This is a transcript of a video sent to early2it on YouTube:
Hey there early2it, I watched your video, and I don’t usually do this, but I wrote down what you said, just so I could get to know it better. It was really helpful because I think that in a lot of these videos, sometimes we bypass the meaning that the speaker’s trying to say. So I made a transcript of your video – two thirds of your video, because it’s pretty long.
In my last video, I thought that you were dismissing me because of my age, but I wasn’t sure about it, so I just put it out there just to remind you. But I’m sorry, because my words were pretty harsh and I should have just watched what I said before I said it. I was accusing you, and some of my accusations were groundless. I said that maybe all of the time you did something, when it might have been only some of the time. But I still think that those accusations were constructive. I did it to be constructive.
I see now that our disagreement is in the way we interpret what we read. And it really doesn’t have anything to do with the Church’s doctrine, because the Church doesn’t define how to interpret the Bible. I would say that the interpretation is defined by common sense. I’m not trying to be harsh; I’m just saying that the Church doesn’t tell us how to interpret things.
But sometimes the Bible uses abstract language, for example, in John 1, where it says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.” That’s abstract, because the “Word” does not mean a spoken word, which would be more concrete than abstract. But it’s talking about something else, so it’s abstract. And that is open grounds for interpretation. And even the word “life” is somewhat abstract, because you can talk about someone being “alive”, as opposed to someone not being “alive” when they’re still living. Being “alive” could mean being active, or living, or even being spiritually alive. You can interpret it different ways when Jesus talks about the eternal life and life to the fullest and things like that.
And then there’s concrete language – things that you can put your finger on. And you can’t interpret those in multiple ways. So some words are concrete and some are abstract. You have to interpret accordingly.
As for the method of interpretation, what method do you use to interpret the Bible? It’s really a deep concept – the methods we use to interpret things. You said in your video that we can interpret it different ways, but only one interpretation is the right way. You said that when you were talking about John 1 when it talked about the Word. I could interpret it as meaning Jesus, and you could interpret it as being something else, but only one of those things would be the correct interpretation.
My mom made me memorize John chapter 1 when I was little. She gave me 20 bucks for memorizing it. I have since forgotten it.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. ” So we know that it’s a “He.” “Through Him, all things were made, and without Him nothing was made that has been made.” So the Word is called a “He,” so we know that it’s a male. By the way, as I am going through this, make note of what you disagree with me on. “In Him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not yet understood it.” See that’s an example of abstract language. The “light” does not mean physical light – maybe spiritual light. “John came to testify concerning the light” and John was not the light. So it switched from “Word” to “light.” It said, “In Him was life, and that life was the light of men.” So the Word had life in Him and that life was light. It’s kind of confusing. Verse 14 says, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father full of grace and truth.” And then John testifies and says, “This is He of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because He was before me.” “No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only has made Him known.” Now, when it says “One and Only,” it could also mean the “Only Begotten.”
So it says that the Word made His dwelling among us. And I take that to mean that the Word was born into the world through Jesus. Somehow the Word made His dwelling among us, and that’s kind of abstract, but not really. Because making your dwelling means making your home somewhere and physically going there. And then it says, we have seen His glory, the glory of the One and Only, or the Only Begotten, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. And this lines up with the description of Jesus, because Jesus came from the Father, and He said, “I am the truth.” “I am the way, the truth, and the life and no one comes to the Father except through me.”
And so I do think that this is talking about Jesus. On the other hand, if it’s not talking about Jesus, who could it be talking about? I’m not saying I have this all figured out – whether Jesus was fully God and fully man. He calls himself the Son of God. It’s clear that He’s the Son of God, but it’s not clear that He is God.
It is clear, though, that Jesus existed before He was born. So who is Jesus? Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, before Abraham was born, I AM.” If you want to look up the Greek for that, go ahead. I’m wondering if it was appropriate for Him to say “I AM,” or if it was grammatically incorrect like it is in English. If it was incorrect grammar in Greek also, then it means that Jesus was saying “I AM” intentionally to reference the name of God that God gave Moses in the burning bush. He told him, “tell them the I AM has sent you.” So then Jesus would be referencing that He is God by calling himself the name of God. And even after that, the Jews tried to stone Him because they thought that He was making Himself out to be God.
In Colossians, it talks about Jesus being the “image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For through Him all things were made.” The word “image” there [εἰκών], I heard a pastor say that that meant “icon,” which is an exact replica. [also see Col 2:9 “For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily”] But then again, it’s obvious that a man can’t be God, because man in limited [physically] and God is infinite. [Actually, looking back, I disagree with this.]
In the scripture, it does say that Jesus was filled by the Spirit of God. So Jesus had the Spirit of God. And it also says that Jesus had nothing in his physical body to be desired. So he wasn’t good-looking, like they show in the TV. And he probably had a plain face. He was probably short. I don’t know. People didn’t recognize him some of the time. So he wasn’t beautiful. You see all these pictures of Jesus, and he wasn’t like that. I don’t even want to look at it because I know that that’s not what Jesus looked like, and I don’t want to have the wrong image in my head.
I’m probably running late with the video, so reply if you want to. I’ve made a transcript of this video for your benefit, and I’ll put that in the details section. Thanks early2it, I look forward to seeing your video.
