1. The God of the Bible is No Delusion!

Comment #12071 by melanie on December 10, 2006 at 7:18 am

Hi Billy,

I am very aware of 1 John 5-7, but I believe it isn't in the original manuscript, as you said, and that it was put in by the translators. Verse 8 however I believe to mean a different thing. In the KJV, only Spirit has a capital letter – water and blood are both lower case. The hebrew word for Spirit in this verse is 'Ruach' which means 'wind' or 'breath'. If we insert the word breath into v8 it would read, 'the breath, the water and the blood and these three agre in one.' I believe this is talking about us, human beings. Breath, water and blood agree in our bodies as it is what keeps us alive. We are the witnesses in earth (Isaiah 43:10,12 'Ye are my witnesses saith the Lord, that I am God.').

The trinity was not believed in the Old and New Testament times. It was around 500 A.D, 400 years after Jesus' death, that a man called Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, wrote something known as the Athanasian Creed which defined the Godhead as:
"The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God. And yet they are not three Gods; but one God."
In the Bible the Holy Spirit is never referred to as the second person of a triune God, clearly showing that the trinity was not known of by the early believers. This is shown in Acts 19:2-3. The chapter tells us of the time Paul met some disciples at Ephesus. Paul asked them, "Have ye received the Holy Spirit since ye believed?". The disciples answered saying, "We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost (i.e Spirit).". Clearly, from all of their bible studies they had never heard of the doctrine of the trinity mentioned.

Yes, God made the angels immortal, but there was a reason for this. Jesus speaks of their immortality in Luke 20:35-36, "Neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection." Here Jesus is saying that in the same way as the angels live forever, so will those who will be called the 'sons' and 'daughters' (i.e children) of God when they are accepted at the Judgement seat when Jesus returns, and us as sons and daughters, like the angels, will work for God as Psalm 33:9 says, "For he spake and it was done; he commanded and it stood fast."

Satan cannot be immortal. 'satan' is the hebrew word for 'adversary' or 'enemy' and 'devil' is the greek word for 'satan'. I would first like to look at the hebrew. The word 'satan' means 'adversary' or 'enemy' – note here that satan is an ordinary word meaning adversary and not the name of a person. In Job 1:6 it says:

"Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them."

Some people here take the 'sons of God' to be the angels and say that Satan must be a supernatural being if he came with the angels. But we must remember to understand Bible terms in a Bible sense. In Job 38:7, the term 'sons of God' are indeed referred to as angels, but in the Bible as a whole, 'sons of God' is used to refer to the men and women who are baptised and worship God – they are human beings (1 John 3:2 'Beloved, now are we the sons of God' , Isaiah 43:6 'bring my sons from afar, and my daughters').
In the New Testament it is said that Mary, the mother of Jesus, shortly after the birth came to the temple in Jerusalem 'to present him to the Lord' (Luke 2:22). The 'sons of God' in Job, then, who came to 'present themselves before the Lord', had come to worship God in the appointed place, and, of course, in the prescence of the appointed priest at the time. So here, it is a scene of worship on earth, not in heaven.
But what about 'Satan' who came among them? Well, the English translators have put in the capital S themselves as their own invention because in the hebrew language there is no distinction between capital and lower case letters.
So who could this adversary be? The sons of God is plural so this shows there was a group of men who came together to worship. The adversary would have been one of the group of worshippers, in other words he was a man, an enemy to Job because he was jealous and wished to do him harm.
No man is immortal apart from the Lord Jesus Christ so if the satan was a man, he cannot be immortal.

I would just quickly like to look at the greek, the 'devil'. The 'devil' can be translated as 'sin'. Jesus destroyed the devil, or sin, by his death (Hebrews 2:14 'that through death he might destroy him that had power over death, that is, the devil.' , Hebrews 9:26 'hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself'). Immortals can't die but the 'devil' was through the actions of Jesus, therefore the 'devil' or 'satan' cannot be immortal.

God cannot be tempted. In Deuteronomy 6:16 the word 'tempt' and 'tempted' mean to 'not be tempted' or 'to try to tempt'. The Israelites tried to tempt God but failed because God cannot be tempted.

Judas Iscariot was the one who said to sell the perfume to the poor but he didn't want to help the poor (John 12:6 ''This he said not that he cared for the poor''). In the New Testament times, it was traditional for women to anoint the dead with precious ointments and perfumes. Jesus knew he was to die soon (John 12:8 ''For the poor always ye have with you; but me ye have not always.'') and he knew that within 3 days of his death he would rise up from the dead, so he felt that tradition should carry on as normal and let the woman anoint him.

Moses did not see God. An angel was sent by God who bore his name (Exodus 23:20 ''Behold, I send and Angel before thee to keep thee in the way and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared.''). Here, Angel has a capital A because the angel has taken God's name. Numbers 12:8 says, "With him will I speak mouth to mouth". Look at Exodus 33:11. Here, it is an angel speaking to Moses as in v20 it says "there shall no man see my face and live.". Acts 7:30,31,35,38 and 53 all clearly talk about Moses. They state that it was an angel in the fiery bush whom God spoke to Moses through, and verse 38 says, "This is he that was in the church (can be translated as people) in the wilderness with the angel which spake to him in the mount Sinai… who received the lively oracles (the 10 commandments) to give unto us.". God himself doesn't speak to Moses, it is an angel who bears His name.

I would take up your recommendation and read the book but I hardly have spare time now with the large amount of GCSE work and homeworks and coursework that I am receiving in school at the moment.

Melanie.

2. The God of the Bible is No Delusion!

Comment #12049 by melanie on December 9, 2006 at 4:12 pm

306. Comment #12016 by BillySands on December 9, 2006 at 9:32 am
Mark,
Perhaps you would care to share the verses newton used with us and we can look at the context of them. Context is also the killer of may messianic prophecies too eg micah 5:2 and isaiah 7:14 to name a few. The bible clearly promotes the trinity, so you must be saying the bible is wrong - well that's something we agree on.

Hi there. I would just like to comment on what Billy said earlier about the trinity. If you believe in the trinity you believe that God is God, Jesus is God and the Holy Spirit is God. I have been brought up as a Christadelphian all of my life and have been brought up to read the Bible and a few months ago, my mum and I did a study on the trinity and I would like to put across a few points on how the Bible does not promote it.

1. Where in the Bible does the word Trinity appear? It doesn't.

2. God cannot die. God is described as the only immortal being in 1 Timothy 6v16 ('Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting.) This means that God cannot die. How can Jesus be God when he died on the cross? Simple answer – he can't.

3. God cannot be tempted. In James 1v13 it says, 'for God cannot be tempted with evil'. We know it is impossible to tempt God to sin. The Bible however clearly states that Jesus suffered temptation. The temptations of Jesus in the wilderness are well known and there are clear statements in the Bible that prove this (Hebrews 2v18 'For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted', Hebrews 4v15 '…but was in all points tempted like as we are…', Luke 4:2 'Being forty days tempted of the devil.' How can Jesus be God if he was tempted? Simple answer – he can't.

4. 1 Timothy 6v16 says, 'Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting.' Exodus 33v20 says, 'For there shall no man see me and live.' (This verse is God talking to Moses). Man cannot see God with their own eyes and live to tell the tale, so how come many people saw Jesus when he preached to the multitudes and when he healed the many sick people? If Jesus was God then they would not have been able to see him therefore Jesus cannot be God.

5. The Holy Spirit is the power of God, not a separate person. Also, have you ever seen written in the Bible, God the Holy Ghost, or God the Holy Spirit? All of the times I have seen the Holy Spirit referred to God is that it is the Spirt OF God, not God himself. Proof of the spirit being of God can be found in Genesis 1v2 'the Spirit of God', Matthew 3v16 'the Spirit of God', Isaiah 11v2 'the spirit of the Lord', Isaiah 61v1 'The Spirit of the Lord God', Ephesians 4v30 'the holy Spirit of God', Luke 5v17 'the power of the Lord'.

I hope this helps you to see that the Bible clearly does not promote the Trinity. Mel G.