The Journal: News of the Churches of God

Journal continues series on nature of Jesus

With this issue, The Journal presents the third in a series of essays on the nature of Christ. The Journal originally planned to terminate the series with this issue, but, because of reader (and writer) interest the series may extend to at least one more issue.

The general view of Jesus in the Church of God groups that broke away from the Worldwide Church of God-and the former view of the WCG-is that Jesus is God, or, more specifically, Jesus is one of two beings in the God family.

Here is information about the writers and their articles in this series:

An article by Eric Snow (in the July 31 issue) defending the view that Jesus is one of two members of the God family; specifically, that Jesus is God.
An article by John Wheeler (Aug. 31) defending the view that Jesus is God and that true Christians are destined to become "God as God is God."
An article by Gary Fakhoury (beginning July 31 and continuing in this issue, starting on page 7) presenting the view that Jesus is not God (that is, not God as God the Father is God) but that He is Messiah, Lord, Savior and the Son of God.
An article by Herbert W. Armstrong, published in 1958 (July 31 issue), similar to Mr. Snow's view, emphasizing that Jesus is the God of the Old Testament.
An article by Anthony Buzzard and Charles Hunting (July 31) that agrees with Mr. Fakhoury but further emphasizes the historical Hebrew context of Jesus of Nazareth and what these two writers see as "strict monotheism" on the part of the writers in the Old and New Testament.
An article by Wade Cox (in the Aug. 31 issue beginning on page 8) that agrees with Mr. Fakhoury and Mr. Buzzard on the number of beings in the Godhead but explains his view that Jesus preexisted His begettal in the womb of Mary.
An article by Mr. Buzzard (in this issue beginning on page 9) that disagrees with Mr. Cox's assertion that Jesus literally preexisted Mary's pregnancy. Sir Anthony believes Jesus preexisted in the "counsels of God," but he claims that does not constitute literal preexistence.
An article by Lon Lacey (beginning on this page) that supports the view that Jesus is God, although Mr. Lacey asserts that Jesus was not divine while He lived as a human on earth.
The Journal also plans to publish one more article defending the WCG's traditional view of two beings in the God family and one more from the "unitarian" point of view and may publish brief follow-ups from the series writers and others (as letters or articles).

For more information on The Journal's reasons for presenting this discussion, please see "Journal Begins Series on Nature of Jesus," July 31, page 6.

Readers of The Journal are invited to respond to these articles in the letters section. Please keep letters short, no more than 750 to 1,000 words.

Letters of 300 to 500 words, because of space limitations, stand a better chance of making it into print.

Write: Letters, The Journal, P.O. Box 1020, Big Sandy, Texas 75755, U.S.A., or send E-mail to info@thejournal.org.

(Note: The Journal capitalizes pronouns, such as He, His, My and You, that refer to God or Jesus Christ. The Journal continues that convention here, even though readers could reasonably observe that it might make sense, in the context of some of these articles, not to capitalize pronouns that refer to Jesus.)

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