RE: [TruthTalk] The Mind of Christ

[ShieldsFamily]

Izzy in black: "Father" is a relational term, just like husband is a relational term. One cannot be a husband without having a wife -- this is what I mean when I say it is a "relational term." You were not a wife until you got married and had a husband. It would have been non-sensical -- not to mention misleading -- for you to have maintained that you were always a wife from the date of your birth but that one day you got married and had a husband. Yet you wrote earlier that the "Trinity" is the Father, the Word, and the Spirit. If I understand you correctly, you maintain that the Father is eternal. If this is so, may I ask, whom was he the Father of? Do you realize that you are suggesting, nay, demanding that God was the Father of no one and nothing for an eternity before he created a woman to bear a son? Do you realize that you are implying that God the Father was actually illegitimate until he begat a son? Do you realize that you have created a doctrine that makes God dependent upon his creation in order to be what he claims to have been from eternity: a Father? Please ponder these things. Furthermore, may I ask you to explain to me the nature of the Father's relationship with the Word? Did they have a personal relationship? Was it a Father/Son relationship, or was it something other than this? If it was not a Father/Son relationship, what happened to that relationship on the day that the son was begotten and the Word became flesh? Did that relationship cease to exist? In other words, did the eternal God change? The foundation for my position is everywhere in Scripture. But in order to keep this conversation in a manageable context, allow me to repost the verses I used to establish the eternal Sonship of Christ: "Jesus answered, 'If I honor Myself, My honor is nothing. It is My Father who honors Me, of whom you say that He is your God.' ... Jesus said to them, 'Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.'" (John 8.54,58) In verse 54 Jesus identifies his "Father" as he who honors him. When he calls him Father he identifies and establishes himself as the Son. It is the Son who is honored by his Father. In verse 58 this same Son makes a very clear and distinct reference to the Old Testament name of God. In other words the Son identifies himself as both divine and eternal. Was this Son misleading the Jews when he said these words? Of course not -- unless, of course, he was not eternally the divine Son of the Father. "And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was." (John 17.5) Again Jesus speaks to the "Father." He speaks as the Son of the Father. This Son commands the Father to glorify him with the glory that he had shared with his Father before the cosmos was, which of course is many thousand years prior to the date of his incarnation. Did this Son mislead his hearers when he led them to believe that he had shared in the glory of the Father before the world was? "Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world." (John 17.24) The same holds true with this verse. Here the Son declares that the Father had loved him before the foundation of the world. This again was millenia prior to that date of his incarnation. If there was a time when the Son was not, which is what I hear you asserting, then what glory is it which he desires his hearers behold? By your argument the "Son" could not know any glory except that glory which he knew from the time he had been begotten. Any glory before that time would not be the glory of the Father to his Son.    Moreover, what kind of "love" was it that the Father had for this Son from before the foundation of the world, if it was not the love of the Father for his Son? This goes back to my relationship question before. We see here that the love of the Father is the love of the Father for his Son. Jesus said he knew this love before the foundation of the world. How could he know this love of the Father if at that point in eternity he was not the Father's Son?   Bill   Bill, how do you explain that Jesus is called “eternal father” in Is 9:6? Izzy Isaiah 9:6 (New American Standard Bible)          6For a (A)child will be born to us, a (B)son will be given to us;          And the (C)government will rest (D)on His shoulders;          And His name will be called (E)Wonderful Counselor, (F)Mighty God,          Eternal (G)Father, Prince of (H)Peace.