can you repeat that question in a way that I will understand?
What is the express image of God?
- Thread starter keypurr
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can you repeat that question in a way that I will understand?
Hi chrysostom,
I'm glad that you joined in.
What you are bringing up with your comment is a little different than talking about a literal IMAGE ... a visible bodily form ... belonging to God.
I've always thought that when it comes to this phrase: "God made mankind after His likeness" may have insinuated that God may have been establishing a foreshadow in mankind that HE would ultimately represent himself among mankind as a trinity of identifiable personages. Two males ... A Father and a Son ... and, of course, the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit has no bodily form, but rather is a spirit that dwells inside men and women equally... so it's gender is based on whomever IT is associated. After all, the"female of Genesis 1 and the first part of Genesis 2" was hidden inside of the male presence created for the first Adam... which is a type of foreshadow for the hidden invisible Holy Spirit.
That's why I don't bother to argue over that detail with people who want to assign femininity to the Holy Spirit...
YET .. my personal conclusions at this time is ... that God (a spirit) for some reason chose to become known literally unto the eyes of men as a MALE presence ...I believe this due to the truth that He created a visible male presence in order to reveal himself... and since The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are all equally God ... I prefer to think of God as HIM.
WoundedEgo
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I'll try...
I presented examples from scripture where God is seen presiding. He is clearly a manlike deity.
I asked if this figure of a man looked like a "Trinitarian family".
To which you replied, "It depends on where you look."
I asked you where in the examples did one see a "Trinitarian family".
Where do you look in those scriptural representations of God and what you see is a "Trinitiarian family"?
Thanks in advance for your *honest* reply...
WoundedEgo
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Did you just say "They"?!
Augustine really did a number on your heads when he told you the Emperor (Constantine) was really some really beautiful clothes!!
But in fact, he's parading around "nekked."
now I see what you are looking at
Hi WoundedEgo,
I love to discuss these verses... for I know the reason a female should cover her head or cut her hair when representing the Lord publicly - where a male does not need to do so.
The passages give us clues as to why - of course, it helps to know and apply the truth about "the image belonging to God which he created and used. So, here is my explanation of I Corin. 11 - (along with the application of the truth about God's presence):
I Corin. 11:3, 4,7
... THE HEAD of every man is Christ ... (Christ who is God appearing among men / Emmanuel)
Every man praying or prophesying, with his head covered, dishonors HIS HEAD (who is Christ ... who is God appearing as a male as Emmanuel!)
For a man indeed ought NOT to cover his head, for as much as he is "the image and glory of God."
IOW, for a man to cover his head shows that he feels he should hide the glory of God's presence ... (after whose image and likeness his form was created in the first place.) Just WOW, these verses connect the two nouns image and glory together to talk about the physical for of our LORD/Lord!!!
Now, there is nothing within these passages that says that a woman should not stand in public and prophesy in the name of the Lord ... except that Paul suggests it would be more correct if she were to do just one thing.
When she is representing a WORD from the Lord in public, she should do one thing... and that is: Hide her femaleness!
Why?
(Because she does not bear the same physical image as does Christ!) If or when she represents Christ in public, in order to be more correct, she should do away with her personal physical glory as a female ... and look more like a male ... or like Christ.
So, what was the height of fashion for the woman in Paul's day?
ans: long hair.
To lessen the look of her unique female visible form she could choose how to accomplish this: Either cut her hair ... (but if that would embarrass her too much in society) ... or she could simply cover her head.
Today ... it is not shameful to cut one's hair short ... in fact, it is rather fashionable ... so women today who teach, preach, or prophesy and who desire to correctly honor God and represent Him correctly in public would have no problem with any shame from doing it by wearing short hair.
When God created mankind (male/female) ... female was still hidden inside of the male presence first presented to the personage called Adam... When she was finally taken out of mankind and presented to her remaining counter part that still occupied the male body called - Adam... then her physical form became the glory of man ... where the male presence that Adam still bore was made after the image of the glory of God.
WoundedEgo
New member
Because of the angels...
Because of the angels...
Paul says why:
1Co 11:10 For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head because of the angels.
This is probably a reference to "The Watchers" from the scrolls of Enoch. This story is the single most influential story on the NT, other than the Pentateuch.
Have you read the scrolls of Enoch?
Because of the angels...
Paul says why:
1Co 11:10 For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head because of the angels.
This is probably a reference to "The Watchers" from the scrolls of Enoch. This story is the single most influential story on the NT, other than the Pentateuch.
Have you read the scrolls of Enoch?
Cutting her hair and covering her head has to do with her appearance ... and whether or not her appearance or a male's appearance represents the glorious image of the Lord.
quote: For a man indeed ought not to cover his head: (BECAUSE) inasmuch as he is THE IMAGE and GLORY of God.
This insinuates through logical deduction of these very passages that some how a woman's presence does not represent THE IMAGE and GLORY of God.
To address the other section of I Corin. 11 which you have mentioned:
I agree that the male presence was manifested FIRST.
I agree that the female and her physical body was brought forth to be a help meet for the male presence. After all she was to be the counter part of mankind that would bear their children unto God. I believe that women do need "a power" or "a protector" over her because of her great role and vulnerable mortal role in bringing forth children.
And, yes, I understand that the angels are watching ... hoping to understand what God is doing among humanity for the sake of mankind ... and so ever men and women represent our Lord in public in the eyes of other people and the angels, then the female should cover her head. For a woman to cut her hair or cover her long hair reveals her authority from God in the eyes of men.
No, I have not read the scrolls of Enoch... but the answer to this question is found within the passage ... and by understanding what it means to honor the image and glory of our Lord.
WoundedEgo
New member
Whatever. My original point is that the image of God is a *man* not a *family*.
God is *father* not *father, mother and baby*.
Nor is he a carpenter, his father and a ghost.
God is *father* not *father, mother and baby*.
Nor is he a carpenter, his father and a ghost.
so how are we made in Their Image?
WoundedEgo
New member
God sculpted mud into a statue of himself and then animated it with breath from his own lungs. If you were then look at the two strolling through the garden together, you would likely have some difficulty telling them apart from any distance.
All men since then, to the degree that they resemble Adam, also are the image and likeness of God.
God is a manlike deity. Or rather, man is a godlike being.
WoundedEgo
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WoundedEgo
New member
Yup. As I said:
"..All men since then, to the degree that they resemble Adam, also are the image and likeness of God..."
Psa_8:4 What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?
Psa_144:3 LORD, what is man, that thou takest knowledge of him! or the son of man, that thou makest account of him!
Heb_2:6 But one in a certain place testified, saying, What is man, that thou art mindful of him? or the son of man, that thou visitest him?
That is the way the Bible explains the relationship.
The concepts of God and Christ are euphemisms for Reality and Truth.
The spirit of Truth is what men can accept into their mind as a holy spirit.
Even if you argue that the Bible doesn't mean this, you can not deny that Truth is the image of Reality.
Truth is the ideal or concept that corresponds one-to-one with Reality.
God is all there is, ie; Reality itself... the whole external existence beyond our mind is the almighty God to which all life must bow:
...Truth inside our head, is the Holy Spirit, the image of God, is present inside our mind when our thinking correctly images the TRUTH, or the picture of Reality inside our mind.
TRINITY:
Our (1) Lord is Truth, in whose (2) Spirit of mind we must commit our lives, in order to face (3) Father Nature, the Almighty Reality, within which we all exist.
Yes, the spirit of God is plural, because it refers to what the Jews called the great shechanah, which is the Force that forever unfolds the next frame of Reality, i.e.; the web of the Natural Laws at work:
Gen. 1:2 And the earth was without form, (a spinning cloud of molten matter and gases), and void: (not valid as a sphere yet- an accretion disk), and darkness: [choshek: obscurity] was upon the face of the deep: [tehowm: the deep primeval abyss].
And (the great Shechinah), the spirit, (the pan-en-theistic Natural Laws) of God moved upon the face: [paniym: presence] of the "waters" (i.e.; of these transitory things: [mayim: Hebrew])
but there are three persons
WoundedEgo
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You are a real dyed-in-the-wool Catholic! It never ceases to amaze me what a prison dogma is for the mind!
WoundedEgo
New member
chrysostom, do you share your name-sakes hatred of the Jews? He taught it the Christian's duty to hate the Jews!
Quite a legacy for one dubbed "Golden-Mouthed"!
Quite a legacy for one dubbed "Golden-Mouthed"!