French Duke Jean de Berry had a pug nose. He decided to glory in it by embossing it on every possible object. He celebrated it by inviting to his home as honored guests those with...pug noses. We also know that Cyrano de Bergerac populated a mythical kingdom with people of LONG NOSES.
The spiritual point is: God’s Heaven will be FULL, but only of people who presently commit to being as much like Jesus as possible. Only they! Which challenges us to live now as if we’re already in heaven since we won’t otherwise be there when we die. Any other goal in life leaves us short of entering God’s Presence. One man who survived the Titanic disaster sent a one-word telegram to his mother: SAVED! Christians must now commit to make growth in discipleship their life-purpose. That effort alone, coupled with GRACE, completes our best effort and qualifies us, when the angel finds our name on our page in “the book” and shouts SAVED! Revelation 20:12 In conclusion, as a full human, Jesus knew temptation, without surrendering to it. He knew suffering, without being defeated by it. He knew death, without decaying. Because...he was by his very nature GOD: the whole man human, the whole man Deity. Owing only his humanity to his earthly mother; for his eternal Nature came when his eternal Father declared, “You are my Son; today I have become your Father” Hebrews 1:5. Fini
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Mary’s genes gave the Holy Spirit-conceived child his humanity. Consider a simple illustration. When we take a trip, a suitcase carries all we’ll need for the experience. O.K., a suitcase for a man. Two or three for a woman.
The point is, all that Mary contributed to Christ’s birth were the genes in her suitcase—the humanity that made him entirely human—with every characteristic of a male. While the Holy Spirit gave him the CHARACTER of GOD Almighty, GOD the Eternally-begotten SON, possessing the NATURE of God as the PERSON of God. Which is why we, as redeemed mortals, worship Jesus, the God-Man, fully God, fully human. For... only as a human could he identify with mortals; and only as DEITY could he qualify as God’s Perfect Sacrifice. Which is why Mary could never have any role in Redemption. While fully human, and identifying with us, she had the need of forgiveness and therefore, lacking deity, couldn’t add anything to Christ’s complete sacrifice for sin. The visit of the Wise Men, recorded in Matthew 2:9-12, established the model followed faithfully in Christ’s life: he alone important, noticed, followed, obeyed, worshipped! They saw the child and his mother...but “bowed down and worshiped him.” Then opened “their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and myrrh”. The perfect chance for God to exalt Mary’s place in her child’s life. Which God refused to do because she had none. On at least three occasions recorded in the Gospels, Mary proved her human inadequacy vis á vis Christ’s Deity. In Luke 2:41ff she and Joseph had to search for 12 year old Jesus. They didn’t know he would be in the Temple. She had no better understanding of his nature, his time and his glory at Cana at age 30, John 2:1ff. She wanted to determine how he would express himself—and he pointedly rejected her interference. She and her children learned nothing more of Christ’s authority when two years after he had been preaching, they tried to interrupt his ministry and “take him home” Mark 3:31-35. The Lord’s response detonated smoking rebuke in their faces. End Part IV Though fully HUMAN in every way, yet without sin, Hebrews 4:15. Jesus was also fully DEITY. Consider scriptures that stress his NATURE. Prior to his conception, and before being “born of a woman” Galatians 4:4, Jesus “was God...and was with God” John 1:1. And, “No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man” John 3:13. Jesus: “being in very nature God” Philippians 2:6; “the image of the invisible God” Colossians 1:15; “the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being” Hebrews 1:3; the one “God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him” Colossians 1:19; “For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form” Colossians 2:9.
The outcome would be: “found in appearance a man”, Philippians 2:8, he could be “seen with our eyes”, looked at and touched with our hands I John 1:1. (Adam and Eve would understand all the above.) He who IS God’s WORD “made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the Only Begotten Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” John 1:14. End Part III Next: What was Mary’s role? The dual Gospel genealogies raise an intellectually-challenging question: how could a sinful woman conceive and carry a sinless child? And Mary admitted to being a sinner. In her song, Luke 1:46-47, she exulted, “My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.”
“My Savior” means she needed forgiveness of sin. Do not let the adoration of later ages ascribe to Mary what she never claimed, wanted or possessed. Trust God’s unchanging Word, not an always-evolving church tradition, to tell the truth. Indeed, every person ever to live, who reaches the age of accountability, needs a Savior. And Jesus alone, all by himself, IS the Savior all humanity needs. The question is valid; the answer equally valid. Consider that it’s as uncomplicated as the Holy Spirit coming upon her and the power of the Most High overshadowing her...“So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God” Luke 1:35. In a wholly spiritual process, God’s wholly spiritual power, minus sexual passion, produced a wholly spiritual child.” That accounts for his complete Deity in human form. However, since he came as a human to save humans, a human mother must be involved. He came as one of us, however much unlike us he would always be. Which was exactly the message Paul preached to the Areopagites in Athens, Acts 17. God didn’t send himself as a SPIRIT, meaning the ancient mystery religions had it all wrong. And he didn’t send himself as a STONE, which corrected the Athenians obsession with IDOLS! He sent himself as a MAN, whom he raised from the dead! And when the philosophers heard about the resurrection, most lost interest because they had no concept, interest or use for a resurrected BODY! “Nevertheless, God’s solid foundation stands firm....” II Timothy 2:19a. End Part I A future message will detail scriptural reasons the Old Testament is best interpreted by the New. This blog employs the Principle involved to explain why the Godhead/Trinity is active in both Testaments, but clearly understood only in the New.
For example, Genesis 1:1 says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Genesis 1:26 says, “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness....’” John 1:1-3 explains that the US in 1:26 is none other than God the Son, the Word of God, who Was God, Is God and with God from the beginning. For Jesus created all that exists in the heavens and on the earth. Colossians 1:16 also stated that truth. Isaiah 6:1 has another example. The prophet had a powerful vision revealed in the temple. “In the year King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple”. John 12:41 posited Jesus as the Glory Isaiah saw. Which John’s vision in Revelation 1:12-13 underscored: “I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me. And when I turned I saw seven golden lampstands, and among the lampstands was someone like a son of man dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest....” Just so, as Genesis 3:8-9 states, Jesus came in a visible form to visit Adam and Eve. While his presence uplifted them in innocence, and offered a remarkable forecast of our eternal fellowship with the Son of God in perfection, their sin severed the relationship. Instead of anticipating his visit, they FEARED hearing his footsteps. The sound terrified them in their guilt, and they hid! These few examples, of MORE, help us understand: whenever God communicated with humanity in any age, he always SPOKE through his Eternal WORD, the Eternal SON, whether through Moses, or the prophets, Hebrews 1:1—whatever form his pre-incarnate presence assumed. End Part I |
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