BEWARE THAT WE DO NOT MISS THE ISSUES 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 Father and Son are not one in the sense of being united. Jesus and His Father are one in the same sense that Jesus prayed that His disciples should be one - “that they may be one, even as we are one” (John 17:22). The Father and Son are one in the sense of being united, but they are not one in the sense of being one God. We are one with Christ and through Christ we will be one with the Father - “I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one” (John 17:23), but we will never be one God with the Father. 3. 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. 4. 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. 5. The Trinity concept is not simply that there is a Father, a Son and a Holy Spirit who are united. The Trinity concept is that the three are the one God. The Bible does not teach that the one God is three persons. Rather the Bible teaches that there is one supreme Being who is above all, and whose will governs the universe - One God and Father of all, who is above all” (Eph. 4:6). The relationship between Pharaoh and Joseph illustrates the relationship between God and Christ - one is the supreme ruler and the other is like the Prime Minister - “And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, See, I have set thee over all the land of Egypt. And Pharaoh took off his ring from his hand, and put it upon Joseph's hand, and arrayed him in vestures of fine linen, and put a gold chain about his neck; And he made him to ride in the second chariot which he had; and they cried before him, Bow the knee: and he made him ruler over all the land of Egypt. And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, I am Pharaoh, and without thee shall no man lift up his hand or foot in all the land of Egypt.” (Gen. 41:41-44). Joseph was not Pharaoh, but he was like Pharaoh, with similar authority because Pharaoh so determined. Likewise, God is the Supreme Being, with Jesus being Michael - the one who is like God, because God, his Father has so appointed Him. The pioneers had it right, the apostles had it right, the Jews had it right - that there was one supreme Being, who sent His Son into the world. Why should God’s people today abandon the pioneers, the apostles and the Jews and embrace the popular view of paganism, Catholism and apostate Protestantism? We have a choice to come to the Father through Christ or we can do otherwise to our own confusion and peril. The choice is ours.
A CAMPAIGN TO UNDERMINE THE GOSPEL The Seventh-day Adventist church was raised up by God and carries the Third Angel's message. But there is a fundamental question that the church seems to be confused about that could undermine the gospel: Was the death of Christ and His submission to His Father real or only a role-play? Just recently, during the review of the Sabbath School lesson for Dec. 7-13, 2024, on Hope Channel, the presenter said that God the Father is not the father of Christ, because Christ is eternal and has always been there. Is this true? The statement that God the Father is not the father of the Son, is patently false and unscriptural. It undermines the most fundamental truth of the gospel that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son to die for us - "In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him" (1 John 4:9). A campaign is on to undermine the gospel and we should open our eyes and resist it. Abraham would have rather died himself than to kill his Son Isaac. And so would David for his son Absalom, when he mourned "would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!" (2 Sam. 18:33). That is what the Father of Christ endured for us. Let us not diminish the extent of the sacrifice that was made to save us. How is the love of the Father manifested if Jesus is not in fact His son but only a coequal God-being? It has also been popularly quoted that Jesus had the power not only to lay down His life but also to take it up back, even though the Bible is clear that at His death, He committed the keeping of His spirit into the hands of His Father and it was the Father who raised Him from the dead (Gal.1:1). Are we repudiating our belief concerning the state of the dead, by suggesting that while being dead, Christ could exercise power, whereas Christ, in making the statement was talking about power, in the sense of permission or authority that He had from His Father? In the book of Revelation, Christ is repeatedly referred to as the one who was dead and who now lives - "I am he that liveth, and was dead; and behold, I am alive for evermore" (Rev. 1:18; 2:8); whereas the Father is referred to repeatedly as him that "liveth for ever and ever" (Rev. 4:9,10; 5:14; 10:6). The Father is referred to also as "the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords; who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see" (1 Tim. 6:15, 16). The popular campaign is pushing the idea that Christ is eternal, from eternity past to eternity future and therefore could not have been begotten before coming to earth. But if He died, which He did, how could He be from eternity past continuously to eternity future? The Bible does not teach that. One cannot be immortally self-existent from eternity past to eternity future and be dead at the same time. Jesus Christ was the Son of God before coming to earth, His Father sent Him to this earth, He died, and His Father raised Him from the dead (Gal. 1:1). This is the gospel, that He died to save us. Someone asked me a question not too long ago that has been ringing in my ears: Could God be saying the same thing about us that He said of the Thyatira church - "Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols." (Rev. 2:20)? Added to that, I have been made to reflect on the sad state that Israel found itself in at one point, when it was said of them, "and Manasseh seduced them to do more evil than did the nations whom the LORD destroyed before the children of Israel." (2 Kings 21:9). There is no other church, it seems, that is on such a campaign as modern Israel in promoting Rome's false doctrine that undermines the very essence of the gospel and makes of none effect the sacrifice that God made in giving His only begotten Son to die for us. Yet, in their Laodicean state, they effectively say that they are rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing, but knoweth not that they are wretched, and miserable and poor and blind and naked (Rev. 3:17). Jesus will not be a part of any conspiracy to undermine His Father's position or authority. Those who are a part of that campaign need to beware lest they hear from Jesus, in the final day, "I never knew you". Jesus's appeal to His people today is: "I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent." (Rev. 3:18,19). Of all the things that we could do, we have now become the foremost proponent of the very doctrine that defines who is Catholic. Here it is. The Edict of Thessalonica defines it - the doctrine that provided the primary basis for the branding of God's people as "heretics" and persecution of them during the dark ages: "let us believe in the one deity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, in equal majesty and in a holy Trinity. We authorize the followers of this law to assume the title of Catholic Christians; but as for the others, since, in our judgement they are foolish madmen, we decree that they shall be branded with the ignominious name of heretics" (Edict of Thessalonica issued 380 AD). To be clear, the Trinity doctrine is not simply that there is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, which is quite biblical. Instead, the Trinity doctrine is that the three (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) make up the one God, which is false and unscriptural. The Bible teaches that there is one supreme Being, who is the "God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Eph. 1:3; 3:14, 15) - "One God and Father of all, who is above all" (Eph. 4:6). The entire family in heaven and in earth is named after Him (Eph. 3:15). He is not one-third of a three-part conglomerate. There is "one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (1 Tim. 2:5); "the head of Christ is God" (1 Cor. 11:3). Jesus is God, by nature - same nature as His Father, but He is not the supreme Being. He has a God to whom He submits. Some people say that Christ's submission to the Father only came about because of His taking on humanity, even though, they generally do not say whether that submission is permanent or not. But it should be made clear that Jesus taking on humanity did not make Him any less God, that is to say, of a God-nature than before He came to earth. We know this because angels were commanded to worship Him even when He was a human baby - "And again, when he bringeth in the firstbegotten into the world, he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him." (Heb. 1:6). So, He was no less God than before. And in His God state, as He was then and as He was before and is now, He has a God to whom He submits, namely, His Father. It seems that we have a work to do in calling God's people to repentance, putting it mildly. It would give us more credibility in calling people out of Babylon and the confusion of the Sunday-keeping churches if we got back to the foundation of scripture on which this movement was raised up by God. The pioneers of the movement were very clear on it and wrote extensively against the Trinity doctrine. Ellen White never once used that term to refer to God. The pioneers held to no version of this doctrine, which they clearly understood to have originated in paganism and was brought into Christianity by Rome. They fully understood that the concept undermines the gospel and so should we.
The message being presented is true but it is only a part of the story. Jesus is God by nature because He is the Son of God. Even as God, Jesus has a God who anointed and appointed Him - "But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows." (Heb. 1:8,9). We are not 'Jesus only' believers. We believe in God who sent His Son into the world, don't we? Jesus was above the angels (Heb. 1:4, 13). He is the express image of His Father's person (Heb. 1:3). So, He can reveal the Father to us. In Him, we see the Father revealed. Hence, He is God with us - that is, the Father being revealed to us through Him. He said He did not come here to point people to Himself but to point us to God, His Father. This understanding is fundamental to the gospel. If we focus on Jesus only, the Father is missed. But if we focus, as the Bible does, on the Father who sent His Son into the world, we will honour both God and Christ.
First time.Happy Sabbath.
Excellent preaching and teaching, I am truly blessed. The blessings and Peace of our Lord and Savior be upon you always.👍
BEWARE THAT WE DO NOT MISS THE ISSUES
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 Father and Son are not one in the sense of being united. Jesus and His Father are one in the same sense that Jesus prayed that His disciples should be one - “that they may be one, even as we are one” (John 17:22). The Father and Son are one in the sense of being united, but they are not one in the sense of being one God. We are one with Christ and through Christ we will be one with the Father - “I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one” (John 17:23), but we will never be one God with the Father.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. The Trinity concept is not simply that there is a Father, a Son and a Holy Spirit who are united. The Trinity concept is that the three are the one God. The Bible does not teach that the one God is three persons. Rather the Bible teaches that there is one supreme Being who is above all, and whose will governs the universe - One God and Father of all, who is above all” (Eph. 4:6). The relationship between Pharaoh and Joseph illustrates the relationship between God and Christ - one is the supreme ruler and the other is like the Prime Minister - “And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, See, I have set thee over all the land of Egypt. And Pharaoh took off his ring from his hand, and put it upon Joseph's hand, and arrayed him in vestures of fine linen, and put a gold chain about his neck; And he made him to ride in the second chariot which he had; and they cried before him, Bow the knee: and he made him ruler over all the land of Egypt. And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, I am Pharaoh, and without thee shall no man lift up his hand or foot in all the land of Egypt.” (Gen. 41:41-44). Joseph was not Pharaoh, but he was like Pharaoh, with similar authority because Pharaoh so determined. Likewise, God is the Supreme Being, with Jesus being Michael - the one who is like God, because God, his Father has so appointed Him.
The pioneers had it right, the apostles had it right, the Jews had it right - that there was one supreme Being, who sent His Son into the world. Why should God’s people today abandon the pioneers, the apostles and the Jews and embrace the popular view of paganism, Catholism and apostate Protestantism? We have a choice to come to the Father through Christ or we can do otherwise to our own confusion and peril. The choice is ours.
A CAMPAIGN TO UNDERMINE THE GOSPEL
The Seventh-day Adventist church was raised up by God and carries the Third Angel's message. But there is a fundamental question that the church seems to be confused about that could undermine the gospel: Was the death of Christ and His submission to His Father real or only a role-play? Just recently, during the review of the Sabbath School lesson for Dec. 7-13, 2024, on Hope Channel, the presenter said that God the Father is not the father of Christ, because Christ is eternal and has always been there. Is this true?
The statement that God the Father is not the father of the Son, is patently false and unscriptural. It undermines the most fundamental truth of the gospel that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son to die for us - "In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him" (1 John 4:9).
A campaign is on to undermine the gospel and we should open our eyes and resist it. Abraham would have rather died himself than to kill his Son Isaac. And so would David for his son Absalom, when he mourned "would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!" (2 Sam. 18:33). That is what the Father of Christ endured for us. Let us not diminish the extent of the sacrifice that was made to save us.
How is the love of the Father manifested if Jesus is not in fact His son but only a coequal God-being?
It has also been popularly quoted that Jesus had the power not only to lay down His life but also to take it up back, even though the Bible is clear that at His death, He committed the keeping of His spirit into the hands of His Father and it was the Father who raised Him from the dead (Gal.1:1).
Are we repudiating our belief concerning the state of the dead, by suggesting that while being dead, Christ could exercise power, whereas Christ, in making the statement was talking about power, in the sense of permission or authority that He had from His Father?
In the book of Revelation, Christ is repeatedly referred to as the one who was dead and who now lives - "I am he that liveth, and was dead; and behold, I am alive for evermore" (Rev. 1:18; 2:8); whereas the Father is referred to repeatedly as him that "liveth for ever and ever" (Rev. 4:9,10; 5:14; 10:6). The Father is referred to also as "the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords; who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see" (1 Tim. 6:15, 16).
The popular campaign is pushing the idea that Christ is eternal, from eternity past to eternity future and therefore could not have been begotten before coming to earth. But if He died, which He did, how could He be from eternity past continuously to eternity future? The Bible does not teach that. One cannot be immortally self-existent from eternity past to eternity future and be dead at the same time. Jesus Christ was the Son of God before coming to earth, His Father sent Him to this earth, He died, and His Father raised Him from the dead (Gal. 1:1). This is the gospel, that He died to save us.
Someone asked me a question not too long ago that has been ringing in my ears: Could God be saying the same thing about us that He said of the Thyatira church - "Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols." (Rev. 2:20)?
Added to that, I have been made to reflect on the sad state that Israel found itself in at one point, when it was said of them, "and Manasseh seduced them to do more evil than did the nations whom the LORD destroyed before the children of Israel." (2 Kings 21:9). There is no other church, it seems, that is on such a campaign as modern Israel in promoting Rome's false doctrine that undermines the very essence of the gospel and makes of none effect the sacrifice that God made in giving His only begotten Son to die for us. Yet, in their Laodicean state, they effectively say that they are rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing, but knoweth not that they are wretched, and miserable and poor and blind and naked (Rev. 3:17).
Jesus will not be a part of any conspiracy to undermine His Father's position or authority. Those who are a part of that campaign need to beware lest they hear from Jesus, in the final day, "I never knew you". Jesus's appeal to His people today is: "I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent." (Rev. 3:18,19).
Of all the things that we could do, we have now become the foremost proponent of the very doctrine that defines who is Catholic. Here it is. The Edict of Thessalonica defines it - the doctrine that provided the primary basis for the branding of God's people as "heretics" and persecution of them during the dark ages: "let us believe in the one deity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, in equal majesty and in a holy Trinity. We authorize the followers of this law to assume the title of Catholic Christians; but as for the others, since, in our judgement they are foolish madmen, we decree that they shall be branded with the ignominious name of heretics" (Edict of Thessalonica issued 380 AD).
To be clear, the Trinity doctrine is not simply that there is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, which is quite biblical. Instead, the Trinity doctrine is that the three (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) make up the one God, which is false and unscriptural. The Bible teaches that there is one supreme Being, who is the "God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Eph. 1:3; 3:14, 15) - "One God and Father of all, who is above all" (Eph. 4:6). The entire family in heaven and in earth is named after Him (Eph. 3:15). He is not one-third of a three-part conglomerate. There is "one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (1 Tim. 2:5); "the head of Christ is God" (1 Cor. 11:3). Jesus is God, by nature - same nature as His Father, but He is not the supreme Being. He has a God to whom He submits.
Some people say that Christ's submission to the Father only came about because of His taking on humanity, even though, they generally do not say whether that submission is permanent or not. But it should be made clear that Jesus taking on humanity did not make Him any less God, that is to say, of a God-nature than before He came to earth. We know this because angels were commanded to worship Him even when He was a human baby - "And again, when he bringeth in the firstbegotten into the world, he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him." (Heb. 1:6). So, He was no less God than before. And in His God state, as He was then and as He was before and is now, He has a God to whom He submits, namely, His Father.
It seems that we have a work to do in calling God's people to repentance, putting it mildly. It would give us more credibility in calling people out of Babylon and the confusion of the Sunday-keeping churches if we got back to the foundation of scripture on which this movement was raised up by God. The pioneers of the movement were very clear on it and wrote extensively against the Trinity doctrine. Ellen White never once used that term to refer to God. The pioneers held to no version of this doctrine, which they clearly understood to have originated in paganism and was brought into Christianity by Rome. They fully understood that the concept undermines the gospel and so should we.
The message being presented is true but it is only a part of the story. Jesus is God by nature because He is the Son of God. Even as God, Jesus has a God who anointed and appointed Him - "But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows." (Heb. 1:8,9).
We are not 'Jesus only' believers. We believe in God who sent His Son into the world, don't we? Jesus was above the angels (Heb. 1:4, 13). He is the express image of His Father's person (Heb. 1:3). So, He can reveal the Father to us.
In Him, we see the Father revealed. Hence, He is God with us - that is, the Father being revealed to us through Him. He said He did not come here to point people to Himself but to point us to God, His Father. This understanding is fundamental to the gospel. If we focus on Jesus only, the Father is missed. But if we focus, as the Bible does, on the Father who sent His Son into the world, we will honour both God and Christ.