Who is the Son of God?
Who is the Son of God?
Jesus of Nazareth, who was also the “son of God,” came to earth long ago and some day he’ll come back again, right? Well, the actual soul of Jesus will not return. One must understand what is meant by return. It is the return of the spirit of the message from God. For proof that Christians accept John the Baptist as the return of Elijah, see the article on this site called “John the Baptist.”
http://www.rockymountainbahai.com/the-new-testament/john-the-baptist/
One must also understand that the prophet Himself, in this case Jesus, is known for the message he delivered from God. Therefore, one must be clear on the fact that the “son of God” was a message from God that, when believed and understood, was the source of a spiritual closeness to God that can be likened to the spiritual closeness between a father and his son. Through belief in, and comprehension of Jesus’ teachings, we can all become sons of God.
According to the New Testament, the son of God was a “Spirit of God” that descended upon Jesus. The Bible says:
“Behold, the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and ‘alighting upon him; and lo, a voice from heaven, saying, ‘This is my beloved Son.”’ (Matt. 3:16—17).
Behold, this Spirit of God that has descended like a dove and alighted upon Jesus, is God’s beloved Son. If Jesus of Nazareth’s physical presence alone was the Son of God, why didn’t a voice just speak from heaven and tell Jesus he was the beloved son? Why did the Spirit of God have to alight upon Him first? It was because this Spirit of God was the “beloved Son,” and Jesus was designated to deliver the spirit of these teachings to the world. Thus he was the beloved son because he brought this Spirit of God that was titled “the son of God,” to the people on earth.
This Spirit of God is the Revelation that Jesus revealed to man, revealing God’s thoughts to man. He was the speaker of the Words of God, or the Logos. The Hebrew meaning of the word Logos is, “the thoughts of God, as can be expressed in words.” The title of this Revelation is the “Son of God” Revelation. That is also a title for Jesus, the one who delivered this message. But one must not confuse Jesus with the Revelation from God that Jesus brought.
The “Son of God” Revelation is like a manna come down from heaven, the bread. John 6:63 says that this bread is the teachings of God, the bread of life, that gives life indeed, that is, eternal life. One must not only eat, but digest and understand the teachings. This is why the analogy to the bread is made. One must ingest, digest, and understand the words of God.
The wine, John says, is belief in these teachings. The wine also symbolizes that one must believe to the point of accepting martyrdom and death rather than recanting their belief before man for any worldly benefit. The wine is also a symbol of the Covenant(s) that God makes with man, the primary Covenant being that He will be our God, and we will be His people, even His sons, the sons of God. To believe in the teachings of Jesus makes one a Son of God.
Thus, the difference between Jesus and the Spirit of God that alighted upon Jesus, is that this Spirit is the Spirit of God, and Jesus reflects it, like a pure, and perfect mirror. But Jesus, being the mirror, or like the lamp that emanates light, is not the light itself. The light is the Holy Spirit of God. So through Jesus’ teachings or words, the presence of this Spirit of God, the son of God, became known.
One must never confuse the lamp or mirror, with the light itself. People do this all the time. They worship an image, rather than the Essence of God. I am not saying the prophets aren’t Manifestations of God, nor am I diminishing them in any way by making this true and realistic distinction between the deliverer of a message (Jesus), the message itself (the Revelation of the Son of God), and the author of the message (God).
It can be understood by this example: the mailman isn’t designated “the mailman” until he gets a job delivering the mail. Likewise, Jesus wasn’t designated the “Son-of-God” man until he got the job delivering, reflecting, or manifesting, the Spirit of the Son of God.
I’m not saying Jesus didn’t have the Holy Spirit from the time of conception. This is right in the Bible. When Mary found she was with child, the angel came to her and told her the child was of the Holy Spirit. The Manifestations of God all have the Holy Spirit from the time of conception, which is why they are so erudite as children. However, it is not until they are “anointed” by the Holy Spirit, that their mission begins. Jesus’ mission began when the Spirit of God descended upon Him and designated Him to be the Son of God, when he was thirty years old.
Paul states clearly that Jesus was designated the son of God (just as the mailman is designated the mailman when he gets a job delivering the mail):
“…his Son, who was…designated Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness” [i.e., the Holy Spirit] (Rom. 1:3)
If Jesus wasn’t delivering the Spirit of the Son of God, then how could he give away the power to become a Son of God?
“But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God” (John 1:12).
Jesus could give away the power to be a Son of God because other men could come to and believe in this Spirit of the Son of God through the words Jesus spoke.
Jesus said if you came to Him you wouldn’t hunger (John 6:35). But why? How does coming to Jesus make, your hunger go away? What food is this?
Jesus said, “my flesh is food indeed” (John 6:55), and “he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life” (John 6:54).
Jesus then goes on to say, however, “the flesh is of no avail” (John 6:63). Here is a contradiction. First Jesus says if people desire eternal life, then they should eat his flesh. But then he says the flesh is of no avail! There must be some symbolism or parable involved here. Indeed, Mark said Jesus “did not speak to them without a parable” (Mark 4:34).
There is a distinction between the physical flesh of Jesus—the man who was “descended from David according to the flesh” (Rom. 1:3) and the spiritual “flesh” of the Spirit of the Son of God.
When you eat the flesh of the words of the Spirit of the Son of God, and drink of the blood of these same words, you are satisfying your hunger and thirst by coming to him and believing in him: “he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst” (John 6:35).
So eating the flesh of the words Jesus spoke was the same as eating of the bread that came down from heaven, or coming to him and his teachings, and “drinking the blood” of the words Jesus spoke, is referring to believing in Him and in the Covenant that He made with His believers.
That Covenant was that one day, He would return to establish the Kingdom of God the Father on earth.
Hebrews 9:
[19] For when every commandment of the law had been declared by Moses to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people,
[20] saying, “This is the blood of the covenant which God commanded you.”
[21] And in the same way he sprinkled with the blood both the tent and all the vessels used in worship.
[22] Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.
[23] Thus it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.
[24] For Christ has entered, not into a sanctuary made with hands, a copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf.
[25] Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the Holy Place yearly with blood not his own;
[26] for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the age to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.
[27] And just as it is appointed for men to die once, and after that comes judgment,
[28] so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.
We know now that Him returning in the Glory of God the Father was His return in Baha’u'llah, the prophet of the Baha’i faith. So to turn to Baha’u'llah and to help establish the laws, ordinances and teachings that He brought for the Kingdom of God on earth, is being firm in the Covenant that Jesus made with His believers. Also, we know that the establisher of the Baha’i faith has showed us that the meaning of Isaiah 2, is that we must protect ourselves in fallout shelters during the upcoming nuclear war, thus ”saving” ourselves from this destruction:
Isaiah 2:
[2] It shall come to pass in the latter days
[now] that the mountain of the house of the LORD
[the house of the Lord is the Universal House of Justice brought by Baha’u'llah as the international congress of nations that will settle disputes between nations around the conference table through consultation and the laws of God] shall be established as the highest of the mountains,
and shall be raised above the hills;
and all the nations shall flow to it,
[3] and many peoples shall come, and say:
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD,
to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.”
For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
[4] He shall judge between the nations, and shall decide for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more.
[5] O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the LORD.
[6] For thou hast rejected thy people, the house of Jacob, because they are full of diviners from the east
and of soothsayers like the Philistines, and they strike hands with foreigners.
[7] Their land is filled with silver and gold, and there is no end to their treasures; their land is filled with horses, and there is no end to their chariots.
[8] Their land is filled with idols; they bow down to the work of their hands, to what their own fingers have made.
[9] So man is humbled, and men are brought low –
forgive them not!
[10] Enter into the rock,
and hide in the dust
from before the terror of the LORD,
and from the glory of his majesty.
[11] The haughty looks of man shall be brought low,
and the pride of men shall be humbled;
and the LORD alone will be exalted
in that day.
[12] For the LORD of hosts has a day
against all that is proud and lofty,
against all that is lifted up and high;
[17] And the haughtiness of man shall be humbled,
and the pride of men shall be brought low;
and the LORD alone will be exalted in that day.
[18] And the idols shall utterly pass away.
[19] And men shall enter the caves of the rocks
and the holes of the ground,
from before the terror of the LORD,
and from the glory of his majesty,
when he rises to terrify the earth.
[20] In that day men will cast forth
their idols of silver and their idols of gold,
which they made for themselves to worship,
to the moles and to the bats,
[21] to enter the caverns of the rocks
and the clefts of the cliffs,
from before the terror of the LORD,
and from the glory of his majesty,
when he rises to terrify the earth.Jesus also said, “I am the bread of life” (John 6:48), and, “he who eats this bread will live forever” (John 6:58). But what is this “bread of life” that Jesus spoke of and claimed to be? It was his teachings.
This meaning is assigned elsewhere. Jesus warned the disciples to “beware of the leaven of the bread of the Pharisees and Sadducees” (Matt. 16:6). Then Matthew pointed out that “he did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees” (Matt. 16:12).
According to Matthew, when the heavens were opened after John the Baptist baptized Jesus, the only thing that came down from heaven was the “Spirit of God” that alighted upon Jesus (Matt. 3:16). Therefore, when Jesus said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven,” the word “I” could only be referring to this Spirit of God that alighted upon Him like a dove, because that was the ONLY thing that came down from heaven!
Jesus said, “He who is of God hears the words of God” (John 8:47).
But how did the words of God become known in the world? They became known when Jesus, enlightened by the Spirit of the Son of God, spoke the words of God.
God told Moses that Jesus would be the speaker of the word, in the book of Deuteronomy:
And the Lord said to me, ‘. .I will raise up for them a prophet like you (like Moses) from among their brethren; and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him’ (Deut. 18:18)
In Acts 7:37 Paul confirms that this verse is a prophetic reference to Jesus, who was a “prophet,” just as Moses was a prophet (Deut. 18:18). Matthew also clearly states that Jesus was a prophet:
This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee. (Matt. 21:11)
William Smith, in his Dictionary of the Bible, defines the meaning of the word “prophet:”
The ordinary Hebrew word for prophet is “nabi,” derived from a verb signifying “to bubble forth” like a fountain. Hence the word means, “One who announces or pours forth the declarations of God.…” Prophecy comprehends three things: prediction; singing the dictate of the Spirit and understanding and explaining the mysterious, hidden sense of Scripture, by an immediate illumination and motion of the Spirit (Dictionary of the Bible, William Smith, p. 550).
It could therefore be said that Jesus was “singing by the dictate of’ the Spirit.” But, by the dictate of what Spirit? By the dictate of the Spirit of the Son of God, of course!
The corrupt Christian clergy deny that Jesus was a prophet of God, however. They state rather that He was God Himself — God-incarnate. I go into the corruption that the Roman empire infused indelibly into Christianity, in other documents on this site.http://www.rockymountainbahai.com/the-new-testament/debunking-christian-mythologies-a-bahai-fireside/
But suffice it to say, the concept that Jesus is God Himself, rather than a prophet of God speaking by the dictates of the Holy Spirit from God, proclaiming the One, True, Invisible God, rather than trying to take the place of God, is something that the Roman emporers decided in hurried ways, and then made into law, without regard for the truth. This law was enforced at the punishment of death.
The first man to be crowned head of the Holy Roman Empire was Charlemagne around 800 A.D., and he went around with the crucifix in one hand, and the sword in the other, on behalf of the Holy Roman Empire, and subdued the mass of the Europeans under his corrupt regime. His corrupt regime was in opposition to the Iconoclast movement that was taking place in the eastern Roman Empire (Turkey), spreading to the western Roman Empire (Europe).
The Iconoclast movement was the Roman Empire’s response to the Moslems coming up and not only conquering the Romans, but converting them to Islam. The Moslems would shout epitaphs at the Christians: “Idolators! Idolators!”
The Emperor of the Roman Empire thus responded with the Idol-breaking Movement, or the Iconoclast Movement, sending out a bunch of street thugs from down by the river, to smash up all the: 1. Statues, 2. Stained glass windows, and 3. Paintings of idols. This was absolutely against the wishes of the Romans in Rome, and so Charlemagne and his cohorts revolted. They wanted to save their beautiful and ancient idols because they were pieces of antiquity. Thus they formed the Holy Roman Empire around their opposition to the destruction of their idols.
At that point, pagans came flocking into the Christian church. The bishop of Rome claimed ascendancy above all the bishops of the Roman Empire, and made himself the Pope, or Papa of all the bishops. To spread this corruption, Charlemagne went out and killed anyone who would not submit. Not until Guttenberg in Germany published the Bible in the 1400s, did the people have an inkling about the Pope’s regime being corrupt.
This explains the motives behind the Germanic tribes eventually “protesting,” the corruption of the Pope’s Holy Roman Empire. They became “Protestants.” Luther and the Lutherans from Germany were first, then others; John Calvin formed the Methodists; the “Prebetyrs” had a twist on Luthernism called the “Prebyterians,” and so on.
King Henry the VIII of England was still Catholic, not a Protestant, but when the Pope wouldn’t grant him permission to divorce his wives, he made himself the head of the the Church of England, and called it the Anglican church. So this was a version of the Pope’s religion, with a twist, and that was, the King of England played the role of the Supreme Bishop instead of the Pope.
But however much they protested, the Protestants did not refrain from swallowing the main pill of poison of the Catholic Pope, and that was, the “Jesus is God” pill.
But I digress, and back to the subject.
One way the Christian clergy go about upholding the corruption of the truth is by teaching that Jesus IS the Word of God, when in actuality, Jesus spoke The Word of God. They twist the first part of the gospel of John that reads like this: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1-2).
Then later John says, “And the Word became flesh” (John 1:15).
Because John says the Word is God, and then he says the Word “became flesh,” the clergy falsely conclude that Jesus was God-incarnate. This is so they can keep believing Jesus is God, and they don’t have to go against all these years of corrupt tradition that teaches this idea. This conclusion is contrary to the rest of the teachings in the Bible, however. I have already shown how this is so, by pointing out that Jesus was the speaker of the Word of God, and not the Word itself.
To look deeper into these verses in the beginning of the book of John about how: …in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and later, … the Words became flesh; one must take into consideration the fact that the Bible was originally written in a different language. The original text of these verses used the Hebrew word Logos, and later the Greek word “Logos” in place of the English word “Word.” The Hebrew meaning of the word “Logos” means “The Divine thought, as can be expressed in a word” (Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance with Greek and Hebrew Dictionaries). Later, the Greeks had the meaning of the work Logos as “the thought of MAN as can be expressed in words.” This slips man in there instead of God. So the Greek interpretation of this verse corrupts the Hebrew and true meaning of this verse.
If we were to substitute the true, original, Hebrew definition of the word Logos, the beginning of the book of John would read:
In the beginning was the Divine thought as can be expressed in a word, and the Divine thoughts as can be expressed in words were with God, and the Divine thoughts as can be expressed in Words were God.
In other words, all that man, who is finite and who will never be able to comprehend the infinite God, is able to understand about God is that which is explained to him in the words spoken by the prophets.Then the verse in John would go on to say:
And the thoughts of God as can be expressed in words became flesh.
The way these words became flesh was by the Spirit of the Son of God alighting on Jesus, and then by Jesus speaking the words that described this spirit, to others.
The clergy has firmly established this untruth about Jesus being God-incarnate in the minds of the people by having them recite over and over, the false Nicene Creed and the false Apostles Creed which were passed in 325 A.D. by the Roman Emporer Constantine. He hurriedly had the priestcraft write this creed as a way to unify and subdue his kingdom. This was made into law as a ploy to maintain the unity of the empire. In no way was it intended to establish the truth of Christianity. It served Constantine’s purposes to meld Christianity with paganism, because these creeds unified the Christians and pagans into one, unifying them and making them easier to control. These creeds testify that God is three, that Jesus is God incarnate, and other such lies.
Actually, later Constantine’s mother and sister convinced him that his creeds, the Nicene Creed and the Apostles Creed, did not establish the truth about Christianity, and he later actually became a true Christian. Abdu’l-Baha talks of this. Nevertheless, the damage was done. The false Nicene Creed goes like this, and it is recited as a main part of doctrine in most Protestant churches. It absolutely opens wide the people’s mouths and pours in the “male bovine excrement.”
I believe in one God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible; And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of His Father before all worlds, God; Light of Light, Very God of Very God; Begotten, not made; Who for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven; And was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man….”
(The Nicene Creed)
First of all, the way Jesus was “begotten of His father before all worlds” was in the mind of God, or in the Logos — not in the flesh.
Second, this creed states that Jesus is “God of God,” when I have already proven using scriptures, that “God is not man…or a son of man” (Num. 23:19).
Third, Jesus wasn’t God “come down from heaven.” Rather, the Spirit of God [Holy Spirit] in the potency of the beloved Son descended from heaven and alighted upon Jesus (Matt. 3:16—17). When you believe in that Spirit, and you eat of it, digest and understand it, and drink or the blood or wine of it, meaning you believe in it, you, too, become as close to God as if you were His very own son.
Paul explains in his letter to the Galatians that you are then grafted into the family of God, into the blessed lineages that are the family of God, that you are “Abraham’s offspring,” and “heirs, according to promise,” of all the blessings of the Kingdom of God.
Jesus told us to pray for the coming of the Kingdom of God on earth, and that is the only thing he really asked us to pray for. “Our Father, Who Art in heaven…. Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done, on EARTH, as it is in heaven.” True Christians have their children say this prayer as they tuck their children in at night.
Jesus said three things about Himself and heaven: he said he was in heaven, he came from heaven and he goes to heaven:
“I have come down from heaven (John 6:38).
…the son of man which is in heaven (John 3:13).
I go to the Father (John 14:12), …my Father which is in heaven (Matt. 16:17).
Therefore, if Jesus was in heaven, and he came from heaven, and he was going to heaven, then the heaven he was referring to must have been a condition and not a place.
The American Heritage Dictionary puts forth one definition of the word “heaven” as being the “abode of God, the angels, and the souls of those who are granted salvation.” This is the heaven that Jesus dwelt in spiritually, even while on earth. He was enlightened with the Spirit of God from heaven, and therefore he could claim to be “in heaven.”
Last, the Bible doesn’t say, “God was made man,” as the Nicene Creed says. In fact, the Bible says just the opposite: “God is not a man” (Num. 23:19).
Rather, the Bible says, “the Word became flesh” (John 1:14). There is a big difference between “God was made man” (corrupt Nicene Creed), and “the Word became flesh” (The Bible). The way the “word became flesh” was by Jesus being the speaker of the Word and not by Jesus being God-incarnate.
The false Nicene Creed states that Jesus was God-incarnate. But the word “incarnate” appears nowhere in the Bible. Jesus was a prophet of God who spoke by the dictates of the Spirit of the Son of God. God’s prophet is not a god before God. God is a “jealous God” (Exodus 20:5), and He wants his people to have “no other gods” (Exodus 20:3). Jesus was a prophet of God, and not God, made man. This fact is reiterated over and over:
“This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee” (Matt. 21:11).
“And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High” (Luke 1:76).
“And he (Jesus) said, ‘Truly, I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his own country’” (Luke 4:24).
“…the Lord is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other” (Deut. 4:39).
“Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone” (Luke 18:19).
“God is spirit” (John 4:24).
“God is not man…or a son of man” (Num. 23:19).
According to Henry Halley, author of Halley’s Bible Handbook, the “Son of man” was Jesus’ favorite title for Himself, and it occurs about 70 times in the Gospels. If Jesus is God-incarnate as the corrupt Christian clergy claim, why would the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible) state so clearly that God is not a son of man?
Some might argue that Jesus is God because he said, “I am in the Father and the Father in me” (John 14:11).
However, Jesus then goes on to say “I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you” (John 14:20), Therefore, does that mean you are God also? Of course not!
Another way the corrupt Christian clergy go about falsely rationalizing the idea that Jesus was God-incarnate is by quoting Jesus’ statement: “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58).
They use this verse in conjunction with these verses:
Then Moses said to God, “If I come to people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I am has sent me to you.’” (Exodus 2:13—14)
The corrupt Christian clergy say that because God called Himself “I am,” and Jesus said, “…before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58), therefore Jesus is God. But let’s take this statement in context, using the text quoted in the footnotes of the Bible:
Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad. Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, has Abraham seen you?” Jesus said to them “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:56-58).
As I explained before, Jesus was the speaker of the Word of God. John says that Word of God existed in the beginning (John 1:1). Therefore, the words Jesus would speak to man existed in the plan of God even before Abraham was, and Abraham, being enlightened by God, saw the day when the words of the Spirit of the Son of God would be spoken by Jesus. There is no time or space in the realms of God. Sometimes those absorbed in those realms understand this where we do not. This is not to say they are wrong and we are right, only that we are finite in terms of our ability to understand the infinite realms of God.
Also, if the fact that Jesus said, “I am,” proves that Jesus is God, does that also mean Paul is God because he said, “I am what I am” (I Cor. 15:10)? Of course not! Jesus was not God and neither was Paul.
A final argument that the corrupt Christian clergy use to prove Jesus was God-incarnate, is this. At one point in Jesus’ ministry the Jews took up stones to stone Jesus. They did this because
“…you, being a man, make yourself God” (John 10:33).
The corrupt clergy say that because the Jews stoned Jesus for making Himself God, therefore Jesus did make Himself God. But in looking further into this passage we find that rather than claiming to be God Himself, Jesus claimed to be the Son of God:
“…do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God?’” (John 10:36).
Jesus was the speaker of the word of God. The words he spoke were in the “Spirit of the Son of God.” One who believes in those words is given the power to become a son of God also. Therefore, the Son of God is a spirit of closeness to God that is understood and reflected by those who come to and believe in the words that were spoken by Jesus. This is a simple truth that has been corrupted and lost.