| Author |
Message |
Patriar
Registered user
Username: Patriar
Post Number: 314
Registered: 3-2005
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 22, 2007 - 1:20 pm: |     |
Larry:
The NASB renders the word for "made" as "referred". I think that makes the passage a little clearer.
"19What, then, was the purpose of the law? It was added because of transgressions until the Seed to whom the promise referred had come. The law was put into effect through angels by a mediator."
In other words, God CAN'T have a covenant with one. It takes two parties and God and the Son are one.
Patria |
Patriar
Registered user
Username: Patriar
Post Number: 315
Registered: 3-2005
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 22, 2007 - 1:30 pm: | |
I apologize, that should have been the NIV, not the NASB.
Patria |
Larry
Registered user
Username: Larry
Post Number: 108
Registered: 5-2007
| | Posted on Thursday, August 23, 2007 - 7:53 am: | |
Patria,
I have thought your comments thru in multiple ways, but it still seems to me that God and His Son could have had an agreement or covenant.
MADE and REFERRED are quite different words. Anybody with greek knowledge able to clear this one up?
Are you telling me God the Father and God the Son are exactly the same? Who was Jesus praying to while here on earth?
How about the "let us make man in our own image" idea? |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 6632
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 23, 2007 - 9:00 am: | |
I think Patria's point is that God, the One Being who is perfect and complete in Himself, does not need a covenant "among" Himself in order to guarantee loyalty and unity. All loyalty and faithfulness derives from Him. God makes covenant with humanity because we are "other", not the same substance or essence.
He gives us Himself, and we then have His unity and faithfulness—but it is never our own unity. God does not make it possible for us to have our own internal goodness and completion. We are only complete and perfect when He, the Perfect One, is indwelling us. We then have HIS perfection and power.
God does not need to covenant with Himself--a covenant is a guarantee between two otherwise separate or opposing parties. God Is One--in three person. A mystery, to be sure--and it's a mystery God partially reveals to us by making us one with Him. His unilateral covenant with us is His guarantee!
Colleen |
Patriar
Registered user
Username: Patriar
Post Number: 321
Registered: 3-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, August 23, 2007 - 9:29 am: | |
Larry:
I did a little more research and found that every other translation uses the word "made". So I would GUESS that it's a better translation, though that's not always the case. Sometimes one translation does seem to grasp the clear message better than the others. The NIV has done that in a few spots, this may be one of them. I don't know. But I've been thinking about it, too. I think I understand your confusion. It confuses me too unless I back up to the big picture.
So in my way of thinking, we know that God the Father is God, that Jesus Christ is God and that the Holy Spirit is God. And yet the Bible tells us that God is one. To me, that is the big picture in this verse. So if they are one, they cannot have an agreement since an agreement requires more than one party.
I've been wrestling with the same thoughts you have about the fact that Jesus prayed to God. He also said that He was here to do His Father's bidding. In John 8, Jesus uses Himself and the Father as two witnesses. But I think where I get off track, and I believe firmly that it's because I'll be forever trying to get rid of the 'filters' through which I learned to interpret the Bible- I forget that Jesus had two natures. Two distinct and different natures. 100% humanity, 100% divinity. We cannot completely grasp the meaning of that, only that it is truth from the Word. I have remembered that Jesus did not take on His human nature until His incarnation. Taking on a human nature was of course one of the most beautiful things of His divine sacrifice.
So with that in mind, I don't think it's contradictory to say that Jesus is unilateral with God because that's a reference to His divine nature. Then the references to His relationship under God would be a reference to His human nature.
As always I am subject to correction and thoughts!
Patria |
Patriar
Registered user
Username: Patriar
Post Number: 322
Registered: 3-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, August 23, 2007 - 9:30 am: | |
Larry:
I'm sorry...you may not feel confused at all. I do! And I just realized I attributed that feeling to you. I'm sorry if it sounds patronizing. I didn't mean it that way at all.
Also, I should have said "so if He is one, then He..." I used the word "they". See, my filters are still there!
Patria
(Message edited by patriar on August 23, 2007) |
Larry
Registered user
Username: Larry
Post Number: 118
Registered: 5-2007
| | Posted on Thursday, August 23, 2007 - 9:51 am: | |
Gal 3:19 ...until the Seed would come to whom the promise had been made.
To me, it still says that a promise had been made to the Seed.
Just like we do not know every detail and dimension of God and the Trinity, we also should not say that it is impossible for the Father and Son to have some holy agreement. If this, then that, or whatever.
I was just thinking that this Gal 3:19 might have provided some insight into some sort of agreement between two Divines. I am no theologan! |
Susans
Registered user
Username: Susans
Post Number: 437
Registered: 8-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, August 23, 2007 - 10:17 am: | |
Larry,
Look at the preceeding verses in Galatians. Verse 16 talks about the promise being made to Abraham and to his offspring. Paul then specifically says that the offspring that God referred to is Jesus.
So (in my understanding) the seed of Abraham who was Jesus was the seed who would put an end to the old Covenant.
Look at the verses after the one you referenced: 29 And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise.
So the offspring can be singular or plural. The offspring (singular) of Abraham is Jesus. The offspring (plural) is all who are in Christ Jesus by faith, or by the same faith that Abraham had in God when he believed.
This may be muddled. I'm trying to unpack more things today and am rushed. I hope I conveyed what I understand to be about the promise being made a little clearly. If it hasn't please accept my apology.
Susan |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 6634
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 23, 2007 - 12:02 pm: | |
I'm going to copy below an editor's comment from the "Letters" section of the current Proclamation about the subject of the Trinity. It includes a quote from Wayne Grudem that I thought was especially helpful:
To be sure, the reality of the Trinity is partially hidden in mystery. It is impossible for us three-dimensional, time-bound creations to comprehend the reality of God who is outside of creation and not contained by however many dimensions there are in the universe.
We turn to the Bible for what we can know about the identity of the Trinity, and we can summarize the Bible’s teachings in three statements: God is three persons; each person is fully God, and there is one God.
God the Father is clearly God. From the first verse in Genesis throughout the Bible He is identified as God, sovereign over all. As you mention, Jesus also prayed to Him while He was on earth.
Second, Jesus is fully God. Texts such as John 1:1-4, John 20:28, Colossians 2:9, and Hebrews 1:10 quoting Psalm 102:25 verify His complete deity.
Third, the Holy Spirit is also fully God. Passages such as Acts 5:3-4, Psalm 139:7-8, 1 Corinthians 2:10-11; John 3:5-9, and Matthew 28:19 identify the Holy Spirit as fully God.
These three persons are one not only in purpose but also in essence and essential nature. Deuteronomy 6:4-5 identifies God as only one Being: “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your god with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” Texts such as Isaiah 45:5-6, 1 Timothy 2:5, Romans 3:30, and James 2:19 confirm that God is one.
Many of us learned that Jesus, the Father, and the Holy Spirit are all fully God, but we understood them to be fully God as a piece of apple pie is fully pie. What many of us did not learn is that when speaking of the Trinity, to identify Jesus, the Father, and the Holy Spirit as “fully God” is to say that each one comprises the fullness of God. To return to the pie metaphor, the piece of pie is not a slice separate from the rest of the pie, but each piece is comprised of the entire pie.
I will quote from Wayne Grudem’s Bible Doctrine to help explain what the Trinity is and isn’t. “God’s being is not divided into three equal parts belonging to the three members of the Trinity. Rather, we must say that the person of the Father possesses the whole being of God in himself. Similarly, the Sopn possess the whole being of God in himself. When we speak of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit together, we are not speaking of any greater being than when we speak of the Father alone, or the Son alone, or the Holy Spirit alone.”
Further, “The personal distinctions in the Trinity are not something added onto God’s real being. Rather, each person of the Trinity has all of the attributes of God, and no one person has any attributes that are not possessed by the others.”
Moreover, “The persons of the Trinity are not just three different ways of looking at the one being of God. Rather, we need to think of the Trinity in such a way that the reality of the three persons is maintained, and each person is seen as relating to the others as an “I” (a first person) and a “you” (a second person) and a “he” (a third person).
Finally, “There are three distinct persons, and the being of each person is equal to the whole being of God.…It is clear that this tri-personal form of being is far beyond our ability to comprehend. It is a kind of existence far different from anything we have experienced and far different from anything else in the universe.”*
We are not able to understand exactly what each “person” of the Trinity really means. We refer to them as “persons” to denote their relationship among themselves, but we must also understand that they are not a “group god” or a “god family”. God is one, and each person within the Trinity is all of God while also being in relationship with each other.
This understanding is important in order for us to understand that Jesus is not a “lesser rank” than the Father or somehow only part of God. When Jesus came as our Redeemer, God came as a man, died, and defeated death.
• Taken from Bible Doctrine by Wayne Grudem, edited by Jeff Purswell Copyright © 1999 by Wayne Grudem. Used by permission of Zondervan. |
Jeremy
Registered user
Username: Jeremy
Post Number: 2060
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, August 23, 2007 - 12:10 pm: | |
Larry,
Take a look at Galatians 3:20: "Now a mediator is not for one party only; whereas God is only one."
You wrote:
"I was just thinking that this Gal 3:19 might have provided some insight into some sort of agreement between two Divines. I am no theologan!"
The problem with that is that there are not two Divines--there is only one God, as the text above says. In Adventism, we were taught that there are three Divine Beings who are "one" only in purpose and character. But the Biblical, orthodox doctrine of the Trinity is that God is one Being who exists as three distinct, but not separate, persons (and these three persons are each fully/all of, not part of, the one God--the one Divine Being). Or as the Wikipedia definition puts it:
quote:In Christianity, the doctrine of the Trinity states that God is one being who exists, simultaneously and eternally, as a mutual indwelling of three persons: the Father, the Son (incarnate as Jesus of Nazareth), and the Holy Spirit. Since the 4th century, in both Eastern and Western Christianity, this doctrine has been stated as "three persons in one God," all three of whom, as distinct and co-eternal persons, are of one indivisible Divine essence, a simple being.
--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity
Here are a couple of links that might be helpful on this topic:
http://lifeassuranceministries.org/Proclamation2007_MayJun.pdf (see the article "Discovering the Adventist Jesus," starting on page 10)
And here is a link to a previous thread on here, where we discussed some of these issues: http://64.226.233.122/discus/messages/11/5533.html?1181957443 (starting on the first archived page)
And I was going to also link to the Editor's Note in the current Proclamation!, but I see Colleen has posted it! 
Jeremy |
Larry
Registered user
Username: Larry
Post Number: 120
Registered: 5-2007
| | Posted on Thursday, August 23, 2007 - 1:02 pm: | |
Thank you Colleen, Jeremy, Patria and Susan. I have some reading to do, it appears. |
Pnoga
Registered user
Username: Pnoga
Post Number: 16
Registered: 1-2007
| | Posted on Thursday, August 23, 2007 - 1:04 pm: | |
Well the Covenant of the Promise must have been between the Father and the Son. Look at these verses...
Gen 15:17 And it came to pass, that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces.
Gen 15:18 In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates:
God had told Abraham to lay out the animals opposite of each other. After he finished the vultures came and tried to eat, so Abraham tried to fight them off (Work). Than a deep sleep fell upon Abraham, and darkness and terror. But than a smoking furnace (smoke represents God on Mount Sinai)
Exo 19:18 And mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the LORD descended upon it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly.
And the Lamp which we all know who the Lamp represents...
in the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abraham, He is giving the land to his seed. Not seeds as in many but seed as in one Jesus Christ. So Abraham is part of the covenant based on Faith but it's is Jesus' Works that complete it. We becomes heirs by Faith just as Abraham. Isn't that the most wonderful Good News anyone could possibly hear?
Amen! |
Jeremy
Registered user
Username: Jeremy
Post Number: 2061
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, August 23, 2007 - 1:25 pm: | |
Here is a link to a previous thread where we discussed the Abrahamic covenant, and Genesis 15:17: http://64.226.233.122/discus/messages/11/5208.html
And again, Genesis 3:18-20 is clear that the Abrahamic covenant of promise was a unilateral promise, with only one party:
quote:"For if the inheritance is based on law, it is no longer based on a promise; but God has granted it to Abraham by means of a promise.
19Why the Law then? It was added because of transgressions, having been ordained through angels by the agency of a mediator, until the seed would come to whom the promise had been made.
20Now a mediator is not for one party only; whereas God is only one." (Galatians 3:18-20 NASB.)
Jeremy
(Message edited by Jeremy on August 23, 2007) |
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