The Everlasting Covenant

Relative to the Godhead

The Everlasting Law

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The Direct Link Between the Everlasting Covenant, the Godhead and the Eternal Existence of God’s Law

The flood occurred because of sin and sin is the violation of God’s Law that had been intact from the creation of any created beings long before Sinai, which was a reminder of His Law because of the long enslavement of His people in Egypt. The God of all justice would not have destroyed the earth with a flood because of grave sin without first defining sin.

Gen 9:16 And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that [is] upon the earth.

Chap. 122 – Everlasting

Incline your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David. Isa. 55:3. {AG 130.1}

The salvation of the human race has ever been the object of the councils of heaven. The covenant of mercy was made before the foundation of the world. It has existed from all eternity, and is called the everlasting covenant. So surely as there never was a time when God was not, so surely there never was a moment when it was not the delight of the eternal mind to manifest His grace to humanity. {AG 130.2}

From the opening of the great controversy it has been Satan's purpose to misrepresent God's character, and to excite rebellion against His law. . . . But amid the working of evil, God's purposes move steadily forward to their accomplishment; to all created intelligences He is making manifest His justice and benevolence. Through Satan's temptations the whole human race have become transgressors of God's law, but by the sacrifice of His Son a way is opened whereby they may return to God. Through the grace of Christ they may be enabled to render obedience to the Father's law. Thus in every age, from the midst of apostasy and rebellion, God gathers out a people that are true to Him--a people "in whose heart is his law." {AG 130.3}

God's work is the same in all time, although there are different degrees of development and different manifestations of His power, to meet the wants of men in the different ages. Beginning with the first gospel promise, and coming down through the patriarchal and Jewish ages, and even to the present time, there has been a gradual unfolding of the purposes of God in the plan of redemption. . . . He who proclaimed the law from Sinai, and delivered to Moses the precepts of the ritual law, is the same that spoke the sermon on the mount. . . . The Teacher is the same in both dispensations. God's claims are the same. The principles of His government are the same. {AG 130.4}

In the closing work of God in the earth, the standard of His law will be again exalted. . . . God will not break His covenant, nor alter the thing that has gone out of His lips. His word will stand fast forever as unalterable as His throne. {AG 130.5}

· Notice the important words: “He who proclaimed the law from Sinai, and delivered to Moses the precepts of the ritual law, is the same that spoke the sermon on the mount.”

· We know that it was Jesus who spoke the sermon on the mount.

· Now notice the definition of the word God in Exodus 20 (SEE ENTIRE CHAPTER AT THE END OF THIS DOCUMENT). Just click on any word and you will get the definition.

· The Bible says there is one Lord and one God. Note how these words are used interchangeably for the same person in Exodus 20 below. Some interpret Jesus to be Lord and God to be different, but these verses attribute the words God and Lord to God Almighty. This is why Ellen White said that it was Jesus who proclaimed the law from Sinai, along with the Father, to wit:

· Christ was with the Father at Sinai: "When they came to Sinai, He took occasion to refresh their minds in regard to His requirements. Christ and the Father, standing side by side upon the mount, with solemn majesty proclaimed the Ten Commandments..." E.G. White, Evangelism, p. 616.

· The all crucial point I am making is that Jesus was the Testator of the Ten Commandment Covenant—the Law of God. And that law is a transcript of His character as well as the Father’s character. Both, Jesus and His Father, were Testators to the Everlasting Covenant and the New Covenant, being the law placed in the heart (mind) of man.

· The Covenant agreement, or the Testator’s Covenant, demands the death of the Testator. The Testator is the person who makes a covenant, a will if you will.

Hebrews 9:16 - For where a testament is, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator.

Hebrews 9:17 - For a testament is of force after men are dead: otherwise it is of no strength at all while the testator liveth.

· Since it is impossible for God the Father to die, it was absolutely necessary that His Son, One equal to Him as Testator of the Everlasting Covenant, die to something eternally, for as long as the Testator liveth, the testament (covenant) is of no force.

· Jesus had to die the second death to something forever, not merely three days and nights in a tomb. What He died to forever was His pre-Incarnation existence of being DIVINE ONLY, to be ever after combined with humanity.

· The combination with humanity cumbered His Holy Spirit Nature and its attributes. Therefore, he divested His Holy Spirit Divine Nature from the personality of His humanity, to wit:

· "Cumbered with humanity Christ could not be in every place personally. Therefore it was altogether for their advantage that He should leave them to go to His Father and send the Holy Spirit to be His successor on earth. The Holy Spirit is Himself, divested of the personality of humanity and independent thereof. He would represent Himself as present in all places by His Holy Spirit" E.G. White, (Manuscript Releases Volume 14 (No’s 1081-1135) MR No.1084.

· The Son’s former existence as Holy Spirit Divine Nature only was divested of the personality of Christ’s humanity and independent of it. This is when His Holy Spirit became a third person of the Godhead. This is when the pre-Incarnation BEING of the Son became the Holy Ghost, the personification of Christ, but a separate, distinct person.

“The Holy Spirit is the Comforter, in Christ's name. He personifies Christ, yet is a distinct personality. We may have the Holy Spirit if we ask for it and make it [a] habit to turn to and trust in God rather than in any finite human agent who may make mistakes.” {20MR 324.2}

Implications

· If there was no Being equal to God as Testator to the Everlasting Covenant, to die and thus Atone for man’s sin by paying the wages for sin, which is eternal death, then there has been no Atonement.

· Any teaching that obfuscates the third distinct person to the Godhead, and the manner in which this third person Holy Ghost came about at the time of the Incarnation, denies the Testators Covenant, and renders the Sanctuary/Atonement GONE. The trinity doctrine does just that by saying the Holy Ghost always existed from eternity as a third person, thus bypassing the sacrifice which gave rise to the third person as divested from Christ at His Incarnation into an eternal combination with humanity.

· The teaching that there is only one person to the Godhead, God the Father, does the same thing—It annihilates the third person Holy Ghost sacrifice, and it denies that Christ is co-equal to the Father as Testator (sacrificial Lamb) to the Everlasting Covenant—THUS NO TESTATOR COULD HAVE EVER DIED TO SATISFY THAT COVENANT. God the Father was co-Testator to the Everlasting Covenant, and so it would require One equal to Him to Atone for any breach in that Covenant and to indeed be counted as a Testator of that Covenant.

· If The Son of God was not slain from the foundation of the earth in the heavenly Sanctuary, there has been no Sanctuary/Atonement for sin that provided a cure for sin.

"Christ declared that after his ascension, he would send to his church, as his crowning gift, the Comforter, who was to take his place. This Comforter is the Holy Spirit,--the soul of his life, the efficacy of his church, the light and life of the world. With his Spirit Christ sends a reconciling influence and a power that takes away sin.

In the gift of the Spirit, Jesus gave to man the highest good that heaven could bestow....

The Spirit was given as a regenerating agency, and without this the sacrifice of Christ would have been of no avail....

It is by the Spirit that the heart is made pure. Through the Spirit the believer becomes a partaker of the divine nature. Christ has given his Spirit as a divine power to overcome all hereditary and cultivated tendencies to evil, and to impress his own character upon the church." E.G. White, Review and Herald Articles, May 19, 1904, vol. 5, p. 42.

· "The darkness rolled away from the Saviour and from the Cross. Christ bowed His head and died. In His Incarnation He had reached the prescribed limit as a sacrifice, but not as a redeemer." E.G. White Manuscript Releases Volume Twelve, p. 409.

· The “prescribed limit” as a sacrifice according to the Testator’s Covenant is death of the Testator. But that Sanctuary/Atonement in heaven, did not redeem man. It was the second death of the Son on the Cross with all man’s sins laid upon Christ, that redeemed us from sin. The first death was in the Sanctuary/Atonement Incarnation from the foundation of the earth. When Christ received His Holy Ghost (Spirit) at His baptism, He could have chosen to go back to that DIVINE ONLY existence forever. That would have prevented our redemption from sin. But when Christ bowed His head on the Cross and commended that Spirit to the Father, and died, He could never again go back to His former existence as a Divine only being. That was the second death as regards the payment for the wages of sin which is eternal death—in this case, because God cannot die, it was eternal death to His Divine only state of being.

"He (Christ) suffered the death which was ours, that we might receive the life which WAS His." Desire of Ages, p. 25 1 Cor. 11:24-265, cf. John 6:53, 54, Titus 3:5, 6.

· We are proffered Christ’s Divine Nature (Holy Spirit—Holy Ghost—the ghost of the soul of His life) for overcoming the lusts of the world and being regenerated back into the image of God. This is the highest good, crowning gift that heaven can bestow and any teaching that denies this gift and the sacrificial process by which it became possible, is the highest and crowning abomination and antichrist.

· Any deviation from the truth about the Godhead constitutes another antichrist gospel which Paul tells us to accurse.

· Any teaching that denies that Christ was God in the highest sense, come in the flesh, is antichrist.

· "Christ was God essentially, and in the HIGHEST SENSE. He was with God from all eternity, God over all, blessed forevermore." {RH, April 5, 1906 par. 6}

· It does not get any clearer than that friend. Am I taking Ellen White over Scripture? Nay! Jesus referred to Himself as the Alpha and Omega, the ALMIGHTY.

· Isaiah 9:6 - For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

· In Revelation 1:8, Jesus (the Lord), said He was the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending. And of course, it was Jesus which was and which is to come, the Almighty.

· Even so, Amen. ⁸ I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty. Rev. 3:8.

· It is Jesus who “is to come.”

Exodus

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Chapter 20

1 And God spake all these words, saying,

2 I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:

5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;