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1.2.2.9 John
14:8-9
Well, what about the verse
"He that hath seen me hath seen the father."
Let us look at the context:
"Philip saith unto him, Lord, shew us the Father, and
it sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long
time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he
that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou
then, Shew us the Father?"
John 14:8-9
Philip wanted to see God with his own eyes, but this is
impossible since no one can ever do ever do that. The Bible
says:
"No man hath seen God at any time,"
John 1:18
"No man hath seen God at any time,"
1 John 4:12
So Jesus simply told him that his own actions and
miracles should be a sufficient proof of the existence of
God without God having to physically come down and let
himself be seen every time someone is doubtful. This is
equivalent to for example
- John 8:19: "Then said they unto him, Where is thy
Father? Jesus answered, Ye neither know me, nor my
Father: if ye had known me, ye should have known my
Father also."
- John 12:44 "Jesus cried and said, He that
believeth on me, believeth not on me, but on him that
sent me."
- John 15:23 "He that hateth me hateth my Father
also."
- Matthew 10:40-41 "He that receiveth you receiveth
me (Jesus), and he that receiveth me receiveth him that
sent me. He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a
prophet shall receive a prophet's reward; and he that
receiveth a righteous man in the name of a righteous man
shall receive a righteous man's reward."
If we want to insist that when Philip saw Jesus (pbuh),
he had actually physically seen God "the Father"
because Jesus "is" the father and both are one "Trinity,"
and Jesus is the "incarnation" of God,
then this will force us to conclude that John 1:18, 1 John
4:12, ..etc. are all lies.
Well, is Philip the only one who ever "saw the father"?
Let us read:
"Not that any man hath seen the Father, save he which
is of God, he hath seen the Father."
John 6:46
Who is this who "is of God" and had seen the Father you
ask? Let us once again ask the Bible:
"He that is of God heareth God's words: ye therefore
hear them not, because ye are not of God."
John 8:47.
And
"Beloved, follow not that which is evil, but that
which is good. He that doeth good is of God: but he that
doeth evil hath not seen God"
3 John 1:11.
Have all people who have done good also
physically seen God?
In "The New Catholic Encyclopedia" (Bearing the
Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur, indicating
official approval) we get a glimpse of how the concept of
the Trinity was not introduced into Christianity until close
to four hundred years after Jesus (pbuh):
"...It is difficult in the second half of the 20th
century to offer a clear, objective and straightforward
account of the revelation, doctrinal evolution, and
theological elaboration of the Mystery of the trinity.
Trinitarian discussion, Roman Catholic as well as other,
present a somewhat unsteady silhouette. Two things have
happened. There is the recognition on the part of exegetes
and Biblical theologians, including a constantly growing
number of Roman Catholics, that one should not speak of
Trinitarianism in the New Testament without serious
qualification. There is also the closely parallel
recognition on the part of historians of dogma and
systematic theologians that when one does speak of an
unqualified Trinitarianism, one has moved from the period of
Christian origins to, say, the last quadrant of the 4th
century. It was only then that what might be called the
definitive Trinitarian dogma 'One God in three Persons'
became thoroughly assimilated into Christian life and
thought ... it was the product of 3 centuries of
doctrinal development" (emphasis added).
"The New Catholic Encyclopedia" Volume XIV, p. 295.
They admit it!. Jesus' twelve apostles lived and
died never having heard of any "Trinity" !
Did Jesus leave his closest and dearest followers so
completely and utterly baffled and lost that they never even
realized the "true" nature of God? Did he leave them in such
black darkness that neither they nor their children, nor yet
their children's children would ever come to recognize the
"true" nature of the One they are to worship? Do we really
want to allege that Jesus was so thoroughly incompetent in
the discharge of his duties that he left his followers in
such utter chaos that it would take them fully three
centuries after his departure to finally piece together the
nature of the One whom they are to worship? Why did Jesus
never, even once, just say "God, the Holy Ghost and I are
three Persons in one Trinity. Worship all of us as one"?
If he had only chosen to make just one such explicit
statement to them he could have relieved Christianity of
centuries of bitter disputes, division, and animosity.
Top Harpur writes in his book "For Christ's Sake":
"What is most embarrassing for the church is the
difficulty of proving any of these statements of dogma from
the new Testament documents. You simply cannot find the
doctrine of the Trinity set out anywhere in the Bible. St.
Paul has the highest view of Jesus' role and person, but
nowhere does he call him God. Nor does Jesus himself
anywhere explicitly claim to be the second person in the
Trinity, wholly equal to his heavenly Father. As a pious
Jew, he would have been shocked and offended by such an
Idea...(this is) in itself bad enough. But there is worse
to come. This research has lead me to believe that the great
majority of regular churchgoers are, for all practical
purposes, tritheists. That is, they profess to believe in
one God, but in reality they worship three.."
The Encyclopaedia Britannica states under the heading
"Trinity":
"in Christian doctrine, the unity of Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit as three persons in one Godhead Neither the word
Trinity nor the explicit doctrine appears in the New
Testament,
The Council of Nicaea in 325 stated the
crucial formula for that doctrine in its confession that the
Son is 'of the same substance [homoousios] as the
Father,' even though it said very little about the Holy
Spirit. Over the next half century, Athanasius defended and
refined the Nicene formula, and, by the end of the 4th
century, under the leadership of Basil of Caesarea, Gregory
of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzus (the Cappadocian
Fathers), the doctrine of the Trinity took substantially the
form it has maintained ever since."
Once again, let us have a look at our table:
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Explicit Statement
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Implicit Statement
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God is ONE
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Isaiah 43:10-11, Deuteronomy 4:39, Isaiah 45:18,
Isaiah 44:6, Isaiah 45:6, Isaiah 45:22, Exodus
20:3, Exodus 34:14
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-
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God is TWO
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John 1:1,
John 10:30
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John 20:28,
John.14:6,
John 14:8-9
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God is THREE
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1 John 5:7
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Matthew 28:19,
I Corinthians 12:4-6,
II Corinthians 13:14,
Jude 1:20-21
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God is MANY
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Genesis 1:26
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