And as it is appointed unto
men once to die, but after
this the judgment: so Christ
was once offered to bear the
sins of many; and unto them
that look for Him shall He
appear the second time
without sin unto salvation.
Hebrews 9:27-28
It is true that Jesus paid our debt that we cannot pay to God for our nature so corrupted that we do not even have the desire to think that we are so corrupted that we have a debt. Yet, the truth is we have a debt owed to God and even in our corruption of soul and our nature far from believing in Him or in our debt, Jesus came anyway to not just pay that debt, but to bring salvation for all those who believe upon Him. By the death of Jesus a twofold thing happened, the justice of God met, and by being in the form of man, a real man, Man and God in one person, He became our propitiation so we can be saved and live the promise of eternal life. God did this, even before all time, God ordained that man would be saved through the appearing of Jesus on earth to die sinless and meet all the requirements to be the Messiah. Jesus had to die to have our sins remitted but that is not all that Jesus did or will do for He is coming back again for His bride, the children of God to bring judgment upon the world, to remove all sinners from the earth and to give to all who believe upon Him a life that is no longer corrupted, even immortality.
There are and have been that will not accept that simple fact that is revealed to us in Scripture and add all sorts of theological ideologies and philosophical reasons that Jesus was and is not what has been taught by faithful followers of Jesus Christ, the Orthodox belief that Jesus did not sin, was sinless and is God in the flesh and at the same time a "real" man in the flesh. The Trinity has been tosses around theologically by many denominations, religions that call themselves Christian that you too may be confused. The last blog the question was asked: "Could Jesus sin?" The Mormons say that Jesus was just another soul albeit the most intelligent soul and was used by God to create. The Jehovah Witnesses say that Jesus is a god created by God to be the creator, both say He was the Savior. Both religious groups say that the Bible is their source, although both groups have either another so-called Bible, or have translated the Bible to fit their theology. I must ask this question for the Bible reads this way: "All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made" (John 1:3). Ok! "ALL" things, not some things for "all" would include even Him, so how then could He have been created? Next: "not anything made that was made." "not anything" well does that not include everything that was made so how then did Jesus create Himself for if He created "all" things and that "not anything made that was made" that would have to include Him. The Greek word: "ούδέ" conjoins two negatives "ou" and "de" literal translation, but or and, not, the strongest was to say nothing or not even one, so the Bible is clear, that Jesus was not a created being for He created all things and nothing that came into being did not come into being without Him creating. The earliest of Church fathers had to combat heresies that were attempting to make Jesus something other than what Scriptures taught as to Who He is and one of the foremost Church apologists, Tertullian (c. 155 – c. 240 AD), wrote on the Incarnation of the Logos, the Trinity in his apologetics XX1 and in Adversus Praxean to teach against such heresies that we even are confronted with today so we need to know what was understood by those early Christians. Tertullian wrote: "...God made this universe by His word and reason and power. Your (speaking to those heretics and false teaching) philosophers also are agreed that he artificer of the universe seems to be Logos--that is, word and reason...(as taught by Zeno and Cleanthes). ...We also lay down that the word and reason and virtue, by which we have said that God made all things, have spirit as their substance. ...This Word, we have learnt, was produced form God, and was generated by being produced, and therefore is called the Son of God, and God, from unity of substance with God. For God too is spirit. When a ray is projected from the sun it is a portion of the whole sun: but the sun will be in the ray because it is a ray of the sun: the substance is not separated but extended. So from spirit comes of God...glided down into a virgin, in her womb was fashioned as flesh, is born as man mixed with God. The flesh was built up by the spirit, was nourished, grew up, spoke, taught, worked, and was Christ." Tertullian in Adverse Praxean repudiates the notion that the 'mixture' made a 'tertium quid', and safegaurds the distinction of 'substances'. We see the double status, the two not confused but conjoined in one person...The spirit in Him went about its own business, that is, the deeds of virtue, the works and signs, while the flesh underwent it s own sufferings, hungering... thirsting, weeping,... and in the end it died.
Jesus could not sin, He did not have a corrupted soul as a man, but did have within that Man God and the Spirit of God and He came to die for you and me to save us from the guilt of sin. This can only be done by God Himself not some created being that could sin and choose to sin and then we are left without assurance that Jesus is the Savior and did the work as Savior. If we allow the question that Jesus could sin then we must believe that God is not sovereign over all things and that the Word is not united to God: this is absurd and unScriptural: "I and the Father are one, and I in the Father and the Father in Me" (John 10:30,38).
Jesus is the Son of God, the Only Begotten Son of God and is God. This the Church taught by the apostles and by the early Church fathers who had to contend with heresy. We too must contend with heresy, but we also need to have information that will aid us to confront false teaching and heretical acts and theology. We who believe upon Jesus Christ have the Holy Spirit to guide us, and for Him to do so we must be moving forward so we can be guided. Will you take time to think upon what the Scriptures teach us about Jesus Christ? If so you will find Him to be exactly what was taught from the beginning of Christianity. God, Emmanuel, came to save you.
Oh that men would praise the LORD
for His goodness, and for His
wonderful works to the children of men!
Psalm 107:15
Praise God for His Mercy and Love
Richard L. Crumb
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