guy_683930

This question is mostly for the Christians here who quote verses to "prove" that Jesus is God. I've considered a lot of those verses, and I've come to the conclusion that if Jesus is God, then Jesus is God the Father, like the Oneness Pentecostals believe. Most verses do not support this interpretation, but most verses do not support that Jesus is God either. Here are the major pertinent verses I could find:

Isaiah 9:6 (ASV)
"For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."

This verse (if it is referring to Jesus) refers to him as "Everlasting Father". The common argument against this is, I've heard, is that it should be translated "Father of eternity". But even if this is the case, it says (see below) that there is only one God and Father.

Ephesians 4:4-6
"[There is] one body, and one Spirit, even as also ye were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in all. "

This verse describes the Father as being tri-une.

Deuteronomy 10:17
"For Jehovah your God, he is God of gods, and Lord of lords, the great God, the mighty, and the terrible, who regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward."

In the Septuagint, the term "persons" is prosopon. This term is used to describe both the Father and the Son in the NT.

Matthew 18:10
"See that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, that in heaven their angels do always behold the face (prosopon) of my Father who is in heaven."

2 Corinthians 4:6
"Seeing it is God, that said, Light shall shine out of darkness, who shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face (prosopon) of Jesus Christ. "

These verses would suggest (at least assuming the infallibility of scripture) that the "God of Gods" does not regard any "person" (prosopon), meaning that God is manifest in persons but is not a person.

Besides these verses, there are verses referring to both the Son and the Spirit as manifestations (phaneroo and phanerosis)

1 Timothy 3:16
"And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness; He who was manifested in the flesh, Justified in the spirit, Seen of angels, Preached among the nations, Believed on in the world, Received up in glory. "

1 John 3:8
"he that doeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. To this end was the Son of God manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil."

1 Corinthians 12:7
"But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit to profit withal."

These verses do not prove Modalism, but to prove anything using Biblical verses to prove things is impossible, due to both contradictions and also the reasoning used is inductive, which cannot prove anything beyond any counterargument.

The major counterarguments to this usually are verses that talk about the son being "first-born" (like Colossians 1:15). The argument I see against this is that since all things are out of God the Father (1 Corinthians 8:6 and Romans 11:36), that the son is "self-begotten" since all things come out of God the Father and return to him as well (Romans 11:36). That is why it is a shame that the church abandoned texts which refer to Christ as the Autogenes (self-begotten), like it describes in certain Gnostic texts. Of course, all this speculation is like trying to guess how many angels can fit on the head of a pin, but it's something to get Biblical Literalist Trinitarians to think about.