Dear Reader,
According to Scripture, the Everlasting Covenant which the Son and the Father agreed upon, demands eternal death of the Testator because the testament is of force only after death and is of no strength while the testator liveth.
Hbr 9:16 For where a testament [is], there must also of necessity be the death of the testator.
Hbr 9:17 For a testament [is] of force after men are dead: otherwise it is of no strength at all while the testator liveth.
This information is of great consequence as regards the Incarnation and the Atonement of Christ. First of all, it was the humanity of Christ that died on the cross. It was not His Divinity. It was His pure state of Divinity that made the Testator Covenant with the Father. No human component was present in Christ when He made the Everlasting Covenant Testament. Thus, death is demanded by the Testator, Christ. He voluntarily entered His Testament, or last will, from the foundation of all creation, to be placed in trust until His Incarnation and His Atonement on the Cross.
Whatever took place in the Sanctuary Service on earth, must also have taken place in the Heavenly Sanctuary first, because the earthly was only after the pattern of the Heavenly. Something about Christ's Divinity had to die forever, and not just his humanity for three days in the tomb on earth.
Christ died FOREVER to His first estate of pure Divinity in the Heavenly Sanctuary in heaven. This FOREVER DEATH to His first estate of Being, satisfied the death of the Testator specification. That first estate included His Holy Spirit, the ONE ETERNAL SPIRIT possessed by Him and the Father AS INNATE TO THEM BOTH. Christ laid aside that Holy Spirit as the greatest of all gifts He could bestow on man. The purpose of His Holy Spirit was to be as a regenerating agency whereby man might be restored to the image of God. The character is restored in this life on earth, and the body is restored in the glorification at Jesus' second coming.
Was the Covenant between the Father, the Son, and a Holy Spirit THIRD PERSON when the Covenant was agreed upon? Not at all. The ONE ETERNAL SPIRIT INNATE TO THE FATHER AND THE SON was present, of course, but not as a third person. The Everlasting Covenant was made between the Father and the Son, and Ellen White bears this out as follows:
The Covenant was Between the Father and the Son--The Holy Spirit is not Mentioned
"As the divine Sufferer hung upon the cross, angels gathered about Him, and as they looked upon Him, and heard His cry, they asked, with intense emotion, 'Will not the Lord Jehovah save Him?' ... Then were the words spoken: 'The Lord hath sworn, and He will not repent. Father and Son are pledged to fulfill the terms of the Everlasting Covenant. God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.' Christ was not alone in making His great sacrifice. It was the fulfillment of THE COVENANT MADE BETWEEN HIM AND HIS FATHER BEFORE THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD WAS LAID. With clasped hands they had entered into the solemn pledge that Christ would become the surety for the human race if they were overcome by Satan's sophistry." E.G. White, The Faith I Live By, p. 76.
The trinity doctrine presents the Holy Spirit as being a third person existing from eternity, and this is close to the track of truth, because the Holy Spirit did exist from eternity but not as a third person. It existed as innate to the Father and the Son. Christ laid off His Holy Spirit at His Incarnation as a regenerating gift to man. This is when His Holy Spirit became a third person to the Godhead, because Christ laid this person off--He died to it FOREVER. The trinity doctrine does not provide for this greatest of all gifts and sacrifices, without which the Atonement on the Cross would have been of no avail, because there would have been no regenerating gift in the form of Christ's Holy Spirit, which He sacrificed forever, to give to us. The trinity doctrine has the Holy Spirit existing as a third person eternally. This precludes Christ sacrificing His own personal ONE ETERNAL Holy Spirit for us at the Incarnation.
"The Spirit was given as a regenerating agency, and without this the sacrifice of Christ would have been of no avail." E.G. White, Review and Herald, May 19, 1904, The Promise of the Spirit, pr. 3.
The Trinity doctrine completely denies the greatest sacrifice Christ made for man; that of giving up (dying to) His very PURELY DIVINE HOLY SPIRIT Life, Soul and breath, at His first death at the Incarnation in the Heavenly Sanctuary, that this might be given to us as the greatest gift Christ could give man. To deny this truth is to deny this greatest of sacrifices Christ made for us. He sacrificed His first estate of Being, as a gift to us, that we might partake of His DIVINE NATURE. Not His human Nature--but His Divine Nature. We are proffered that Divine Nature in Scripture:
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.
"The Holy Spirit is the breath of spiritual life in the soul. The impartation of the Spirit is the impartation of the life of Christ. It imbues the receiver with the attributes of Christ. Only those who are thus taught of God, those who possess the inward working of the Spirit, and in whose life the Christ-life is manifested, are to stand as representative men, to minister in behalf of the church." Desire of Ages, 805.
"Christ gives them the breath of HIS OWN SPIRIT, the life of HIS OWN LIFE. The HOLY SPIRIT puts forth its highest energies to work in the heart and mind." Desire of Ages, 827.
"Christ declared that after His ascension, he would send to his church, as his crowning GIFT, the comforter, who 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." E.G. White, Review and Herald, May 19, 1904. Book 5, p. 42.
The prime reason man will reject this truth is that they do not want regenerating power via the very LIFE, SOUL AND BREATH of Christ's Holy Spirit. They want pardon only. They want to continue sinning and merely be pardoned for such. This is the cheap grace doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which Christ especially hated. But in rejecting this truth, men reject the greatest sacrificial gift Christ made for man, without which His Atonement on the Cross would have been of no avail.
Ron Beaulieu