I’ve just recently stopped going to meetings and started studying the Bible. I really appreciate these type of discussions. Trying to unravel the falsehoods from the truths. This discussion definitely helps. Keep them coming!
I remember learning about the schism between Russell and Barbour and the way the Watchtower portrayed it Barbour completely rejected the ransom, whereas the argument was more about the state of Jesus' resurrection body. Watchtower's other argument that anyone could have paid the ransom price, as long as he was a perfect man, is so counter-Christian it's crazy. Now there's decent evidence that at least the author of Phillipians and John might have had some inkling of a prehuman existence for Jesus/Logos but I find it very VERY difficult to believe that many people believed he was an angel or the first created spirit creature before his birth, let alone God. They knew him as a man, and even the much later author of 2 Timothy insisted he was still a man in some sense.
Even something as simple as God creating man in his image, is realized when you understand that God himself became man and needed the required vessel for that to happen. Or that in the Old testament God is always being anthropomorphized and he's always coming down, becoming smaller, wrestling with Jacob, Entering into the Temple made by the hands of man, being described in human terms. Speaking to Abraham by the Oaks of Mamre, as a man. Then you realize because the plan has always been for him to come down in the ultimate way and be amongst his people. It's like God is working from the end and allowing the beginning in the middle to follow the path of the end. Making Jesus some side entity like Michael The Archangel...that no one knows much about ....divorces the richness from the scriptural account. The overarching theme would be lost.
I’ve just recently stopped going to meetings and started studying the Bible. I really appreciate these type of discussions. Trying to unravel the falsehoods from the truths. This discussion definitely helps. Keep them coming!
Thank you for sharing this! Thank you David and Vivian ❤️🙏🏻
Thank God in Jesus christ name
I remember learning about the schism between Russell and Barbour and the way the Watchtower portrayed it Barbour completely rejected the ransom, whereas the argument was more about the state of Jesus' resurrection body. Watchtower's other argument that anyone could have paid the ransom price, as long as he was a perfect man, is so counter-Christian it's crazy. Now there's decent evidence that at least the author of Phillipians and John might have had some inkling of a prehuman existence for Jesus/Logos but I find it very VERY difficult to believe that many people believed he was an angel or the first created spirit creature before his birth, let alone God. They knew him as a man, and even the much later author of 2 Timothy insisted he was still a man in some sense.
Even something as simple as God creating man in his image, is realized when you understand that God himself became man and needed the required vessel for that to happen. Or that in the Old testament God is always being anthropomorphized and he's always coming down, becoming smaller, wrestling with Jacob, Entering into the Temple made by the hands of man, being described in human terms. Speaking to Abraham by the Oaks of Mamre, as a man. Then you realize because the plan has always been for him to come down in the ultimate way and be amongst his people. It's like God is working from the end and allowing the beginning in the middle to follow the path of the end. Making Jesus some side entity like Michael The Archangel...that no one knows much about ....divorces the richness from the scriptural account. The overarching theme would be lost.