Dalai Lama, page-967

  1. 5,859 Posts.
    Yes, it is talking about humans and that is what Jesus ''became''.
    (Philippians 2:7) No, but he emptied himself and took a slave’s form and became human.


    Yes and No, Ecclesiastes 3:11, is all about us humans, as it was the “Word” John 1:1, 14 that became human-Flesh, and the end result was Jesus, The “Word” that was with God and was God emptied himself from that nature and took a slave’s form and became human as the man Jesus

    No, Jesus didn't pre-exist creation. He was ''the firstborn of all creation''.
    (Colossians 1:15) He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation;

    First if you dig deeper to the meaning of ''the firstborn of all creation'' this doesn’t mean to be actually born first but to being the First – pre-eminent in all creation as all creation is made through Him and for him as in v15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; 16 because by means of him all other things were created in the heavens and on the earth, the things visible and the things invisible, whether they are thrones or lordships or governments or authorities. All other things have been created through him and for him.

    God is above all creation, Jesus (Word, Logo) being in the same image of God v15, is also above all creation, if all creation in heaven and earth was created by Him- Jesus must’ve pre-existed before anything was created – that would include himself if the “Word, Logos” was a created being
    But having said that, the man, the flesh - Jesus was created. There was a time when it did not exist, and then there was a time when it did. The Father and the Holy Spirit cannot be said to be God and human, since they did not become begotten as did Jesus. John 1:14, 3:16,

    Yes, he was determined to put God's will ahead of his inbuilt desire to live all humans have,
    Luke 22:42) saying: “Father, if you want to, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, let, not my will, but yours take place
    .

    Yes and no, what Jesus encountered and atoned for was all possibility of our humanity- fallen nature, we all suffer distress in our suffering. The ‘cup’ of suffering that caused Jesus such distress was not just physical suffering, great though that was. Above all it was the inner agony as the sinless one, God’s Son, took upon himself the sin of his human creatures (us) and bore God’s wrath on our behalf (2 Corinthians 5:21; Hebrews 2:9; 1 Peter 2:24). It was an experience no one else could know, for no one else had Jesus’ sinlessness


    Here is a take of what firstborn means

    4416 prōtótokos (from 4413 /prṓtos, "first, pre-eminent" and 5088 /tíktō, "bring forth") – properly, first in time (Mt 1:25; Lk 2:7); hence, pre-eminent (Col 1:15; Rev 1:5).
    4416 /prōtótokos ("firstly") specifically refers to Christ as the first to experience glorification, i.e. at His resurrection (see Heb 12:23; Rev 1:5). For this (and countless other reasons) Jesus is "preeminent" (4416 /prōtótokos) – the unequivocal Sovereign over all creation (Col 1:16).
    [4416 (prōtótokos) refers to "the first among others (who follow)" – as with the preeminent, glorified Christ, the eternal Logos who possesses self-existent life (Jn 5:26).]

    Jesus: Creature or Creator?
    The doctrine that most clearly sets the WTS apart from Christianity is its denial of the divinity of Christ. JWs maintain that Jesus is actually a creature—a highly exalted one—but not God himself. Scripturally, the evidence is not in their favor.

    John 1:1 states unequivocally, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” This verse gave the JWs tremendous difficulty, and so in their own NWT they render the end of this verse as, “And the word was a god.” One great difficulty with this translation is how it contradicts passages such as Deuteronomy 32:39, which says, “I alone, am God and there are no gods together with me.” Further contradictions can be seen in Exodus 20:3, “Have no other gods besides me,” and Isaiah 43:10, “Before me no god was formed nor shall there be any after me.”

    In John 20:28 Thomas says to Jesus, “My Lord and my God.” In the original Greek it literally reads, “The Lord of me and the God of me.” It would be nothing short of blasphemy for Jesus not to rebuke Thomas if he was wrong. Jesus instead accepts Thomas’s profession of his identity as God.

    The Bible indicates that God alone created the universe (Is. 44:24), and “he that constructed all things is God” (Heb. 3:4). However, Jesus created the heavens and the earth (Heb. 1:10). This passage by itself proves that Jesus is God, since an Old Testament reference to God (Ps. 102:26-28) is now given to him.

    In John 8:58, Jesus takes the name of God, “I AM” (Ex. 3:15-18), and applies it to himself. Only God may use this title without blaspheming (Ex. 20:7, Deut. 5:11), and the punishment for someone other than God to use the sacred “I AM” is stoning (Lev. 24:16). Thus, in verse 59, Jesus’ audience picked up stones to kill him, because they correctly understood his use of “I AM” as his claim to being God and hence thought he was guilty of blasphemy. This verse also proved to be difficult for the JWs to combat, and so they changed “I AM” to “I have been.” The Greek here is ego eimi, which any first-semester Greek student can tell you means “I am.”
    JWs maintain that only Jehovah God may be prayed to. But Stephen prayed to Jesus in Acts 7:59, and so one must conclude that Jesus is God. Otherwise, Stephen blasphemed while filled with the Holy Spirit (7:55).

    The WTS would have their followers believe that Jehovah and Jesus are necessarily different beings, though the Bible tells another story. Jesus is called Mighty God in Isaiah 9:6, and in the very next chapter the same title is given to Jehovah in verse 21. Other shared titles include: King of Kings (compare with Rev. 17:14), Lord of Lords (Deut. 10:17; Rev. 17:14), the only Savior (Is. 43:10-11; Acts 4:12), the First and the Last (Isa. 44:6; Rev. 22:13), the Alpha and the Omega (Rev. 1:8; 22:13-16), Rock (Isa. 8:14; 1 Pet. 2:7-8), and Shepherd (Ps. 23:1; Heb. 13:20-21).

    Jesus and Jehovah have much more in common than titles, though. They are both worshipped by angels (Heb. 1:6, Neh. 9:6). They are both unchanging (Heb. 13:8, Mal. 3:6). They both created the heavens and the earth (Heb. 1:10, Neh. 9:6) and are all-knowing (John 21:17, 1 John 3:20). Both give eternal life (John 10:28, 1 John 5:11), and judge the world (John 5:22, Ps. 96:13). To them every knee will bend and every tongue confess (Phil. 2:9-11, Is. 45:23).

    https://www.catholic.com/tract/more-stumpers-for-the-jehovahs-witnesses
 
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