Jesus and His Father, Part 3

JESUS AND HIS FATHER, PART 3

By Dr. Stephen Jones:  Aug 21, 2019

Blog Post Date:  8-28-2019

Paul wrote in Colossians 1:15-20, taken from The Emphatic Diaglott,

¹⁵ He is a likeness of the invisible God--First-born of all creation; ¹⁶ Because in Him were created all things… ¹⁷ and He precedes all things, and in Him all things have been permanently placed. ¹⁸ He is also the Head of the body of the congregation; who is the Beginning, the First-born from the dead, that he might become preeminent among all. ¹⁹ Because in Him it was thought good that the whole fullness should dwell ²⁰ and through Him to reconcile all things for him….

This summarizes well Paul’s theology of Christ, showing His place as the Head of the entire creation. Paul does not say that Christ was God Himself but tells us that He was in the likeness (or image) of the invisible God and was the “First-born of all creation.”

The term “First-born” is used twice in this passage. The first time (verse 15) it refers to Christ being the first among “all creation,” whereas the second time (verse 18) He is “the First-born from the dead,” that is, “the Head of the body of the congregation”—that is the NEW creation. He is both, of course, because the re-creation is based on the same laws on which the first creation was based.

Christ also “precedes all things,” establishing not only His pre-existence at the time of creation but also that He was the first One created by the Father. I believe that when God took Eve out of Adam’s side, He revealed the manner in which Christ Himself was brought forth out of God’s own side. God saw the need for Adam to have a double witness by his side to establish all righteousness, and this law was also His first motive for bringing forth Christ.

As the First-born of all creation, He was its Head. As the First-born from the dead, He became the “preeminent” Head of the new creation as well. The law of headship not only gives the first-born authority but also makes him responsible for those under him.

Hence, when Adam sinned, his sin affected all that were under his authority. Christ Himself stood above Adam, so He was not subjected to mortality; but His position of authority also made Him take responsibility for Adam’s sin. This ultimately led Him to the cross, where He redeemed all things back to Himself by paying for the sin of the world.

This process, however, has taken time, because sin was reckoned as a debt, and when men cannot pay their debts, they are sentenced to labor within a specific time frame not to exceed the year of Jubilee. Adam and those under his authority were sentenced to labor as slaves to sin for 6,000 years before their first Sabbath. Yet even then, this was only the first “week,” for after this comes an age of judgment (“lake of fire” or the “fiery law”) until the creation Jubilee after the seventh “week” (49,000 years).

The point is that Christ’s redemptive work on the cross will succeed, and the plan will not end until He has reconciled all things and the “fulness” (pleroma) again dwells in Him, as Paul says. The church as a whole has long had a much narrower and limited vision and understanding of the divine plan, primarily because, in their Bible studies, they stopped studying the laws of God.

The Deity of Christ

I have already discussed the meaning of the term “God” or “god” (elohim). While there is only one God in the sense of the Most High God and Creator of all, there are many layers of authority under Him, each of which is a “god” to those who are under authority. Hence, Moses was made a god to Pharaoh, and Jesus is likewise our God. Jesus, however, did not claim to be equal with His own God, but acknowledged the Most High God as “My Father and your Father, and My God and your God” (John 20:17).

When Thomas saw the resurrected Christ and was able to touch His wounds, John 20:28 says,

²⁸ Thomas answered and said to Him, “My Lord and my God!”

Jesus did not rebuke him for saying this, nor was He horrified that Thomas might stray from strict monotheism. It is certain that Thomas did not suddenly receive revelation that Jesus was the “one God.” Within the context, it was understood that Thomas was not displacing Jesus’ own heavenly Father. John himself had already established the truth earlier in verse 17.

The point is that we ought to recognize the deity of Christ within the parameters set forth by Jesus and the apostles themselves. In this way we do not trample the truth of monotheism. Likewise, we read in John 1:18 (NASB),

¹⁸ No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.

It is plain that the Creator Himself was unbegotten. Jesus is “the only begotten God,” and His position was “in the bosom of the Father.” Having been taken out of the Father’s bosom at the beginning, even as Eve was taken out of Adam’s bosom, Jesus took His rightful position when He ascended to His Father.

Some of the later manuscripts of John’s gospel were altered to read, “the only begotten Son,” and so the KJV reads in this way, as does The Emphatic Diaglott. In such disputes, I defer to Dr. Ivan Panin and his Numeric English New Testament, as he studied the numerical patterns within the text itself to determine authenticity and inspiration. He renders this verse:

¹⁸ God no one has ever seen; an only begotten, himself God, who is unto the bosom of the Father, HE has declared him.

In other words, Dr. Panin determined that it is only by retaining “God” in this verse that the numerical patterns built into the text are not disrupted. Since every letter in Greek carries a numerical value (as also with the Hebrew letters), any change of wording or spelling will produce different numerical patterns. Only the inspired text actually produces a flow of meaningful numerical patterns.

At any rate, the oldest manuscripts declare Christ to be “God” in this verse. Apparently, a later scribe decided that “God” was inappropriate and so he substituted the word “Son” to make it read according to his own theological understanding.

In my view John 1:18 refers to Christ as “the only begotten God” and can be used to establish the deity of Christ.

Returning to His Past Glory

In John 17:1 and 5 Jesus prayed,

¹ … Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You… ⁵ And now, glorify Me together with Yourself, Father, with the glory which I had with You before the world [cosmos] was.

Jesus here affirms that He had been in a glorified state “before the world was.” The cosmos is the ordered world, in this case, that which was made during the seven days of creation. Jesus was soon to return to that past glory, which He had given up temporarily during His earthly manifestation. Paul tells us in Philippians 2:7 that He had “emptied Himself” in order to be “found in appearance as a man” (Philippians 2:8).

That glory, of course, was first seen in Him at the mount of Transfiguration, when “He was transfigured before them, and His face shone like the sun, and His garments became as white as light” (Matthew 17:2).

Christ’s mission from the beginning was to bring the glory of God from heaven to earth. This is the main theme in the gospel of John, where eight miracle-signs (semeion) were set forth as representative of His ministry as a whole to manifest His glory (John 2:11) in the earth. These eight signs also prophetically represent the eight days of the feast of Tabernacles.

After completing the eighth sign in John 21:6, the prophetic pattern was fully established for the next stage, where the sons of God themselves would fulfill the eight-day feast of Tabernacles and bring the glory of God into the rest of the earth. In this way, the promise of God was to be fulfilled, saying in Habakkuk 2:14,

¹⁴ For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.

Jesus and His Father, Part 2

JESUS AND HIS FATHER, PART 2

By Dr. Stephen Jones: Aug 20, 2019

Blog Post Date:  8-27-2019

The law of imputation, which Paul uses in Romans 4 in regard to calling us righteous in a pre-existent way, is best summed up in Romans 4:17. The NASB reads, “God… calls into being that which does not exist.” The KJV reads, “God… calleth those things which be not as though they were.”

Perhaps The Emphatic Diaglott says it best: “God… calls things not in being, as though existing.”

Paul’s application of this law of imputation has to do with our righteousness, which we do not presently have in this body, and yet by law God considers it to be in existence already. The law is an expression of God’s character, and since God has the power and right to do anything consistent with His nature, He has the right to say things exist even though they are not yet manifested in the earth.

In fact, it cannot be that it does NOT exist, once He calls it into existence. The universe must obey His commands, for He is God. We have difficulty conceiving of such power, for it is beyond our experience and transcends our earthly nature. Yet the key is to understand that things exist in spirit form before they manifest in the earth.

Not only people but all historical events first exist (or “occur”) in the heavens before they occur on the earth. Predestination is rooted in the law of imputation. We ourselves pray and conduct spiritual warfare according to the same law, for it is only when conditions are changed in the second heavens that those changes are reflected afterward here on the earth.

And so, in the laws of spiritual warfare that are found in Deuteronomy 20, the priests’ duty was to inform the army that God was with them and that they had already been given the victory (Deuteronomy 20:4). The responsibility of the priests was to “perform the service” (Numbers 4:23) at the tabernacle. The Hebrew literally reads, “to war the warfare.” In other words, they were to win the spiritual battles in the heavens before the troops on earth engaged in warfare.

In the big picture, the Kingdom of God as a whole pre-existed in heaven as decreed by God Himself, and we have been given the authority to bear witness to His will and bring heaven to earth. Of course, none of our own prayers or faith would be effective if it were not for the breakthrough that Jesus made at the cross and in His resurrection and ascension to the throne. His work laid the foundations for our success. Our faith is subordinate to His faith. If He had been unable to complete His work, we ourselves would have no assurance of completing our own callings.

The Law of Double Witness

As I said earlier, every law is an expression of some aspect of the nature of God and is therefore a universal law. Every law has jurisdiction and power wherever God may be found. Moses was the first (in Scripture) to tell us that heaven and earth were two witnesses (Deuteronomy 4:26; 30:19). The first witness calls things into existence; the second establishes it in the earth.

The entire purpose of God in Genesis 1:1 is rooted in this law of the double witness. Earth was created to bear witness to all that is in heaven. The first witness is God Himself, who has called all things into existence by His own word (logos), but nothing was seen on earth until the second witness spoke what He heard His Father say.

Hence, the “one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all” (Ephesians 4:6) remained true to Himself by bringing forth “the Image of the invisible God, the Firstborn of all creation” (Colossians 1:13). His purpose was to be the Creator’s double witness that would “establish” all things, speaking only what He heard His Father say, and doing only what He saw His Father do.

So Hebrews 1:5, 6 says,

⁵ For to which of the angels did He ever say, “Thou art My Son, today I have begotten Thee”? And again, “I will be a Father to Him, and He shall be a Son to Me”? ⁶ And when He again brings the First-born into the world, He says, “And let all the angels of God worship Him.”

The angels were not begotten, nor are they called “sons.” The angels were to worship the First-born Son as God, for Hebrews 1:8, 9 continues, saying,

⁸ But of the Son He says, “Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever, and the righteous scepter is the scepter of His kingdom. ⁹ Thou hast loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; therefore God, Thy God, hath anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above Thy companions.”

The throne of the Son, then, and His scepter is above the angels, called “Thy companions.” Speaking of the Son Himself, we read, “God, Thy God, hath anointed Thee with the oil of gladness.” Here again, the Son Himself has a God who has the power to anoint Him, that is, to make Him the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed One.

At the same time, Christ is called “God” in verse 8. Hence, it is proper to refer to Christ as “God,” though He is also recognized as having His Father-God above Him. To claim that Christ is “coeternal” and “coequal” with the Father is not a proper way of knowing Him. Hence, Jesus Himself spoke of His Father as being “the one and only God” (John 5:44) and in spite of His own highly exalted position, He said “the Father is greater than I” (John 14:28).

The Amen of God

In Revelation 3:14 Jesus gave a message to the church of Laodicea, saying,

¹⁴ And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write: “The Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God, says this.”

Christ is the “Amen,” because He bore witness to His Father’s words and will at the time of creation. He was a “faithful” witness, because He fully believed what the Father said. He was a “true” witness, because He was an eyewitness and an earwitness to all that His Father was saying and doing. He was not simply repeating what others had heard or seen, nor was it just His opinion. He was a fully-qualified witness, called and anointed for that very purpose.

Hence, when the Father spoke “Light!” the Son said Amen, or “let it be so.” Genesis 1:3 records it as “Let there be light.” We are not told specifically whose logos was being spoken here, but the implication is that the Son was speaking in order to “establish” light by His double witness. At each stage of creation, the Son spoke what He heard His Father say.

So Paul says in 1 Corinthians 8:6,

⁶ yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from [eis] whom are all things, and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by [dia, “through”] whom are all things, and we exist through Him.

All things come FROM the Father but they come THROUGH Jesus Christ. The subtle distinction in the wording shows that both Father and Son were involved in the creation. The Father created, but they were manifested through the witness of the Son by the law of the double witness. This is again declared in John 1:3,

³ All things came into being by [dia, “through”] Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.

Scripture is careful to distinguish between the One who Created and the One through whom all things came into being. All things came “from” the Creator in that they were created from God’s own substance—God particles—but it required a second witness by the First-born of creation to bring it into being. Hence, all things came into being through Christ—that is, through the witness of the Amen.

Jesus was a witness in the beginning, when the Father created all things. He therefore pre-existed His birth in Bethlehem and was a necessary component and participant in creation. The importance of this principle is seen in the fact that because of sin, there is also a new heaven and a new earth that is presently being created. It is a second creation, as it were, and once again, it is being created by God by means of the law of the double witness.

This time, however, Christ is not the lone Witness, as it was in the first creation. Christ now has a body who are also called as witnesses. The Head has done His part at the cross, and since that time He has been calling and training a body to be an Amen people like Himself. These are the ones who, like their Head, speak what they hear their Father say and do what they see their Father do. They know His will and agree with it.

In other words, they have learned to pray. Most of their prayer time is spent in listening and discerning, for they are intent on knowing the will of their Father so that they may bear witness to His will. They are not interested in telling God what to do or in advising God so that He knows how best to recreate heaven and earth. It is always “not my will but Thine be done.” Such are the Amen people, who are privileged to participate in this recreation and restoration of all things.

Relationship without Usurpation

Though Christ has been highly exalted, He never usurped the position of His Father but does all things for His glory. In the end, He will present the restored creation to the Father and take a subordinate throne, so that “God may be all in all” (1 Corinthians 15:28).

The same relationship is seen between Christ and His body. Christ is our Head, even as the Head of Christ is the Father-God (1 Corinthians 11:3). Even as He does not consider Himself to be equal with His Head, neither do we consider ourselves to be equal with Christ. After all, that is the essential meaning of the Head-body relationship.

In Philippians 2:1-11 Paul discusses the mind of Christ insofar as it relates to His position of authority in relation to God and man.  In Philippians 2:4-6 we read,

⁴ do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. ⁵ Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, ⁶ who, although He existed in the form [morphe, “shape, appearance”] of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped…

In other words, we are to put on the unselfish mind of Christ, looking out for the interests of others, rather than our own interests. Christ Himself is set forth as our Example in this, for He was interested in glorifying His Father, rather than doing His own will.

Verse 6 says that “He existed in the form of God.” The Greek word morphe is translated “form” here in the NASB. It comes from the root word meros, which means “a part, portion, one of the constituent parts of a whole.” So Gesenius’ Lexicon tells us that morphe means shape or form “through the idea of adjustment of parts.”

In other words, Christ was in the morphe of God, which is another way of saying that He was in the image of God. In that sense, He was a part or portion of God, but not the whole. Never did He attempt to grasp (or claim) equality with God, Paul says, even though the later church councils made that claim for Him. Philippians 2:7, 8 continues,

⁷ but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. ⁸ And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

In that Christ “emptied Himself,” it shows that He had something to leave behind. He left behind an exalted position and became a bond-servant. He left behind His position as God (second to His Father) and was “made in the likeness of men.” From a position of immortal Life, He became “obedient to the point of death.” Being willing to take all the sin of the world and its suffering upon Himself, He set forth the example of not looking out for His own personal interests “but also for the interests of others.”

For this reason, having proven Himself to be the absolute Image of the God of Love and for being the perfect Amen of God, He showed by actual example that He was worthy to be given a name which above every name and that every knee should bow to Him and every tongue confess (“profess”) that He is Lord to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:9-11).