Refuting The Nefarious NASA

 

Find The Prophet

 

UFO And Aliens Are A Joke, Right?

JTO Sees Substantial Increase In Readers

JTO has seen an increase of over 5000 10000 readers this month over last month. You, our readers, are from over 20 countries. 

We have also seen an increase in the comment participation. At the present, commenters are able to submit a comment anonymously if they desire. If you want to include your name, check your browser profile features to add your name before commenting. If you don't know how to do that, you may just put your name in the body of your comment. The best discussion is when there is a personal identifier of some kind.

Keep in mind that when a comment is submitted, it may not be visible right away. Each comment is approved by the JTO editor prior to posting--usually within a day. The approval filter is not intended to prevent opposing views or even the passionate ways they may be expressed. Some comments are restricted, however, due to vitriolic or ad hominem verbiage. You would also be amazed at how often a blog comment section is used to promote the purchase of a product someone is hocking. The commenter starts out with high praise of the blog then includes a link where you can buy their jewelry, etc. JTO filers these intrusions so you won't have to.

We live in an amazing time where information can be readily assimilated, and we may speak with and hear from others quickly, often in real time. The JTO blog is here, to create an atmosphere of discussion in the spirit of the Bereans. "The Bereans lived in the Greek city of Berea, also called Beroea, in the time of the Apostle Paul, about AD 50. These people, mentioned in Acts 17, are best known for searching and studying the Bible for themselves and not merely accepting what they were taught."  

But make no mistake, JTO is unapologetically, the personal journey of the blog editor, me, and what I am currently seeing, hearing and expressing. Many of the JTO posts are simple and short ways of provoking discussion. Other, more lengthy theological treatments can be found on other blogs and websites, some of whose links we have provided.

The NAME: Some of you may be aware that for many years the JTO blog promoted the Eastern Orthodox view of theology and the church. The JTO editor no longer espouses many of the views posted in articles dating back to 2006. The posts remain on the blog to reflect, in part, my theological journey. Please see my bio for more on that. I have kept the name Journey to Orthodoxy but have included an explanation of the theological shift to the Unitarian/Monotarian understanding of the scripture. The word "orthodoxy" means: "conforming to established doctrine especially in religion". Since the Unitarian/Monotarian doctrine was the established Old and New Testament understanding of God - “Hear, O Israel! Yahweh is our God, Yahweh is one!", then the continued use of the word orthodox is accurate and appropriate. The Eastern Orthodox Church may keep their capitol O as their identifier. JTO will use the small o - orthodox - as the literal meaning of the word.

Whatever your reason for participating or stopping by, thank you so much! If nothing else, hang around and attempt to bring me to my senses, keep me from going off the deep end, save my soul from deception, or feel free to exercise your pride, self-aggrandizement and spiritual superiority. That's always fun! (But usually doesn't end well.)

Nathan Lee Lewis

JTO Editor

Like Night and Day

 Unitarian Christian Alliance | Facebook

Editing Scriptures, The Trinitarian Way

Let me give that a try...

"Jesus said to her. "Do not touch me for I have not yet gone up to the Father myself. But go to my brothers human creatures and say to them, 'I am going up to my father myself and your father, and my God myself and your God.' " 

That's fun. Let's try another one...

"So pray this way: 'Our Father Me who is in heaven standing right here, may your my name be treated as holy. May your my kingdom come. May your my will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give I'm going to give us this day our daily bread, and forgive I'm going to forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not bring I won't bring us into temptation but deliver I will deliver us from the wicked one.' "

...because, you see, Jesus is God, right? "God the father. God the son. God the Holy Spirit?"

Well, he was human while on earth, you say? Then why has he not melded back into the Father Spirit since he is now back in heaven? Why is THE MAN Christ Jesus now at the "RIGHT HAND OF THE FATHER"?

You have strange bedfellows if you adhere to the Trinity doctrine:

"Many who believe in the Trinity are surprised, perhaps shocked, to learn that the idea of divine beings existing as trinities or triads long predated Christianity. Yet, as we will see, the evidence is abundantly documented."

How Ancient Trinitarian Gods Influenced Adoption of the Trinity | United Church of God (ucg.org)

 

Why I Am A Monotarian

By J. Dan Gill

I might be a Trinitarian, if it was not for God. It is him with whom I am at odds if I embrace multiple persons as one Deity. Again and again, I can hear him saying, “I am the Lord, and there is no one else” (Isa. 45:6). If I will not believe him, then why do I call him God? Either he is God alone or he is not God at all. We must never compromise the biblical definition of God. But have we already done so in the form of multi-person monotheism? Without the understanding that only he is God, it is impossible to know him as he really is.

The beliefs of Christian Monotarians stand in contrast to multi-person theologies. Christian Monotarians are strict monotheists. They hold to the original — biblical — monotheism of God’s prophets and people of old. They believe that the Father of Israel — the Father of Jesus Christ — is the only one in the universe who is truly God (Isa. 64:4, 8; John 17:3); [20] that God’s spirit is not another person of Deity but rather the Father himself at work in his presence and power (Matt. 10:20). They believe in Jesus as the LORD’s Christ: his Messiah — the one whom God has made Lord of all (Acts 2:36; Ps. 2:2 cf. Acts 4:26); that he is God’s only begotten human son; that he came into existence by a miracle in a young virgin by the name of Mary (Luke 1:35); that Jesus is our redeemer, our savior — but not our God (Acts 5:31; 13:23); that to truly follow Christ, we must serve his God ( John 20:17).

As a Christian Monotarian I rejoice in the working of God by his spirit. I have found peace with God through his Messiah — his Christ (Rom. 5:1). He is the LORD’s anointed (Ps. 2:2); his chosen king (Luke 1:32, 33); his miraculously begotten human son (Luke 1:35). Jesus, by relying on God, did not sin — yet he has borne our sins (Heb. 9:14). He trusted in God to the point of death; God raised him from the dead and seated him at his own right hand in heaven (Eph. 1:20). Nevertheless, the Messiah is not my God. Without reservation, my God is the LORD alone! It is YHWH whose spirit it is! It is YHWH without whom there would be no Messiah! I trust in God — I trust in his Christ. Who shall condemn me?[21]

I embrace the LORD alone as God of the universe. I believe in an uncomplicated singularity of God. I will accept no other gods and no other persons within Deity. I do not serve other personalities or supposed manifestations of God. I unreservedly hold to the original monotheism that God himself gave to his people in the Bible. His first priority is my first priority: “He alone is God.” His prime directive is the basis upon which I live my life: “I will serve only him as God.” It is critically important to God that we know who he is. Because I love him, it is also critically important to me. So they may know that you alone, whose name is the LORD, are the Most High over all the earth (Ps. 83:18).

______________________

[19] I adopt the phrase Christian Monotarian here as it seems helpful to expressing my faith in God as a single individual and in Jesus as the Messiah, the Christ of God — but not himself God. The term “Monotarian” can be drawn from the Scriptures and particularly Jesus’ declaration in John 17:3 that the Father is τον μονον αληθινον θεον. The first person I have known to use the term Christian Monotarian is my friend Pastor Mark A. Jones of Tennessee, http://hgcn.org/ our-pastors.html. Sean P. Finnegan of New York has used the term “Christian Monotheist” with the same intent, http://www.christianmonotheism.com.

[20] This of course is not to disallow the use of the word “God” as an honorary title or appellation for certain people — Ps. 82:6, etc. See chapter 9 of this book for an exposition of the word when used in its honorific sense.

[21] Christian Monotarians are biblically centered and embrace the Bible as the word of God. They believe in miracles, the virgin birth of Christ (Luke 1:34, 35), and that the man Christ Jesus was — by a miracle in Mary — literally God’s only begotten human son (Matt. 1:20). Christian Monotarians believe that it was by depending on his Father that Jesus lived a sinless life (Heb. 4:15); did great miracles (Acts 2:22; 10:38); spoke the word of God ( John 12:49, 50) and ultimately gave his life as a perfect sacrifice to God for the rest of us human beings (Heb 9:14; Rom. 5:6–10). They believe that Jesus was buried and then bodily resurrected by God (Rom. 10:9), was/ is glorified at the right hand of God (Acts 5:31); that he will come again (1 Thess. 1:10) and raise from the dead those who trust in him ( John 5:25–30; 1 Cor. 15:20–23).

In all of this, Christian Monotarians hold that Jesus, by the plan and work of God, was truly one of us: That he was the second Adam (Rom. 5:14). Just as God created Adam and made him a human being, likewise, God created his son Jesus in Mary as a true human being. Christian Monotarians believe that to bring salvation to the rest of humanity, Jesus himself had to be really one of us (Rom. 5:17–19): Not God, not a “God-man” — not an angel or “angel-man” — or any other kind of being. They believe that Jesus did not literally preexist his own conception in Mary and that language in the New Testament about his “preexisting” was intended to be understood as “types” (tupos) of the man Christ Jesus. Metaphorically, he was “bread” ( John 6:35) a “rock” (1 Cor. 10:4) etc. They believe that our hope in Christ and of our resurrection is that he, as God’s begotten human son, is genuinely one of us (Acts 17:31).

The term “biblical unitarian” typically refers to the same view of God as being only one individual. However, unitarians do not always embrace the same faith as Christian Monotarians regarding Jesus. As is the case at times among others who assert faith in Christ, some unitarians lean to rationalism at the expense of biblical faith and do not hold to his virgin birth, etc. Additionally, the term “unitarian” is often misunderstood by the public. Use of the term frequently leads to confusing “biblical unitarians” with “Unitarian Universalists” (“Universalism” or just “Unity”), which is an entirely different religion that is neither biblical nor Christian.

"I am the Lord. I am maker of everything.

I alone stretch out the heavens.

I spread out the earth by myself."

Hmmm... I heard tell that Jesus was preexistent, that Jesus is the "Word" that is referred to and Jesus did the creating. What gives?


Is it possible that Jesus was the created human Messiah - Son of God, Son of Man, Son of David and not co-equal with the Father as the innovative trinity doctrine espouses?


Is it possible that the "word" is the expressed wisdom, plan, and intent of the Father and not the preexistent Jesus, that "word" it is a verb and not a noun? You know... like "in the beginning was the word."


Is it possible that God is the One God, who alone is God, the same God that Jesus said was his God also? You know... like when Jesus said, "I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God" or when Jesus said, "The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord".


You know...like that...

Heaven Is Not My Home- The Kingdom of God Is My Home

 

Heaven is the abode of the Father.

Heaven is not the abode of men.

The Kingdom of God will be the abode of men.

The Kingdom of God will be on Earth.

Prove me wrong... without using ad hominems.

The Dark Legacy of the Nicaean Creed

 

"The Nicene Creed is an example of what happens when unbelievers (like pagan philosophers and especially politicians, like Roman emperors) get mixed up in religion.

First comes confusion, since the Creed itself is replete with ambigous and contradictory language.

For example, the creed violates the later trinitarian formula of 3 distinct hypostasis in 1 ousia or 3 Persons in 1 Being or Substance. According to the noted church historian Richard Hanson, “for at least the first half of the period 318-381, and in some cases considerably later, ousia and hypostasis are used as virtual synonyms.” As a result, the creed condemned anyone who said “the Son of God is of a different hypostasis or ousia” from the Father. Yet, today trinitarians would charge you with blasphemy if you taught this section of the creed. Hanson adds that “Not many who have written upon the subject of the Creed of Nicaea have observed this serious difficulty presented by it.” “And in fact there were present at the Council people, such as Marcellus of Ancyra, who were quite ready to maintain that there is only one hypostasis in the Godhead, and who were later to be deposed for heresy because they believed this.”

So however trinitarians try to spin it “the Creed produced by the Council of Nicaea was a mine of potential confusion and consequently most unlikely to be a means of ending the Arian Controversy.” (thehumanjesus.org)

Click HERE for the full article.