JESUS OR CAIAPHAS? WHICH?
The biggest problem facing the church today is similar to that which the Jewish church faced in the time of Christ! The constituted church authority condemned Jesus and instructed the people to reject Him. In these last days we have the constituted authority of the SDA church that has rejected the Biblical faith of the pioneers, which, in 1904 Ellen White was shown that God had established during the fifty years prior, and that efforts to overturn it were to be resisted.
These Fundamental Principles were published in the 1889 Adventist Yearbook. We must resist Caiaphas before we can resist Caesar. The Mark of the Beast will bring us in conflict with Caesar. But if we cannot run with the footmen (Caiaphas’s modern day equivalent), how will we contend with horses (the powers of earth who will impose false worship)?
Modern Christianity has gone astray on two counts, and like ancient Israel that often went astray, we need to repent.
1. We have displaced God the Father from His position as the Supreme Being in the universe – in most cases, putting Jesus in His place, which Jesus Himself does not accept.
2. We have spread the notion that the death of Jesus Christ pays the penalty for all sins – making persons either liable to pay a debt which has already been paid or free to sin with impunity because the debt for all their sins has already been paid.
BEWARE THAT WE DO NOT MISS THE ISSUES
On the first count, consider the following:
1. The issue is not that Jesus is not God. Jesus is God by nature – same nature and character as His Father. But Jesus has a God who begot Him (John 1:14). Jesus has a God who anoints Him (Heb.1:9). Jesus has a God who appoints Him (Heb. 1:2). Jesus has a God who sends Him (John 17:18). Jesus has a God whose will He does (John 6:38). Jesus has a God who reveals things to Him (John 5:20). Jesus has a God who gives Him power (1 Cor. 15:27). There is concern that Jesus is being diminished. Really? It is the Father who is being diminished. He dwells in light that no man can approach unto (1 Tim. 6:16). No one anoints Him. No one appoints Him. No one sends Him. No one reveals anything to Him. No one instructs Him (Isa. 40:13). He does the will of no one but His own will. No one gives Him power. He can swear by none greater than Himself (Heb. 6:13). It is His name that the saved will have written in their foreheads (Rev. 14:1). The entire family in heaven and in earth is named after Him (Eph. 3:15).
2. The issue is not that the Holy Spirit is not a person separate from God and Christ. Rather, it is that The Holy Spirit is sent by God and not a co-equal with God; and there is no biblical precedent of anyone worshipping the Holy Spirit.
3. God gave His only begotten Son to die for us. It was not an eternal God who cannot die, who simply came and appeared to die but, in reality, cannot die. What is confusing most Trinitarians is the lack of appreciation that a living soul has two parts, body and spirit (Gen. 2:7). The difference between us and Christ is that Christ has a spirit like His Father, while He has a body like us – so, in that sense, He is both God and man. The Bible is clear, that in becoming human, Christ – the spirit being who pre-existed with the Father, the only other person who has a God-spirit fully, like the Father – took on a human body after putting off His celestial body, which was similar but not identical to the Father’s celestial body (Phil. 2:5-8; 1 Cor. 15:39-49). In putting off His celestial body, Christ effectively died from the foundation of the world – since the body without the spirit is dead (Rev. 13:8; James 2:26). His entire existence was now in the hands of His Father, who gave Him a human body (Heb. 10:5) – making Him alive again, as a human, but still retaining His God-spirit. The reverse took place when He died, as a human, and was made alive again at the resurrection with a glorified human body. On the cross, He committed the keeping of His spirit to His Father (Luke 23:46) and it was His Father who afterward raised Him from the dead (Gal. 1:1).
PENALTY REMAINS FOR SINS NOT REPENTED OF
Regarding the second count on which modern Christianity has gone astray, one should think about this: Whoever said that Christ paid the penalty for all sins? Do not the wicked pay the penalty for their own sins in the lake of fire (Rev. 21:8)? And doesn’t Satan, as the Scapegoat, pay the penalty for the sins that he would have caused the repentant sinner to commit, when those confessed sins are placed upon him (Lev. 16:21, 22)? It does not suffice to say that the penalty was paid but people are lost because they did not accept that the debt is already paid, because many will claim to accept Christ, wanting salvation, even saying, “Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name?” and will still be lost because they did not do God’s will (Matt.7:21, 22).
It is the sin of Adam that had condemned us all that Christ paid the penalty for at Calvary. That is the free gift to all. But we must confess our own sins and repent of them to be forgiven of them – “Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.” (Rom.5:18); “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9).
In addition to the free gift of forgiveness to all humanity for the sin of Adam that had condemned us all, and God’s offer of forgiveness for our individual sins, if we repent of them, God offers us a new heart and spirit that will empower us to live righteously – “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.” (Eze. 36:26, 27). These latter gifts we can receive only by our conscious choice, whereas the former gift was given freely to all humanity when we were enemies, independent of any choice that we would have made or not made – “For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.” (Rom. 5:10).
By His present life, as our Advocate and High Priest, Christ intercedes on our behalf before the Father and in the presence of the holy angels so that we can be forgiven of our sins and be empowered with spiritual gifts so that we can live righteously. He will receive the kingdom of this earth from His Father and will return at His second coming to receive us (1 John 2:1; Eph. 4:10-15; Rev.3:5; Heb.4:14-16; Dan. 7:13, 14; John 14:1-3).
So, let us repent and seek God’s forgiveness for our own sins and accept the power that He offers us to live righteously. Let us not think that we are rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing, when we are in God’s sight, “wretched, and miserable, and poor and blind and naked” (Rev. 3:17). Instead, let us seek God for gold tried in the fire that we might be rich, white raiment that we might be clothed, that the shame of our nakedness does not appear, and eyesalve that we might see (Rev.3:18).
“He that hath ears to hear, let him hear” (Matt. 11:15).
For further information, please visit Patience of the Saints at http://thecommandmentsofgodandthefaithofjesus.com/
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