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Goodbye Jesus

Did Jesus Call Himself God, Or Messiah Etc.


Guest Valk0010

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Guest Valk0010

I have been reading thishttp://www.amazon.com/Doubting-Jesus-Resurrection-Happened-Black/dp/0982552807, and it brings up something that stupidly I have never really thought of. Did Jesus really call himself the messiah, or god, or anything like that?

 

What are your thoughts on it, and i would like it, if I could be recommended some sources, to help me come to my own conclusion on it?

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I don't think it is possible to determine what jesus said or thought about himself as the gospels are not historically accurate documents - so anything that people say that he said is just hearsay.

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May as well ask what Harry Potter said. Just because it is in a book doesn't make Harry Potter real so what he did or didn't say doesn't really matter.

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In what I remember no, not directly. It was usually inferred or though double talk. He does say for the most part that he is the "Son of man", well kind of anyway. To me, the writers wanted to make Jesus out as the understated hero. I guess they did their jobs there. This statement only covers things written and not the historical Jesus, in which I agree we will never know.

 

Hmmmm, I need to read MMLJ again as it's been awhile. How I do hate reading John though.

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Well, there's "I and the Father are one" John 10:30. I think there are some other places in John where he says or implies that he is God.

 

I think in the other gospels he sticks mostly to "son of man", which could be interpreted that he is saying he is the one who will bring God's kingdom on earth, not necessarily that he is God. Occasionally, he implies he is the "Christ" and "son of God": others say it and he doesn't disagree. I can't find anywhere in the synoptic gospels where he clearly says he is God.

 

I think the fact that he says (somewhat) clearly that he is God in John, but not really in the synoptic gospels goes along with the idea that John was written later and is more "gnostic" or "spiritually" oriented.

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Guest barelohim

"If you've seen Me, you,ve seen the Father!" Since God is a Spirit, and the Spirit came on/in Jesus after His water baptisim by John at the river Jordan, the statement, "God was in Christ, reconciling the world back unto Himself, is realized! Jesus never did one miracle till after the Spirit of God came on/in Him.... Jesus didn't DO t he miracles, as He said, " It is the Father, in me, He doeth the works!"

 

Jesus was a demonstration to the believer being filled with the Spirit of God, same as He was.... Christians that have received the Spirit, Jesus said, " will do the same works you saw Me do, and even greater things shall you do!" Because it isn't the believer doing the works, but the very same Spirit that was in Christ..

 

The purpose of the Spirit being " in " the believer" isn't just so that miraculous works can take place, 1 Cor 12, but that the Spirit working in the believer, can transform, conform them, into images of Christ Jesus.

 

The Book of Acts demonstrates the coming of the Spirit unto those believers in Christ, and the changes that took place. Which is why Jesus said, " When the Spirit comes upon/in/ to abide, He will teach you all things. He will take of mine and show it unto you. He will reveal Me in a greater way than what you walked with, when He was in the flesh..

 

Even His disciples didn't fully understand what Jesus meant by what He said, it was only spiritually discerned, which happened after His ascension, and the sending of the promise of the Holy Spirit/ the Comforter/ to be not only with them, but IN THEM.... Same as Jesus when He walked as a man... He, is the believers example of the life a christian can lead, when filled and led by the very same Spirit..

 

"Greater is HE who is IN ME, than he that is in the world!"

 

Barelohim

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Absolutely. Jesus said "I am God"

 

So did Charles Manson

 

"Look down at me and you see a fool; look up at me and you see a god; look straight at me and you see yourself."

 

Sounds about as idiotically cryptic as, well, you figure it out.

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Guest Sunnigirl

I think the best place to see who Jesus thought he was, according to the Gospels is in John 20:28. According to John, the apsotle Thomas did not see Jesus when he first appeared to them as he was not there. When he does see the risen Jesus he worships Jesus by saying ' My Lord, and my God'. Now if Jesus knew he was not God, he would have probably said at this point, 'I am not God, please don't call me God', or words to that effect. What he actually says according to John (who was there at the time) is ' “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” '. Sounds more like 'Well done for realising it' to me.

 

Also, the reason the Jewish leaders at the time wanted him crucified was that he had blasphemed in their eyes by claiming to be the Son of God - I think at least 3 if not all 4 gospels talk about this when they describe the events leading up to his crucifixion. If you read them you will see the Jewish leaders angry statements that he is a blasphemer.

 

Also more than one of the gospels records what happens when Jesus asks who the disciples/ apostles think he is. Peter says ' you are the Christ (Messiah)'. Jesus praises him for this, rather than saying 'no I am not the Messiah'. He also tells the woman at the well in John 4 that he is the Messiah too.

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Guest barelohim

Absolutely. Jesus said "I am God"

 

Jesus said, God was IN HIM...... GOD is a Spirit. God could and does only inhabit/abide in sanctified/cleansed/non sin contaminated vessels of clay! Jesus was that vessel, conceived by God, in order to inhabit, to demonstrate, the workings of God through man... Jesus was the temple, in which God came to inhabit, to demonstrate and bring His will. Jesus was a demonstration of Gods righteousness through His offering of Jesus as the sentence of death upon the flesh, that is the problem with man and his fallen nature. God placed that fallen nature upon Christ, that when Christ suffered death, all that were placed in christ died with Him. All from the first adam, were placed in the last adam, were buried in the last adam, and were resurrected in the last Adam.... Jesus Christ.... Therefore being new creations, never were before... brand spankin new. Born of Him made as a new seed. This seed is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Why? Because this new seed has a destiny of becoming the images of Christ..... BUT, the seed must go in the ground and die! Dying to the ole self and its ways, habits, thoughts, ideas, and life, so that the new life can start to come forth.... That new seed needs to be watered with His word, receiving the light from above, and watch for dis-ease, in-sects, that it may reach its destiny.

 

This is the power of the seed, in every believer, receiving that Spirit of power to become what God has desired that seed to become, and the ability to become it. The only struggle is to keep the faith in His ability/Grace to bring that seed to its fulfillment.. He is well able, if we would only get out of the way through our trying to accomplish anything in this process.

 

Faith is the key, and it isn't from our ole self that it comes. It is given in measure by Him, to His.... We are told, and shown how to use it.... " For without faith In Him, no one can please Him...!

 

Barelohim

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Guest Sunnigirl

Mmm Barelohim, Even I struggle to understand your last post and I trained as a minister of Christian religion. Rather a lot of Jargon in there. I know I am guilty of using jargon sometimes but I try not to as it can be a barrier to people getting what we are trying to say, what ever we may be trying to say.

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Guest Valk0010

I mean is there is historical proof, not theological proof. What did he say in spite of what ultimately became the gospels, what happened under the embellishment. If that makes sense.

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I mean is there is historical proof, not theological proof. What did he say in spite of what ultimately became the gospels, what happened under the embellishment. If that makes sense.

I don't think there is historical proof outside of the New Testament (and maybe some earlier books of the apocrypha) that Jesus said anything. You can sort of take what the various books say, the historical evidence of the time frame and intent of the writing of each book, and then get a vague idea of what's embellishment and what could be true. I don't think there's any way to know for sure.

 

Saying "I am the son of God" is not the same as saying "I am God". Also, "son of man" is not the same as "son of God". Just because modern Christianity equates the terms in the light of tradition and other books of the NT doesn't mean that Jesus or the gospel writers meant them that way. Look into the meaning of "messiah" as the Jewish people would have used at that time. I remember reading that the messiah is not supposed to be God in Judaism. So, even Jesus coming right out and saying "I am the messiah" (which he doesn't), does not mean he's claiming to be God.

 

Disclaimer: I am just going off my own second-hand research from the internet. Not an expert. I really enjoyed this PBS special: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/watch/

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I think John reflects later and more developed myths about Jesus. His statements "I and my father are one" and "Before Abraham was I AM" certainly tell us that there was a developed theological tradition that taught the divinity of Jesus ( at least in a limited form).

 

Of course the synoptic gospels don't really lead one to this conclusion unless one assumes that M, M, L and J and the Pauline epistles are all meant to jive together in harmony. And THEN, you still have to pound, twist and beat with a big rubber mallet to force the interpretation of the texts into a cohesive unified whole.

 

All that being said, what words actually came out of the mouth of Jesus are a big fat unknowable. There is no independently verifiable body of texts to tell us what Jesus actually said. Remember, even the gospels themselves do not identify who wrote them.

 

We cannot know which guy named Yeshua (if there even was a "Yeshua(0)") the gospels base their stories on. Nor can we know what this guy said.

 

"Jesus" is lost in a fog of unknowability because no facts of historical value were left behind in his wake.

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I have been reading thishttp://www.amazon.com/Doubting-Jesus-Resurrection-Happened-Black/dp/0982552807, and it brings up something that stupidly I have never really thought of. Did Jesus really call himself the messiah, or god, or anything like that?

 

What are your thoughts on it, and i would like it, if I could be recommended some sources, to help me come to my own conclusion on it?

What would it matter?

 

Blasphemy, assuming that is what this is related to, would get a person stoned to death not nailed up on a cross.

 

Making claims to be a/the son of god was no problem and wasn't uncommon. And there was no injunction against claiming to be a/the messiah either. Claiming to be THE god might be problematic but let's take into account the whole story we have of Simon Magus and, if true, he claimed to be A god and he walked around doing magic tricks with his goddess wife without any problems during this same time period in these same areas that this same "jesus" supposedly did his little magic show but got offed for the same reason(s). How COULD this possibly be? I guess because he just got there first and they didn't want to repeat the same mistakes twice? Right?

 

mwc

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The passage where the Jewish leaders try to stone Jesus for saying he was I Am only appears in John's gospel, which is the latest and least historically accurate of the four canonical gospels. Nowhere in the Synoptic gospels does Jesus ever say he is I Am or that he is God in the flesh. Mark's gospel is the earliest of the canonical gospel accounts and Mark portrays Jesus as a human being who was adopted as the son of God at the point of his baptism. In Paul's letters, which are the earliest Christian writings we have, Jesus doesn't become the son of God until after his resurrection. In Judaism, the son of God doesn't mean that someone is biologically the son of God nor does it mean the person is the messiah but the son of God is just a title for a Jewish leader specifically chosen by God to lead the people. In the Hebrew scriptures, King Saul was also called the son of God but that doesn't mean he is the messiah nor does it mean he is God in the flesh.

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