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Any Christian who can prove to me the Deity of Christ, please do so. I do not ask for any Trinitarian thought, because that is not my concern at all. Instead, I am asking that you prove to me that Christ Himself was God Incarnate. Use any Scripture if you want, but prove to me that this is so. I will challenge any attempt, and when I do, I would like to see someone provide to me a rebuttle. If they cannot, then I must ask why they believe that Christ is God Incarnate.

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There are quite a number of people, Christians for the most part, who are saying, "It is not a matter of reason, but of faith," or "Pray to God and ask Him to guide you to the truth." These are nice, but they are not what I am looking for. Do not say to me, "Your bias is in the way," or, "Pray to God so that you may come to the truth." I know that I said a similar quotation previously, but I must make note of this: I am a firm believer in Christianity. I trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, not for anything I have done, but what He has done for me. My question is this: Is Jesus God? Do not come and say, "Yes, He is." Rather, say something such as this: "What of this verse, or even this one? Here is why I believe that these verses support the Deity of Christ," and then provide your reason.

If anyone is great in the Hebrew and Greek and can convince me, even if uttering an argument with a concise sentence, even a sentence, if it's so convincing, will have made my day. I do not deny the Deity of Christ, but I have seen some arguments that do, and they give some good responses to the commonly said answers from Trinitarians. By the way, let no person quote John 10:30, "I and the Father are one." It's a good verse, but I must agree with the real John Calvin that the ancients wrongly used this verse to support the ομοουσια (homoousia; same essence) of the Father and Son. If I am not mistaken, even Arius would be pleased with this verse, and he didn't agree that the Father and Son were of the same substance.

Edited for: responding to repeated words, misconceptions, non-apologetic Christians (oxymoron?), as well as the fact that this has nothing to do with the "Trinity," et cetera. There are other teachings that teach that Jesus is God without being Trinitarian.

I am asking that you prove this to me Scripturally. Now, when I speak of "Deity," I am referring to Yahweh, the godhood that Christ Himself possesses. And, I am not asking anything of Oneness theology, because if that were so, I would not be asking you to prove to me that Christ is God Incarnate, since Oneness theologians agree that Christ is God of the Old Testament. So, can you do this?

When I ask for proof that Christ is God in the flesh, I simply ask that you prove that He is God, not a "god," or a man who has god-like attributes. So, here we go.



I am pleased with your wisdom, that you would choose so willingly to start things off slowly, because many a people like to present various verses all at once, and thus, become unintelligeble in their argument. Now, you present to me what I cherish most in my heart. But, if to present to me this passage and so think that I should readily say that Christ is God, if it were that simple, I would concede immediately. But surely, this is not the case right now. When Christians read "the Word," they assume that the Word is the Son in this verse. Yet, to read it as such would lead us to Modalism, a heresy, since we would read at the end, "and the Son was the Father." Thus, it should be left simply as "Word," not "Son." Even more so, they tend to take upon themselves a Hellenized Jewish philosophy from Philo Judaeus, who was from Alexandria, Egypt. But, what if we think of the Hebrew word for logos here, being dabar? Dabar is the creative word of God, and it is demonstrated clearly in in Psalm 33:6, which says, "By the word [Heb. dabar; Gr. logos] of Yahweh were the heavens made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth."

What if it made known that Christ is God's spoken word in action, thus, being His representative on earth? Would this then take away the idea of "the Word" being a personal mask who was with God from the beginning? God's logos was used by angels and prophets, and these were the vessels of which God used. For example, "The dabar of Yahweh came to..." And the author of Hebrews, which is saturated with Christ, says, "In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe" (Heb. 1:1, 2). Now, Christ is the complete manifestation, that is, revelation of God, for in Him dwelleth the fulness of all the Godhead bodily (Col. 2:9). I must ask, in the beginning of John's prologue, is he not using what might be considered a "personification"?

What shall you have to say on this, concerning the first verse?

Yes.



Yes. But, it is questionable as to what you mean by "literal." When you say literal, do you thereby refer to all things being read in literal reading, even if something was allegorical? Or, do you assume that all things should be read according to their own sense, and by that, I mean, to their literary structure? I am positive that you're referring to the latter.

I'll return to this tomorrow as well, because I will be getting off shortly. As you know, to write copiously is something I enjoy doing. Brevity never had its charm for me.

The real John Calvin wrote:

[The writer of the gospel of John] adds “This Word was God” to express still better what he wished to indicate, that Jesus Christ is not a created thing Who had a beginning, but He is our true God. This passage has been poorly understood by some. Someone has foolishly translated it, saying, “God is the Word.” For if we said that God was the Word, the Father would no longer be God and the Holy Spirit would no longer be God. But St. John wished on the contrary to say that the Word is God, as if he said that Jesus Christ is, with respect to His Deity, of one same essence with the Father. Thus he does not exclude the Father from the Deity, but he shows that there is only one essence in God. Although there was a distinction of God from His Word, yet we must always come back to this simple proposition, that They are one God Whom we must adore. To be sure, ancient heretics have worked hard to pervert this passage so as not to be constrained to confess that Jesus Christ was our true God. But we see here that St. John speaks so dearly of the eternity of this Word that there is no place for shuffling or subterfuge.

Do you agree or disagree with your namesake?

We can't; go away. We are just as able to prove that as you are to disprove it.