Question...

I do and have. I have good friends that are JW. I know their beliefs and they know mine. I respect their right to their beliefs/understanding, and they respect mine. Why? Because I also believe in FREE WILL. The God given right for all men/any man to read and understand Scripture as best they can.

Folks need to learn to show respect to those who they disagree with..............Why? Because that is what Christians do.

Well, there is a verse that says Jesus hands over the Kingdom to His Father.

Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power.
1 Corinthians 15:24 ESV

Doesn't this show an hierarchy?

Additional thoughts. And these are from my life experience, and are my opinion only I suspect.

When it comes to respecting the rights of others to believe as they are led to believe, I have found the JW's to be at the top of that list. Not once, not once in my life when speaking with JW friends, or JW's online that I only know from online, not once have any of them ever said a disrespectful word to me, called me names, or accused me of various things.

Second to them, I believe is my church, CoG Reformation Movement. Because we fully respect the rights of all men to believe as they feel they are led to believe and understand the Word of God. The Nazarines are right there with us.

After that? Well, just look through the vast pages of comments here on CC.........you will find your answer. Now, yes, there are some people whose beliefs differ that can be respectful, and they are fully appreciated. I am speaking of the greater body of folks in other Denominations/Groups.

Why? Dunno........but this has been my life experience.

Much to learn in your response, Nehemiah. You know so much about much it seems. Your reference to the names had most of my focus though, I need to go look back and read some more, but was curious to understand you clearly. So are you saying that using Yeshua don't help point to our Lord and Savior, Christ, because ppl are not familiar with those original hebrew names?

We will ALL see clearly one day!

Best I can do is to offer what I believe............do not expect or demand that anyone agree and convert to my beliefs.

See............I read that Passage:

19) If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. 20) But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.21) For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.
22) For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. 23) But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming. 24) Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. 25) For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. 26) The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.


I read this as Christ is still in the process of returning to being One with God the Father. He has put down all rule and all authority and power. There is NO authority or power that exists greater than Him. And, while some will scream and shout, DEATH has been defeated. Christ HAS defeated death, took away the keys of hell from the devil, and REIGNS on High.

Now, that's just me..........so

I know.......this is mind boggling........the Holy Trinity can make ones eyes cross trying to comprehend it..........

Long ago, I came to terms with it in this manner:

God the Father.......................God OF man

God the Son............................ God AS man

God the Holy Spirit.............. God WITHIN man

Shall be

Love @this



God the Father.......................God OF man

God the Son............................ God AS man

God the Holy Spirit.............. God WITHIN man

Thank you.

Maybe brought about wasn't the right word because is suggest something. Maybe came about is better, IDK. Bottom line we just do not know.

I believe scripture show us hierarchy and suggest it remains. My opinion anyway, like it matters.

John 14:28 "You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away, and I will come to you.’ If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I."

I believe even oneness people can be saved because they have Jesus. The trinity people think they have it locked up, but some of us don't fully subscribe to that. I can say trinity is a label and it limits our understanding. Neither group has fully defined what the Holy Spirit is. I think it is wrong to call it a person, much less a separate person. You can't separate the HS from God, or He wouldn't be God.

I think, and I'm just working through this possibility. Jesus had the fullnes of Him...could that be what the fullness is, His HS? We each get a measure? One day we will be glorified with a full measure, eh?

Hey! CharliRenee... PTL!
The atom is a curious thing with positive charged protons forced together at its center and negative charged electrons encircling that center millions of times per second. Scripture tells us, referring to Jesus, that, "he holds all things together by the word of his power." If we could receive it; Jesus could tells us, where in its orbit each electron, in the universe, is at any given moment.

As I see it: in the beginning was Jesus and Jesus was with God and Jesus was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things that were made were made by Jesus and without Jesus was not anything made that was made. So Jesus was the word of God from the beginning or from before time, with the Father and the Spirit.

Then Jesus became flesh and dwelt among us, showing us what God looked like in human terms. Then Jesus became our kinsman redeemer; when, by the Lord's greatest miracle, our sins were placed upon the only person to fulfill the law's requirement. He suffered spiritual death for us, when he cried out, "My God! My God! Why hast thou forsaken me." God's law is like the Lord, infinite thereby requiring an infinite atonement. Man being finite cannot atone infinitely; while Jesus, being infinite, was able to fulfill that infinite requirement and atoned infinitely. So that Jesus suffered more for each person saved than all the souls in hell will ever suffer even when added together.

In eternity or in New Jerusalem; The Father will be as the sun, giving light to the new earth without night and Jesus will be as the moon. On the human side, Jesus will be our eternal High Priest and the King of Kings, standing with us before the Father as we glory in the Lord's presence forever and ever.
Maranatha!

Hi CharliRenee,

It’s great to be kind, humble, etc., but God did build a WALL around Jerusalem. Watch your boundary lines - ONLY what is pleasing to God, not man.

about
Gal 2:20 - crucify the flesh

but why does the flesh still exist and for what purpose or role during the process of sanctification?

Well I think you may be right. I am learning those boundary lines, still at my old age. It is hard for me to know exactly what that looks like. I always say that I am far too old to be this young, lol. But I def agree that we are to be balanced, both wise as a serpent but gentle as a dove.

If Yeshua was created He is not G-d.... He is a simple creation like you and I... So what makes Him different, Messiah?

I think this post by Nehemiah gives the most standard and orthodox explanation.


I always appreciate dcontroversal's posts, and although he gave an explanation that is held by some respected men, I'll have to politely disagree. I don't believe verse 1:18 directly correlates to 1:15, and therefore can't be used as the explanation for it. ("Firstborn from the dead" is not the same as "firstborn of all creation." They don't say the same thing, and I don't believe they can grammatically, or logically, mean the same thing.) I would consider dcontroversal's explanation orthodox, but just not the explanation I would agree with.






...

Addendum:

Although I agree with Nehemiah's explanation and politely disagree with dcontroversal, I would add that both views do uphold all the doctrines of Christ's deity, as well as his incarnation and atonement.



...

Prototokos (firsborn) can mean:

a) The first child born before other children:

"and she gave birth to her firstborn son...."
Luke 2:7

b) Preeminent, a head, over somebody:

"Joel the first-born, and Sapham the second, and Janin the scribe in Basan"
1 Chronicles 5:12

"And I will make him [David] my first-born, higher than the kings of the earth."
Psalm 88:27

"For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters."
R 8:29

c) It can also indicate a special relationship with God:

"And thou shalt say to Pharao, These things saith the Lord, Israel is my first-born."
Ex 4:22

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The context of col 2:15 confirms its the b) meaning.

"And he is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together."
Col 2:15-18

Translation "He is the first being created, because in him all things were created..." does not make a good sense.

Also, notice that the word is "first-born", not "first created" as JW witness like to read it.

So, the text is saying that Jesus has a special privileges over all creation, because everything was created in Him.

------------

Sources:
Jackson, Wayne. "Was Jesus Created First?" ChristianCourier.com. Access date: July 23, 2018. https://www.christiancourier.com/articles/651-was-jesus-created-first
http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/test-archives/html4/1997-02/17330.html

I tend to think we try and over think things - I believe we can some insight from Hebrews.

Col 1:15 Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:


Heb 1:5 For unto which of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee? And again, I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son?

Heb 1:6 And again, when he bringeth in the firstbegotten into the world, he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him.

If we are too rigid with Col 1:15 we end up with God creating the Son and then the Son creating "all things" in verse 16.

Col 1:16 For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:

In the beginning of John, we understand that Christ is the WORD...

Now, before I go further, I probably see this differently than the majority do. For one, in the Book of Acts (which is our example of the actual first church) we find that both Peter and Paul were baptizing in Jesus (Yeshua's) NAME, not in the trinity. So, I asked myself, why would Peter and Paul not follow Matthew 28:19?

That ended up being easier than I thought...during the second century, the Catholics changed Matthew 28:19 (that originally states Christ commanded them to go and baptize IN HIS NAME) to the triune titles.

So, when we now see Peter and Paul baptizing in Jesus NAME, we understand because this is what Christ actually commanded them to do!!


Now back to the topic that ties in my point of how Peter/Paul and the FIRST CHURCH actually baptized.

We know Christ is the WORD.
Later in the Book of John, we know Christ is also I AM.
But to me, the most important verse are just after Jesus states: when you see ME you see the FATHER, when you see the FATHER you have seen ME...
Which is: Jesus claimed, the things you see me do, hear me speak, that IS NOT ME doing it, that is the FATHER that lives in me doing it.

So, that led to another question and conclusion: What possibly other than we already know, could the WORD (Jesus) be described as when Jesus claimed He was doing nothing...and all we read in the Gospels is what the FATHER living in Him was doing?

Since I know how in Genesis God speaks about how His SPIRIT lives in men (He is talking about the Holy Spirit being His personal SPIRIT like we have our own personal spirit), I asked myself: if the ONE GOD has a personal SPIRIT (capital S indicating the Holy Spirit), then could the WORD be God's actual spoken word (since we know Christ claimed He was doing nothing because it was the FATHER in Him doing it all)?

I clearly believe in the Oneness having 3 manifestations:
I then concluded this:
God speaks and His WORD does the action (this is the same as Jesus saying the miracles you see and things you hear are not me doing them)...Basically, Jesus said, God speaks...and He (Jesus does what is spoken).

This is all beautiful to me:

We have ONE GOD who has a personal Spirit (we know as the Holy Spirit), and when the ONE GOD spoke...His literal WORD made flesh did the action. This is clear there is not 3 separate beings acting as God.

And, this is why Jesus said to baptize in HIS NAME (like we see Peter/Paul in the FIRST CHURCH doing in the Book of Acts).




So, here is the question then:

Had the Catholics not messed with changing scripture (like the Rich man/Lazarus story since the Hebrew/Jews never believed in a burning hell...and this story is about a burning hell)(which is clearly an add on because Jesus would not speak on a burning hell when He did not believe in it)...so, had the Catholics not changed scripture to the trinity, we would not be teaching the trinity today, we would be teaching what they were actually doing in the FIRST CHURCH (baptizing in Jesus NAME).

It's like the Book of Isaiah: Clearly that Book is Hebrew and Aramaic. But there is ONE WORD in Isaiah that is LATIN. Why is this shocking? Latin DID NOT EXIST YET when Isaiah lived. And yet, we have the LATIN word "Lucifer" in the Aramaic/Hebrew Book of Isaiah.

So, had the Catholics not changed a bunch of scripture, we would actually be following the TRUTH, not the crap the Catholics made up and added to the Bible!!


And to answer your original question: Colossians basically states, if the invisible God looked into the mirror...He would see Himself as Jesus...and if Jesus looked into a mirror, He would see Himself as the invisible God...because they are ONE and the SAME PERSON!!

Hey! memyselfi... PTL, in the name of Jesus, our God, King, and Savior!
Jesus was not created, but rather existed before time itself. All things that were made were made by Jesus. Jesus didn't make himself. Can you imagine any being, who is able to; "hold all things together by the word of his power," as not being the Lord? I'm thinking of all the atoms in the universe as being only a part of the, all things, that Jesus is holding together. Yiikes at Jesus not being God!
: )