"Carl" <saints@nettally.com> wrote in message
news:f52850$ri0$1@news.utelfla.com...

The following is a transcript from the show "Back To The Bible" hosted by
Dr. Woodrow Kroll. In this episode he shows we Christians that the Bible
teaches that Jesus Christ is God manifest in flesh. In other words, Dr.
Kroll explains the Biblical teaching of Jesus' Deity.

May God bless,
Carl
website -- http://www.nettally.com/saints/
blog -- http://www.anniemayhem.com/cgi-bin/wordpress/

---

Is Jesus Really God?
by Dr. Woodrow Kroll
info@backtothebible.org
April 9, 2007

Woodrow Kroll: Is Jesus really God? That's a question that has been
debated ever since He walked on the earth. A correct answer to this
question is so important, but it's also the topic of today's edition of
Back to the Bible.

Hi, I'm Woodrow Kroll, inviting you to join our study group today as we
look at the deity of Christ. Tami Weissert is here, too, and we have some
friends who have joined our study group to take part today. Welcome to all
of you. Now that you're here, we're ready to begin. Welcome to everyone.

Tami Weissert: Today, Dr. Kroll, we're starting a brand-new study. We're
doing a really in-depth look at the Gospel of John.

Woodrow Kroll: Right. We're looking verse by verse, and we're going to
take eight weeks, Lord willing, on this study. I hope you have some time
carved out in the future, because this is an important gospel. I think
John cuts to the chase better than any other writer in Scripture. He
doesn't beat around the bush. He has exactly something in mind that he
wants to say, and he says it.

Tami Weissert: Today we're actually starting with the first five verses in
John. This is where my kind of attorney background kicked in. I was
reading it over, and I thought, "It's a little bit circular when it's
saying, 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God, and the Word
was with God." So can you just explain that a little bit?

Woodrow Kroll: I think what John wants to do here is he wants to make a
statement, and then he wants to make a second statement that confirms the
first but adds a little more information to it. Then he wants to make a
third statement that confirms the first two, but also adds more
information to it. This is an important statement, because it relates to
whether or not Jesus is God. That's an important question. If He is not
God, that guts Christianity. That rips the heart out of Christianity. That
means that we can't believe anything Jesus said, because He claimed to be
God.

Some years ago the Gallup folks had a poll of Americans. They asked
Americans what they thought about Jesus. Who did they think Jesus really
was? Seventy percent of those who responded to the poll said that they
thought Jesus was not just another man. He was something more than that.
But only 42% thought that He was God. That's less than half. Twenty-seven
percent said that they thought He was only human, but He was divinely
called--so God was using Him. In fact, 9% said that they thought Jesus was
not divine, but that He embodied all the good traits of humanity, and that
made Him divine.

By the way, remember 81% of Americans claim to be Christians. That's
indicative of the fact that we're pretty confused about who this person
Jesus is, so let me invite you to take your Bible today. We're going to
start right in John 1:1. As I said, we're going to go through the entire
Gospel of John over the next several weeks of our program. We want to find
out who Jesus is.

Now John is the man who wrote this. This is John of Peter, James and
John--you know, had a little sailboat, if you sang that song when you were
a kid. This is the brother of James, one of the sons of Zebedee. This is
the Apostle John.

He is writing after the first three books of the New Testament, the
Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke. His gospel comes later than
that, maybe A.D. 85 or even A.D. 90. It can't be much later than that,
because the earliest manuscript we have--a copy of the Gospel of John,
which is, by the way, in the Rylands Library in Manchester, England--that
copy dates from about A.D. 125 or so. That's awfully close to the time of
the writing of the Gospel of John.

Well, John apparently has two reasons why he wants to write this gospel.
One of them is he wants to convince his readers that Jesus is, in fact,
both human and divine. He is both God and man. Secondly, having convinced
them of that fact, he wants them to believe on Jesus as the Savior.

Let me just read a verse almost to the end of the gospel. Listen to what
he says. This is John 20:30: "And truly Jesus did many other signs in the
presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book. But these
are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God,
and that believing you may have life in His name." Believe and life--that
is his twofold purpose.

Well, notice what he says here about Jesus. First of all, he says, "In the
beginning was the Word." The word Word there is the Greek word logos. Now
logos can mean reason. It can mean speech. It can mean word. By the way,
in the New Testament it never means reason. It always means word, and it's
only used twice as a proper title--here in John 1:1 and again in verse 14,
only two times in the Bible.

So he talks about the Word being in the beginning. "In the beginning was
the Word." That is to say, at the very beginning of time, Jesus was
already there. You remember in the Old Testament when Moses was
questioning his ability to lead the people of Israel, he was comforted by
God's words. He said, "I AM who I AM. When they ask you who sent Me to
you, tell them 'I AM' sent you to them."

Interestingly enough, Jesus used exactly that same expression in John
8:58. He said, "Most assuredly I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM."
Jesus clearly had in mind identifying Himself with the great I AM of the
Old Testament.

So in the beginning was the Word, already there, "and the Word was with
God." That shows His relationship to the Father. Long before there was
ever an Adam or an Eve, long before there was an earth, God the Father,
God the Son and God the Holy Spirit interacted with one another. In John
17:5, Jesus says to the Father, "Now Father, glorify Me together with
Yourself with the glory which I had with You before the world was." In
other words, "restore to Me the glory I already had, but I set aside to
become a man."

Well, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and then
the most powerful statement of this gospel: "And the Word was God." Why is
that so powerful? What does that mean? In just a minute, I want to come
back and introduce to you the Granville Sharp rule of biblical
interpretation. I can see by the dazed look on your face that that means
nothing to you. I hope it will by the end of this program today. We'll be
back in just a minute to talk about Granville Sharp.

<break>

Tami Weissert: This is Back to the Bible with Woodrow Kroll. You know, if
you have any questions about what you've been hearing, you can contact us
at backtothebible.org.

Woodrow Kroll: John 1:1 is one of the most powerful verses in all of the
Bible because it identifies Jesus as already pre-existent when the world
came into being. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with
God," and then this wonderful and powerful statement: "the Word was God."

Now your Jehovah's Witness friends miss the point of this verse. They
argue that it doesn't say He was the God; the definite article is not
there. They're right about that. But that's not the point. What he is
saying here is this: The essence of what it takes to make God is found in
this person identified as the Word. So whatever it takes to make up
God--and I don't have a clue what all it takes to make God, but I do know
this--whatever it takes, Jesus has all of it. In the beginning was the
Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word possesses everything--all
the essence necessary to be called God. Why? Because He is God.

Let's take a break from thinking about this for a minute, because there
are lots of Scripture verses that identify Jesus as God. For example,
Titus 2:13: "Looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our
great God and Savior, Jesus Christ."

I said a few minutes ago I wanted to introduce you to Granville Sharp. I
had a group of students many, many years ago when I was teaching at
Westminster Abbey in London. We were looking at all the dead heroes that
are buried at Westminster Abbey. I looked up on the wall, and we had a
guide in Westminster. I noticed the tomb of Granville Sharp. I said to our
guide, "Would you tell us a little bit about Granville Sharp?" She had
never heard of this man in her life. He's buried in Westminster Abbey.

I took it upon myself to identify Granville Sharp for her. Granville Sharp
is the man who came up with this rule in Greek, and it's a good rule
because it's always true. If you have a noun followed by a conjunction and
another noun, and before the first noun there is an article, like "the"
man, and before the second noun there is also an article, like "the"
boy--the man and the boy--you have two different individuals, man and boy.
If, however, only the first noun has an article in front of it but not the
second one, like "the man and father," it's the same person, not two
distinct people, but one person. That's always true, every time, 100% in
the Greek language.

So when you get to Titus 2:13, it says, "Looking for the glorious
appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ," indicating that our
great God is our Savior, Jesus Christ. They are the same person. The
grammar in the New Testament points out to us the fact that John 1:1 is
right. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God," and the
reason that's true is the Word, Jesus, was God. In fact, He still is
today.

Hebrews 1:8,9 says of the Son, that's Jesus: "Your throne, O God, is
forever and ever, a scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your
kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; therefore,
God, Your God, has anointed You with oil of gladness, more than all Your
companions."

That's an interesting verse, because that means God, who is the
spokesperson here--the One who is doing the speaking--refers to Jesus as
God. That kind of paints the picture for you then. If you choose to
believe Jesus is not God, you choose to believe exactly the opposite of
what God the Father believes. God the Father says Jesus is God. That puts
you in a very precarious position, if you don't believe John 1:1 is a
powerful verse.

John 1:1 is identifying the deity of Jesus Christ. I think the deity of
Jesus Christ is as well established as any other understanding and any
other doctrine in Scripture.

In fact, if you look beneath the English back to the original language,
you see a lot of things that display the incredible truth that Jesus, in
fact, is God.

Let me just share a couple of other verses with you. Ephesians 5:5: "For
this you know, that no fornicator, unclean person, nor covetous man, who
is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God."
Again, he is identifying God and Christ as the same individual.

How about this? 2 Thessalonians 1:12: "that the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ may be glorified in you, and you in Him, according to the grace of
our God and the Lord Jesus Christ." Now there they are separated. The
Granville Sharp rule does not apply there. But still, in the context, he
is saying, "Our God is the same person as the Lord Jesus Christ."

One more verse. 2 Peter 1:1: "Simon Peter, a bondservant and apostle of
Jesus Christ, To those who have obtained like precious faith with us by
the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ." Do you see what
these verses are telling us? They are telling us that the writers of
Scripture were convinced Jesus equals God.

So in John 1:1 we learn these things: We learn about the preexistence of
Jesus. "In the beginning was the Word." Before there was anything else,
Jesus was already here. We learn about the communion of the Word with the
Father. "And the Word was with God." That relates to relationship. And we
learn about the essence of Jesus. "And the Word was God." Everything it
takes to make God, Jesus always has had because Jesus always has been God.

<break>

Woodrow Kroll: Well, we're concentrating today on John 1 and the deity of
Christ. We want to find out "Is Jesus really God?" John clearly believes
He is and wants you to believe that He is as well. He says this: "In the
beginning was the Word." This shows the preexistence of Jesus. "And the
Word was with God." This shows the relationship with God the Father and
God the Holy Spirit. "And the Word was God"--shows the essence of who
Jesus is. "Was" is the past tense of a verb that shows what you are.
That's the verb "to be."

Then verse 2 says, "He was in the beginning with God. All things were made
through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made." So not only
does He claim to be in the beginning before all of time, not only does He
claim to have a relationship with God the Father and God the Spirit, and
not only does He claim to be God--John claims Jesus is the Creator God.
When you read about God in Genesis 1, you're really reading about Jesus
because the work of the God of Genesis 1 is the work of Jesus of Nazareth.
He is the Creator.

Now just think about this. Let me take you back to your college days, if
you had philosophy in college. I remember philosophy distantly in college,
but I do remember this. I remember what a syllogism is. A syllogism is
when you make a statement. That's a premise. Then you make a counter
statement. That's another premise, major and minor premises. Then from
those two statements you draw a conclusion.

For example, major premise: "The logos is the Creator. The Word is the
Creator." We know that's true from John 1:3. It says so right there. So
the major premise is true. Here is the minor premise: "Jesus Christ is the
Creator." We also know that's true from John 1:3. We know it's true from
Hebrews 1:3. We know it's true from Colossians 1:15, and on and on and on
we go. So we know the major premise that the logos is the Creator, and the
minor premise that Jesus is the logos. Both of those are true.

So what's the only conclusion you can come to? Jesus is the Creator.
Philosophically, you cannot deny that this Jesus of Nazareth is the
Creator of the world. Colossians 1:16, speaking of Jesus, Paul says, "For
by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth,
visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or
powers. All things were created through Him and for Him." That's Paul's
take on who the Creator God is. It's Jesus.

Here's the writer of Hebrews' take on who the Creator God is. Listen to
this: "God, who at various times and in different ways spoke in time past
to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His
Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the
worlds." God did the creation through God the Son.

So if you look at the creation, all three members of the Godhead are
there. God the Father is there. He is more or less the planner of
creation. God the Holy Spirit is there. Genesis 1:2 talks about the Spirit
of God brooding on the face of the waters. He is the active agent in
creation. But God the Son is there. God the Son is the actual One who does
the creation. When it talks about creation being breathed out of His
mouth, it is saying it is breathed out of the mouth of God the Son.
Now let me take you back to John 1:1 and the reason why we begin here and
why John begins here. Everything you will learn about Jesus in the Gospel
of John--the miracles that He performed, the times that He claimed
equality with God, the times He claimed He could forgive people's sins,
the people He healed, the teaching that He gave--all of that is based on
one fact, and that is that Jesus knows what He is talking about because
Jesus is God.

Now there are lots of people who love to believe Jesus is an ethical
teacher and love to believe He is a great man, but they don't want to
believe He is God. C. S. Lewis was one of those who opposed this. You
remember him. He was the great scholar from Oxford, England, a great
English scholar. He wrote Mere Christianity and The Chronicles of Narnia
and so many other things. Listen to what Lewis has to say about Jesus
being God. He says this:

"'I am ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept
His claim to be God.' That is the one thing," Lewis says, "we must not
say--that you accept Him as a moral teacher but don't accept Him as God. A
man who was merely a man and said the sort of things that Jesus said would
not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic on the level of
a man who says he is a poached egg, or else he would be the devil from
hell itself. You must make your choice. Either this man was and is the Son
of God, or else He is a madman or worse."

Said differently, Lewis is saying Jesus is either a lunatic or He is a
liar or He is the Lord of glory. He doesn't leave us other options. What
you believe about Jesus will color everything you understand from our
study in the Gospel of John. That's why it's so important we start here.
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God," and here's the
key: "the Word was God."

<break>

Tami Weissert: Well, Dr. Kroll, we've covered a lot of theology today
about the deity of Christ. Just to be really clear as we close today, why
is that so important what we learned today and how does it affect us?

Woodrow Kroll: Everything we will encounter that Jesus does throughout the
rest of this Gospel will only be valid if in fact He is God, because
people can't do the things Jesus did. Even if they could, they couldn't
claim the things Jesus claimed to be or to be able to do. Our
understanding of Jesus as God is primary to our understanding of the
Gospel of John.

Look. If you take the deity of Christ out of the Gospel of John, you not
only gut Christianity, as I said before, but you destroy any hope you have
of ever going to heaven when you die. Jesus presents Himself as the only
way to the Father. If He isn't the only way to the Father, if there are
lots of ways to the Father, then what Jesus says in the Gospel of John is
immaterial. Just choose somebody else. But if what He says is true, there
is nobody else. That's why understanding the deity of Christ is so
important. I think that's why John puts it right up front.

Now tomorrow we're going to ask another question. Today the question was:
"Is Jesus really God?" The Bible says He is. The question we want to ask
tomorrow that John will pick up on is "Can God really become a man? Is it
possible for God to take on Himself flesh and blood, like you and I have?"
That's an amazing concept. We're going to find out what the Bible has to
say tomorrow right here on Back to the Bible. I hope you'll plan to join
us. Thanks for being here today. God bless you. I'm Woodrow Kroll. Have a
good and godly day.

Copyright © 2007 The Good News Broadcasting Association, Inc. (Back to the
Bible) Lincoln, Nebraska, USA Used by permission. All rights reserved
http://www.backtothebible.org/

You would believe an idiot when even your mistranslated scriptures
contradict his blatant lies? Why don't you find the original meanings of the
original words instead of believing and promoting religious lies that get
people killed?

How do you reconcile these mistranslations of the originals of Hebrew,
Aramaic, and Greek, into English?

Take the time to look it up, you eternal life depends on it. And if you
don't have copies of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, scriptures, I can get you
some.

John 1:18 "No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which
is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him."
1 John 4:12 "No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God
dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us."

Psalms 82:6 " I have said, Ye are Gods; and all of you are children of the
most High."

Isaiah 41:23 "Shew the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know
that ye are Gods: yea, do good, or do evil, that we may be dismayed, and
behold it together."

John 10:34 "Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye
are Gods?"

Before serving in the US Army in my first tour in the 8th Division 1976 to
1979, in Germany, my second tour was in the 1st Division in Kansas that
ended in 1982.I had a falling out with my Family as we learned our Family
Roots, for along the way our Family changed from one Christian Denomination
to another, and I choose the original Eastern Faith as my own. So while in
Germany in the US Army, I searched for
a Denomination that held the closest belief to mine. But when I found one,
though I had both Jewish and Catholic and Evangelical friends that I studied
and worshipped with, an Atheist Captain ordered me not to attend a
fellowship that taught closest to my choice of Eastern Belief, and he court
martialed me for going. There needs to be an equality in religious freedom
in the Armed Forces, because when this Atheist Captain called in the
Chaplains, to try to get them to condemn my Faith as Heresy, though the
Catholic and Jewish Chaplains agreed with the Atheist Captain, an
Evangelical Chaplin seeing that I presented sound scriptural and historical
evidence, took my side, but then they threatened to Court Martial him too,
if he did not change his opinion.

Many Eastern Christians are not Polytheists like Western Christians, because
we know that the scriptures teach, "You are Gods, sons of the Most High."
And we believe the visible non- omnipresent Jesus is not the invisible
omnipresent Creator, we believe that he is a man as the uniquely begotten
son of our Creator Jehovah, begotten in a virgin from the loins of David, of
the house of Judah, as the promised Salvation, that is the commonwealth of
all Israel, and we believe he is the Inheritance of the heir by birthright
of the house of Israel, Joseph, and we believe that the Catholics deceived
the West to be Polytheists with the Nicene Creed, and since then the
Christians of the East have been persecuted as Heretics by the West, who
denies that their names are Gods and Lords, and they kill the Gods and Lords
anointed by Jehovah, the God of Gods, and Lord of Lords, and King of Kings.
And we do not believe that there is a Limbo like the Catholics falsely
teach, wherein they say the truth that the body and the soul of all before
Jesus remain in the grave, but then they lie saying that the soul of all who
believed after Jesus, goes to heaven so that they may pray to these Gods and
Lords, whom they strip of their names of being Gods and Lords, so that they
may falsely pray to them, but the truth is that their body and soul remains
in the grave where there is no consciousness or awareness of time, and we
believe that Jesus is the only one that has been resurrected from among the
dead, and he now sits and rules at the right hand of Jehovah as Adown, and
we believe that the resurrection of the just will not happen until Jesus
returns, and we believe after that, the resurrection of the unjust will
occur as the battle of Armageddon begins.

My mother's bloodline is of Ashkenazi Jews of Central and Eastern Europe, my
father's bloodline is of Ephraim, of Joseph, the son of Israel, and as far
back as I can find records of their religious beliefs, in the 1500s my
mother's family were Christians, and in the 600s my father's family spoke
Aramaic, Greek, and German, and they were Christians too. What is funny, my
mother's family name and my father's family name both mean "a farmer," but
my mother's name Bauer, came from German, and my father's family name it is
difficult to tell, but they think it originally was Aramaic, and you find it
used as a surname with a different meaning in records spelled the same and a
little differently in each language of Aramaic, Greek, several Latin
languages, French, German, and Russian.

But here is something neat. The South Kingdom of the tribe of Judah and the
tribe of Benjamin were called Jews, their capital was Jerusalem.
The North Kingdom of the tribe of Ephraim and the ten other tribes were
called Israel, their capital was Samaria, so they were also called
Samaritans.

And most of these people that call themselves Jews, and or Israelis, and or
Christians, are fakes, and have been sucking up and teaching nothing but
false doctrines.

The attack on 9-11 was provoked by the West's support of dictators in the
East, and their support for Israel.

1/5th of the people in Israel are Russian Immigrants, and both these
Communist Jewish Soviet Immigrants in Israel and the USA and Britain, and
the Communist Islamic Soviet Immigrants in Israel and the USA and Britain,
want to overthrow the Democratic Russian Christens that are now in power in
Russia.

In service of God and Country

Joseph