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Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man.
God has many warnings in scripture regarding not making idols of created beings or heavenly objects such as the moon and stars. This verse shows how God cannot be reduced to a man made concept or picture.
Colossians 1:15 states: "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation." This verse is discussing Christ who although He came in a man is part of the Godhead; so certainly we shouldn't have images of Him either; especially to be venerated or worshipped. As to whether; say a stained glass window is equally offensive we have to look to the heart of those who are attending a church service; as sadly some even with such an object as that will find some feature that seems to have some supernatural light in the image which is idolotry. The same could be said for the Apostles on such imagery; a Protestant wouldn't have any desire normally to make it an idol; but other denominations such as Greek Orthodox have statues of "saints" which clearly constitute worship that is against scripture.
John 1:18 states that no man has ever seen God but in Christ we in a sense see Him. His attributes including the Godhead are said to be clear from creation ( Romans 1:20). This was said to be known from the time of Creation according to the beginning of this verse. This shows that only later the nations departed from the knowledge that Adam and his immediate descendants would have instilled in them; there was deliberate rebellion against the Creator throughout the earth; both after the garden and after the flood with the tower of Babel and then God confusing the languages and scattering men throughout the earth (see Genesis 10:25 on likely splitting off of continents and dispersion of men).
On the mount of transfiguration He gave a few of His disciples a peek at His glory and they were astonished, drew back, and fell down to the ground. Just that peek stayed with these apostles for the rest of their lives, as did Paul's encounter with the Resurrected and glorified Christ.
No one can see God and live, the Word says. But we will behold God with our eyes in the face of Christ forever in the life to come. And that will be completely satisfying for us. Seeing Jesus is seeing God and also seeing that He became man for our salvation. God and Man in one Person forever. Hebrews tells us to fix our eyes upon Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith. We keep our eyes on Jesus by knowing Him through the intake of His Words in Scripture.
Richard, thank you for participating with me on this topic of our Great God. He is so worth studying and knowing more deeply. Let us press on to know Him more and more.
Richard, to continue. Jn 1:18 says that we have seen God's glory in Christ, but in verse 18 says no one has seen God at any time, save the Son. Same for 1Jn. 4:12, no man has ever seen God. (also Jn. 6:46).
God's Spirit lives in us, but is invisible and does not take up any physical space within us. This is true of the Father and Jesus, who also abide in believers.
So, how do we conceive of an invisible God? First of all, we believe that He is (He. 11:6) and we must obey His command to not attempt to make any image of Him in our minds or in a physical object. He determined that it is best for us to not know what He looks like in His essence, lest we make an idol of the image we see. We are to come to Him through the eyes of faith, but not through seeing Him with our physical eyes. Jesus told Thomas after Thomas touched and viewed His wounds, blessed are those who believe who have not seen.
I also think that God determined that we cannot view Him in His Divine Essence because if we did, we would be destroyed by His holiness, majesty, and greatness. Note the responses of Isaiah, Ezekiel, John when they had a vision of the Lord on the throne and in Revelation 1 (John). They came unglued and fell down as if dead. And this was with a manifestation. God hides even in these manifestations. God's dealings with mankind in Biblical times was long before the present times where we have cameras and ability to video. God doesn't want to give us an image to worship. We are to worship Him in truth through the Spirit, not in a carnal or sensual way (as to using our senses). yet we can worship with words, preaching, singing, shouting, and with our bodies, clapping, raising hands, and dancing like David. But God wants us to do so reverently, not imitating the world and pagans. God's invisibility protects us from that type of idolatry.
Jesus is the ultimate revelation of God in a human body. He did not show God in His Divine Essence. His Divinity was cloaked by His humanity.
Some comments about God. I will repeat some of your comments and add some more, what I understand of Him.
God is invisible. No man has ever seen God, nor he can because they will die.
So do we know anything about God or not, or do we know God or not? Has anybody gone up there and saw Him, and His surroundings, has anybody talked to Him face to face to tell us something about Him? How does He really look like? How is His character? What is He like really?
Although God has revealed to people in the OT many things about Himself, it seems those were not enough for us to have a relatively good knowledge of Him. Only some general things about Him.
In John 1:18 Jesus says,, "No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him"
So it was Jesus who told us everything about God. Actually everybody who gets to know Jesus, he actually gets to know Father as well, since they are completely indentical, in character, power, nature ..., everything. Like Jesus said to Phillip the one who sees Jesus has seen God the Father Himself. Of course Jesus doesn't mean here the external appearance of God.
There is a very nice verse in Hebrews 1:2-3
"2. Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds
3. Who (Jesus) being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;"
Jesus is the visible brightness of the invisible glory of God, He is the express image of the invible image of God. After all that how can one claim that Jesus is not God?
But how is God's external appearance. The truth is that we don't know. Some say His is like a man, taking into account some descriptions in the Bible. Others say that He only uses such expressions for Himself to make us feel comfortable with Him.
As usual better insight than I have given. Probably better for you to continue this more than me.
I thought about you; actually talking to an old lady in my church who apparently was told from a very young age that she was gifted in teaching. She went on to have many adopted kids and apparently teach some Sunday school stuff like you did.
Hope your relative is doing better than last week (Vivian I think her name was).
Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man.
God has many warnings in scripture regarding not making idols of created beings or heavenly objects such as the moon and stars. This verse shows how God cannot be reduced to a man made concept or picture."
Would you not then agree that the concept of the trinity falls under such category as an "IMAGE and IMAGINATION OF MAN"?
If the concept is not taught anywhere in the Bible, that succinctly defines it as a creation/imagination of man.
The concept of God being three persons is an IDOL, it is an IMAGE created by the IMAGINATION OF MAN.
This IDOL has been sold to the masses, it has been delivered to hundreds of millions, if not billions, who accept and embrace it without question or personal investigation into its Scriptural authenticity.
True, I have not found the word trinity in the Bible, and it is a man made word to explain the (3) that bear witness in heaven.
The bible tells us the following:
Genesis 1:26
"And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth."
In the above verse it says: "And God said, Let US make in our own image,
Who is God referring to when He says US? God could have said I will make, but instead He said "Let US make"
I believe that we find the answer to who the US is, in this verse:
1 John 5:7 "For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one."
There are three that bear record in heaven!
The word Trinity meaning:
-the Christian Godhead as one God in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
-a group of three people or things
People refer to: trinity, triune, etc.
There are (3) entities in heaven, God, the Son, and the Holy Spirit! Amen
The Father does ALL THINGS through the SON, Christ Jesus.
The son has a GOD (Spirit) and a FATHER (spirit of truth and LIFE), there are TWO not THREE. Christ is the BODY of his GOD, as we are the BODY of his SON, Christ. Christ ONLY speaks and does as his Father CAUSES him TO WILL and TO DO; as we ONLY WILL and DO as Christ CAUSES us to will and to do.
1 John 2:22 .... he is anti-christ (anti-truth) that denieth the Father and SON ..... TWO not THREE.
I'm not sure why you are so confused regarding 1 John 5:7.
1 John 5:7 "For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one."
The verse states (3) three bear record in heaven. Not 2, and Not 4.. but 3. Easy to understand.
God loves the meek, the humble, the poor and the trodden down. He wants these simple people to read and understand His message because they will inherent the Kingdom.
I will leave you with this verse my friend. Titus 1:15 "Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled."
I am not confused by 1 John 5:7, but you have to included 1 John 5:8 to come to truth.
There are three that bear record in heaven and three that bear record on earth, that makes SIX that are ONE.
The three that bear record in heaven is GOD: God is the Father, God is the Word and God is the Holy Ghost, they are just different references to GOD, they are ONE.
The three that bear record on earth is CHRIST: Christ the Spirit, Christ the water, and Christ the blood, they are just different references to CHRIST, they are ONE.
God bears record in heaven, Christ bears record on earth, TWO not THREE, otherwise it is SIX that are ONE.
Acts 17:29 states:
Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man.
God has many warnings in scripture regarding not making idols of created beings or heavenly objects such as the moon and stars. This verse shows how God cannot be reduced to a man made concept or picture.
Colossians 1:15 states: "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation." This verse is discussing Christ who although He came in a man is part of the Godhead; so certainly we shouldn't have images of Him either; especially to be venerated or worshipped. As to whether; say a stained glass window is equally offensive we have to look to the heart of those who are attending a church service; as sadly some even with such an object as that will find some feature that seems to have some supernatural light in the image which is idolotry. The same could be said for the Apostles on such imagery; a Protestant wouldn't have any desire normally to make it an idol; but other denominations such as Greek Orthodox have statues of "saints" which clearly constitute worship that is against scripture.
John 1:18 states that no man has ever seen God but in Christ we in a sense see Him. His attributes including the Godhead are said to be clear from creation ( Romans 1:20). This was said to be known from the time of Creation according to the beginning of this verse. This shows that only later the nations departed from the knowledge that Adam and his immediate descendants would have instilled in them; there was deliberate rebellion against the Creator throughout the earth; both after the garden and after the flood with the tower of Babel and then God confusing the languages and scattering men throughout the earth (see Genesis 10:25 on likely splitting off of continents and dispersion of men).
1 Timothy 1:17
"Now unto the King, eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen."
May IMMORTAL should be the next attribute we post on.
No one can see God and live, the Word says. But we will behold God with our eyes in the face of Christ forever in the life to come. And that will be completely satisfying for us. Seeing Jesus is seeing God and also seeing that He became man for our salvation. God and Man in one Person forever. Hebrews tells us to fix our eyes upon Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith. We keep our eyes on Jesus by knowing Him through the intake of His Words in Scripture.
Richard, thank you for participating with me on this topic of our Great God. He is so worth studying and knowing more deeply. Let us press on to know Him more and more.
God's Spirit lives in us, but is invisible and does not take up any physical space within us. This is true of the Father and Jesus, who also abide in believers.
So, how do we conceive of an invisible God? First of all, we believe that He is (He. 11:6) and we must obey His command to not attempt to make any image of Him in our minds or in a physical object. He determined that it is best for us to not know what He looks like in His essence, lest we make an idol of the image we see. We are to come to Him through the eyes of faith, but not through seeing Him with our physical eyes. Jesus told Thomas after Thomas touched and viewed His wounds, blessed are those who believe who have not seen.
I also think that God determined that we cannot view Him in His Divine Essence because if we did, we would be destroyed by His holiness, majesty, and greatness. Note the responses of Isaiah, Ezekiel, John when they had a vision of the Lord on the throne and in Revelation 1 (John). They came unglued and fell down as if dead. And this was with a manifestation. God hides even in these manifestations. God's dealings with mankind in Biblical times was long before the present times where we have cameras and ability to video. God doesn't want to give us an image to worship. We are to worship Him in truth through the Spirit, not in a carnal or sensual way (as to using our senses). yet we can worship with words, preaching, singing, shouting, and with our bodies, clapping, raising hands, and dancing like David. But God wants us to do so reverently, not imitating the world and pagans. God's invisibility protects us from that type of idolatry.
Jesus is the ultimate revelation of God in a human body. He did not show God in His Divine Essence. His Divinity was cloaked by His humanity.
[Comment Removed]
Some comments about God. I will repeat some of your comments and add some more, what I understand of Him.
God is invisible. No man has ever seen God, nor he can because they will die.
So do we know anything about God or not, or do we know God or not? Has anybody gone up there and saw Him, and His surroundings, has anybody talked to Him face to face to tell us something about Him? How does He really look like? How is His character? What is He like really?
Although God has revealed to people in the OT many things about Himself, it seems those were not enough for us to have a relatively good knowledge of Him. Only some general things about Him.
In John 1:18 Jesus says,, "No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him"
So it was Jesus who told us everything about God. Actually everybody who gets to know Jesus, he actually gets to know Father as well, since they are completely indentical, in character, power, nature ..., everything. Like Jesus said to Phillip the one who sees Jesus has seen God the Father Himself. Of course Jesus doesn't mean here the external appearance of God.
There is a very nice verse in Hebrews 1:2-3
"2. Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds
3. Who (Jesus) being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;"
Jesus is the visible brightness of the invisible glory of God, He is the express image of the invible image of God. After all that how can one claim that Jesus is not God?
But how is God's external appearance. The truth is that we don't know. Some say His is like a man, taking into account some descriptions in the Bible. Others say that He only uses such expressions for Himself to make us feel comfortable with Him.
I thought about you; actually talking to an old lady in my church who apparently was told from a very young age that she was gifted in teaching. She went on to have many adopted kids and apparently teach some Sunday school stuff like you did.
Hope your relative is doing better than last week (Vivian I think her name was).
Your perspective is good to hear and it causes me to think deeply on the topic being presented.
INVISIBLE; NO IMAGE; NO IMAGINATION OF MAN
Acts 17:29
states:
Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man.
God has many warnings in scripture regarding not making idols of created beings or heavenly objects such as the moon and stars. This verse shows how God cannot be reduced to a man made concept or picture."
Would you not then agree that the concept of the trinity falls under such category as an "IMAGE and IMAGINATION OF MAN"?
If the concept is not taught anywhere in the Bible, that succinctly defines it as a creation/imagination of man.
The concept of God being three persons is an IDOL, it is an IMAGE created by the IMAGINATION OF MAN.
This IDOL has been sold to the masses, it has been delivered to hundreds of millions, if not billions, who accept and embrace it without question or personal investigation into its Scriptural authenticity.
It is a lie of man.
True, I have not found the word trinity in the Bible, and it is a man made word to explain the (3) that bear witness in heaven.
The bible tells us the following:
Genesis 1:26
"And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth."
In the above verse it says: "And God said, Let US make in our own image,
Who is God referring to when He says US? God could have said I will make, but instead He said "Let US make"
I believe that we find the answer to who the US is, in this verse:
1 John 5:7 "For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one."
There are three that bear record in heaven!
The word Trinity meaning:
-the Christian Godhead as one God in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
-a group of three people or things
People refer to: trinity, triune, etc.
There are (3) entities in heaven, God, the Son, and the Holy Spirit! Amen
The us is the FATHER and his SON, two not three.
The Father does ALL THINGS through the SON, Christ Jesus.
The son has a GOD (Spirit) and a FATHER (spirit of truth and LIFE), there are TWO not THREE. Christ is the BODY of his GOD, as we are the BODY of his SON, Christ. Christ ONLY speaks and does as his Father CAUSES him TO WILL and TO DO; as we ONLY WILL and DO as Christ CAUSES us to will and to do.
1 John 2:22 .... he is anti-christ (anti-truth) that denieth the Father and SON ..... TWO not THREE.
God Bless YOU!
God BLESS YOU!
I'm not sure why you are so confused regarding 1 John 5:7.
1 John 5:7 "For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one."
The verse states (3) three bear record in heaven. Not 2, and Not 4.. but 3. Easy to understand.
God loves the meek, the humble, the poor and the trodden down. He wants these simple people to read and understand His message because they will inherent the Kingdom.
I will leave you with this verse my friend. Titus 1:15 "Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled."
I am not confused by 1 John 5:7, but you have to included 1 John 5:8 to come to truth.
There are three that bear record in heaven and three that bear record on earth, that makes SIX that are ONE.
The three that bear record in heaven is GOD: God is the Father, God is the Word and God is the Holy Ghost, they are just different references to GOD, they are ONE.
The three that bear record on earth is CHRIST: Christ the Spirit, Christ the water, and Christ the blood, they are just different references to CHRIST, they are ONE.
God bears record in heaven, Christ bears record on earth, TWO not THREE, otherwise it is SIX that are ONE.
God BLESS YOU!
God BLESS YOU!
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