bob x
Well-Known Member
Whose prayer is that, and why did that person think he could "improve" on Jesus?
Jesus (pbuh) - failed Prophet
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Saltmeister
The Dangerous Dinner
By nature of God I mean things like saying whether the three persons are co-equal, that God is infinite and/or doesn't change, that the three persons are of the same substance, hypostases, etc.
What the New Testament seems to consistently highlight as important is the relationship between the three, not their "nature" or "properties." An example would be to say that the Father sent the Son, and that the Son speaks for the Father. I suppose it may be helpful to contemplate their nature in order to understand their relationships better. Contemplating their "nature" and "properties" helps us "visualise" their relationships. But it seems unlikely we need to do anything else once we achieve that. The concepts regarding "nature" and "properties" don't have to be enforced. The nature and properties of God and the three may be seen any number of ways and still have the same relationships described in the NT.
Really? You want to know more? Doesn't that sound a bit like . . . a kind of "gnosticism?"
Knowing God's nature . . . Having a well-defined, more-refined, more accurate and precise concept of God? Do we need to define God? Know his nature? Do we really need to "know" this? Do we have to define God, the universe, their nature and structure ? . . . Just an observation.I would say inquiring about the Trinity is ok, but inquiring about the nature of God, His structure and properties, that would lead nowhere (ok but pointless). The NT doesn't talk about the nature of the Three, but the relationships between them.
My belief about the purpose of the Trinity was that although it made a statement about the nature of God, it was only in response to Arianism. The reason why I think the Christians of that time waited almost three centuries until the Council of Nicaea was because the nature of God simply wasn't important at the very start. It only became important because Christianity was being threatened by a pseudo-Christian faith that did speculate on God's nature. In other words, they started coming up with a concept of the nature and structure of God in response to non-Christian influences. The Nicaean Creed could be thought of as an exercise in apologetics. Well . . . that's just a possible explanation.
I would suggest that the reason why so many denominations have sprung up over the Trinity, or in opposition to it, with their varying concepts, is because people started to believe that contemplating the nature of God is important. The question is, are they right to believe that? In other words, it's not what they believe about the nature of God, but whether believing it's important to define God is right in the first place. Speculating and contemplating may be helpful, but once we understand something, should we still go ahead and try to actually define it? Would we be over-stepping our obligations there?
The Church up until then had had to contend with Gnosticism, or forms of "gnosticism." Could this inquiry not have been a new kind of gnosticism? That of knowing more about the nature and structure of God? Knowing His composition? If that's the case, then many of the denominations that have sprung up in the last 2,000 years, trying to know God's nature, structure and properties are really a subtle form of gnosticism that crept up on Christianity. Most of us therefore, could be gnostics and don't know it. It's that's true, then gnosticism didn't really die off. It's been with us all along. It's simply reappeared in a different form.
Yes, Maid in Russia, I believe this is starting to get a bit creepy.
Ok, this is just a theory -- a possible a conspiracy theory. I just like getting to the bottom of things.
madeinrussia89
Well-Known Member
It is the doxology after the end of the Our Father prayer in Eastern Orthodox Churches.
Catholics would probably recognize it as " For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours now and forever. " shortly after the Our Father prayer but not immediately.
It's not to " improve " the prayer, it was common to add short little praises to God at the end of psalms, etc, like the Gloria Patri.
madeinrussia89
Well-Known Member
When people start to think the three persons aren't co-equal, that creates a sense of hierarchy in God, and then the idea of the one-ness of God can be challenged, and so on, and so on. Arius much?
Really? You want to know more? Doesn't that sound a bit like . . . a kind of "gnosticism?"
I would like to know more about the trinity, and the essence of God. But I'm not questioning that God is indeed made up of the trinity or challenging anything like that.
I'm not sure it would lead to " nowhere " but I don't know how much more we are capable of understanding as human beings.... I'll just leave that up to God.
I understand your reasoning. I was just thinking that the trinity was probably common and obvious knowledge to the early Christians, until Arius and others come along and decides to confuse everyone with speculation (not that he knowingly did that on purpose).
I don't want to speculate on God's nature, I would like to know more about it, but I'm not going to make up things that aren't there and dig my own eternal grave in the process....That would be bad.
I guess contemplating about God wouldn't be a bad thing, but speculating might lead us to a bad place, into believing something that has no conclusive evidence.
I'm not a gnostic, I don't believe in gnosticism, and I'm not going to attribute things to God's nature that I'm not sure are actually there.
When I said " we should want to know more ", we should want to know whatever else God wants to reveal to us about himself, or parts of trinity in more depth, etc. And I will never go beyond that, to that which I do not know and maybe am not meant to know.
bob x
Well-Known Member
"It's not to " improve " the prayer"
It's to contradict it. The prayer as Jesus taught it to you says that the kingdom and the power and the glory belong to the Father-- and to nobody else.
It's to contradict it. The prayer as Jesus taught it to you says that the kingdom and the power and the glory belong to the Father-- and to nobody else.
Muslimwoman
Coexistence insha'Allah
Well said Bob.
Hi MiR
Can we imagine for a moment that G-d did decide to project Himself on this earth and teach us a thing or two about right and wrong. It was still G-d that did it, so to then pray to that being as a seperate entity or by a seperate name is an insult to G-d and shows ingratitude imo. The message of G-d has remained the same throughout time, there is One of Me, all praise belongs to ME the One G-d. Jesus (pbuh) was given as a gift to mankind to give this same message and people have turned that into let us pray to Jesus (pbuh) only he can save us.
Everything in creation works according to G-d's will, if He wants Jesus (pbuh) to do something then it will be done but Jesus (pbuh) cannot work independently or without the Will of G-d. He is therefore a creation and servant of G-d, albeit a very special one. Yes he was filled with the spirit of G-d but without the Will of G-d he could not even exist and that does not make him G-d.
Salaam
BlaznFattyz
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Jesus (pbuh) was given as a gift to mankind to give this same message and people have turned that into let us pray to Jesus (pbuh) only he can save us.
Everything in creation works according to G-d's will, if He wants Jesus (pbuh) to do something then it will be done but Jesus (pbuh) cannot work independently or without the Will of G-d. He is therefore a creation and servant of G-d, albeit a very special one. Yes he was filled with the spirit of G-d but without the Will of G-d he could not even exist and that does not make him G-d.
Salaam
Jesus is salvation. it is through Him that salvation is found. Only God can be salvation. All things were created through Jesus and for Jesus. God created all things. Jesus is not a creation, he is the word and the word was with god, and the word was god. He came first as a servant emptying himself to die for our sins and was full of glory as God's only son, who rose again glorified back to the father, but he is coming again with great power and glory to judge. God shares his glory with no one. He is one with God the Father and he does nothing apart from the father because they are one. God does not exist without being the father, son, and holy spirit. Our God is one God. "I have come in My Father's name, and you do not receive Me; if another comes in his own name, you will receive him."
Muslimwoman
Coexistence insha'Allah
Jesus (pbuh) spent 9 months developing in his mothers womb, that is creation. Unlike all other people, other than Adam (pbuh) it was not the creation of a person through male/female relations but through the Will of G-d alone.
Sorry but this sounds even worse than the view that Jesus (pbuh) is the son of G-d, to now say 'Jesus is salvation. Only G-d can be salvation' is to say that G-d is called Jesus. That negates every saying of Jesus (pbuh) about G-d and worshipping G-d. That elevates Jesus (pbuh) to the status of the Creator.
God does not exist without what?????
You are now the judge of how, why and when G-d exists? G-d IS the sustainer, He needs nothing to sustain Him. He is ONE, everything else is His creation by His Will and that includes Jesus (pbuh).BlaznFattyz
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The spirit of jesus is the spirit of god, that is the holy spirit. spiritually he is fully god and not a creation, he was sent not created. before being born in mary's womb as a man under the law he always existed as the word of god in heaven. And John the Baptist said, "This is He on behalf of whom I said, 'After me comes a Man who has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me. As for me, I baptize you with water for repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, and I am not fit to remove His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire." and Jesus said, "Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad." "You are not yet fifty years old," the Jews said to him, "and you have seen Abraham!" "I tell you the truth," Jesus answered, "before Abraham was born, I AM!"Jesus (pbuh) spent 9 months developing in his mothers womb, that is creation. Unlike all other people, other than Adam (pbuh) it was not the creation of a person through male/female relations but through the Will of G-d alone.
Sorry but this sounds even worse than the view that Jesus (pbuh) is the son of G-d, to now say 'Jesus is salvation. Only G-d can be salvation' is to say that G-d is called Jesus. That negates every saying of Jesus (pbuh) about G-d and worshipping G-d. That elevates Jesus (pbuh) to the status of the Creator.
God does not exist without what?????
Jesus is salvation. And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men, by which we must be saved.
And the witness is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life.'
God the Father and God the Son are one. God cannot be God if you take who he is away. Nor can we have eternal life without the Son who is salvation and grace and life.
"I did tell you, but you do not believe. The miracles I do in my Father’s name speak for me, but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one."
C
cyberpi
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Jesus called himself a Son of God, and a Son of Man. It is fundamental in the teaching. So it sounds like if and when you pray, that you really have a different version in mind:BlaznFattyz said:
"Our Son of Man, who came from Earth, Jesus be thy name. Our Kingdom come, our will be done. In Heaven, as it was on Earth..."
Surely one person's version of heaven is another person's version of hell.
madeinrussia89
Well-Known Member
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be Thy name.
Thy kingdom come;
Thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our trespasses
as we forgive those who trespass against us,
and lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
The doxology " For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and unto ages of ages. " does not negate the Lord's prayer, and here is why.
First, some points made in the doxology itself.
Power: In Matthew 28:18, Jesus says to his apostles after the resurrection " All power is given unto Me in Heaven and in Earth ". Given from whom? God the Father.
Glory: John 1:14 "The glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth".
When we confess that Jesus is Lord, we are giving glory to God the Father.
John 10:30 - "I and the Father are one."
This means that the kingdom, the power, and the glory of God the Father are also attributed to Jesus Christ.
John 10:38 - "But if I do it, even though you do not believe me, believe the miracles, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father."
The doxology was used to praise the connection between the Old Covenant and the Trinity in the New Covenant with Christ. Not to negate anything in the prayer.
madeinrussia89
Well-Known Member
Yes!
And MW, like BlaznFattyz reinerated, You cannot have eternal life without the Son.
John 3:36: - "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him."
God the Father raises the dead but without Jesus there is no eternal life. Jesus was with God and is God. He is 100% man and 100% God.
John 1:1 - "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."