What concerns me about Aaron’s question, I think is that he doesn’t really understand that the word “theotes” here doesn’t mean what he thinks it means. It’s used once in the NT, and it means something which the King James plainly relates: the concept of “the Godhead”; your Greek dictionary may say, “the state of being God” or “the essence or quality of divinity”.
This concept of “Godhead” – plainly expressed here by Paul – speaks not to some person but some quality of divinity. So it is right to say that Christ has “in him” the “fullness of the Godhead”. He is himself the exact representation of the Godliness of God, as it says in Heb 1. In no way does the Trinitarian deny that Jesus is completely God: what the Trinitarian would deny is that Christ is the same person as the Father who sent him, or the Spirit who comes from both Himself and the Father.
This is what you simply do not grasp, Aaron: the Trinitarian position does not reduce Jesus to either God or man, not does it somehow slice God into pieces, nor does it reason that there are “gods”. It simply states that the father is truly God; the Son is truly God; the Spirit is truly God; and all of these commune as co-equal and co-eternal, and are one in essence, nature, power, action, and will.
To your question, then, all that is necessary to be God dwells in Christ as “theotos” is a quality and not a person. And we, therefore, are complete in Christ. And Christ, as God, is the head of all principality and power. This is not a complicated textual riddle, but I admit something to you: it is entirely God’s description of himself, and in that we may never actually understand all its implications.
Problematically for you in this exchange, however, it does not let us believe that the Father and the Son are the same person. You are fortunate, Aaron, that by the count of the analytics counter installed on this blog, almost no one has read this exchange. You have not proven at all that Christ and the father are the same person, and you cannot prove such a thing – because any reasonably-literate person reading the Bible will see that the definition which you supplied for what it means to be a “person” applies to Jesus and to the Father distinctly. What that means, I think is that the reader has won this debate: the reader can hereby reach his own conclusion about the personhood of Christ and the personhood of the Father. He can read the texts we have exchanged and see for himself how utterly divested from the text your reading is.
You get the last word here; please stay inside your 1000-word limit. May you be blessed and kept well, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
This concept of “Godhead” – plainly expressed here by Paul – speaks not to some person but some quality of divinity. So it is right to say that Christ has “in him” the “fullness of the Godhead”. He is himself the exact representation of the Godliness of God, as it says in Heb 1. In no way does the Trinitarian deny that Jesus is completely God: what the Trinitarian would deny is that Christ is the same person as the Father who sent him, or the Spirit who comes from both Himself and the Father.
This is what you simply do not grasp, Aaron: the Trinitarian position does not reduce Jesus to either God or man, not does it somehow slice God into pieces, nor does it reason that there are “gods”. It simply states that the father is truly God; the Son is truly God; the Spirit is truly God; and all of these commune as co-equal and co-eternal, and are one in essence, nature, power, action, and will.
To your question, then, all that is necessary to be God dwells in Christ as “theotos” is a quality and not a person. And we, therefore, are complete in Christ. And Christ, as God, is the head of all principality and power. This is not a complicated textual riddle, but I admit something to you: it is entirely God’s description of himself, and in that we may never actually understand all its implications.
Problematically for you in this exchange, however, it does not let us believe that the Father and the Son are the same person. You are fortunate, Aaron, that by the count of the analytics counter installed on this blog, almost no one has read this exchange. You have not proven at all that Christ and the father are the same person, and you cannot prove such a thing – because any reasonably-literate person reading the Bible will see that the definition which you supplied for what it means to be a “person” applies to Jesus and to the Father distinctly. What that means, I think is that the reader has won this debate: the reader can hereby reach his own conclusion about the personhood of Christ and the personhood of the Father. He can read the texts we have exchanged and see for himself how utterly divested from the text your reading is.
You get the last word here; please stay inside your 1000-word limit. May you be blessed and kept well, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
This is centuri0n, aka Frank Turk, who has been an internet apologist for about 10 years and has never really gained anything for himself through it but a handful of friends and a lot of ill-will. Most people, honestly, do not like to argue with him because he doesn't know how to let it go. He's a blogger of some minor note, and he's a "calvinist".
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