Quote:
Originally Posted by Raptor
“ I have been with you all this time, and still you do not know Me?
I am coming to the inevitable conclusion that Jesus referred to Himself as the Father, and the Father referred to Himself as Jesus. They are talking about the Father, and Jesus answers, with "I" and "Me". Who are these personal pronouns referring to? Jesus is speaking, but the subject of the conversation is the Father. Why does Jesus answer in first person? Because it is the Father that is answering. Letīs look at it again: "Show us the Father"...."I have been with you....you do not know Me?" Surely that refers to the Father, the Father is speaking.
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An angel spoke to Mary and to Zechariah, "I am Gabriel, and I stand before God", and said, "And he [John] will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous--to make ready a people prepared for the Lord." ~Luke 1:17
Now, when the angel spoke, who spoke, Gabriel, or God? The answer is clearly "God". When you hear the angel, you hear God. You hear nothing transposed between God and his messenger. Yet if you read my posts, you read 'aron' with maybe a little 'God' there. Not much but hopefully a little.
Yet when Jesus the incarnate Word spoke, the Word made flesh, God spoke. When you saw Jesus you saw the Father. When he spoke, the Father spoke. Yet this doesn't make him the Father anymore than Gabriel was God. Both represent the other perfectly. Yet we need not conflate the two distinct parties - Sender and Sent.
All of this, I believe, would have been self-evident to a first-century readership. Once you see it, it's not very complicated. The angel said to John, "I Jesus have sent my angel". Yet the angel who said "I Jesus" was not Jesus. Yet when you heard the angel you heard Jesus. ~Rev 22:16
This way you don't need two interpretive rules, one for Father/Jesus and one for Father/Gabriel and Jesus/angel. The same rule applies in both cases. Again, a first-century readership would have received these writings on a simpler plane, unburdened by our theological needs. Simple, common-sense renderings of the script would mostly suffice. And the Shema still holds, "God is one".
Raptor,
I apologize if my tone is dismissive. Your thinking is good. Except to hold it I'd have to ignore verses like the angel saying, "I Jesus" and Jesus saying, "You (Raptor/aron) shall be one even as I and the Father are one". And I simply can't ignore scripture. Turns out that a fairly simple concept of representation, accessible to a first-century audience, explains everything (for me, of course. I'm not demanding doctrine).