If you have explored Trinitarian doctrine to any degree, you will have surely come across the "Jesus is God" or "Jesus is YAHWEH" attribute association charts. These charts are usually arranged to compare Jesus and Yahweh God by showing they share several things in common. These charts are nothing but deceptive fallacies. A person can share numerous things in common with another person and it will not make them that person by identity.
Perhaps you have heard of the phrase, "guilt by association" which is known to be a common fallacy. The Trinitarian is trying to claim that since Jesus shares many things in common with God then he is God by identity. It is pitifully ridiculous. The following chart is a similar layout to the ones Trinitarians use to compare Jesus and Yahweh. It is created with the exact same reasoning process used by Trinitarians to create their charts and demonstrates the complete foolishness of such "reasoning."
| Peter is the Messiah ("Anointed One") |
|---|
| Description | Jesus | Peter |
|---|
| Son of God | Luke 1:35; Matt 3:16-17 | Matt 5:45; Rom 8:14;
Gal 3:26 |
| Begotten of God | Jn 3:16 | 1 Jn 5:1; Matt 16:17 |
| Shepherd | Matt 2:6; 26:31; Jn 10:11; Heb 13:20; 1 Peter 2:25; 5:4 | Jn 21:16; Acts 20:28;
1 Peter 5:2 |
| Light of the world | John 8:12 | Matthew 5:14
|
| Rock | 1 Cor 10:4 | Matthew 16:181 |
| Apostle | Hebrews 3:1 | Matthew 10:2 |
| Priest | Hebrews 7:3, 17, 24 | 1 Peter 2:5,9; Rev 1:6; 5:10 (see Romans 15:6). |
| King | Matthew 2:2; 27:37;
Luke 1:33-35 | Rev 1:6; 5:10 |
| Authority to forgive sins | Matthew 9:2,8 | John 20:21-23 |
| Healed the lame | Matthew 9:1-8 | Acts 3:6-7 |
| Raised the dead | John 11:43-44 | Acts 9:37-41 |
| Walked on water | Matthew 14:25 | Matthew 14:29 |
| Bestowed the Spirit | John 20:22 | Acts 8:17-18 |
Crucified
for the Sheep | Matthew 27; Luke 23; John 19 | John 21:18-19
Early church testimony |
| Anointed2 | Luke 4:18; Acts 10:38 | 2 Cor 1:21; 1 John 2:20, 27 |
| Conclusion: | Both Peter and Jesus are the Messiah |
A person can theoretically share absolutely everything in common with another person and it will still not amount to a common identity. Even if Peter shared 100% of Jesus' attributes, Peter would not be Jesus. This is because there is one thing they cannot share in common: identity. Peter is one person and Jesus is another person. Peter is one identity, Christ is another identity, and the one thing they can never have in common is their personal identities. No matter how big you make the chart above, and no matter how many things you show Peter has in common with the Messiah, Peter will simply never be the Messiah. Peter is one identity, Jesus is another. They do not get to share common identity as "the Messiah."
The same is true with the Son of God and his Father who is God. God is one identity, the son of God is another identity. They do not share common identity as "God." In fact, Jesus does not share several things with the Father in addition to not sharing the Father's identity. For example, the Father has no God; Jesus does. The Father is unbegotten but Jesus is not. The Head of Christ is God; the Head of God the Father is nobody. This Trinitarian ploy is nothing but a pitiful fallacy. On one hand they want to claim Jesus and the Father are two different identities (the Father is not the Son) but on the other hand they wish to claim that both of them share one common identity - "God." (Stop and think carefully about that). And that is not to mention the fact that the ONLY way the Father and Son are the "same" in Trinitarian doctrine is having the same divine nature which is a "what" and NOT a "who"! Now how did they manage to make them the same identity ("God") when they are not to confuse person and being, the "who's" and the "what's." They are converting their "what" into a "who" by an act of their own will when they inform everyone else you should not confuse the who's and the what's.
What Trinitarians try to do is identity Jesus as God when God already is identified as the person of the Father and they attempt to do this by showing he shares things in common with the Father. It is just as ridiculous as trying to identify Peter as the Christ as we have shown above. They are simply not the same identity and just because they share things in common does not mean that Jesus is the same identity as the Father (i.e. "God") anymore than Peter is the same identity as Jesus (i.e. the Messiah). Not only so, much of the information presented in these charts is simply false information anyway. For example, they will try to claim Jesus is "omniscient" and avoid the fact that Jesus increased in wisdom and does not know "the day nor hour." Other falsehoods in these charts are based on their own misinterpretations. The truth is that even IF these charts were not presenting falsehoods within them, the claim is a farce anyway. The illustration above demonstrates that quite clearly. No matter how many things you show one person has in common with another person, it will never amount to both of them having a common identity. You don't get to identify Jesus as "God" because he shares appellations with the Father anymore than you get to identify Peter as the Messiah because he shares appellations with Jesus.
Notes:
1. The actual name Jesus gave Simon is "Kephas" (Cephas) which is the Aramaic word for "rock," kepha. It does not specifically mean "small stone" in contrast to a "big rock." That is a totally unfounded myth. Kephas is the Aramaic word for "rock" and is essentially equivalent to our English word "rock." John tells us in his Gospel that the way to interpret and translate this Aramaic word into Greek is with the word "Petros" (John 1:42). "Peter" is simply an anglicized form of Petros. Petros is a Greek masculine form of the feminine Greek word for rock, petra, and as such, an appropriate form of the Greek word for "rock" for the man Simon bar Jonah. Greeks did not give males feminine names and the Greek word for "rock" was masculinized for Simon. An example would be Ioannes (John) and Ioanna (Joanna). Same name, same meaning, different gender. In fact, the Bible shows that Jesus spoke Hebrew-Aramaic to his disciples. When he appeared to Paul this is also the language he spoke. Therefore we know that Jesus actually said, "You are kepha (rock) and upon this kepha (rock) I will build my church."
2. The word Messiah, or maschiach, is Hebrew for "Anointed One." The Greek word is chrisma which is a cognate of the word "Christ."
