Convincing Proofs, Christ is God

As previously mentioned, I have been having many conversations with a patient of mine who is a Jehovah's Witness. From my understanding, they believe that Jesus is an angel that God commissioned with the task of saving the world from their sin through His death. I have been taught from as far back as I can remember that Christ is God, though I had no convincing proof of this until I started searching for myself. Now, I can't help but notice proofs on almost every page of Scripture. Let's get started on the first one that jumped out at me. Keep in mind these are not the thoughts of a trained theologian, just a layman who is making some observations on the text.

Mark 1:2-3 - "As it is written in Isaiah the prophet: "Behold, I send My messenger ahead of You; who will prepare Your way; The voice of one crying in the wilderness, "Make ready the way of the Lord, make his paths straight."'"

Here, Mark actually quotes 2 OT passages: only one being from Isaiah's book (Is. 40:3). The other is from Malachi 3:1. Apparently it was common custom when using several quotes to lump them together under the name of the more prominent prophet. In some translations, it is rendered "As it is written in the prophets," which is probably more literally correct. For further clarification, and proof of Christ's deity, let's view these 2 passages followed by my uneducated observations.

Malachi 3:1 - "'Behold, I am going to send My messenger and he will clear the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple; and the messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight, behold, He is coming,' says the LORD of hosts."

Observations
1. God is going to send a messenger. This messenger is sent out to prepare the way for the one who follows him. Each of the four Gospels clearly verifies this messenger to be John the Baptist (Matt 3:3, Mark 1:2, Luke 3:4-6, John 1:23).

2. This messenger is going to prepare the way for God. The end of verse 1 clearly identifies that Jehovah is the one speaking these words and He uses the personal pronoun, "Me" to describe the identity of the person who's way the messenger is preparing. There is an apparent disagreement with the interpretation of this passage that Mark gives us as he says, "who will prepare Your way." So we are left with 1 of 2 options: either Mark is wrong to interpret this passage to Christ and therefore the entire Bible is not trustworthy, or Jesus is God.

Isaiah 40:3 - "A voice calling, 'Clear the way for the LORD in the wilderness; make smooth in the dessert a highway for our God.'"

Observations
1. As previously stated, all four Gospels agree that John the Baptist is the prophesied messenger, the "voice calling." In John 1:23, John the Baptist identifies himself as the "voice" in this passage.

2. Who is it that the "voice" is preparing the way for? "Clear the way for the LORD (Jehovah/Yaweh)...for our God." Unless God came to the earth, there is no need to clear the way or make a path for Him. In other words, Jesus has to be God in order for this passage to be true.

Whenever we see LORD in capital letters, it is the Hebrew word YHWH, which in all honesty (from my research), we really have no idea how to accurately pronounce. YHWH also happens to be God's name. Some say it should be pronounced "Yah-way" and others "Jeh-hoe-vuh." For our conversation it doesn't really matter, other than we know that it refers to God by name.

It seems clear from these OT quotations that John the Baptist was sent to prepare the way for YHWH. But the NT clearly identifies that John the Baptist knew that his mission was to prepare the way for Christ. Contradiction in the Scriptures or verification of Christ's deity? I'm going with the choice that seems most likely - the choice that doesn't force me to throw away my Bible.

I'm Legit!!!!

Hey all!!!!!! You will see lots of exclamation marks in this here post because I just passed my National Interpreter Certification with Advanced!!!!!!!!!!!!! And I've been ADD all day cuz I'm way too excited! God is so good! Going out with friends tonight for a nice big slice of the famous Motherload chocolate cake from Claim Jumpers!!! Off to dinner! Much love!

Jaymee Himsey
NIC Advanced

;) hehehehehehehehehehehe

Convincing Proofs

Hey all, Matt here. Over the past several months, I have been having some interesting discussion with a patient of mine (thanks Azneef, if you're somehow reading this) who is a Jehovah's Witness. We've been going back and forth on a lot of things that are not critical, however, one conversation keeps coming up. That conversation is over the deity of Christ. Because of these conversations, I have read through some of the material provided to me by my patient, but mostly, I have just been reading the Bible and have found a series of Biblical passages that prove (to me) that Christ is indeed God. My goal is to type these out in hopes of sharing them with you. I'm planning to share them so that I can make sure I have a good grasp of the knowledge that I think I have, and hopefully you can help me out. I plan on calling this series "Convincing Proofs." My goal is to post the first one within a week. Keep me on task! Convincing Proof number 1 will come from Mark 1:2, so check it out, see what you think, and meet me back here in a week for some discussion.