Cheryl Schatz

Hi NN,
Thanks for the reply and for trying to be brief. I do need to work on that as well as brevity is not my best characteristic. 😉

No, He didn’t. He gave up His rights certainly (e.g. Phil 2:7) – but nowhere are we told that He gave up His authority. In fact we are told quite the opposite in a great many places (e.g. Matt 9:6, Matt 28:18, etc.)

Actually may I respectfully say that you are wrong? In my work with Jehovah’s Witnesses they use Scriptures like Matthew 28:18 to prove that Jesus did not have authority on His own but was given authority. This is where Philippians 2 comes in that Jesus gave up his rights to act independently as God so that He could live as a man. One of the rights that He gave up was His authority. That is why it was completely necessary for all authority to be given back to Jesus. He had it in the beginning as He existed as God but in His humility in coming as a man He gave up that right.

Since you quoted Matthew 28:18 you could explain to me how it is that Jesus had to be given all authority if He never gave it up in the first place? How is it that He was given something that He already had?

And on the other verse you referenced:

Matthew 9:6 (NASB95)
6 “But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—then He said to the paralytic, “Get up, pick up your bed and go home.”

This is a verse that I often use with Jehovah’s Witnesses to prove that Jesus had authority on earth to forgive sins. But this authority was given to Him just as eventually He received back all authority. This verse in no way disproves that Jesus was given this authority or that Jesus did not give up all of His rights when He came to the earth.

I will continue commenting on another comment number so that my questions are separated and I stay on the brief side. 😉