Ephesians 1:17
That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him
What do I do? Just ignore verses like these?
That verse can be explained and I will do it later in this post. But first I would like to ask you a question. Why do you ignore a verse like this one?:
"For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace" (Isa.9:6).
And why do you ignore the following words of Thomas which were spoken to the Lord Jesus here?:
"And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God"
(Jn.20:28).
Now let us look at this verse which you quoted:
"That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him" (Eph.1:17).
When we look at the following passage we can find an answer to that verse:
"Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men" (Phil.2:5-7).
Here we see that the Lord Jesus was made in the likeness of men. In fact, He was made like us in every way (Heb.2:17). And every "man" has a God:
"The LORD hath prepared his throne in the heavens; and his kingdom ruleth over all" (Ps.103:19).
The LORD is in total control over the universe which He created, so therefore He rules over it all and that includes all "men." And since the Lord Jesus was made like a man in all things that means that in His role as "Man" He has a God.
When we consider Philippians 2:5-7 again we can see that before the Lord Jesus took on the form of man that He was in the form of God.
The Greek word translated "form" means
"the form by which a person or thing strikes the vision; the external appearance" (
Thayer's Greek English Lexicon).
So since the Lord Jesus was in the form of God then the verse is speaking about how He appeared to the inhabitants of heaven.
And He couldn't appear that way to those inhabitants unless He is God. So it should surprise no one when we read this about the Lord Jesus:
"Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us" (Mt.1:23).
Now that I have answered you concerning Ephesians 1:17 show us that you do not ignore the two verses which I quoted (Isa.9:6 and John 20:28) and tell us why we should not believe that those verses prove that Jesus is God.
Thanks!