Recent Comments

1. 4 days ago on Calvin and Hobbes

   Okay, that’s gonna keep me up tonight.

2. 6 days ago on Garfield

   “Whango”?

3. 29 days ago on That is Priceless

   The figurehead on the front of Philomena’s boat seemed so real.

4. 29 days ago on Red and Rover

   Ahhh, I remember those days…

5. 29 days ago on Pearls Before Swine

   That is incorrect. The Council of Nicaea was called by Constantine to unify the church for the Roman Empire. There were disagreements at that council. The Trinitarian bishops won out. But that was not when the idea and theology of the Trinity developed. People believed, in various ways, about the Trinity well before the Council of Nicaea. You can even find it in the New Testament. Sure, the details are not spelled out, but the idea is there. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. Some of the church fathers talk about baptizing in this way before Constantine was even born.

   [Jesus speaking] “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.” - John 14:16-17

   If that’s apostasy, Jesus himself spoke it. Apostasy (and blasphemy) is denying the deity of all three persons. It did not originate in the 300s.

   May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. (Paul, 1st Corinthians 13:14)

6. about 1 month ago on Pearls Before Swine

   He always had the nature of God, but he did not think that by force he should try to remain equal with God. Instead of this, of his own free will he gave up all he had, and took the nature of a servant. He became like a human being and appeared in human likeness. (Philippians 2:6-7 GNT)

7. about 1 month ago on Pearls Before Swine

   Taken with all of his other statements regarding his authority and mission, Jesus is marking his unique relationship to God in regards to his authority and mission. I myself cannot say “I and the Father are one” like Jesus said it. I am not one with the Father as Jesus is, has always been, and will always be.

   “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them [all disciples and followers of Jesus] may be one [unified], Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one — I in them and you in me — so that they may be brought to complete unity."

   Notice the future tense here. Jesus never says, “I will be one with the Father.” He says, “I and the Father are one.” But here, the Son of God is praying that all believers - his current disciples and future followers - would be unified in the mission of sharing the gospel. He is not declaring that they are now one in the same sense that Jesus and God are one. We are created beings, Jesus is not. Jesus came to provide a way, via the cross, for us - the unholy - to be reconciled to God. In talking about resurrection, Paul says that we sahll all be raised: “But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ.” (1st Corinthians 15:23) I cannot, like Christ, declare “No one takes [my life] from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again.” (John 10:18) Christ is God in bodily form. For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. Colossians 2:9-10

8. about 1 month ago on Pearls Before Swine

   “Jesus was simply showing that he was living before Abraham was born.”

   Note that John has Jesus say “Ego Eimi” (same as the name of God in Exodus 3:14 in the septuagint). He has him say it seven times.

   John 4:26, 6:20, 8:24, 8:28, 8:58, 13:19, 18:5

   Note that in 9:9, 18:6 and 18:8, Jesus does not say the statement. They are either from another character or (in 18) they are narrative exposition where the narrator says “when he said ‘ego eimi’,” etc. Jesus says it exactly seven times.

   Note this is separate from the seven “I am the …” statements (e.g. bread, way, truth, life, vine, etc). Those have Ego Eimi as well, but do not have it in a stand-alone manner.

9. about 1 month ago on Pearls Before Swine

   Jesus also boldly asserts, “If you knew me, you would also know my Father” (John 8:19). And adds, “For when you see me, you are seeing the one who sent me” (John 12:45), and “Anyone who hates me also hates my Father” (John 15:23), and “Everyone will honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. Anyone who does not honor the Son is certainly not honoring the Father who sent Him” (John 5:23). In Mark 2, as Jesus heals a paralytic man, He says, “My child, your sins are forgiven.” “What is He saying?” cry the Jews. “This is blasphemy! Only God can forgive sins!” He didn’t correct them by saying, “You’re right. I don’t have that authority.” Instead, Jesus "knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, ’Why are you thinking these things? Which is easier: to say to this paralyzed man, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat and walk’? But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” So he said to the man, “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.” He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone and they praised God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this!” Jesus, through this very act, puts himself on the level of God.

10. about 1 month ago on Pearls Before Swine

    [Jesus said,] "Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.” So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?” Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.

    - John 8:56-58

    They knew he was claiming that, as the beginning of John’s Gospel says, “he was in the beginning with God.” (John 1:1-4) “I AM” is the way God revealed himself to Moses (Exodus 3:14); the Pharisees knew exactly what Jesus was saying when he said “…before Abraham was, I am.” He wasn’t saying that he was just a prophet of God.