And In That Day Ye Shall Ask Me Nothing...

[Praxeas]

Originally Posted by Iron_Bladder

How can that be when Christ mediates between us and the Father? Just as the Holy Spirit also mediates between us and the Father at Romans 8:26, how would you explain these problems Praxeas?

I agree Christ mediates between us and God. I have no problem with that. It's not a problem. There is an difference between Father and Son that on a pschological level makes them function as two different persons due to the human nature, but not hypostatically.

[mfblume]

Originally Posted by Praxeas

Something else, more important than what direction our prayers take. More important than direction is relationship. Notice in the "Lords Prayer" Jesus did not say "the Father", even though Iron_Bladder insists 'God the Father" is the only way the Father can be called Father as per his argument on Isaiah 9:6. He said OUR Father. Because Father, unlike our little friend here, is NOT a meaningless name. It's an adjective that describes His relationship to us. I don't have to say "Father" over and over to be praying to the Father as much so as what I need to do is realize that He really wants to be my Father in a father-son relationship

Amen and amen. If we have that relationship, we do not have to expressly say, "Father". If we say JESUS, knowing the person of Jesus is the Father, then it is the same as saying "Father". INTENTION of statement is the issue.

Originally Posted by mfblume

But as High Priest, he is glorified man. The mediator is not the Father, but the Son. The MAN Christ Jesus is the mediator.

MF Blume, would you please clarify, when you emphasis the Son and not the Father in the above quote are you saying that the Son is the Man-flesh? Please will you clarify this for me, what is the official Oneness position, almost all Oneness folk whom I’ve ever met will simply say that Father is the deity and Son is the flesh of Jesus. If the Son is the flesh and deity combined, then because God is one person in Oneness, that would make Jesus as Son the mediator with himself Jesus as Father; a position which is difficult to maintain if God is only one person. Please would you clarify thanks.

Originally Posted by Praxeas

Maybe, look again from chapter 14 on how the topic moves from Him to Father to Spirit etc etc...Spirit does not come till he goes away...I will send him to you....I will come to you?

Actually, the language progresses far beyond this, in that not only are we told that the Holy Spirit will come to us but that both the Father and the Son will also indwell us; ‘We will come to him and make our abode with him.’ (John 14:23). The use of the first person plural ‘we will’ tells us that both the Father and also the Son together indwell us. My only explanation is that being one Spirit, F-S-HS can’t be separated (perichoresis) and so when one person indwells us, all three must indwell us. I fell that you should comment on John 14:23 and the plural verb used here. How can ‘we will’ be harmonised with a One person God?

Originally Posted by mfblume

I wholeheartedly agree. But it does not remove the fact that the roles of Father and Son are not the be confused as one and the same. As I said, the Mediator is not the Father.

MF Blume, I certainly agree with you that the mediator is not the Father, however, how can a mere force or power like say the Jehovah’s Witnesses concept of the Holy Spirit as some impersonal power like electricity be God or be the mediator? I don’t know your opinion about this statement, so please do reply and let me know how you interpret it. As a Christian I don’t worship some impersonal force and neither do I have some power like the force of the Star Wars movies as my mediator. Now I’m not saying that your claiming this. But if the Son is not the Father as I think that you’ve clearly stated this in your post, and I’d certainly agree with you by the way, then you need to ask, does a personal being that is a ‘he’ mediate with another personal being ‘another he,’ or does an ‘it’ mediate with either another ‘it,’ or does a ‘he’ mediate with an ‘it,’ or does a 'he' act as both the mediator and the one to whom mediation is given?

You need to understand that the Trinitarian term ‘three persons’ doesn’t mean that God is three separate people or three Gods or three spirits. It just means that the one God who is one Spirit exists as three ‘he’s’ and not as three impersonal ‘its.’ You see it’s not possible for Christ our mediator to be an impersonal ‘it’ just like the force of the Star Wars movies or the JWs definition of the Holy Spirit, for an impersonal ‘it’ cannot properly mediate with a ‘he.’ Only a person a ‘he’ or a ‘she’ can mediate.

As I see it you have an urgent need to define who or what the mediator is and who or what the one he mediates to is. If someone were to say that an ‘it’ (Son) mediates to a ‘he’ (Father), then that would imply that the Son is impersonal and thus can’t be Yahweh God who is a ‘he’ and not an ‘it.’ However if a ‘he’ (Son) mediates with another ‘he’ (Father) then you’d have two ‘he’s’ as Yahweh God, a position known as the Trinity when we then also consider the Holy Spirit. Or if a person were to say that a ‘he’ mediates with himself the very same ‘he’ then they’d have a problem for how can one person mediate between himself and somebody else? This latter position is logically inconsistent. Anyway thanks for listening to my point of view MF Blume.

Originally Posted by Praxeas

Father and Son are the same hypostatically, praying to Jesus then or in Jesus name is to pray TO that one person. Praying TO Him is in essence a prayer to both Father and Son. A prayer to the Father is in essence also a prayer to the Son, there is an existential difference and an difference with the Human nature, but hypostatically they are the same.

If they are the same one person as you claim, then how is the Son the way ‘TO’ the Father as John 14:6 states? Can a person be the mediator to himself and if so, which you obviously must be claiming, then how does the one person of God do this? In the very next verse; John 14:7 which you also omitted from your long passage, we discover the word also; ‘If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also.’ Here my question is, how does this verse fit into your claim that God is only one person? So how does this word ‘also’ at John 14:7 imply a uni-personal God who is also with himself or with another person? Then at John 14:9 you fail to explain the use of the word; ‘horao’ (seen). If Jesus were physical manifestation of the Father as you’ve claimed, then he would have used the word ‘blepo’ instead. Finally, at John 14:23 the Father and the Son are said to both indwell those who are saved (obviously together with the Holy Spirit), for in Trinitarian theology, perichoresis claims that where one person is the other two also are. Please explain the use of the first person plural verb here; WE WILL come to him and make OUR abode with him.’ So please tell me Praxeas, how does the plural verb fit into your one person deity claim, thank you.

Originally Posted by mfblume

The Father is glorified because the Son just said he could nothing without the Father in Him doing it.

Joh 14:10 KJV Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.

Joh 5:19 KJV Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.

Firstly, re John 14:10 MF are you aware that Trinitarianism does teach that the Father and the Son mutually indwell the other, it’s known as the doctrine of perichoresis. Secondly, this verse doesn’t just state that the Father indwells the Son, it also teaches that the Son indwells the Father, so how do Oneness Pentecostals explain that? How can the Son indwell the Father in your Theology MF? Thirdly, re John 5:19, as God is one being, one spirit and one God, he has a single source of power which is from the Father, through the Son and then onto the Holy Spirit, the Son can no more act independently of the Father than the Father can of him. So John 5:19 actually ascribes every divine attribute to the Son, as the Father is creator, eternal, omnipresent and omnipotent, these attributes are also ascribed to the Son as well to the Father at John 5:19. How would you explain that? If the Son can do everything that the Father can do, can’t you see that the Son must be Yahweh himself and not some mere impersonal manifestation of either Yahweh or alternatively of Yahweh’s flesh or of a man whom God indwelt, or of any such other explanation which undeifies the Son.

Originally Posted by mfblume

Really, I've come to learn the work of the cross is involved in more of these conversations than we have thought. Everything focuses on the cross. )

MF I’d agree with some of your sentiments, but not all, however, Oneness theology has two extremes one of which you cannot possibly hope to avoid if you're pepaired to think about it carefully. For either it claims that the flesh that is the Son or humanity in the most popular layman’s Oneness terms died upon the cross, offering up a sacrifice to the Father; ‘How much more shall the blood of CHRIST, who through the ETERNAL SPIRIT offered himself to GOD’ (Hebrews 9:14). Which would mean that the Son is really something far less that Yahweh God, namely Yahweh’s flesh or God’s human body in this, the most popular and yet the most unscholarly of the various Oneness position.

Or alternatively, if the Oneness person insists that the Son is Yahweh but that the Father also is Yahweh as well, and yet God is only ever one person, then when the Son was made flesh the whole Godhead of this one person, including the manifestation of Yahweh as the Father also became flesh with himself (Son). “For He ((Father)) hath made Him ((Son)), who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God ((Father)) in him ((Son)).” (2nd Corinthians 5:21). So a Son who was made sin for us, was then offered up as the sin offering to the same person of God namely to God the Father, who also became sin, for being one person in Oneness theology, you can’t now separate the Father from sin, when he made (himself as the Son) the sin offering. Thus being made sin the Father also, not being sinless could not accept the Son’s sacrifice which has to be that of a sinless Son who is still Yahweh, offering up a sin offering to a sinless Father who also is Yahweh but is not the Son. This second more scholarly Oneness position fails at this point, by making the Father become sin.

You see you have to reconcile a number of verses in whichever theology you promote. The Son died and gave himself for my sins; “Son of God loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20). No verse anywhere in Scripture even hints that the Father died on the cross for me. Yet at the point of atonement on the cross, the Son had been forsaken by the Father; ‘My God My God why hast thou forsaken me’ (Mark 15:34). So if God is one person and yet God the Father is not the Son but the Father forsook the Son on the cross, then how do you explain the Son’s deity on the cross? Anyone can give a flippant answer, however, sadly, few Oneness Pentecostals have even attempted to reconcile Mark 15:34, 2nd Corinthians 5:21, Hebrews 9:14 and Galatians 2:20 with their view of the atonement.

MF I do beg you to please think carefully over my comments, a lot of thought and re-writing hasd gone into this post, which was written at home and saved to my memory stick as I use library PC not having the interent at home myself. MF I've put more effort into thsi post that any other which I've written for years, I'd greatly appreciate your comments and thoughs. Hey I may be wrong, I was wrong last month about my post on Malachi 3:6, which I've admitted and have now corrected. But if this post is wrong then Please do correct me, I'm open to correction from the Bible.

[Praxeas]

Originally Posted by Iron_Bladder

If they are the same one person as you claim, then how is the Son the way ‘TO’ the Father as John 14:6 states? Can a person be the mediator to himself and if so, which you obviously must be claiming, then how does the one person of God do this? In the very next verse; John 14:7 which you also omitted from your long passage, we discover the word also; ‘If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also.’ Here my question is, how does this verse fit into your claim that God is only one person? So how does this word ‘also’ at John 14:7 imply a uni-personal God who is also with himself or with another person? Then at John 14:9 you fail to explain the use of the word; ‘horao’ (seen). If Jesus were physical manifestation of the Father as you’ve claimed, then he would have used the word ‘blepo’ instead. Finally, at John 14:23 the Father and the Son are said to both indwell those who are saved (obviously together with the Holy Spirit), for in Trinitarian theology, perichoresis claims that where one person is the other two also are. Please explain the use of the first person plural verb here; WE WILL come to him and make OUR abode with him.’ So please tell me Praxeas, how does the plural verb fit into your one person deity claim, thank you.

wrong thread. Yes I do and have claimed they are the same person, always. Yet they are NOT the same mode or form OF that same person and because of the human nature the Son is psychologically someone other than the Father, not hypostatically

[mfblume]

Originally Posted by Iron_Bladder

MF Blume, I certainly agree with you that the mediator is not the Father, however, how can a mere force or power like say the Jehovah’s Witnesses concept of the Holy Spirit as some impersonal power like electricity be God or be the mediator?

There is no force or impersonal power who is mediator. The SON is mediator. The JW's are wrong.

I don’t know your opinion about this statement, so please do reply and let me know how you interpret it. As a Christian I don’t worship some impersonal force and neither do I have some power like the force of the Star Wars movies as my mediator. Now I’m not saying that your claiming this. But if the Son is not the Father as I think that you’ve clearly stated this in your post, and I’d certainly agree with you by the way, then you need to ask, does a personal being that is a ‘he’ mediate with another personal being ‘another he,’ or does an ‘it’ mediate with either another ‘it,’ or does a ‘he’ mediate with an ‘it,’ or does a 'he' act as both the mediator and the one to whom mediation is given?

Christ as mediator is a MAN -- human being. ANTHROPOS. There is one mediator between THEOS and ANTHROPOS, the ANTHROPOS Jesus Christ. The HUMAN BEING aspect of Christ's person is the mediator. That is far beyond a mere force or impersonal power.

I know trinitarians disagree with the thought of a force or power as mediator.

You need to understand that the Trinitarian term ‘three persons’ doesn’t mean that God is three separate people or three Gods or three spirits. It just means that the one God who is one Spirit exists as three ‘he’s’ and not as three impersonal ‘its.’

I know that. But it's just that you make the Son "HE" eternal, when that cannot be so since Sonship requires a mother.