The
Godhead--Answering Questions
Click to go to our Home PageI'll respond under your questions. ----- Original Message ----- From: Bryan Bissell
Sent: Tuesday, May 02, 2006 2:33 PM Subject: [sdaglobal] questions Hi,
Ron responds: I believe that a proper understanding of
the Godhead, as far as inspiration has permitted, is paramount to Seventh-day
Adventists because they were privileged with more detail on the Godhead than
others. We are responsible for the
knowledge we have. Concerning Christ’s beginning, I
believe this following statement implicitly.
In saying that Christ came from the bosom of the Father, I once
thought that meant from some time back in eternity. I saw that the Lord let me make a mistake
to test me to see if I would be too proud to retract an error. I am not too proud. I made a mistake. I now believe that the Son, with the
Father, had no beginning but have coexisted eternally as ONE GOD. Life, Original, Unborrowed, Underived.— "Physical life is
something which each individual receives. It is not eternal or immortal; for
God, the Life-giver, takes it again. Man has no control over his life. But the
life of Christ was unborrowed. No one can take this life from Him.
"I lay it down of myself," He said. In Him was life, original,
unborrowed, underived. This life is not inherent in man. He can possess
it only through Christ.” Maranatha 302 I believe EXACTLY as the following document link teaches,
except I don’t believe that Clarence Settle believes Ellen White’s statement
that the Holy Spirit is the life and soul of Christ. At one time I misunderstood that Christ
from eternity came from the Father’s bosom, but that is not my belief
presently. Christ came from the
Father’s bosom at His Incarnation. https://members.tripod.com/omega77/csnaturechrist.htm Jhn 1:18 No man
hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the
bosom of the Father, he hath declared [him]. When in the fullness of time the
Son of the infinite God came forth from the bosom of the Father to this
world, He came in the garb of humanity, clothing His divinity with humanity.
The Father and the Son in consultation decided that Christ must come to the
world as a babe, and live the life that human beings must live from childhood
to manhood, bearing the trials that they must bear, and at the same time
living a sinless life, that men might see in Him an example of what they can
become, and that He might know by experience how to help them in their
struggles with sin. He was tried as man is tried, tempted as man is tempted.
The life that He lived in this world, men can live, through His power and
under His instruction. {ST, May 17, 1905 par. 5}
Ron responds: 1. "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 [HIS LIFE--THE SOUL OF HIS LIFE], 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. If the Holy Spirit if the soul of
his life, that has to refer to His pre-Incarnated Divine ONLY life.
That Divine ONLY life was given to us as a bequeathed gift--the highest good
gift that heaven could bestow. It was given to regenerate man back into
the image of God, in which we were created. Through that gift, we might
be partakers of the DIVINE ONLY nature that the Son had before His
Incarnation. He and His Father had the ONE ETERNAL SPIRIT, which
constituted the Holy Spirit before the Incarnation. Hbr 9:14 How much more shall the
blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience
from dead works to serve the living God? The words "the eternal Spirit," refer to ONE ETERNAL SPIRIT.
That is what constitutes them as ONE GOD. 2Pe 1:4
Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by
these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in
the world through lust. Act 3:26 Unto you first God, having raised up his
Son Jesus, sent him to
bless you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities. “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 Holy Spirit is HIMSELF (The
Son, divested (emptied) of the personality of humanity and independent
thereof. TOKENS OF DIVINITY SDA Bible Commentary on Philippians 2:7: “7 Made himself of no reputation.
Literally, 'emptied Himself.' This emptying was voluntary (see on John
10:17, 18). It was not possible for Christ to retain all the tokens of
divinity and still accomplish the Incarnation." SDA Bible
Commentary, vol. 7, p. 155, col. 1. Cumbered with humanity Christ's
pre-Incarnated Divine ONLY Nature, could not be in every place
personally. So He had to be divested of the Divine ONLY nature to be
combined with humanity. The paradox that I do not understand is how
Christ was still FULLY DIVINE and fully human, but I suspect that He was
fully divine because of being sired by His Father's ONE ETERNAL SPIRIT.
This is a realm of the Godhead we do not fully understand as yet and will not
until heaven. Ron responds: Ron responds: The trinity
doctrine as held by Was the Incarnation a sacrifice IN
ADDITION to the Cross? Was is even a greater good, CROWNING SACRIFICE?
Mainline Christianity teaches that the cross was the GREATEST GOOD CROWING
SACRIFICE. If they are right, Ellen White is a false prophet. But
they are wrong! The Incarnation was the greater sacrifice and it
satisfied the prescribed limit as a sacrifice, but not as a redeemer. What was the prescribed limit of
the Testator's Covenant, the Everlasting Covenant? The death of the
Testator. Our penalty for unpardoned sin is loss of ETERNAL
LIFE. His penalty for our pardoned sin must equate with the
penalty for sin--loss of eternal life. The Son
emptied Himself of His Divine ONLY existence FOREVER, as a type of death
to that existence as DIVINITY ONLY. That satisfied the prescribed limit
of the Everlasting Covenant, but it did not redeem us. Why?
Because our sins were not laid upon Him until the cross. That is
where we were redeemed from past sins. But through His Divine
Nature Holy Spirit, we are sanctified, and redemption from past sins
without a remedy for present and future sin avails nothing but a
continuum of sinning forever! And that was not the plan of
redemption. Also, three days in a tomb does not accord with our penalty
of eternal death, the wages of sin. His laying down of His Divine Nature
ONLY, forever, does! That is a type of eternal death to that life as
far as the Son is concerned, for He will NEVER life that UNCOMBINED WITH
HUMANITY life again. Two Sacrifices The trinity doctrine denies the
greatest, crowing sacrifice--the Sacrifice (emptying) of the Son's
pre-Incarnation Holy Spirit life and soul as a bequeathed gift to us, by
teaching that the Holy Spirit always existed as a third person--no sacrifice
there is there? "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 mind of Christ is His
Holy Spirit Mind, His pre-Incarnation DIVINE ONLY NATURE AND MIND. Jesus needed the Holy Spirit --
"But Jesus, in His questions about the prophecies of Isaiah that pointed
to His first appearing, flashed light into the minds of those who were
willing to receive the truth. He Himself had given these prophecies before His INCARNATION in
humanity, and
as the Holy Spirit
brought these things to His mind, and impressed Him with regard to the great
work that He was to accomplish, He imparted light and knowledge to those around
Him." E.G. White, Lift Him Up, p. 77. Hope this helps God bless you and yours as you
study deeper into His Word, and receive His Holy Spirit, His very Life and
Soul for the purpose of being restored to His image. Ron Beaulieu |