This is the first time I've looked at this section and there is lots of reading which I haven't time to look through right now.
I consider myself a Christian although I do not go to church. I believe in God and when I pray I always pray to Him. The problem I have is.....is God and Jesus one being or two separate beings. I cannot get to grips with Jesus's death 'to save our souls' how did that help, what happened before his death. I realise some of you are very educated people but could you please explain in layman's terms.
RE: Is Jesus God
Hello Orangeblossom (what a pretty name!),
Welcome to HP - I haven't seen you before!
Wow your question is very close to my heart and it's one I could write pages on, (but I won't as I haven't time) but just briefly, I understand Jesus to be the coincidence between the divine and the human. Jesus the man was human, but he embodied the Christ, the idea of God. I see God as infinite Spirit and you couldn't posssibly fit all of infinity into one material body.
Regarding your quandery about salvation, there were several threads around Easter one that i wrote is this:
"He proved Life to be deathless and Love to be the master of hate"
and there was also a very lively and interesting post about the Passion of Christ
Love and peace,
Judy
RE: Is Jesus God
Dear Orangeblossom, hi!
Your basic question is whether God and Jesus are one being or two separate beings. There are in the end many different opinions on that! Which is why even quite a few years ago, no less than 20,000 different Christian sects or churches could be identified, each with a different doctrine or practices to the others. For this reason, some academics no longer speak of "Christianity" as one religion, but use the term "Christianities".
With that in mind, this is just a quick general overview, but for the most part Christian belief has it that Jesus was the only and unique Son of God. This is hard to get to grips with and understand. (All the harder since I don't believe it and I don't believe Jesus meant to leave this idea behind him.) But the basic idea here is that yes, Jesus is God, but God is also a Trintiy - Father, Son, and Holy Ghost/Spirit - and Jesus as the Son is one of that Trinity - yet they ar all three still God.
That's the usual Christian doctrine. But many people, especially in recent times, think of Jesus in a New Age way or a mystical and enlightened, independent way. This view of Jesus has it that he was not unique (except in the way that we are all unique) but that he was a person like you and me apart from the fact that he became very, very attained spiritually. Was he then a part of God? Yes, but so are we all. Was he then the ONLY Son of God? Well, he was the only "Son" of his own God Self or Higher Self, just as we are all the only Son and Daughter of our own Higher Self. And we too can pray to that Higher Self as our "Father" or "Mother" in heaven as Jesus did.
He died to save us? Traditional Christian doctrine takes that literally, but I have a mystical or New Age view on this. No one can balance your karma for you, not even Jesus, and "karma" is referred to as "sin" in the Bible. So Jesus' death IMO could not balance our karma. But the life and mission of Jesus can be seen as ushering in a new era of spirituality and Love, so in the long term he has laid the groundwork for us to help ourselves.
"Be ye perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect" - Jesus.
"And greater works than these [by Jesus] shall ye do, because I go unto the Father" - Jesus.
Love,
Venetian
RE: Is Jesus God
Hi Venetian,
Is there somewhere in the New Testament, not necessarily in the Gospels, where Jesus says, this or something very similar
"I am the Son of God and Ye are my Bretheren" which I grew up having it interpreted as - Jesus and God and all of us are one and the same?
Thanks
Gillyxxx
RE: Is Jesus God
Gilly,
I'm sure there are many statements along those lines - certainly in the Gnostic gospels. But I'm not a Biblical scholar and wouldn't know where to look.
V
RE: Is Jesus God
Ah well, thanks for answering. [sm=hug.gif]
Gx
RE: Is Jesus God
Thank you all for your replies.
It appears from the general consensus that God and Jesus are indeed the same thing. I feel better now that when I am inclined to leave Jesus out of my prayers I am not doing the wrong thing.
I still don't understand why Jesus had to die in such a horrible way. Why couldn't he just have carried on spreading the word of God and doing miracles to prove who he was.
RE: Is Jesus God
Hallo Orangeblossom,
That is a question I have asked myself many times. And one which is asked the world over, and is rich in answers and possibilities.
I personally think you have to choose what resonates best with you. If you prefer to think He died for our sins, that is wonderful, and if you feel that perhaps He did not die after all, but lived on and had a family, that is just as acceptable.
My own personal opinion is that it is part of the human culture from the beginning of humanity, which gave sacrifices to appease the gods. Jesus is often described as having sacrificed Himself for us, and my belief is it goes back to this. In the Old Testament we have Abraham, prepared to sacrifice his son for God, until he is stopped. So the Bible itself is full of this. It would seem to me to follow a particular theme.
The question is this. Are we prepared to accept anything as the Truth unless it is wrapped up in the symbolism of sacrifice? Do we need to see a sacrifice being made in order to acknowledge that God has done something powerful for us? Or, that God even exists?
Many people dislike this 'sacrificial' need in humanity, and prefer to think of Christ as a potent symbol. Others see Jesus as purely Spirit, in other words, the events never actually occured, although we are supposed to understand what the story represents.
All the learned theories and less learned but more instinctive ideas are all absolutely right, as to me, they are all partly true, and point to the whole Truth.
It's often been said on HP that no one really knows or understands everything, but everyone's wisdom is valid. All thoughts lead eventually to the same conclusion, but perhaps not while we on actually on this earth? Who Knows.;)
Apologies if this rambles;)
Love
Gillyxxx
RE: Is Jesus God
Dear Orangeblossom,
On Jesus and God being the same thing, I don't think that is what we have been saying on this thread in response, actually. It CAN be taken to be along the lines of the traditional Christian response, but methinks this is not a forum where you'll find many totally traditional Christians. So, for me, God is one name for the one almighty Spirit which different cultures have all kinds of names for; Jesus to me was a man who was extremely evolved spiritually, but IMO over more than one lifetime (to bring in reincarnation, which Jesus does more than hint at even in the New Testament) we can all evolve spiritually with no limits on how close and at-one with God we might become.
There's more on this here:
Hugo: Yes re the differences between John and the other three gospels. IMO they were not disagreeing, but dealing with entirely different agendas. Matthew, Mark and Luke were basically concerned about the incarnate man, Jesus, and his life. John is looking to something altogether different: Christ as the "Word", or an aspect of God, which is one of the Trinity, and an energy, and akin to Krishna in Hinduism. So it seems that John was writing of Jesus as an incarnate example of something else - of this "Word" or Christ which transended the man and is ever-present.
Christian doctrine as it developed over the following 400 years focussed upon the "John" aspect of Jesus as the Christ and the "Word"; Jesus the man and the 'Jesus story' was completely lost and is not a part of the creeds except to affirm that he died and resurrected.
A pity that people over the centuries could not accept both together. In a very high and mystical way I agree with John - but he's not really dealing with Jesus the man. With the overbearing weight of doctrine and dogma from Christendom, and the punishment of heresies, the man-Jesus of the other gospels is rather lost, for we are intended to believe that he was literally God incarnate, and could never have made a mistake, had no 'human' feelings etc. So the whole Jesus story becomes robotic as though it could never have been diverted, since God was at the helm. Yet if, in view of the other gospels, we also view Jesus as man, or godly man, he really did have to put great EFFORT into his mission, and could have stumbled or failed at any point had he been less of a wonderful example of godly man.
So maybe Mel in his movie was making a necessary point after all.
(I just read an interview with him in the March 'Reader's Digest' and found it pretty awful how he chose words so carefully about the Holocaust which his father doesn't believe in. While quickly admitting that it happened, Mel downplays it as just one part of what war is about, and after all, he says, millions of people starved to death in the Ukraine in 1932-3. What has THAT to do with the Holocaust? So Mel is not looking too PC right now.)
Love,
Venetian
RE: Is Jesus God
Hello Orangeblossom! How nice to hear from you. As you can see, so many interpretations, so many beliefs! Obviously all our own opinions and results of searching over the years. You ask "why did Jesus have to die in such a horrible way?" I have been asking myself that question for years. In the New Testament Jesus says (please don't ask me to quote where!) that the things that happened to him had to happen to fullfill the prophesy. Things had to happen in a certain way in order for the people to recognize he was fullfilling what had been foretold. Why the horrible death? Well, I've thought that basically he couldn't die of disease, could he? Since he was able to master the physical and cure and bring back to life so many people. I feel one reason he needed to die (besides that he had assumed an earthly body and earthly bodies have a shelf life. Although that could lead to a whole other discussion! ;)) was to bring freedom from the fear of death. To demonstrate that he was going home, as we all will. To show that although he had mastered the physical earth plane he accepted death as a natural progression and did so knowing he was going back to the Father. However, the horrible death was the way political enemies of the authorities were put to death at that time. So, he was operating in the parameters of the times. He also showed us he could accept earthly suffering and did so with grace and patience with the faith that it would not last. That's my opinion for what it's worth. Look forward to hearing more from you. Much love, beej
RE: Is Jesus God
Hi beej
I must say till I read your piece I hadn't viewed it that way. As you say dying of an illness wouldn't have been right and He had to die to fulfil the prophecy. Also the term 'save our soles' really meant going to heaven and not fearing death. I liked your clear way of describing what you believe to be true, as I said before I am no idiot but find some of the writings difficult to understand. I need simplicity.
RE: Is Jesus God
Hi Orangeblossom
I'd just like to say that I totaly agree with what Beej has just said. The questions you are asking are some of the most dificult, yet fundamental questions of the Christian faith.
I'd just like to add a little to what Beej has said. Being as God is perfect, sinfulness is abhorent to him. Therefore to allow us to live in a close loving relationship with him, sin has to be taken out of the equation. This was why Jesus had to take the sin of the whole world upon himself, and open up the way for us to get direct access to our heavenly Father. Jesus said: 'I am the way, the truth, the life' if he had not sacrificed himself, there would be no way to God. Also as Beej has said, he conquored death, therefore his claim to be 'the life' is also substantiated.
With regard to is Jesus God? I'd like to look in fact at the trinity (which has been mentioned earlier). There is a nice little analogy, which I find helpful:
Water is scientificaly called H2O, and yet Steam is also H2O, and so is Ice. They all have different atributes, yet are the same thing. This is just how it is with God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Hope this helps
Waywood
RE: Is Jesus God
I feel better now that when I am inclined to leave Jesus out of my prayers I am not doing the wrong thing.
Hi Orangeblossom,
Just thought I’d pop in here again. THinking about how you said above that you feel guilty about not praying to Jesus: Well, I think he would have approved! Let me explain:
One thing that has always struck me, as a result of my Bible study, is that Jesus, though understanding and demonstrating totally man’s spiritual one-ness with God, (like sunlight is one with the sun) which he came to show and prove to us, as in:
“Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me?” (John 14:10)
and
“I and my Father are one.” (John 10:30)
was also acutely aware of the difference between his (and our) spiritual selfhood, the Christ, and the human Jesus. Whenever people tried to worship his human personality, he gently turned their thought back to God as in this passage:
And when he was gone forth into the way, there came one running, and kneeled to him, and asked him, Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?
And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God. (Mark 10: 17&18)
and here are a couple more:
the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works (John 14:10)
He said: I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me (John 5:30)
So Orangeblossom, while I would encourage you to learn as much about Jesus as you can, to love him and most importantly, try to follow his example; as far as prayer goes, just continue praying to God - I’m sure that’s what Jesus would have wanted!
Love and peace,
Judy
PS I just popped back because I remembered Gilly’s query and it’s so relevant to our one-ness with God, the Father-Mother of each and every one of us, which makes us all brothers and sisters! (And as Jesus says below, it makes him our brother too!) He was talking here of his disciples and other followers, not just his blood brothers.
These are words he spoke to Mary Magdalene after his resurrection:
Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God. (John 20:17))
RE: Is Jesus God
Hi Orangeblossom: Thank you for saying you liked my "clear way of describing what you believe to be true"....UsuallyI have a hard time trying to get what is in my head on to a post without getting muddled up!! 😀 Esp. such a difficult topic. Thanks for starting this thread it's very interesting!!! love, beej
Hi Orangeblossom
It's really very simple.
There is only God everywhere as All in all, So God is Jesus, but Jesus is not God.
Wow! digging up an old thread here meta!
I'm sorry, but I don't get what you're saying. If God is All, then all is god. Therefore Jesus is God just as everyone and everything is God.
🙂
All Love and Reiki Hugs
Dear Energylz. A drop of water is not the ocean, but the ocean is also the drop, or, the Sun is the ray, but the ray is not the Sun. There is cause and effect, and those are one. God is Jesus, but Jesus is not God. Likewise God is you, but you ain't God.
Dear Energylz. A drop of water is not the ocean, but the ocean is also the drop, or, the Sun is the ray, but the ray is not the Sun. There is cause and effect, and those are one. God is Jesus, but Jesus is not God. Likewise God is you, but you ain't God.
I beg to differ. I am my true Self. Everything is within my awareness, including you. The only thing I can know to exist is my Self and everything I perceive is a part of that Self. I am sure, from your perspective you would perceive the same. I am therefore God. The universe, from my own evidence, only exists from my point of view; I am the centre of the Universe.
God cannot be seperate from my Self. Such a perception is duality. Duality is not truth.
All Love and Reiki Hugs
I beg to differ. I am my true Self. Everything is within my awareness, including you. The only thing I can know to exist is my Self and everything I perceive is a part of that Self. I am sure, from your perspective you would perceive the same. I am therefore God. The universe, from my own evidence, only exists from my point of view; I am the centre of the Universe.
God cannot be seperate from my Self. Such a perception is duality. Duality is not truth.
All Love and Reiki Hugs
Dear Energylz
If you are right, in your statement, that you are God, it must follow in the logic of events, that you did create yourself? Or do I see it not correct?
I was not aware, then I became aware. I can only be aware from my own awareness. If you want to call that "create", then yes, I created myself and everything in my awareness. I have no evidence to suggest otherwise.
All Love and Reiki Hugs
I was not aware, then I became aware. I can only be aware from my own awareness. If you want to call that "create", then yes, I created myself and everything in my awareness. I have no evidence to suggest otherwise.
All Love and Reiki Hugs
Yes Energylz-- That I do agree with. I wish you a greater awareness to come.
Love Meta
I am not too comfortable with relying on the scriptures as I don't believe we can wholly guarantee their accuracy. I do believe Jesus was among us because of the evidence of a scientific occurrence, around year 0.
He was mortal, but had a very highly developed soul, that was directed by a higher energy, that we know as God. That energy is based on love, and I believe that that was the foundation of Jesus' message to us.
This is the first time I've looked at this section and there is lots of reading which I haven't time to look through right now.
I consider myself a Christian although I do not go to church. I believe in God and when I pray I always pray to Him. The problem I have is.....is God and Jesus one being or two separate beings. I cannot get to grips with Jesus's death 'to save our souls' how did that help, what happened before his death. I realise some of you are very educated people but could you please explain in layman's terms.
Jesus is God. In John 10:30 Jesus says "I and the Father are One." Now, if he meant one in spirit, the following verse makes no sense. In the following verse or verses, the people try to stone Jesus for blasphemy, so obviously Jesus was making a claim to be God. John 1:1 and the following verses are another passage where Jesus claims to be God. In Titus 2:13 the author claims Jesus is God. There are many other verses. Jesus was both God and man at the same time. There is one God, in three persons, Father, Son (Jesus), and Holy Spirit.
We are all sinners, as sin came into the world with Adam and biting out of the apple in the Garden of Eden. In the Old Testament, people offered animals sacrifices as payment for their sins. The penalty for sin is death (Romans 3:23), so it took a perfect lamb, Jesus Christ, to pay the price for all of mankind's sins on the cross. All we must do is repent from our sins and believe in His death on the cross and resurrection, and we are saved. We cannot be good enough to work our way to heaven..it is only through God's grace that we can be saved.
I am not too comfortable with relying on the scriptures as I don't believe we can wholly guarantee their accuracy. I do believe Jesus was among us because of the evidence of a scientific occurrence, around year 0.
Or maybe that was year 1. There was no year 0.
In fact it's mainly because of religious beliefs that zero was not accepted as a number for many centuries. Zero also implied inifinity and the church would not accept the infinite as that would mean that the church was not the centre of things. (That's a very brief summary, if you want to know more, I would suggest reading [url]"Zero, Biography of a dangerous number"[/url])
All Love and Reiki Hugs
We are all sinners, as sin came into the world with Adam and biting out of the apple in the Garden of Eden. In the Old Testament, people offered animals sacrifices as payment for their sins. The penalty for sin is death (Romans 3:23), so it took a perfect lamb, Jesus Christ, to pay the price for all of mankind's sins on the cross. All we must do is repent from our sins and believe in His death on the cross and resurrection, and we are saved. We cannot be good enough to work our way to heaven..it is only through God's grace that we can be saved.
This concept has never made sense to me.
Who has the right to judge us and say that we are all sinners. Have I done something wrong? Have you done something wrong? If you want to go around believing you have sinned all your life then you go for it, but please don't presume to push such a belief on other people, for that would be your own judgement of others.
Who says that the penalty for sin is death? And what is a sin anyway? If I think about a naked lady in a lustful way is that a sin? Should I then be put to death for it? It is these fundamentalist literal concepts that are very likely the cause of religious wars and religious fundamentalism, leading to killing, in the modern world and throughout history.
If Jesus Christ payed the price for all of mankinds sin on the cross, then why do we also have to repent from our sins? Are you saying that he was a martyr and we all have to be thankful for that otherwise we're still sinners?
This all sounds to me like the bible writings taken to literally out of context and without the wise teachings they give us. This type of interpretation is not loving, it's judgemental and that isn't love. This type of interpretation is hateful and blameful. If God is all love then why would such judgement, hate and blame be given. I cannot accept this interpretation as truthful as it does not stand true to me, through my own testing of truthfulness.
I do hope you find you are able to become free of your feelings of being sinful and you find peace. I for one, will not be taking that negative attitude towards myself or others, so I apologise if you find my words are not to your liking.
All Love and Reiki Hugs
Thank you Giles, for saying so well exactly what I was thinking. My reply would have said:
We are all sinners
We SO are not!!!!
That paragraph of Ace's in a nutshell is what IMO is wrong with Christianity. We are all sinners. What total tosh! Jesus, in whose historical being I do believe, came to bring love.
However, as I believe I've said before on these pages, I'm not sure he succeeded too well.
I once had a job taking an African church group out for the day to Stonehenge and Bath. On the way I was telling them the latest archaeological findings that posited the possibility of Stonehenge having been a place of worship and possibly healing. The pastor wasn't having any; he took the microphone and told his congregation that the poor heathen souls who built Stonehenge (at least 2000 years BC) could not have gone to heaven because they didn't know Jesus. But, I protested, Jesus wasn't even born then; did that therefore mean that God also didn't exist? He brushed that aside and went on to proclaim that Jesus came to bring peace and I simply could not resist muttering, fairly loudly 'Well, he didn't do a very good job then!'
We are all sinners? Bah, speak for yourself Ace.
xxx
I do so agree Sunanda and Giles! When I did some considerable research on Christianity because I found the anomalies so difficult to come to terms with, I discovered how Christanity was set up as the 'official' religion at the Council of Nicea in 325AD in order to unify the Roman Empire, which at the time was in danger of disintegration.
It's well worth investigation - Jesus was VOTED to be God - as were past Emperors of Rome. In my opinion, he either was or wasn't, so if it had to be voted on ... ???? (That does not diminish the good that he did, or his concepts as a prophet, preacher and healer.) They also took dates, festivals and concepts from other religions and put them under one umbrella for this 'New', official religion.
They were working in Latin - Jesus's teachings were in Aramaic, translated into Greek (and other languages) and then into Latin. Words in each language have different connotations and do not necessarily translate appropriately with those connotations attached. This was pointed out very well by Professor Barbara Thiering in her book 'Jesus the Man'. Also reading the Nag Hammadi Tractates one starts to realise that modern Christianity has a very different perspective from those in the first century AD.
Following setting up this new Christianity, the original writings were then edited to fit all the concepts agreed at Nicea, (as one would) and the powers that be (Christian) burned most of the ancient Library at Alexandria (and anywhere else they could) in order to have control over knowledge in the Empire. Power and control became part of their ethos - "Do as I say, or else ..." and "You must have Faith and believe what we tell you" "You are all sinners" - even though some of it is nonsense! Writings have been altered down the centuries to fit the then current perspective.
I was well taught from an early age about Christianity, but it is only in the last 15 years that I have come to question things more closely and change my mind about so much. One needs to keep an open mind and not be spoon-fed.
The consequence of burning all the books was that an enormous amount of knowledge was lost in Europe (hence the Dark Ages - the Empire collapsed anyway, and only the preachers were allowed to teach), and it wasn't until the Moors invaded Spain a thousand years ago that knowledge of mathematics and medicine was brought back to us from the ancient Greeks and the Middle East - it filtered through Europe very slowly and was 'rediscovered' during the Renaissance. The Alexandrian Library had a copy of every book in existence at that time - burning it was a disaster! Then the Islamic activists in the 7th century destroyed what was left - in case it had Christian books in it! The Coptic Church is an interesting source of information too and a different take on things.
Sorry about the mini-dissertation, but it is a subject that occupied me for some time!
Or maybe that was year 1. There was no year 0.
In fact it's mainly because of religious beliefs that zero was not accepted as a number for many centuries. Zero also implied inifinity and the church would not accept the infinite as that would mean that the church was not the centre of things. (That's a very brief summary, if you want to know more, I would suggest reading [url]"Zero, Biography of a dangerous number"[/url])
All Love and Reiki Hugs
It was in fact the astronomical evidence that I was referring to, so I think that using the number 0 is valid.
We are all sinners, as sin came into the world with Adam and biting out of the apple in the Garden of Eden.
I don't accept that I'm a sinner because a very long time ago someone bit into an apple.
If you were to say though, that the Adam and Eve story is a deeply symbolic account of the contraction of Divine awareness into an awareness that only experiences the illusory world, then that would be another thing.
Was Jesus God? We're all God, that was his message.
I don't accept that I'm a sinner because a very long time ago someone bit into an apple.
If you were to say though, that the Adam and Eve story is a deeply symbolic account of the contraction of Divine awareness into an awareness that only experiences the illusory world, then that would be another thing.
Was Jesus God? We're all God, that was his message.
Meta agrees