is is based on interpretation and an appeal to an "incomprehensible mystery" known as the trinity. Meanwhile, Unitarianism is right there explicitly stated in scripture. No one in the Bible described a trinity, explained it, or explicitly referred to it.

The One who dies to pay for the sins of people for all eternity, must be eternal Himself. Therein is logic. And the one who dies to pay for the sins of a people for all eternity, must also be of the same kind as those He substitutes for. Again, therein is logic. Your problem is that you have no clue what Jesus actually did (accomplished) on the cross, beyond His having died. You have Him being created, a creature, who God created to vent His wrath on. Which of course, in no way resembles what God reveals about Himself or the Son. You have abandoned logic and decides to go literal and eathly in the places where it is spiritual things that are being shown and spoken. (And surely you know what Jesus says about a person only being able to understand spiritual things if they have been reborn of the Spirit and have the Spirit indwelling them.) And yet you will not go to what is explicitly stated when it is inconvenient. You do not gouge out your eyes, or cut off your arms when you sin.

The Trinity is a mystery. That does not mean it is not real, when evidence within the Bible makes it mandatory. The mystery is no different in type than is eternity and God's self existence are to the human finite mind. It is so completely other than anything within our finiteness that we have no way of describing it in any way other than the ways it is shown, but not in how it truly is. I doubt you even understood what I said.

 

[Mercy_Shown]

Sounds like you're just saying "trust me on this one."

Trust Christ alone.

Or perhaps if he's like a human in every way then he's just a human after all.

No, then the distinction would not have been made.

If you saw someone walking down the street how would you know which one God is?

It depends upon how God chooses to appear. Abraham did not recognize Him at first when He met Him under the trees and mamre

Perhaps the one who said they are God. Well, that wouldn't be Jesus. Perhaps the one who did something amazing like a miracle In that case, what if he had 12 disciples who were all doing miracles?


Doesn't that mean he isn't God?

No, it means God showed his wonderous love to us by doing this to save us.

Technically you're free to make up anything you want, but as for me I am just concerned with what the Bible says.

You are also free to ignore the testimony of the bible and believe that a fellow human can save you. But there is no such human that can do that.

 

[Runningman]

Yes, Jesus was claiming (showing Himself to be God) to be God through what He said and did.'

The above is false.

If Runningman were alive back in the time of Christ...He would have been in line to hammer a nail through Jesus' hands and feet.

The Jews said he was claiming to be God. You, a trinitarian, are saying he is claiming to be God. The Jews wanted to kill him. You have way more in common than Jesus' murderers than I do. I would have been defending him just like I do doing here.