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'CHRISTIANS' ARE NOT SAVED, ACCORDING TO JESUS.
Is Jesus God?
Is Jesus God? He didn’t think so. The Apostles didn't think so. Paul didn't think so. (I deal a lot more with this in my book Restoring Lost Truths.) But, that doesn't mean that Jesus wasn't given some divine attributes by Yahoveh God, and that could make him 'divine', a god, but by his own admission, he is not Almighty God, not Yahoveh God - according to Jesus, he said Yahoveh is the only true God (John 17:3). In John 5:26 Jesus said the Father (Yahoveh God) gave him eternal life. In Matthew 28:18 Jesus said Yahoveh God gave him all authority. If Jesus was the same God as the Father is, he wouldn't need the Father to give him anything.
The word 'god' or 'God' in the Bible literally means 'great one'. There are a number of instances in which powerful humans, spirits, angels and false deities are referred to as a 'god'. And there is several instants where the word 'god' is used as an adjective to describe something as great. In Genesis the Hebrew says Rachel was involved in a 'god battle', and it has been translated into the English as 'great battle'. In that respect Jesus is a god, but he is not 'the God Almighty', not 'the Creator God', Yahoveh, whom Jesus referred to as his Father and his God.
Did Jesus ever claim to be God? No, and he denied it many times in many different ways. But in spite of all those denials, the Christian Church insist on worshiping Jesus as God because of the false Pagan idea of a "Trinity", introduced by the Sun worshiping Constantine in 324 AD. Worshiping anyone other than Yahoveh violates God's first commandment, the Father's direct command and Jesus' words. (Explained below).
Here is an interesting quote from the book History of Christianity 1776 Edward Gibbon, "If Paganism was conquered by Christianity, it is equally true that Christianity was corrupted by Paganism. The pure Deism of the first Christians . . . was changed, by the Church of Rome, into the incomprehensible dogma of the trinity. Many of the pagan tenets, invented by the Egyptians and idealized by Plato, were retained as being worthy of belief."
Matthew 4:10, “Then Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship Yahoveh your God, and Him only you shall serve.’ In this verse Jesus is quoting from the Old Testament, and by this verse he distinguished himself from God, as he constantly does in all four Gospels. This is a denial of him being God.
Solid irrefutable evidence of the oneness of God is written in stone with the finger of God. The First of the Ten Commandments is found in Exodus 20:2-3, “I am Yahoveh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before Me.” In these verses, I restored the phrase ‘the LORD’ back to the original Hebrew word ‘YHVH’. Worshiping a Trinity violates the First Commandment, which says there is one God, and God is one, God is Yahoveh.
YHVH is generally pronounced Yahoveh, Jehoveh, or Yahweh, however it is pronounced, it is in 'masculine singular', and it is the name of our Father. Jesus (or Yashua) tells us in Matthew 4:10. to worship Yahoveh only, and Jesus told us, a number of times, to keep the Commandments of God, and the First Commandments tells us to worship ‘YHVH’ only, because there is no other god.
Notice also in Matthew 4:10 Jesus said that we are to worship and ‘serve’ only Yahoveh. The word ‘serve’ means service in worship. In other words we are to only pray, praise, sing, sacrifice, bow, light candles, and whatever else we do in the worship service to Yahoveh alone. If I quit here this should be enough to convince you that Yahoveh alone is God and alone is to be worshiped, but there is much more.
In John 4:22-23 Jesus said, “You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him.” Jesus, a Jew, by using the personal pronoun ‘we’, included himself with those who worships the Father in truth and spirit. Jesus worshiped Yahoveh as his God and his Father. Did Jesus have a God? Yes, he said he did, John 20:17, “Jesus said to her, “Do not cling to Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father; but go to My brethren and say to them, ‘I am ascending to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God. ” Jesus had the same God and Father that his disciples did. Does a God have a God? No, that makes no sense. But Jesus has a God and having a Father means that Jesus had a beginning. He was not without a beginning as the Father was.
In Mark 12:28-30, “Then one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, perceiving that He had answered them well, asked Him, “Which is the first (i.e, most important) commandment of all?”
Jesus answered him, “The first of all the commandments is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, Yahoveh is one. And you shall love Yahoveh your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment.” Jesus said this is the ‘first’ commandment, ‘first’ meaning ‘chief’, ‘head’ or ‘most important’. Why did Jesus say that knowing that Yahoveh alone is God, and that He is one, is the most important commandment? Because if you get God wrong, your whole system is wrong. You will worship wrong, you will obey wrong and you will be led astray from what Yahoveh wants of us. So Jesus again denied that he was God by his identifying Yahoveh as the only true God. We see the same in the Gospel of John, where we hear Jesus praying to his Father, Yahoveh. John 17:3, “And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” Jesus speaking to Yahoveh, the Father, identifies Him as the only true God and says that eternal life weights in the balance of knowing this. That's why he told the woman at the well, 'Salvation is of the Jews'. While there may be some issues with Judaism, at least they know who God is, and they worship the correct God.
In John 14:1 Jesus again denies that he is God by identifying God as someone other than himself, “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me.” Even a child could understand this verse and know that God and Jesus are two separate beings. But the church is more concerned with keeping true to their ancient creeds and doctrines than keeping Biblical truth.
We read in John 1:1, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” In the Greek this verse reads, “in the beginning was the word and the word was with the God and the word was a god.’” We have to understand that ‘a god’ in the Scriptures doesn’t just mean the ‘Supreme God Almighty’. The word ‘god’ literally means ‘great one’ or 'powerful one' and it is used in the New Testament and the Old Testament to identify people, spiritual beings, as well a false gods and it is even used as an adjective to describe something great. So a proper understanding of John 1:1 is not calling ‘the Word’ "the God", but "a god". Of course the translators of most Bible versions are Christians, and supported by Christian organizations, and they assume that there is a Trinity, and they then have no hesitation to slant the translations a way that supports the idea of a Trinity, and of course, no Christian religious organization complains.
To understand John 1:1 better we need to read Deuteronomy 18:18-19 where Yahoveh says He will send His prophet to speak His words with His authority. Jesus was the one who was anointed to do that according to the Book of Acts 3:22, and 7:37 That's how and why Jesus is that 'word' of God, 'God's word made flesh'. He is God's word that comes in human flesh.
Deuteronomy 18:18-19 are the verses that Jesus was referring to in John 5 when Jesus rebuked the Pharisees and told them, 'if they believe what Moses wrote about me, you would believe me'. The church today needs that same rebuke. While the Pharisees rejected Jesus and his message because they didn't believe that Deuteronomy 18 was speaking about Jhim, today's church exults Jesus to being God Almighty instead of being a prophet of Yahoveh, speaking with God's words and authority. And in doing that they violate God's word. If the church truly believed that Jesus spoke Yahoveh's words with Yahoveh's authority they wouldn't reject Jesus' messages to; keep the Old Testament 'law and prophets' (Matthew 5:17-20) and to worship Yahoveh alone instead of a Trinity (Matthew 4:10 and Mark 12:28-29).
And there are many more verses I could use, but I will stop here because these are so clear and unambiguous that we don’t need any more. See my book, 'Restoring Lost Truths' if you want more on this topic.
Jesus is not God, and he had a God, that’s why he refused to be worshiped. Revelation 22:8-9, “Now I, John, saw and heard these things. And when I heard and saw, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel (messenger) who showed me these things.
Then he said to me, “See that you do not do that. For I am your fellow servant, and of your brethren the prophets, and of those who keep the words of this book. Worship God.” 'Angel' in the Greek means 'messenger'. Revelation 1:1 identifies Jesus as the 'messenger' (Angel) to show all things to John. John was apparently overcome by Jesus’ glory and thought he was looking at God, so John began to worship Jesus, but Jesus immediately stopped him and told him to worship God instead.”
Was Jesus worshiped in the Scriptures?
Your Bible, specially the NIV, may say a few times that Jesus was worshiped. But we must remember that the word ‘worship’ in the Greek and Hebrew, is the same word as ‘bow’ or ‘prostrate’ as you would do before a very important person, chief rabbi, beloved teacher, prophet, king, etc. We read in the Old Testament that Jacob bowed before Pharaoh. The translators could have said that Jacob worshiped Pharaoh. But they chose the word ‘bow’ instead for a number of reasons. The same is true in the New Testament, they ‘’bowed’ before Jesus in reverence (as most translations say) of him as a great prophet who does miracles and speaks God's words, but they never worshiped Jesus as God.
When the Roman soldiers mocked Jesus, the NIV says they 'worshiped' him. They were bowing in a mocking fashion, that certainly is not true worship. Obviously, bowing is not necessarily worship. True worship is only to your God, or supreme authority. The Jews, including the Apostles, at Jesus' time never considered Jesus to be a God, but rather a great prophet. He was often referred to as a prophet, and he referred to himself as a prophet.
In Luke 7, even after Jesus raised the widow's son from the dead, they exclaim that God had sent them a 'great prophet' and then they glorified God. They didn't glorified or worshiped Jesus, they glorified God. They honored Jesus as a Messiah, and Prophet, as we should. The greatest honor we can give him is to obey him. And he told us to keep the Commandments of God, the Old Testament 'Law and Prophets' and to worship God alone. To disobey Jesus is to disobey God because he spoke God's words.
It should be noted that there is one instant where Jesus was referred to as 'god' in the New Testament, John 20:26, by Thomas. Thomas saw the risen Jesus and said 'my lord and my God' or 'my lord and my god'. Did Thomas believe Jesus to be God Almighty? Hardly, we have no indication that Thomas responded to Jesus by covering his eyes, falling down or worshiping him. It seems that Thomas was referring to Jesus as 'god', not 'God'. As mentioned earlier 'god' means 'great' and in the Scriptures is often used for great or powerful people who were godly, or of spiritual beings. John in an act of apparent confusion tried to worship Jesus in Revelation 22:8-9, but Jesus told him to not him, don't worship me, 'worship God'. So it's very doubtful that Thomas, who just spent three years walking around the country side with Jesus, though that Jesus was God Almighty.
The Atonement?
There are those who say Jesus has to be God, or he couldn’t atone for our sins. Really? Who said? Jesus was the Messiah, and anointed Prophet of God, the Son of God. If God could use the blood of sheep and goats in the Old Testament to atone for sins, I’m sure that the blood of the innocent ‘Son of God’ is worth infinitely more.
What is it to atone for sin? The wages of sin is death. And that's what atonement was all about. It was someone or something dying in the sinner’s place. In the Old Testament, it was sheep and goats. And we read in the OT that atonement was only made for repentant sinners or 'unintentional sinners'. There was no atonement made for 'intentional' sinners or presumptuous sinners. A presumptuous sinner is a 'lawless' one who knows God’s law(s), but doesn’t think he/she is under God’s law(s), so they rejects God’s law(s) and freely sin with no guilt or remorse. They don't consider the breaking of the rejected law(s) to be a sin, since they figure the law(s) isn’t for them, they never repent, and therefore no atonement is possible.
'Unintentional sinners' are those who know God's law and attempt to keep it but occasionally slip up due to moral weakness, or they are overcome by temptation. When they do sin, they feel guilt and with remorse they repent. Because of that repentance they are made white as snow, forgiven, justified, pardoned and their sins are blotted out. For them atonement can be made.
Was Jesus’ an atoning sacrifice? Yes, but only for repentant sinners, or unintentional sinners. Jesus told us to keep the law of God, to keep God’s commandments, the Old Testament 'law and the prophets'. Those who believe Jesus, obey Jesus, and attempt to abide by God’s Commandments. They will repent when they occasionally fail, and Jesus’ atonement covers them. But for those who have rejected Jesus’ instruction and set aside God’s commandments and therefore don’t keep God's law(s) will have no atonement made for them and must die for their own sins.
The Churches are full of unrepentant sinners, who will receive no atonement. They are unrepentant because the church told them that they didn’t have to keep God’s law, making them presumptuous sinners, or the intentional sinners. And since they don't even realize that they are sinning, they will never repent and therefore receive no atonement, regardless of how much they claim to 'love Jesus', 'believe in Jesus', or go to church, and receive sacraments, for they are 'lawless'. Matthew 7:21-23, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’"
Who is the Anti-Christ?
1 John 2:22, “Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist who denies the Father and the Son.” John defines the philosophy of the ‘antichrist’ here. ‘Anti’ can mean ‘against’ or 'another', but here it probably means ‘another’. Anti-Christ is 'another Christ' - other than the true one. The anti-Christ is not the Christ of the Bible, but rather another Christ that the Church invented. They made Jesus into God, along with the Holy Spirit, both equal to the Father so he could be made part of a Trinity. They made Jesus into a god that saves people 'in their sins', instead of saving people 'from their sins' by calling them to repent of their sins so they may be saved - Jesus main message was one of repentance. That Biblical Jesus, calling on sinners to repentance, is nowhere to be seen in today's Christian church. The Jesus of today's Christian Church is not the same Jesus of the Bible, that is 'another-christ'.
The Trinity denies the literal ‘Father and the Son’. The doctrine of the Trinity states that the ‘Father, Son and Holy Spirit’ are co-equal and co-eternal. If they are co-eternal then God the Father could not be the literal father of the Son. The Father/Son relationship doesn’t exist in the Trinity. That is denying the ‘Father and the Son’. The 'Trinity' is then a 'anti-christ' or 'another-christ' doctrine. As Jesus said, Yahoveh alone is God, worship and serve Him alone.
GOD IS ONE, NOT THREE
Yahshua (Jesus) himself quoted the ‘shama’ and said it was the most important commandment (Mark 12:28-30) “Then one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, perceiving that He had answered them well, asked Him, “Which is the most important commandment of all?”
29 Yahshua answered him, “The first and most important of all the commandments is: ‘Hear, O Israel, YAHOVEH our God, YAHOVEH is one. 30 And you shall love YAHOVEH your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first and most important commandment.”
According to Jesus (Yahshua) God is one, not the three of the Trinity that Constantine forced on the church. Jesus said 'One' and to believe that is the most important commandment. Perhaps why it's the First of the Ten Commandment; Exodus 20:2-3, "I am Yahoveh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. 3 “You shall have no other gods before Me."
In Mark 12:29 Jesus referred to Yahoveh as, "our God". He could have said, "your God". But Jesus also has a God, and that agrees with John 20:17, Jesus has a God, and according to John 4:22-23, 9:31, he worships God.
In John 17:3 he also equated believing that God is one with having Eternal life. Reject the false Trinity.
Conclusion. Who was Jesus? To know we only have to listen to his words. He said that the was a 'prophet', 'son of man', 'son of God', and the messiah. Being a Prophet means the he was a messenger of God, speaking the Father's words which he said he did. Being the son of man, means that he was human which he was. Being 'the Son of God' means that he was at some point brought into existence by the Father - he said that he was 'begotten by the Father'. Being the Messiah means that he was anointed by God - which he claimed. Jesus worked miracles, but said it was the Father working through him. Jesus also distinguished himself from God. Jesus often spoke about God as being someone other than himself, and never included himself in the title 'God'. He never called himself God, and he is never called 'God' (accept once by Thomas, who was shocked and confused after seeing the risen Christ, as John was when he tried to worship Jesus). Jesus prayed to Yahoveh the Father and worshiped Yahoveh the Father.
These are things that we can gleam from the Scriptures, but beyond that we can only speculate. Perhaps Jesus was much more than what I just mentioned, but we don't know, for scripture is silent on anything else about him. That's why there is disagreement and confusion about the nature of Jesus. Seemingly it wasn't important for us to know any more than what is revealed. Jesus didn't want us to focus on him, that wasn't important to him, he always pointed us toward the Father and told us to worship Him as the one true God. What is important is that we listen to Jesus and obey him.
We know that Moses died and was buried in, on or near Mt. Nebo. But we don't know the exact place location or the grave site. God intentional didn't let us know because God was concerned that the Israeli people and others may make a shrine and worship him there. So God hid the site from the people of Israel. In the same manner and for the same purpose God may have not revealed much about Jesus. Jesus never wanted us to worship him, but he kept pointing us to the Father and said, 'worship Him'. In eternity we will learn the whole story, but for now obey Jesus and worship Yahoveh.
YAHOVEH ALONE IS OUR GOD
In the first part of Zechariah chapter 13, we read about God’s disgust with idolatry, unclean spirits and false prophets. Then in the second part of that chapter we read about God’s end time judgment for idolatry, we read…
Zechariah 13:8-9, “And it shall come to pass in all the land,” Says Yahoveh,
“That two-thirds in it shall be cut off and die, But one-third shall be left in it:
9 I will bring the one-third through the fire, Will refine them as silver is refined,
And test them as gold is tested. They will call on My name, And I will answer them.
I will say, ‘This is My people’; And each one will say, ‘Yahoveh is my God.’ ”
At the time this occurs, according to verse 8, two-thirds of the people on earth are already dead, due to the plagues, bowls and judgments that we read about in the Book of the Revelation. Then God will test the remaining one-third to see which ones are His. They will be tested and refined as is done with gold and silver, with fire. That seems to be referring to the heat of pain caused by tribulation and persecution. In the midst of their pain, the people on earth, seeking relief from all they are going through will call on their god to deliver them from it all. When they do that, Yahoveh will know who are His, because His people will call on Him by name, “Yahoveh”. And God will hear them and say, ‘those are my people’. And each one will say ‘Yahoveh is my God’.
Those who are saved, or redeemed, when calling on their God will be calling out to ‘Yahoveh’ to save them, and He will. Those who cried out to Jesus, the holy spirit, the trinity, or any other god were not saved, but were lost.
I know most, if not all, Christians in a time of tribulation, persecution and pain will cry out to Jesus for deliverance but there will be none, for they will be lost – for they are worshiping the wrong god – any God other than Yahoveh is the wrong god. Yahoveh is our only God, we see that clearly in the First of the Ten Commandments, Exodus 20:2-3, “I am Yahoveh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. 3 “You shall have no other gods before Me.” Jesus agreed with that, Matthew 4:10, “Then Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship Yahoveh your God, and Him only you shall serve.’” Jesus said we are to worship Yahoveh only and serve Yahoveh only. ‘Serve’ in this verse is a Greek word which means what we do in a worship service; sing, dance, praise, pray, chant, light candles, or offer a sacrifice. According to Jesus all of that is to all be done to, and for, Yahoveh God only, not Jesus. With all of that Scriptural evidence there is, it is ignored and the Christian church still worships Jesus, or a Trinity, and will not call on God ‘Yahoveh’ by name.
Christians who worship Jesus or the Trinity, are breaking the First Commandment, and many other commands and instructions given by God and Jesus. Yahoveh will also know who aren’t His people because they don’t keep His commandments. They ignore Jesus (Matthew 5:17-20) when he said to keep the ‘law and the prophets’, every jot and tittle, even the least commandment, until heaven and earth pass away. God say don’t eat pork, keep God’s Sabbath, and His holidays. Yet the Christian churches, in their effort to worship Jesus ignore God’s Passover and His Sabbath and instead they celebrate Easter Sunday instead. The Churches serve their people Easter Sunday Ham Dinners. Which I know Jesus finds as an abomination. And the churches don’t keep any of God’s Old Testament ‘Law and the Prophets’ which Jesus commanded.
SHORT STUDY ON GOD – IS GOD ONE OR A TRINITY?
A. Jesus will give us our answer, but first, who is Jesus and why should we listen to him?
Deuteronomy 18:17-18, “And YAHOVEH said to me: ‘What they have spoken is good. 18 I will raise up for them a Prophet like you from among their brethren, and will put My words in His mouth, and He shall speak to them all that I command Him. 19 And it shall be that whoever will not hear My words, which He speaks in My name, I will require it of him.”
Acts 3:22, “For Moses truly said to the fathers, ‘YAHOVEH your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your brethren. Him you shall hear in all things, whatever He says to you.” (Peter says Deuteronomy 18 is speaking about Jesus).
Acts 7:37, “This is that Moses who said to the children of Israel, ‘YAHOVEH your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your brethren. Him you shall hear.’” (Stephen says Deuteronomy 18 is speaking about Jesus)
John 14:10, “Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works.” (Jesus says Deuteronomy 18 is speaking about him)
John 5:46-47, "Do not think that I shall accuse you to the Father; there is one who accuses you—Moses, in whom you trust. 46 For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote about Me. 47 But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?” (Jesus said, I'm the one Moses wrote about in Deuteronomy 18)
Matthew 13:57, “So they were offended at Him. But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own country and in his own house.” (Jesus said he is God's prophet).
Answer – The Scriptures tell us that Jesus is Yahoveh’s anointed Prophet (Messiah) mentioned by Moses in Deuteronomy 18. Jesus speaks Yahoveh’s words with Yahoveh’s authority, we better listen to him or we will be held accountable.
B. Let's start with Yahoveh God, what does He write about Himself? Written on stone…
Exodus 20:2-3, “I am YAHOVEH your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. “You shall have no other gods before Me.”
Answer - The first of the Ten Commandments tells us that Yahoveh is God and we are to worship Him alone.
C. Who does Jesus tell us to worship and serve?
Matthew 4:10, “Then Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship YAHOVEH your God, and Him only you shall serve.’ ”
Luke 4:8, “And Jesus answered and said to him, “Get behind Me, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship YAHOVEH your God, and Him only you shall serve.’ ”
Answer - Jesus tells us to worship and serve Yahoveh alone. Him only. To ‘serve’ is what we do in worship; sing, dance, light candles, praise, etc.
D. Jesus was asked a key question, which will help our understanding. He was asked about the ‘first’ (first in importance) or ‘greatest’ commandment. What was it?
Mark 12:28-29, “Then one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, perceiving that He had answered them well, asked Him, “Which is the first commandment of all?”
29 Jesus answered him, “The first of all the commandments is: ‘Hear, O Israel, YAHOVEH our God, YAHOVEH is one.”
Answer – Jesus quotes from the Old Testament and tells us that first and foremost commandment is; Yahoveh is God and Yahoveh is One. God is not three or a trinity.
E. Jesus said Yahoveh is God and God is one, not three. Now, does Jesus worship someone? Who does Jesus worship?
John 4:22-23, “You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him.”
Answer – In saying the ‘we worship’ he was including himself as one of those who worships Yahoveh, Our Father. That's who Jesus told us to pray to 'Our Father', Matthews 6, and Jesus also prayed to Him.
F. Did Jesus ever refer to himself as God?
John 14:1, “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me.”
Answer – No, Jesus did not include himself in the title God, but always distinguished God as a separate being. (This is a clear denial of being God)
G. Here in John 17, Jesus is praying to the Father (Yahoveh), what does he say about the nature of God?
John 17:3, ”And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”
Answer – Jesus tells us that God is one, and that he himself is the sent Messiah. Jesus also says ‘eternal life’ is based on knowing that.
H. If Jesus is God, why does he have a God? And Father, i.e., creator?
John 20:17, “Jesus said to her, “Do not cling to Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father; but go to My brethren and say to them, ‘I am ascending to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God.’ ”
Answer - Jesus himself has a God and Father. He is Jesus’ ‘Father’ because he brought Jesus into existence.
I. The ‘redeemed of the earth’ have the Father’s name written in their ‘foreheads’. Why?
Revelation 14:1, “Then I looked, and behold, a Lamb standing on Mount Zion, and with Him one hundred and forty-four thousand, having His Father’s name written in their foreheads.”
Answer - That is a symbolic way to say that the redeemed submitted to Yahoveh’s authority, and thus their behavior, beliefs, and worship were in compliance with Yahoveh’s will. The redeemed worshiped Yahoveh and did His will. (In Revelation 22:14 we read those who do the commandments of God (Yahoveh's will) are the redeemed who enter the New Jerusalem and eat from the tree of life.)
J. Here we see the confused John bowing to worship Jesus. What happened?
Revelation 22:8-9, “Now I, John, saw and heard these things. And when I heard and saw, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel who showed me these things.
9 Then he said to me, “See that you do not do that. For I am your fellow servant, and of your brethren the prophets, and of those who keep the words of this book. Worship God.”
Answer - Jesus said, ‘don’t worship me, worship God’. Another denial that Jesus is God, and thus he should not be the object of our worship, i.e., Matthew 4:10, Luke 4:8 and john 17:3. ("I am your fellow servant, and of your brethren the prophets and of those who keep the words of this book" is a reference to Deuteronomy 18)
K. When the plagues of Revelation start falling, and 2/3 of the people are killed, then we come to this verse. What do we learn about those who redeemed?
Zechariah 13:8-9, “And it shall come to pass in all the land,” Says YAHOVEH, “That two-thirds in it shall be cut off and die, But one-third shall be left in it:
9 I will bring the one-third through the fire, Will refine them as silver is refined, And test them as gold is tested.
They will call on My name (Yahoveh), And I will answer them. I will say, ‘This is My people’; And each one will say, ‘YAHOVEH is my God.’
Answer- These are the redeemed people of Revelation 14:1, who knew that Yahoveh was the one true God (John 17:3). “YAHOVEH” was written on, or in, their foreheads because they worshiped Yahoveh alone (Matthew 4:10, Luke 4:8). They didn’t have ‘JESUS’ or ‘Trinity’ written on their foreheads, because they knew that Yahoveh alone is God and He is one (Mark 12:8-9), not three.
There are no references to the Trinity in the Scriptures. The word Trinity or the concept of it, is not used in the Old or New Testaments. There are many more verses which speak of the oneness of God and denials by Jesus about being God, but I will stop here, because if these powerful, clear and straight forward verses don't convince you that Yahoveh alone is God, you will not be convinced.
History of Christianity 1776 Edward Gibbon, "If Paganism was conquered by Christianity, it is equally true that Christianity was corrupted by Paganism. The pure Deism of the first Christians . . . was changed, by the Church of Rome, into the incomprehensible dogma of the trinity. Many of the pagan tenets, invented by the Egyptians and idealized by Plato, were retained as being worthy of belief."
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