Subject:
������� WHO IS YOUR SAVIOR? ‑By Bertrand L. Comparet
�� Date:
������� Sat, 4 Aug 2001 11:30:51 ‑0700
�� From:
������ "Bob Jones" <[email protected]>
���� To:
������ "Willie Martin" <[email protected]>
�������� WHO IS YOUR SAVIOR?
��������������� By Bertrand L. Comparet
���� All Christians denominations agree that Yahshua is our Savior,
the Scriptural authority for this is very clear. 2 Peter 1:11, 2:20 &
3:18 speaks of our Savior, Yahshua. 1 John 4:14 says, "And we
have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the
Savior of the world." Christians also agree that Yahshua is the Son
of Yahweh, upon good authority. Mark 1:1 reads, "The beginning of
the gospel of Yahshua, the Son of God." John 1:34 states, "And I
saw, and bare record, that this is the Son of Yahweh." Matthew 3:17
tells us, "And lo, a voice from heaven saying, This is My beloved
Son, in whom I am well pleased".
���� At least some of the churches also recognize that Yahshua is our
Redeemer, although they haven't any clear idea of what
redemption is. This is also on Scriptural authority. Galatians 4:4‑5
says, "But when the
fullness of the time was done, Yahweh sent forth His Son, made of
a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the
law, that we might receive the adoption of sons." Finally, some of
them take note that Yahshua is the Word, a phrase only used by the
apostle John. "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us,
and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the
Father, full of grace and truth."
���� Having agreed on these descriptive titles, the area of
disagreement begins when the churches have to answer the
question, who was He and what was He? They all agree Yahshua is
in some way connected with the Godhead. Through the centuries
there has been bitter and sometimes murderous
disagreement as to the exact nature or degree of His divinity. Such
disagreements spring from lack of knowledge of the scriptures by
substituting man's doctrines for the word of Yahweh. Let's look a
little deeper into this.
���� Have we one God, or three? Under the Old Testament, the
theologians were familiar with one God. Because the priests and
scribes had, fraudulently changed the records and the manuscripts
of the Scriptures, they called that one God "Lord", as I explained in
my lesson, "Who is Your God?" The people were told that Yahshua
was also Lord, so some decided there must be two Lords. The Holy
Spirit, wrongly translated Holy Ghost in the King James Bible, is
spoken of in the New Testament as greatly exalted. Maybe they
had better not offend Yahshua by assigning Him any lower position.
���� Therefore, many began arguing that we had a trinity of Gods.
Since this so obviously led right back to the pagan polytheism, they
had to develop another dogma to meet this problem, that the three
Gods between them, constituted but one God. None of them could
understand how this could be, so they said
it was a great mystery and to them it was! Perhaps it might be
similar to the way many thousands of stockholders in Standard Oil
Company make but one corporation out of them all.
���� By the fourth century A.D., the controversy between the
Trinitarians and the believers in one God, the later led by Arius,
became so bitter that Emperor Constantine called the Council of
Nicea in 325 A.D. Constantine commanded the divided church to
settle its controversy. At this council, the Trinitarians
outnumbered the Arians, so on a numerical vote basis alone, and
the doctrine of the trinity was adopted. Perhaps some of you are
thinking of 1 John 5:7 reading, "For there are three that bear record
in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these
three are one." This verse wasn't in the original; it
was added centuries after John wrote his epistles. None of the
early Christian writers quote this verse. It was not cited as authority
for the Trinitarian position at the Council of Nicea. They surely
would have triumphantly read it, if it had been in existence then.
���� The first mention of this addition appears in the sixth century
A.D., apparently just written in the margin as a comment in some
Latin copies. Not one Greek manuscript, earlier than the sixteenth
century contains it.
Bible scholars are practically unanimous in their agreement that it
was not in the original. Accordingly, it is omitted from most of the
modern English translations such as the English Revised Bible,
American Revised Bible, Moffatt, Ferrar Fenton, Smith &
Goodspeed, Weymouth, Rotherham, Panin, New World Translation,
etc.
���� How do we answer this question, are there three Gods, or only
one? Only from the Bible, not from church hierarchies, can we
hope to get the true answer. Naturally we first find it in the Old
Testament. Deuteronomy 6:4 records, "Hear O Israel! Yahweh our
God is one God." As always, this is confirmed in the New
Testament, for Yahshua said in Mark 12:29, this was the first of the
commandments. This
doesn't look much like a trinity, does it?
� ���Let's go on a little bit farther. According to the Trinitarians
Yahshua, being the Son is one of the three Gods. What does the
Bible say about Him? Remember, all the churches agree that
Yahshua is the Savior, so let's find out who the Savior is. We find it
first in Isaiah 43:10‑11, "Ye are My witnesses, saith Yahweh, and My
servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe Me,
and understand that I am He; before Me there was no God formed,
neither shall be after Me. I, even I, am Yahweh; and beside Me
there is no Savior." Yahweh's Bible is always consistent. In Hosea
13:4 we find, "Yet I am Yahweh thy God, from the land of Egypt,
and thou shalt know no god but Me: for there is no Savior beside
Me".
���� Old Testament? Certainly, but listen to the New Testament.
Timothy 1:1 begin, "Paul, an apostle of Yahshua by the
commandment of Yahweh our Savior and Yahshua, which is our
hope." In 1 Timothy 2:3 Paul says, "For this is good and acceptable
in the sight of Yahweh our Savior." But Paul isn't the only one who
says this. Jude 25 says, "To the only wise God our Savior be glory
and majesty, dominion
and power, both now and forever." We see that Yahweh is our
Savior and He says, "Beside Me there is no Savior." Therefore,
since the churches agree that Yahshua is our Savior, He must be
Yahweh Himself. This should not surprise anybody. Isaiah 7:14
prophesied it, "Therefore Yahweh himself shall give you a sign:
Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call His
name Emmanuel, which means God with us. Isaiah 9:6 makes it
unmistakably clear, "For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is
given: and the government shall be upon His shoulders: and His
name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty Yahweh,
the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace".
���� The churches also agree that Yahshua is our Redeemer, but who
is the Redeemer? Isaiah 43:14 speaks of Yahweh, your Redeemer,
the Holy One of Israel. Isaiah 44:6 continues, "Thus saith Yahweh,
the king of Israel and his Redeemer." Isaiah 48:17 records, "Thus
saith Yahweh thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: I am Yahweh
thy God". Again we see that Yahshua must necessarily
be Yahweh himself, for it is Yahweh who is our Redeemer. Then
the apostle John calls Yahshua the Word. Who is the Word? John
1:1, 3 tells us, "In the beginning was the Word: and the Word was
with God, and the Word was Yahweh."
���� Yahshua confirms this in John 8:19, "If ye had known Me, ye
should have known My father also." In John 10:30, Yahshua says, "I
and My Father are one." John 12:45 continues, "He that seeth Me
seeth Him that sent Me." In John 14:6‑9 we read, "Jesus saith unto
him, I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man cometh unto the
Father but by Me. If ye had known Me, ye should have known My
Father also: and from henceforth, ye know Him and have seen Him.
Philip saith unto Him, Master, show us the Father, and it sufficeth
us. Yahshua saith unto him, Have I been so long a time with you,
and yet thou hast not known Me, Philip? He that hath seen Me hath
seen the Father."
���� This leaves us only one remaining question. Is Yahshua the only
God, just the Son of God, or just one God out of three? Never turn
to the churchmen for the answer, why add their confusion to your
own? You can only get the answer from the Bible, the word of
Yahweh. Trinitarians speak of three Gods, consisting of the Father,
Son, and the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit was mistranslated Holy Ghost
in the King James Bible. Let's continue on and find out who these
three are. First, let us define the words themselves. By definition,
the father must be the one who begot the son. The son must be the
one who was begotten.
We have already seen that Yahshua is the Father as well as the
Son. What of the Holy Spirit? The Bible tells us that the Holy Spirit
is the Father who begot the Son, Yahshua.
���� Matthew 1:20 reads, "But while he thought on these things,
behold, the angel of Yahweh appeared unto him in a dream saying,
Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary, thy wife:
for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit." Luke 1:35
records, "And the angel answered and said unto her the Holy Spirit
shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall
overshadow thee:
therefore also that the holy thing which shall be born of thee shall
be called the Son of God." The Holy Spirit is the one who begot the
Son, and therefore, by the very definition of the word, the Holy
Spirit is the Father.
���� In John 14:16‑18, 26 Yahshua says, "I will pray the Father and He
shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you
forever: even the spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive,
because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him: but ye know Him,
for He dwelleth in you, and shall be in you. I will not
leave you comfortless: I will come to you. But the Comforter, which
is the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, he shall
teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance,
whatsoever I have said unto you."
���� Note this, the Comforter whom the Father will send is the Holy
Spirit. Who is it that shall come as the Comforter? Yahshua said, "I
will come unto you." Therefore Yahshua being God, and also the
Father, is also the Holy Spirit. This must be so, for we have seen
that the Holy Spirit is the Father who begot the Son.
���� So, the trinity of three Gods boils down to just one God. A god
who is spirit, the Holy Spirit. As the Holy Spirit, He begot a mortal
body for His own use when He was to come as our Savior and
Redeemer. In thus begetting the body, the Holy Spirit became the
Father. He Himself inhabited that body which the Holy Spirit had
begotten and in so doing became the Son. This was one person
acting in three capacities.
���� Finally, what is His name? In nearly all our English language
translations of the Bible, we find it written Jesus. We can be sure
that this is not the name by which He was known when He lived
among us in human form. Practically all of the English Bibles are
translated from Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. Greek
was a foreign language to the people of Palestine. However, some
of the better
educated among the Palestinians spoke Greek in addition to their
native language Aramaic.
���� The Greek manuscripts are translations of the original Aramaic,
which was the language spoken by Yahshua and all His friends and
disciples. In Greek Yahshua's name was written Iescus, and
pronounced Ee‑ay‑sooce. That part of the Christian church, which
was in the Western Roman Empire, where Latin
was the official language of government, as well as the native
tongue of most of those who lived in Italy, eventually translated the
Bible into Latin. The translations that were made by Jerome, about
400 A.D., became the official translation of the Roman Catholic
Church.
���� In Latin, the Savior's name is written either Iesus, or Jesus and
pronounced Yay‑sooce. When the first English translations were
made, the long familiar spelling Jesus was kept. This was not
difficult because the letter "J" was for many centuries, just another
form of the letter "I", as it still is in the Germanic and Scandinavian
languages. Early English had inherited this from its beginnings as
the Anglo Saxon language. Not until much later did the letter "J"
develop its modern English sound.
���� As you learned in my lesson entitled, "Who Is Your God?" the
name of God in Hebrew is Yahweh. This also appears a number of
times in a shortened form Yah. In Hebrew, Ho‑shay‑ah means
Savior. You are familiar with it as the name of a prophet who wrote
one of the books of the Old Testament. Our English translations
pronounce it Hosea. By combining Yah (God) and Savior, the
Hebrew name Yeh‑ho‑shoo‑ah was formed, more familiar to us in
the Anglicized form of Joshua.
���� There is every reason to believe this was the name of our
Savior. He did come in the name of the Father, Yah, and the short
form of Yahweh; with the further statement that Yah was Savior.
We note that Yahshua said in John 5:43, "I am come in My Father's
name." When Yahshua entered the city of Jerusalem, on His last
visit there, which led to His crucifixion, the people greeted Him
with joyous enthusiasm, as recorded in Matthew 21:9. "And the
multitudes that went before, and that followed, cried saying,
Hosanna to the son of David: blessed is He that cometh in the
name of Yahweh; Hosanna in the highest".
���� Some people have said the Iesous is the Greek equivalent of
Yeh‑ho‑shoo‑ah, but this is not true. The Greek equivalent, or
translation of Yah‑savior would be Yah‑soter. In all cases where the
translators took Hebrew or Aramaic names and tried to roughly
translate them with Greek letters, they bungled the job very badly.
There is not one Old Testament name, which appears in the Greek
New testament in a form very similar to the original Hebrew. Iesous
is an attempt to write Yeh‑ho‑shoo‑ah in Greek, botched as usual.
���� To sum it all up, the Bible clearly proves that our Savior,
Yahshua the Christ, was Yahweh. Yahweh had taken human form in
order to make the sacrifice for our sins on the cross. He is the
Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Even His name in Hebrew and
Aramaic, proclaims that He was Yahweh, God the Savior.
Remember that Yahshua told His disciples, "He that hath seen Me
hath seen the Father." Yahshua will soon return to reign as King of
Kings!! Then, we too will be able to see the Father.