Is Jesus God? (Q&A)

This set of questions provides insight into Muslim thinking about Jesus as the Son of God.  Parts of the original e-mail have been edited for clarity.  

Q1:  [The first e-mail began with many Bible verses indicating that Jesus is different than the Father, or stating that he is a servant of the Father or less than the Father, such as:]

John - Chapter 14

28:  …for my Father is greater than I.

John - Chapter 13
16: Verily, verily, I say unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him.  20: Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that receiveth whomsoever I send receiveth me; and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me.

John - Chapter 17
3: And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.

Is Right Standing with God the Result of Perfect Obedience? (Q&A)

Q:  My name is Troy T.  I am a Black American (non-Jewish) believer in Yeshua of Nazareth as the Holy One anointed by G-D to usher in the Kingdom of Heaven.  While I lived in Washington, D.C., I attended a Messianic Jewish Congregation because G-D, in a dream, told me to.  Before the dream, I did not even realize that, except for a few exceptions, that Jews existed who believed in Yeshua as the Anointed One.  However, now I come across them all the time.  Well, I loved the congregation but I have also come across many Messianic Jewish groups who teach salvation by faith and observance to the Law given to Moses.  However, I love your website because it is fair, balanced, and Scriptural.

I teach, according to the Scriptures, that right standing before and with G-D is only the result of perfect obedience to the Law of G-D.  In the beginning, G-D gave all humans a conscience that contains the Law of G-D, which is composed of His eternal law (love Him will all your being and love your fellow human) and natural law (do not murder, steal, commit adultery, commit sodomy, rape, lie, etc.).  Yet, due to the transgression of the one man (Adam), all humans acquired a predisposition to do that which G-D said do not do and to not do that which G-D said do.  Even though until the giving of the written Law of G-D, disobeyed G-D like Adam by breaking a direct command of G-D but only by violating the dictates of the conscience.  This predisposition is only inherited through the father (not the mother) since the sins of the father are transferred and Adam is the father of us all.  

What is Biblical Holiness? (Video)

What's the difference between Biblical holiness and pagan ideas about holiness?  Here's a new video slideshow of a teaching we did some time ago.

Does God Have Parts?

This may sound like an odd idea.  For more than a thousand years, Christian theology has been almost unanimous in affirming that God has no parts and cannot have parts.  The Westminster Confession of Faith (1646) says, for example, “There is but one only living and true God, who is infinite in being and perfection, a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions, immutable…” 

The claim that God is without parts is not due to any statement in the Bible.  The Bible itself constantly mentions parts of God:  his ears (2 Sam. 22:7, Psa. 18:6, etc.), his eyes (Gen. 6:8, Psa. 17:2, etc.), his feet (2 Sam. 22:10, Psa. 18:9, Isa. 41:2, etc.), his hands (Gen. 49:24, Exo. 15:17, etc.), his arms (Deut. 33:27, Isa. 51:5, etc.), his mouth (Deut. 8:3, Psa. 33:6, etc.), his breath (Gen. 2:7, Psa. 33:6, etc.), even his bowels (Isa. 63:15, Jer. 31:20) are mentioned.  These are not always just figures of speech.  Sometimes these body parts were actually seen:  Moses and the elders on the mountain “saw the God of Israel , and beneath his feet….” (Ex. 24:10).  Micaiah saw the LORD sitting on a throne (1 Kings 22:19, also Isa. 6:1).  Isaiah saw him wearing a robe (“the lower edges of his robe were filling the Temple,” Isa. 6:1).  This is not the description of a formless spirit. 

On the contrary, God himself (God the Father) is described as having a spirit, the Spirit of God.  When we use a similar expression to describe a human being, “the spirit of a man” clearly refers to a part of that man.  So what about the Spirit of God?  Does that refer to a part of God?  Christian theology has uniformly insisted that God the Father does not have a spirit as a part of who he is, but rather that the Spirit of God is a distinct entity—or rather a separate identity—within the Trinity of God.*  Here again, there is nothing in the Bible that requires this counter-intuitive understanding.  So why have Christian theologians insisted that God cannot have a part of himself that is his Spirit?

Hell, Hades, and Gehenna: A List of Verses

Confused about hell?  It’s no wonder.  Most English translations, and many other languages, use one word, "hell," to translate the names of two radically different places: Hades and Gehenna.  They couldn’t be more different:  one is spiritual, the other physical; one is temporary, the other eternal.  So how can we get these two straightened out?  We’ll start with a short description of each one, and then list all the verses where they appear, so you’ll know exactly what the Bible is talking about.