As I said, you keep changing scripture instead of proving the response wrong. But let’s talk about this one.
“If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.
This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you.”
None of that says Jesus and God the Father are two completely separate individuals, of which Jesus is not God. Jesus Himself told us He is God, numerous times. The scripture just does not say what you want it to say.
I appreciate that you affirm something very important in what I wrote — that God Himself fulfilled His own justice in redeeming humanity. On that point we stand very close together. Scripture repeatedly testifies that salvation is something God accomplished Himself, not something delegated to another divine being.
But where we begin to part ways is in how that reality is explained.
You say, “God sent God to rescue us.” Yet Scripture consistently speaks in a slightly different way: God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself (2 Corinthians 5:19). The language is not two divine individuals cooperating in redemption, but the one God acting through the incarnation.
When John writes that “the Word was with God and the Word was God” (John 1:1), the passage does not necessarily introduce a second divine person alongside God. The term Word (logos) throughout Scripture frequently refers to God’s self-expression, His utterance, His revelation of Himself. In the Old Testament, the “word of the Lord” comes, creates, speaks, and accomplishes God’s will—but it is never treated as a second divine person alongside Him. It is God in action and expression.
So when John says “the Word became flesh” (John 1:14), the natural reading is that God’s own self-expression entered human existence. God revealed Himself in a human life. That is exactly how Paul later describes it: “God was manifest in the flesh” (1 Timothy 3:16).
Regarding Matthew 28:19, you are correct that “name” is singular, and that observation is significant. But rather than implying three divine centers of consciousness sharing one name, the singular “name” points to one divine identity being revealed in three ways: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Throughout the book of Acts, when the apostles obey this command, they consistently baptize in the name of Jesus Christ (Acts 2:38; Acts 8:16; Acts 10:48; Acts 19:5). They clearly understood that the one saving name revealed in the Father, Son, and Spirit is Jesus.
The mystery, then, is not necessarily a tri-personal divine structure. The mystery is the incarnation itself: how the infinite God revealed Himself fully within a genuine human life.
Scripture repeatedly brings us back to the same central declaration:
“Before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me.” (Isaiah 43:10)
“I, even I, am the LORD; and beside me there is no saviour.” (Isaiah 43:11)
“God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself.” (2 Corinthians 5:19)
Those statements seem to point in a very direct direction: the Savior revealed in Jesus Christ is the one God Himself manifest in flesh, not a separate divine person acting alongside Him.
So while we both rejoice in the wonder of redemption, the difference between our views ultimately comes down to this question:
Is the incarnation the story of one God revealing Himself in human life, or the story of multiple divine persons cooperating in redemption?
For me, the overwhelming testimony of Scripture points to the first. The glory of the gospel is not that God sent another divine person to save us — but that the one true God stepped into our world and bore our redemption Himself.
I agree, @The_Omega, that the incarnated Jesus is the perfect self-expression of the Father, because he is also God as the Second Person of God adding humanity to his divine nature. He himself claims to be fully God as the Son:
Exo 3:13 Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?”
Exo 3:14 God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”
Exo 3:15 God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.
Psa 23:1 A Psalm of David. The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
Joh 10:11 I AM the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
Jesus quotes from the Greek Old Testament with the phrase “I AM” (ego eimi) in Exodus 3:14, thus claiming to be the God of the burning bush AND David’s LORD (Jehovah) as his good Shepherd. He could have just said “eimi,” which is translated “I am” too, but he used the emphasized Greek phrase quoting exactly the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Either he was telling the truth in claiming to be God with the Father and the Spirit or he was mentally sick. I believe the former to be the case.
I understand what you’re saying about Jesus being the perfect self-expression of the Father. I actually agree with that part—but where I differ is how that’s explained.
When I read Isaiah 43:11, God says very plainly:
“I, even I, am the LORD; and beside me there is no saviour.”
That’s not vague language. That’s absolute. God doesn’t say “no other ultimate saviour” or “no independent saviour.” He says none beside Him.
Now when I come into the New Testament, I see that same title applied directly to Jesus:
Luke 2:11 — “For unto you is born… a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.”
Titus 2:13 — “our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ”
Titus 3:6 — “Jesus Christ our Saviour”
2 Peter 1:1 — “our God and Saviour Jesus Christ”
So here’s the question I have to ask:
If the Father is one divine person who is Savior, and Jesus is a separate divine person who is also Savior… then how does that not result in two saviours?
Because Isaiah didn’t leave room for that. He didn’t say “no other source.” He said no saviour beside me.
So from my perspective, the simplest and most consistent explanation is this:
Jesus is not another divine person acting alongside God as Savior.
Jesus is God Himself manifest in flesh, accomplishing salvation.
That’s why the New Testament can freely call Jesus “Saviour” without contradicting Isaiah—because it’s not introducing a second savior. It’s revealing who the one Savior is.
So when I hear “Jesus is the second person of God,” my question is:
If He is truly a distinct divine person from the Father, how do you avoid having more than one Savior when Scripture explicitly says there is only one?
For me, the answer is straightforward:
There aren’t two.
There is one God, and that one God has revealed Himself in Jesus Christ as our Savior.
Demolished in your dream, TheologyNerd. John 1:18, which is part of the context to John 1:1 says in plain language, as follows, and notice the words that I bolded:
English Revised Version – John 1:18
“No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.”
NeutralZone
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". . . be swift about hearing, slow about speaking, slow about wrath. . . . " (James 1:19-20)
Amen! This is the confusion, or the failure to accept. Yes, Jesus is a separate being; however, He is still God. This is what some cannot wrap their mind around.
Peter
No, sorry, that would be you. No matter who explains it, you ignore it and say it is wrong. "In the beginning was God, the Word, the Spirit. Scripture makes this clear. Nowhere does it say “in the beginning the Word was created. The word had a beginning. God created the Word, the Son, or Himself.” There are all eternal and all God.
The verse establishes a specific hierarchy of communication. This wasn’t just John’s dream; it’s presented as a formal transmission of divine information. The chain looks like this: God the Father to Jesus Christ to An Angel to John to the “Servants” (The Church).
The Meaning of “Revelation” The Greek word used is apokalypsis, which literally means “unveiling” or "uncovering."Implication: The book isn’t meant to be a collection of secrets to stay hidden; it is intended to reveal something that was previously obscured. It implies that through Jesus, the “curtain” between the heavenly realm and earthly history is being pulled back. Jesus Christ. The phrase “The revelation of Jesus Christ” is grammatically significant. It implies two things simultaneously: it is a revelation from Jesus and a revelation about Jesus.
The book is less about a “timeline of the end of the world” and more about the exaltation and victory of Christ.
Peter
@The_Omega, you are trying to reason out a mystery the details of which God has not revealed. The one God of the Old and New Testament is our Savior, but the New Testament further reveals him as three Persons, who harmoniously rescue us together as the one God apart from whom there is no other God.
In all of God’s works, he does them from the Father through Jesus by the Holy Spirit as the one true God. The famous verse, John 3:16, says it plainly about two of the Persons:
Joh 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
Here and throughout the Gospel of John, John and Jesus talk about Jesus in relation to his Father, and Jesus adds the Holy Spirit in chapters 14, 15, and 16. One Person of God distinguishes himself from the other one and talks about their unity at the same time.
Again, it’s a mystery how God can be one Savior and yet three Persons, but we aren’t God to be able to figure out everything about him. Rationalism tries to reason everything out; that’s where it gets into trouble with the Bible, because there are mysteries we cannot solve with our limited minds.
Your argument was that John 1:1 says “in the beginning was the Word” and on this basis, the Word cannot be Eternal.
In Greek this is Ἐν ἀρχῇ– “in the beginning”
Genesis 1:1 says “in the beginning” The LXX translates this Ἐν ἀρχῇ
The opening phrase of John 1:1 and Genesis 1:1 are identical.
John is intentionally drawing from Genesis 1:1 when speaking about the Logos. God was in the beginning. The Logos was in the beginning. God created the heavens and the earth. The Logos was with God and as God, and through Him all things were made. God made all things by His Word, “And God said…”
God and His Word are Ἐν ἀρχῇ, “in the beginning”.
There isn’t a time before God. God precedes all things.
There isn’t a time before the Word. The Word precedes all things.
The Word is with God.
The Word is God.
God and His Word are co-eternal.
God and His Word are uncreated.
The Word was not created. The Word is how everything came into existence; all created existence exists because of and through the Word.
That Word, without beginning–but was in the beginning with God and is God–is the reason all things exist; through the Word all things were made. Every created thing exists because of the Word.
The Word is not a creature, the Word was not created. The Word is un-created. Because the Word is, Himself, God. He is God with God. In the beginning.
And the Word became flesh. Jesus is the Word. Jesus is not a creature, He’s God. Jesus was with God in the beginning, and Jesus is, Himself, God.
No one has seen God, because “no man may see [God] and live” and because He “dwells in unapproachable light, which no one has seen or indeed can see”. But the Word, the only-begotten Son, who was in the beginning with God and is God, He makes God known. How? By becoming flesh.
Therefore whoever sees the Son sees the Father.
Whoever knows the Son knows the Father.
For the Son is in the Father; and the Father is in the Son.
It has always been this way. There was never a time when this isn’t the case.
God has always been Father, because He has always had His Son. Otherwise we could not call Him Father. Or we could never say that He is eternally Father, we would have to say that God became a father. But God never became a father. He is, ever and always, true Father of His true Son.
You don’t have a biblical argument on your side. You have propaganda which you have been spoon-fed.
This is the difference between a religion and a cult. A cult does not allow its members to think for themselves, to ask questions, and to seek answers; a cult demands blind obedience without criticism. A religion, on the other hand, invites people to seek and learn. A cult is fearful of questions. A religion thrives on questions.
Do you have a religion or a cult? Are you allowed to question your leaders? Are you allowed to learn about things outside of the tightly regulated material published by your organization?
My church doesn’t demand blind loyalty and obedience. My church invites me to “Come and see” and to discover, and to ask questions. And my pastor isn’t afraid to say when he doesn’t know something. And that it’s okay to not always have all the answers.
@NeutralZone, first, why do you go to a secular dictionary to define a word in God’s Book? The best way is to define biblical words the ways the Bible uses them.
Second, the KJV’s word “begotten” for Jesus as God the Father’s Son is mistranslated. The original Greek word is a participle that is very similar to the word translated “begotten” but different with the different meaning of “unique” or “one and only.” It’s one of the very few mistakes the KJV translators made.
Third, therefore, your dictionary meaning of “begotten” means nothing.
Fourth, the ESV and other more recent translations have corrected the KJV’s error:
Joh 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. (ESV)