QUOTATIONS CONCERNING THE DEITY OF CHRIST
Fully God/Fully Man
Orthodox: "We believe that there is one God, eternally existent in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." RETURN From Doctrinal Statement, Community Bible Church, p. 1.
Worldwide Church of God: "While God is one being, he exists eternally as three coequal and coeternal Persons, whom we know as the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit." RETURN From http://www.wcg.org/.
Christian Identity Movement: ". . . the Great I Am who is manifested in three beings: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, all one God." " WE BELIEVE the White, Anglo-Saxon, Germanic and kindred people to be God's true, literal Children of Israel. Only this race fulfills every detail of Biblical Prophecy and World History concerning Israel and continues in these latter days to be heirs and possessors of the Covenants, Prophecies, Promises and Blessings YHVH God made to Israel." " WE BELIEVE in an existing being known as the Devil or Satan and called the Serpent (Gen. 3:1; Rev. 12:9), who has a literal "seed" or posterity in the earth (Gen. 3:15) commonly called Jews today (Rev. 2:9; 3:9; Isa. 65:15)." RETURN From Kingdom Identity Ministries, Harrison, AR, http://www.kingidentity.com/doctrine.htm.
United Pentecostal Church: "In contrast to trinitarianism, Oneness asserts that (1) God is indivisibly one in number with no distinction of persons . . ." (Meet the United Pentecostal Church International, p. 66). "One cannot overemphasize the supreme deity of Christ (The P.A.S.T.O.R.S. Course: Theology, Book Two of Five, p. 114)." RETURN Quoted in H. Wayne House, Charts of Cults, Sects, & Religious Movements, pp. 242, 245.
God-Man (A State We Can Achieve)
Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints (Mormons): "I have always declared God to be a distinct personage, Jesus Christ a separate and distinct personage from God the father, and the Holy Ghost was a distinct personage and a Spirit: and these three constitute three distinct personages and three Gods (Brigham Young, History of the Church, 6:474)." "Here, then, is eternal life--to know the only wise and true God; and you have got to learn how to be Gods yourselves, . . . the same as all Gods have done before,--namely, by going from one small degree to another. . . . To inherit the same power, the same glory and the same exaltation, until you arrive at the station of a God, and ascend the throne of eternal power (Joseph Smith, Jr., Journal of Discourses, 6:4)." RETURN Quoted in House, pp. 62, 72.
Church of God International: "God is one, composed of spirit and comprising a family presently consisting of God the Father and Jesus Christ the Son. God is a loving, kind, merciful being who wants to share His magnificent existence by reproducing Himself through man." ". . . the resurrection of the saints--called the 'first resurrection'--at the return of Christ when the true believers shall become spirit-composed members of God’s family; . . . " RETURN From http://www.cgi.org/belief.htm.
New Age: "This has given rise to the age-old theological point of contention -- namely, whether Jesus was God or man, or perhaps both together. The answer is that Jesus was a man who, as a result of the process of evolution, became a Son of God -- as does everyone eventually." RETURN From Peter Liefhebber, Jesus of Nazareth and Maitreya the Christ, Share International Archives, http://newage.about.com/religion/newage/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://www.inetport.com/%7Eone/jesm.html.
Not God/Fully Human
Jehovah's Witnesses: "Never was there a more deceptive doctrine advanced than that of the trinity (Reconciliation, 1928, p. 101)." "Well, did Jesus ever say that he, was God? No, he never did (You Can Live Forever in Paradise on Earth, 1982, p. 39)." " . . . when God sent Jesus to earth as the ransom, he made Jesus to be what would satisfy justice, not an incarnation, not a god-man, but a perfect man (Should You Believe in the Trinity? 1989, p. 15)." RETURN Quoted in House, pp. 152, 154-5.
Christian Science: "The theory of three person in one God (that is, a personal Trinity or Tri-unity) suggest polytheism . . ." (Science & Health, p. 256:9-11)." ". . . Jesus Christ is not God, as Jesus himself declared, but is the Son of God" (ibid., p 361:11-13)." RETURN Quoted in Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry, http://www.carm.org/cs/csquotes.htm.
Freemasonry: "Masonry, . . . around whose altars the Christian, the Hebrew, the Moslem, the Brahman, the followers of Confucius and Zoroaster, can assemble as brethren and unite in prayer to the one God who is above all the Baalim (Albert Pike, Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, p. 226)." "God never manifested himself to be seen of men. Creation is his manifestation (J. D. Buck, Symbolism or Mystic Masonry, p. 276)." RETURN Quoted in House, pp. 142, 144.
Some Liberals: "I don't believe Jesus was God, . . . " "I believe that Christ reveals to us as much of the nature of God as we can see in a human being." RETURN From R. Albert Mohler, United Church of Canada's Moderator Denies Basic Doctrines, The Presbyterian Layman, March 7, 1998.
Judaism: "In Jewish law, worship of a three-part god is considered idolatry -- one of the three cardinal sins which a Jew should rather give up his life than transgress." "Maimonides devotes most of the 'Guide for the Perplexed' to the fundamental idea that God is Incorporeal, meaning that He assumes no physical form. God is Eternal, above time. He is Infinite, beyond space. He cannot be born, and cannot die. Saying that God assumes human form makes God small, diminishing both His Unity and His Divinity. As the Torah says: 'God is not a mortal' (Numbers 23:19)." RETURN From Rabbi Shraga Simmons, Why Don't Jews Believe in Jesus?, http://aish.com/issues/philosophy/why_dont_jews_believe_in_jesus$.asp. Maimonides, was one of the most important Jewish philosophers in the Middle Ages. Orthodox Judaism considers his writings authoritative.
Islam: "Certainly they disbelieve who say, 'Allah is Christ the son of Mary.' . . . They disbelieve who say, 'Allah is one of three (in a trinity).' For there is no god except One God. . . . (Koran: Al-Maida 5:72-76)." RETURN From http://islam.about.com/religion/islam/library/weekly/aa042200a.htm.
Western Buddhism: "Again, to those who believe in Jesus as a follower of the Buddha who learned his teachings for Buddhist masters, Jesus was not the son of God in the literal sense, but an enlightened Buddhist master who followed and taught the teachings of Gautama Buddha." RETURN From Roza Bal & the Buddhist Connection, The Buddhist Side and the Philosophical Bases for the "Need" to Bury Jesus, http://www.tombofjesus.com/Buddhism.htm.
ã 2001 Ken Bowles -- September 04, 2001 Edition
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