One God Report

We continue our discussion of what John 1:14 "the Word became flesh" really means. - As described in earlier podcasts (#39 and #41) "the Word became flesh" does not mean that God became man/flesh. - So, what does the "Word became flesh mean?  - Why does John use the word "flesh"? - How has the Greek philosophical concept popularized by Plato, that the soul lives separately from the body of flesh, influenced Christian interpretation of John 1:14? Does the Bible say that man's soul is alive separate from his body of flesh? - What is the biblical view of flesh? How is flesh alive? Can the God of the Bible ever be flesh? - For the full written text of the podcast see here: https://landandbible.blogspot.com/2021/03/is-god-flesh-better-way-to-understand.html

In this episode we continue thinking about what John 1:14 "and the Word became flesh" means, and we ask deity of Christ believers who appeal to John 1:1 and John 1:14, “So you believe that God became flesh?” Do you think that “God is flesh?” - We give reasons why a better way to understand John 1:14 is that “the Logos, the Word was flesh”. In other words, the Logos, the Word - God’s communication to us - was the human being, the man Christ Jesus from Nazareth. - Our discussion continues in the next podcast episode. For full written text of these two episodes "Is God Flesh", click here. https://landandbible.blogspot.com/2021/03/is-god-flesh-better-way-to-understand.html

This episode is an interview with Sir Anthony Buzzard, one of the most active One God believers of our time. Most listeners to this podcast will know about Sir Anthony. If by chance you don’t, you will want to become familiar with him and his work. - Anthony taught for decades at the Church of God, Abrahamic Faith Bible college, now called Atlanta Bible College. He is the author of a number of books, including The Doctrine of the Trinity, Christianity’s Self-inflicted Wound, Jesus was Not a Trinitarian, The Coming Kingdom of the Messiah, Our Fathers who Aren’t in Heaven, Who is Jesus, and more. Some of them are available for free pdf download. See the links to his books and webpage. - I wanted to ask Sir Anthony about some of the changes he has seen in the One God faith movement, and what he has thought have been, and should continue to be effective witnessing tools. - One emphasis in the podcast that I would like listeners to note is the excitement and persistence that Sir Anthony has and continues to have in sharing about the One God and His human Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth. Apart from programs that may or may not be effective, I think every one of us can learn from Anthony about being excited and persistent in our sharing about the God of the Bible and His anointed, the Messiah Jesus. Be this face to face with our neighbors and others we meet, or through the modern media of the internet. - Another emphasis that Anthony makes is that we should gain experience, practice in witnessing about our faith in the one God, and this experience is gained by doing it. - We also discuss the “deity of Christ” and Jehovah’s Witness claim that “Jesus pre-existed”. - At the end of the interview, I take the liberty of sharing one other element that I believe is, or could be, essential for an effective witness to God and His Messiah. - Books: The Doctrine of the Trinity, Christianity’s Self-inflicted Wound (and more) https://focusonthekingdom.org/books/ - Website: Restoration Fellowship, Focus on the Kingdom https://focusonthekingdom.org/

For many people who believe in the “deity of Christ”, a few words from John 1:1 combined with a few words from John 1:14 forms the #1 evidence that Jesus is God, and that therefor somehow God is a Trinity. In this podcast we focus on the problems with the “deity of Christ” and Trinitarian interpretation of John 1:14, the claim that “God became man.” There is no Trinity in John 1:1 or John 1:14 or anywhere else in John’s Gospel. The incarnation, or “God became man” interpretation plucks a few words from the Gospel of John and creates its most important, essential, seminal doctrine, while ignoring nearly the entirety of the rest of the Gospel of John, and the Bible as a whole. Jesus’ own words in the Gospel of John, and the author’s own purpose statement are ignored. Does the Greek word (egeneto) translated in most English Bibles in John 1:14 as “became” mean that one member of a multi-person godhead transformed into flesh? Did one member a godhead “become” man like the fairy tale prince became frog? Many “diety of Christ” believers seem to believe that one member of a godhead inhabited a human body like the human prince inhabited a frog body. If God became man by taking on another nature, human nature (flesh), then why has the Trinitarian god been defined for hundreds of years as having only one nature? Deity of Christ interpreters are like magicians who claim one moment that there God has one nature, but then the next moment insist that their god has two natures. Why is the conception and birth of Jesus the Messiah not described at all in the Gospel of John, if the author wanted to communicate that God becameman? We call the incarnation “the Greatest Story Never Told”. We explain why “deity of Christ” belief in a “trans-nature” god is similar to, and in some ways even worse, than the modern trans-gender claims. Christians who believe in a trans-natured god and condemn transgenders and homosexuals are being hypocritical. We note how history is against the “God became man” interpretation of John 1:14, and see how the interpretation was developed in Greco-Roman-Byzantine philosophical speculation in lands outside of Israel. The Gospel of John must be understood from a 1st century Hebraic background, not from a 2-5thcentury Gentile viewpoint. The worst aspect of the “God became man” interpretation is that it denies that Jesus of Nazareth is a human person. In the end, it tends to eliminate even the abstract “human nature” from Jesus. There is a better way to interpret John 1:14 which does not deny that Jesus is a human person. We plan to make a suggestion in a podcast to come. Full text of the episode is available here: https://landandbible.blogspot.com/2021/01/the-word-became-flesh-why-john-114-does.html Links for other sources mentioned in the podcast: Evolution of the Trinity, Interview with Dr. Dale Tuggy (part 1) https://anchor.fm/onegodreport-podcast/episodes/10-Evolution-of-the-Trinity--Interview-with-Dr--Dale-Tuggy--part-1-ebro54 “Jesus is Not a Human Person” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qKrogW3MUM&ab_channel=BillSchlegel

In this episode we make some comments on miracles in the Bible. The Bible says that God occasionally breaks forth into human history with miracles as evidence and confirmation that indeed, the God of the Bible is involved in the affairs of humankind. Humankind is to know that “this is Yahweh God” by the miraculous event. = Sometimes the miracles are confirmation and evidence that Yahweh, through a messenger or prophet has spoken. See Exo. 7:5, 17; 10:2, Deut. 4, etc. - In Deuteronomy 13, however, Israel was warned that sometimes a person may come performing miracles, but he is a false prophet. How was Israel to know? If the person doing the miracle was trying to draw Israel away from the God of their ancestors, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, then Israel would know he was a false prophet. Yahweh allowed the false prophet and the miracles only to test Israel, to see if Israel wholly loved and followed Yahweh his God- There were three pairs of historical periods when God broke through into humankinds affairs with the miraculous: 1. a) Exodus (Moses) and, b) Conquest (Joshua) 2. b) Elijah and, b) Elisha 3. a) Jesus and, b) the apostles. - The miracles of Jesus were unique, but also consistent with the way the God of the Hebrew Scriptures worked and promised to work: 1. The overall purpose of the miracles that Jesus performed was the same as previously in Israel’s history: the miracles confirmed and were evidence that Jesus spoke for God, was authorized by God and sent by God. Jesus did not perform miracles because he was God, but because God was with him and Jesus was empowered by God (John 10:24-25, 14:10; Acts 2:22, 10:38). 2. Some of the miracles that Jesus did were unique, reserved for the Messiah and the messianic age. The miracles are evidence that the one performing the miracle is the Messiah (Isaiah 35:5-6; Matt. 11:5). - We discuss how there were efforts to discredit Jesus and the miracles he did during the time that Jesus was on earth. But in general these efforts failed because there were so many eyewitnesses and evidences that the miracles happened. - For different reasons, efforts to discredit the miracles of Jesus in modern times also fail. In the end, we are left with real good reasons to believe that the miraculous deeds of Jesus occurred, and that these miraculous deeds are evidence that Jesus is indeed the Messiah.

This episode is a discussion with Kermit Zarley, retired professional golfer, and now author of a number of books, including The Restitution of Jesus Christ (see links below). Formerly a Trinitarian Christian, Zarley briefly describes how he came to understand that the God of the Bible is one, and that Jesus is God’s human Messiah. Then, we discuss the following topics: · Did Jesus pre-exist as a person before he was a human being? · What did Jesus mean when Jesus said that he “came down from heaven” and was “sent from God”? · The use of figures of speech or metaphorical language in the Gospel of John, and the literary theme that many of Jesus’s listeners did not understand the metaphors. · The Christological motif in the Gospel of John is not “Incarnational Christology”, i.e., that God became man or took on human flesh) but “Agency Christology”, i.e., that Jesus is God’s human representative agent, who speaks and acts empowered by God and representing God). · At the end of the discussion, Zarley gives the most important tip for budding, amateur golfers. Links: Kermit Zarley Webpage: http://kermitzarley.com/ Zarley’s Books on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Kermit-Zarley/e/B001JOUID0?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1&qid=1608329122&sr=8-1 Book: The Restitution of Jesus Christ http://kermitzarley.com/product/the-restitution-of-jesus-christ/ Reviewof The Restitution of Jesus Christ by Bill Schlegel https://landandbible.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-restitution-of-jesus-christ-signs.html “My Lord and My God: Trinitarians Get it Wrong” Commentary on John 20:28 https://landandbible.blogspot.com/2019/12/my-lord-and-my-god-trinitarians-get-it.html

"But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, being little among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days." וְאַתָּה בֵּית-לֶחֶם אֶפְרָתָה צָעִיר לִהְיוֹת בְּאַלְפֵי יְהוּדָה מִמְּךָ לִי יֵצֵא לִהְיוֹת מוֹשֵׁל בְּיִשְׂרָאֵל וּמוֹצָאֹתָיו מִקֶּדֶם מִימֵי עוֹלָם׃ A passage often remembered around Christmas time, Micah 5:2 is quoted in Matthew 2:5-6 to describe that Israel’s ruler would be born in Bethlehem. Some Christian expositors and laypersons see the “eternal pre-existence” of the Messiah and therefore Messiah’s deity in the words of Micah 5:2 (in Hebrew, Micah 5:1): “whose origin is from of old, from ancient days.” However, even just a comparison of English translations reveals that “eternality” in this passage is not so cut-and-dry. Some English translations of the use a word like “everlasting”, while others translate the same phrase as “from ancient days”. A word study and the context of the passages shows that neither Micah nor Matthew were declaring the “eternal pre-existence” of Messiah. Rather, the passages refer to the promise of God given to David centuries before. The “eternal pre-existence” and “deity of Christ” claims from Micah 5 are based on presuppositions that force a wrong understanding of Hebrew words. The words miqedem "from before" and mimei olam "from ancient days" do not mean “eternal pre-existence” but refer to events in Israel’s past. Specifically, Micah 5:2 refers to the promise God made to David long ago, centuries before Micah’s day. The “eternality” interpretation also ignores both the literary and historical context of the passage which speaks of a descendant of David who was to rule for Yahweh by the strength of Yahweh his God when the Assyrians came into the land. The “eternality” interpretation also misses the meaning of the passage. Micah is trusting completely on God’s promise of peace and salvation through a king who would descend from David. There was an amazing, observable sample of that promised victorious peace in David’s descendant Hezekiah (see Isaiah 37:15-38), a sample which gives us concrete evidence and confidence that Yawheh our God fulfills His promises. The ultimate fulfillment of God’s promise to David is in Jesus. In an even greater fashion than in the days of David or Hezekiah, Jesus the descendant of David will shepherd and rule God’s people for God  in the strength of Yahweh his God, and in the majesty of the name of Yahweh his God. The Gospel of Matthew mentions nothing about the pre-existence of Jesus in quoting Micah’s passage. Neither Jesus nor any New Testament author ever appealed to the Old Testament to reveal the eternal pre-existence or deity of Messiah. Jesus and the New Testament authors did appeal to the Old Testament to show the suffering, death and subsequent glory of Messiah. For a full written text of the podcast see here: https://landandbible.blogspot.com/2019/02/micah-52-matthew-26-eternal-deity-of.html

Jon and Heather Kidwell come from a traditional, conservative Christian background. Heather grew up on the mission field. In this podcast the Kidwells tell their story about how they came to understand that God is one, and that Jesus is God’s human Messiah, who died and was raised from the dead by God. While homeschooling her kids (Camden, Cate and Cara - we hear from them toward the end of the podcast), Heather was bothered by an emphasis even in Christian homeschooling curriculum on the study of Greek philosophy and culture. Why are we so fascinated with Greek history and philosophy? She began to wonder if she was looking at life, and interpreting the Scriptures, through a Greek philosophical lens rather than through a Hebraic, biblical mindset. Was she teaching her children biblical truth? Or had some traditional Christian dogmas been formed by interpreting the Scriptures from Greek ways of thinking which she knew would twist the truth? The questions set the family on a quest to find the truth. They began to discover that church teachings like the immortality of the human soul, going to heaven in a dis-embodied state, and eternal conscious torment in hell were all non-biblical ideas. Rather, the Scriptures teach that man is mortal, our hope is in the resurrection from death to new immortal life on earth, and that the wages of sin is death, perishing. They were first introduced to the biblical idea that Jesus the Messiah is a real human person who was put to death and raised from the dead by God, in a book by Kegan Chandler called The God of Jesus in Light of Christian Dogma. https://www.amazon.com/God-Jesus-Light-Christian-Dogma/dp/0967324939 The Kidwells are an example of more and more sincere Christians who are realizing the ideas of a three-persons-in-one god, and a dual natured god-man are not the best way to understand who the God of the Bible and His Messiah are. Bill and Stephanie Schlegel Testimony https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LA9Uq-8xMc&ab_channel=21stCenturyReformation

John 1:10 does not say that Jesus created planet earth.  This episode is part 2 of our commentary on John 1:9-13. For a full written text of this episode, click here. https://landandbible.blogspot.com/2020/11/jesus-did-not-create-planet-earth.html - The word translated "world" in John 1:9-10, the Greek word kosmos, does not mean planet earth. - We can understand better what the author meant by kosmos, world, in John 1:10 by seeing the parallels in the next verse. Kosmos of verse 10 is parallel to “his own” in John 1:11, meaning the Jewish people and perhaps even specifically Jews who lived in the geographical region of Judea. The “kosmos that knew him not” in verse 10 is parallel to “his own people who received him not” in verse 11. - The word “create” is nowhere in John’s Prologue. The kosmos was not created by Jesus, but rather it came to be through the man Jesus. The kosmos that came to be through Jesus is the new people of God, specifically those who are born of God and are the children of God as described in verses 12-13. - The deity of Christ interpretation of John 1, and specifically of John 1:3 and 1:10, which claims that Jesus was the creator of all things and of the earth, is a direct contradiction to many other Scriptures that state clearly that the Creator of all things is the one God, Yahweh the God of Israel. See Gen. 1:1, Isaiah 37:16, 40:28, 42:5, 45:12, 45:18; Jer. 10:12, 27:5, Mal. 2:10; Psa. 8:3, 100:3, 102:25; Neh. 9:6; Matt. 19:4; Mark 10:6; Acts 17:24; Rev. 4:11, 10:6. - The interpretation offered in this podcast episode is in complete agreement with other biblical revelation, that the One God, Yahweh, the God of Israel, the Father, is the Creator, and that as He, He alone, created the heavens and the earth and brought about human civilization through one individual human being (Adam, Noah, Abraham). Likewise, He, Yahweh, brings about the community known as the “children of God” which comes to be in the next age through the one man Jesus the Messiah. 1 Cor. 8:6: “yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all and through whom we exist. - We can refer to the body of the Gospel of John to understand what the author means in the Prologue. The Prologue uses much metaphorical language, and the exact same metaphors, themes and language the author introduces in the Prologue he reiterates again in the Gospel, associating the language and themes of the Prologue to the man Jesus and his ministry. These parallels are evidence that John’s Prologue is not a commentary on the Genesis creation, but rather is an introduction to the new beginning in the man Jesus of Nazareth. It does the author of John’s Gospel great injustice to claim that his Prologue is not an introduction to the man Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah. - For a full written text of this episode, click here. https://landandbible.blogspot.com/2020/11/jesus-did-not-create-planet-earth.html

This episode is part 1 of a two part commentary on the Gospel of John 1:9-13. - This episode focuses on John 1:9, where we take a close look at what 'the world" (the Greek word "kosmos") means in the Bible in general and in the Gospel of John specifically. We also investigate what the Gospel of John means by the phrase "coming into the world". - We must understand the figures of speech, idioms and metaphors in the Gospel of John if we are to understand the Gospel correctly. It was those in opposition to Jesus that especially misunderstood his figures of speech. John 10:6, “This figure of speech Jesus used with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.” - The Greek word kosmos, although translated as “world” in John 1:9-10, does not mean planet earth. Rather kosmos means human society, or a segment of human society, specifically Jewish society. - To go or “come into the kosmos, into the world” does not mean a person came from some heavenly or planetary realm into planet earth. To “come into the world” means to be a part of human society, to exist and be alive at a certain time and place. Everyone “comes into the world.” As fulfillment of God’s promise the Prophet of Deut. 18:15 “comes into the world” and the Messiah “comes into the world” (John 7:31, 11:27). - The man Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah is the light who “came into the world.” This is made clear by the author both in the Prologue (the Baptizer was not the light) and in the body of the Gospel. Jesus said, “I have come as light into the world” (John 12:46, 3:19). - For a full written text of this episode, click here. https://landandbible.blogspot.com/2020/11/jesus-did-not-create-planet-earth.html