I was reading the Doctrines of the Bible in a Bible given to Brad many years ago by a Pentecostal minister. It quoted 1Timothy 3:16 (“God manifested in the flesh”) in answering the question “who was Jesus?”. This confused me as it sounded like Timothy was saying God was Jesus and I know that’s not true.
I took out my KJV and went to 1Timothy to read the entire verse and reading it didn’t really help. I know Timothy is talking about Jesus and felt like the way entire verse reads perhaps there could be the word “as” instead of the comma after flesh and before justified – God was manifest in the flesh as justified in the Spirit.
So, I went to goingtojesus.com. Went to our translations and read the verse there. It is exactly what the KJV has. Now I wasn’t sure what to think. But thankfully there is a video of your teaching this chapter and my question was answered!!!! You knew this phrase would be a stumbling block for young people in the Lord like me and you spoke directly to it!
I want to say thank you for your teachings and thank you for the brothers and sisters that worked to provide these clips in our translation. It is a wonderful thing to have such knowledge readily available! I wish more people would eat of it.
Love you,
Allison
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Thank you, Allison, for writing. Yes, that verse is abused by Christians when they use it as evidence that Paul believed and taught the bizarre doctrine of the Trinity. God was manifested in Jesus, and He is supposed to be manifested in all His children. Jesus told his disciples, “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father” because he perfectly represented the Father’s character and power. After reading that scripture to a congregation one time, my father, “Preacher Clark”, asked them, “Has anybody seen God in you lately?”
People seeing the Father in us does not make us the Father any more than seeing Him in Jesus made Jesus the Father. We are all supposed to be manifesting the Father to people, and if we do that, Jesus said that men will glorify the Father.
Let’s walk in the Spirit as Jesus did, so that people can see in us what God is really like!
Thank you for writing.
Pastor John