At least study how the Hebrews viewed God's word and wisdom.("Christology in the Making" by James Dunn might be a good place to start)Did they think they were people literally come alive next to Yahweh in the OT?Or do they incorporate the use of vivid personification and poetic language because of how dynamic Yahweh's will,word and wisdom ARE?To be fulfilled in his Messiah!Even though Jesus was always alive with Yahweh,does scripture dictate it was in a literal preexistent sense or as a sure to be fulfilled prophecy of unbelievable wisdom?Is Jesus the exalted-beyond-measure Lord because of his ontology or age or nature?Or because he's the obedient and loved Last Adam who faithfully fulfilled God's word and wisdom and kingdom plans?Is Jesus the second individual of a triune substance because he's called savior and God?Because he's worshipped?What about everyone else who is?Are they?
I've no doubt of Jesus's presence throughout the OT in prophecy,typology,foreshadowings,representations,God's plans as representative of his word ,will and wisdom,etc..and that is HOW he was present in the OT.He's always been the Messiah,the fulfillment of all things.And in him God made all things AS the eventual fulfillment of all things,the upholder of all things,the redeemer of all things,and the made Lord of all things.That means Jesus is more special than anyone else in the entire free world with the exception of Yahweh his lifegiver,sustainer,and God.
God IS love.God foreknew the fall and error of Adam before he even made him.God had a plan,representative of his word and wisdom,that he brought forth like labor pains before he even made the world.Similar to how,on a much lesser scale,we would laboriously concoct some goal or plan that would hopefully come to fruition in our wisdom.God's universal and inimitable plan ,which would eventually become flesh in the perfect man Yeshua the Messiah as the fulfillment of all things,the Great Amen,was his purpose for a reconciliation of a corrupt world unto himself.(2 Cor. 5:19)The birth,death,and exaltation of a Son he has had with him ideally from the very beginning.Since before the mountains were formed or the earth was made, his wisest and most extraordinary prophecy that would be fully revealed and manifest,again,in the human birth,heartwrenching death,and profound extolling of his Christ.This plan was always alive to him and in it he made all things.It was the purpose for everything.Because nothing could ultimately survive,much less flourish and grow and be fruitful,without its fulfillment and the man who would embody,capture,respect,honor,and perfectly birth it's realization to an exact precision according to his father's will,wisdom,purpose,word,and spirit.
Because of how lucidly God's wisdom and word are brought to life in poetic dialogue and personification sporadically in scripture(Proverbs 8:22-31 comes to mind especially) there has been what I personally perceive to be much misunderstanding about an ACTUAL person being named Word and named Wisdom in the OT who created on behalf of God,or rather that God created through that one.God's attributes are spoken about poetically with personification(sometimes brilliant and alive!)to ,as Karen Armstrong words it in her book "from A History of God:From Abraham to the present:the 4000 year quest for God" "emphasize the distinction between God's presence in the world and the incomprehensible reality of God itself."If even our puny human attributes or intrinsic soul possessions,like our "spirit", can be personified,how much more anything that belongs to Yahweh !What I'm doing here is simply trying to read the texts like an ancient Hebrew would,and I'm pretty sure at this point they would have read Yahweh's wisdom in Proverbs 8 as vivid personification only.And then later as being fulfilled,as God's grandest most extraordinary plan for a kingdom realized,in Yeshua.Though the implications in terms of Christ representing poignantly what was there WITH God before the world was ever made,ie his word,wisdom and spirit,are profound in that what Christ fulfilled and became God made the Genesis creation IN,he didn't literally physically embody those things until he became a perfect obedient flesh prophet and servant of Yah's as the MAN Messiah Jesus.
What Adam corrupted and lost the Last Adam cleansed and found.Where Adam destroyed and disappointed Yeshua rescued and faithfully obeyed.Christ corresponds to the first Adam in all ways,in reverse in every important way.And because of this he has been given the world.As would be expected from a father who epitomizes love to the unique Son who also does,who he MADE to be firstborn.(Psalm 89:27)Yahweh says in Proverbs 27:11:
Be wise, my son, and bring joy to my heart; then I can answer anyone who treats me with contempt.
Adam failed to do this and Satan was probably able to taunt Yahweh.In the book of Job Satan taunts Yahweh and implies to him no one will stay faithful and true to him who isn't utterly blessed by him,implying that even the best and truest servants are corrupt enough to defy their creator.Not only did Job prove Satan wrong,but Yeshua the Messiah did so in the most heartfelt and magnificent way imaginable!1 Peter 1:20 says about Yeshua:
He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake.
It is texts like these that prove to me that the preexistence of Yeshua was an ideal and not a literal one.I don't have to guess..it's simply stated.I think God foreknew his Christ and extraordinary Son would be obedient and has loved him since before he ever created anything as the redemption and reconciliation he knew Yeshua would make possible for mankind!And as the prophet/servant/image of Himself that represented Him to mankind to a complete and beautiful tee.This was done by a cooperation of Yeshua's love for his father and a desire to earnestly please him with Yahweh's spirit given to this unique and special man "without measure."(John 3:34)Yeshua's obedience and faithfulness despite genuine temptation and flesh tendencies to rebel is heartfelt,inspiring,and poignant because it's real!It's no hoax.He wasn't a Godman who COULDN'T have sinned.He wasn't the personality of an archangel who walked by millenniums of "sight" who lived in heaven for centuries before.He was our GENUINE example of a faithful and true flesh man that we can actually emulate.If he wasn't a genuine man with no natures atop that status,then he can't be a model for us to follow closely at all.It would be only a fantasy to be able to emulate a Godman or a man with an ancient angel's disposition and knowledge and experience.An unreachable desire.A tease.I understand "Arians" don't think Jesus was "two natures" and aren't essentially splitting Jesus into multiple personalities necessarily in his time on earth,but the way I perceive it currently is that in a way they do in that Jesus is different natures at separate times as opposed to the trinitarians' "at the same time."In other words,we have Jesus as one kind of being then another,then according to whatever Arian you're speaking to,back to the first or maintaining the second.It gets confusing.I personally believe Yahweh makes persons to always be the person he makes them.They may change natures from corruptible to incorruptible in a resurrection or as a Christian rebirth but never in what they essentially are.In other words,he made angels to be angels and men to be men.
How could and WHY would Yahweh give the world to a NON ancient being or a NON "Godman",even allowing service,worship,and allegiance to that one?Because he can!God is love.Contemplate(seriously) that notion a moment.Would God REALLY be jealous of someone he loves that he COMMANDS people to revere just as they revere him?Is God somehow not allowed to love someone enough to give someone whatever he will while exalting that one to whatever position he will?Since when?I KNOW God says he's jealous,but notice the contexts!He's fighting worship of false gods every which way you turn throughout the entire OT.Not reverence for those he adores or his representatives and relative worship for kings and those placed in high positions by himself.
Examine:
Revelation 3:9:Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee.
The word for worship here is that same word for worship used for Yeshua.And what is the reason he will make some people"worship" his faithful servants?Because he loves them and commands it.Not because they're ontologically the same Yahweh that he is.
Examine:
Hebrews 1:9: You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness;
therefore God, your God, has anointed you
with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.
This text proves Yahweh has exalted Yeshua above his companions because he "loved righteousness and hated wickedness",no clue that it's because he's he first spirit creature ever created or a member of his own God's own being.So why isn't the TRUE reason always preached?And that,again,would be because he "loved righteousness and hated wickedness."Why can't that be good enough?
Philippians 2:6-11 proves that it is because of humility and willingness to be debased unto death,though Christ was God's own image like the first Adam was,that God ultimately exalts,glorifies exceedingly and commands the worship of his Son. The one that he made to be our king and Lord.Again,why not preach this truth with no additional reasons like "nature" and "age" added?Do the texts themselves communicate it was because he was the same God his own God is that he's exalted or because he "loved righteousness and hated wickedness" and "humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death?"And to whose glory?The first person of his own being or his own God's?Why are Christians adding outstandingly scripturally absent notions to their theological assertions?It astounds me.
I understand God said there are no other gods and saviors.I understand God said he alone must be worshipped.But yet we find inexplicably ignored instances of OTHER gods,saviors,and people receiving worship(outside Yahweh and Yeshua) that isn't condemned in scripture.What could this all mean?!Obviously,that there is no god,savior,or worship without God's making,sending,or allowance.The only worship outside the Most High Yahweh is RELATIVE worship to his glory.The only "gods" and "saviors" outside Yahweh are limited and appointed and made ones that Yahweh works and performs through and sustains with his own spirit.God GRANTS Yeshua to have life within himself.What are we to do?Discard as refuse texts that communicate others being called saviors and gods as if it's a hoax?Pretend kings and slave owners and Christians and those with endowed authority by Yahweh aren't ever worshipped?I don't think so.We just need to turn on our reasoning with a spiritual remote and blast the volume with a discarding of tradition that contradicts scripture.When I present to trinitarians that their ideas that supposedly make Yeshua Yahweh would generally mean Christians are Yahweh as well...like forgiveness of sins(John 20:21-23),worship(Rev. 3:9),exaltation(Rev. 3:21),fullness(Eph 3:19),etc..it's as if they can't even visually behold the very texts I give them.As if the scriptures are invisible or blindness conveniently sets in.I understand it's different for Jesus in that he's the beginning and end of all God's salvation plans and kingdom and that God works through him like no other,that he's the way to God,truth from God and life from God,that he's king and Lord of the world by an inimitable exaltation from God,but none of this makes him the same God who sent or extolled or entitled him.
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