Is an apparent contradiction good reason for disbelief of the Word

[Kevin H]

One other note about the passover lamb. The blood of the passover lamb did not free Israel from the Law of God. The Law of God had not been given yet and would not be given for almost two months. If Jesus is the Passover Lamb, then how could His blood free us from the works of the Law?

I'm sorry wayfinder, but I am very pro for the purpose and perputuity of the law, and very anti-Desmond Ford etc. you must not be familiar with my posts

[Kevin H]

Re 21:8 "But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death."

Do these people sound like they want to be with God?

Genesis 3 "And I will put enmity between thee and teh woman, and between thy seed and here seed..." This is not only a promise of Jesus, but also that God was putting in us something that would find sin ugly. We all have the two selves inside of us. There is our sinful nature, a disposition to think we are for ourselves by making less of the outside world. And there is our deepest desire, to be like and with Jesus. Now just because one is more powerful than the other does not mean that the stronger one is the one in power in our lives.

The Psalmist talking about the law, which is a reflection of the character of Jesus, is more deserable than gold sweeter than honey. Haggi calls him "The Desire of ALL nations" Daniel 11, discussing Satan's great agent says in 11:37 "Neither shall he reguard the [g]od of his fathers, nor the desire of women, nor reguard any [other/new]god: for he shall magnify himself above all. In this texts the god of his fathers means any of the false gods in history. The Desire of Women is a reference to the true God, an Old Testament name of Jesus that we tend to ignore. So in discribing this being as not worshiping the false gods of history nor the true god, or any new god except himself, Daniel calls the true God "The Desier of Women" a very powerful name for Jesus. And in Luke the Angels did not say tidings of great joy for the pure in heart, or the honest in heart or those seeking, or the choosen few, but tidings of great joy for ALL THE PEOPLE. Being like and with Jesus IS OUR DEEPEST DESIRE and the most powerful drive in us. But again it is not the ONLY drive in us, we still have the sinful nature and once again just because their desire to be like and with Jesus is the most powerful, does not mean that it is the one that is in power in their lives. Like an oppressive dictator who is weaker than the people but holds an iron grip over them, in the people discribed in Revelation 21:8 are people who have set up their sinful nature as the power that will run their lives. But just because it is not in power in their lives does not make their desire to be like and with Jesus any less powerful, and thus they are in horrible conflect when they see Jesus.

It would be wise to spend a thoughtful hour contemplating the cover words on the book Mrs. White wrote about the life of Jesus.

[Musicman1228]

Kevin H,

I will have to go back and read some of your earlier posts to get familiar with your theology. I did notice one thing; you said that Jesus took all our sins upon Himself so that He could be separated from His Father which would kill Him so He could pay the penalty for our sins. Could you tell me please where you got these ideas concerning how salvation works? If Jesus took any sin either upon Himself or in Himself He could not have acted as the Passover Lamb because the Passover lamb had to be spotless (sinless) to be effective in purchasing the first born of the Kingdom. Does that make sense?

[Kevin H]

Kevin H,

I will have to go back and read some of your earlier posts to get familiar with your theology. I did notice one thing; you said that Jesus took all our sins upon Himself so that He could be separated from His Father which would kill Him so He could pay the penalty for our sins. Could you tell me please where you got these ideas concerning how salvation works? If Jesus took any sin either upon Himself or in Himself He could not have acted as the Passover Lamb because the Passover lamb had to be spotless (sinless) to be effective in purchasing the first born of the Kingdom. Does that make sense?

Yes, Jesus was the spotless passover lamb, but also the sin offering lamb and all the other sacrifices and sanctuary services. You need to be careful of taking one as all of them. John the Baptist anounced Jesus as "behold the lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world" (which can also be translated as "behold teh lamb of God who scapegoats the sins of the world-- Please don't confuse this with the fact that we also apply the scapegoat to satan at the end of time, and both applications are correct with in their own context)

[Dr. Rich]

Kevin, John the B.'s statement would have been correct IF the Jews had accepted Jesus as their King. Problem is, they didn't. I am not blaming you for your confusion because even those with Jesus were confused--right up to the last days of Christ's life. In fact, when Jesus was alone with His disciples He was telling them that He was going to die and raise back to life on the third day and Peter interrupted Him and said that they were disciples of John the B and therefore Jesus could not be right. In fact, when John the B was in prison he himself questioned Jesus' teachings.

John the B was teaching and preaching what was to happen as what was found in Daniel 9:24. We see that the Jews were given time to get rid of sin and accept Jesus as their King. That was why the other prophecy was sealed up. So please don't confuse what John said as to what Jesus really was. By doing so you take away the understanding of what will happen at the end. That is when the real atonement will be.

Just like the original feast of atonement where the cleansing of sin took steps, so will it be at the end. Step one was the high priest was cleansed. Step two (and only after step one was accomplished), was the priest tribe had their sins cleansed. Step three was for the corporate Kingdom of God (Israel). There was no step 4 because the goat of removal was sent to them.

Therefore, the end will be just like this. Jesus as our high priest became sanctified first (John 17) Step two is the priest tribe being the 144k. Step three is the KOH which at this time is the 5 wise virgins. Step 4 is for those in the rest of the world that come in during the time of trouble (Rev. 7:9-16)

And this is the reason why Jesus’ death on the cross was NOT the Atonement. Enjoy!

[Kevin H]

I do not believe in cross only atonement; the idea of Kipper [judgement/atonement] is any thing that God does that brings us closer to God from the look at God from the first created being opening it's eyes to all special milestones in our growth through out eternity. But I understand that there is still atonement at the cross.

[LifeHiscost]

Originally Posted By: Dr. Rich

Where did God get the cloths for Adam and Eve?

Walmart

Do you have a text that would lend some credence to that conclusion? teehe

Regards!

[LifeHiscost]

The essance of the second death is not that there is no resurection from it, but that it is the death that comes from the conflect of wanting to be with God and refusing it, the death that comes from sin as it comes into the physical pressence of God, and what happens to the sinner who refuses to give up the sin which is consumend in God's pressence. God was showing God's glory in a very special way when giving the 10 commandaments, but did not want people to come close enough to expirence that while God was still working on preparing us to be able to stand in his pressence and thrive

I'm not sure exactly what you're saying here, but I am assured there is only one death of which God is going to give His chosen a resurrection. It is identified in the Word.

"And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment,

so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him. " Hebrews 9:27,28 NASB

Blessings!

[Robert]

Jesus was able to raise Himself form the grave/second death because there was NO sin in Him.

He never sinned, but the humanity He assumed had "indwelling sin"......And Jesus, as man, did die the 2nd death. His assumed humanity from the womb of Mary never was resurrected. Instead Christ's Deity came from the grave with a glorified humanity. The old, as I said, never came up....

[Robert]

If Jesus took any sin ....in Himself He could not have acted as the Passover Lamb because the Passover lamb had to be spotless (sinless) to be effective in purchasing the first born of the Kingdom. Does that make sense?

No, because "that Holy thing" (the spotless lamb) refers to His Deity. His Deity had no sin, but the humanity that He assumed at the incarnation, that was indwelt with iniquity. As EGW states, "humanity died, Deity did not sink and die. That would be impossible."

Rob

[Musicman1228]

So, Robert, let me see if I have this straight;

The Spirit in Jesus was spotless and without sin, but the body that Spirit inhabited was as sinful and evil as our bodies.

Who made the body of Jesus Christ? The same beings that made the body of Adam; God the Father and the Holy Spirit.

So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.Gen.1:27.

And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God. Luke 1:35.

These two texts show conclusively that God the Father and God the Mother, the Holy Spirit (the male and female parts of God) formed the body of Adam and Jesus Christ. Both were perfect and without sin because God cannot create anything with sin in it. The text in Luke says that the child to be born will be the holy (sinless) the Son of God. If God says that His Son is Holy then who are we to declare Him sinful in body?

God does not make a distinction between body and spirit. That is because when you combine the body and the spirit you have the soul. The soul of Jesus Christ is without spot or blemish, therefore both His body and His spirit must be sinless. Paul makes the distinction between the spirit as being righteous and the body being wicked. EGW agrees with Paul. According to Scripture both are wrong.

[Robert]

So, Robert, let me see if I have this straight;

The Spirit in Jesus was spotless and without sin, but the body that Spirit inhabited was as sinful and evil as our bodies.

No, you are totally wrong!

1] God is Spirit....He isn't female nor male. He is the "I Am"....He is Deity.

2] The Son of God took upon His Deity our fallen life that need redeeming. That life is our life.

Now some questions:

a) Are you a believer?

If yes, then the Holy Spirit (who is Deity) resides in your humanity...i.e., you the person.

c) Since the Holy Spirit, who is God, lives in you does that defile His Deity?

Yes/no

Rob

[Musicman1228]

I can tell by your response that you are getting upset, and for that I am sorry. I do not mean to be provocative, but your answers reveal a decided evangelical bent that is in my opinion anathema to the Truth as Jesus Christ reveals it.

Yes, of course God is a Spirit, but your statement that God is neither male or female shows that you don't actually believe what God has stated in Gen. 1:26, and reflects Paul's belief that there is only one God and that is the Father. Robert, there are and always have been three Gods of One mind; three individual personalities that move with one purpose. The "I AM" is one of those personalities, but not the only one.

You state that "The Son of God took upon His Deity our fallen life that need redeeming". This is again a commonly held evangelical belief that cannot be found anywhere in the Old Testament or in the words and testimony of Jesus Christ. Jesus never said that He took sin onto Himself for us. He did pay the penalty for the sin of disobedience that Adam and Eve incurred in Eden, and that is passed down to us today. With that penalty being paid we have no hope of salvation. But nowhere does it say that Jesus had to become sin for us in order for that penalty to be paid except in the writings of Paul, and hence EGW. And I know that without using those two sources you cannot prove that sin existed in Jesus Christ.

So your question "Am I a believer?" is answered this way; I am a believer in Jesus Christ the Son of God, just not the way in which you believe.

I believe that Jesus did not die for my personal sins, but to pay the penalty for the sins of the Kingdom of Heaven. I believe that Jesus did not take sin onto or into Himself because if He did He would have been disqualified to act as the Passover Lamb, therefore His sacrifice on behalf of His Kingdom would have had no effect. I believe that it is my responsibility to get rid of the sin in my life through the process of Sanctification that Jesus lays out so clearly in John 14 through 17. I believe that it is the Truth that will set me free. I believe that it is possible and necessary to keep the Covenant of God, the Ten Commandments, that are the mark of the Kingdom of Heaven. I believe that there will be people who will do this before the end and that they will be named the 144,000. I believe that the remnant of the Kingdom of Heaven will keep the Commandments of God and hold only to the testimony of Jesus Christ as He stated in John 3 and Rev. 12. I believe that NO ONE has yet been born again because as yet no one has accomplished what has been stated above, but they will before Jesus comes to the Faithful and Wise Servant and his fellow servant as a thief in the night. I believe that the Holy Spirit (the feminine part of God) will live ONLY in someone that is fully obedient to the will of the Father. These people will be called the Sons and Daughters of God.

There is lots more that I believe, most of which will not make any sense to anyone that is viewing the world as laid out by traditional, evangelical, fundamental Christianity as defined in the writings of Paul. This will only bother those that take Paul's words as if they are the words of Jesus Christ; they are not the words of Jesus Christ.

So under those conditions I am not a Christian. I am, however, a follower and bondservant of Jesus Christ the Son of God, for whom I will give all that I am and have, including my life should that be required of me, in the effort to bring the Truth of Jesus Christ to a church starving because it has been fed a steady diet of lies for centuries.

I also have little hope that you will read this with a sense that the Way, the Truth and the Life may be different from what you now believe, and that it is critical to search out and know those differences.

God bless us all as we search for the true Way.

[Robert]

I can tell by your response that you are getting upset, and for that I am sorry.

[Woody]

Good Post Robert. And yes, I am here lurking. No need for me ... you are doing a super job.

[Musicman1228]

Robert,

My understanding is that the Holy Spirit (however you define that) works with everyone that has not grieved the Holy Spirit away to bring them to the Truth that is in Jesus Christ. But by my reading of 1,2,3 John, Revelation and Jesus Himself the Holy Spirit does not give birth (born again) to anyone in which sin still lives. One of the reasons that God will take direct action in eliminating sin from the universe is that He cannot live forever where there is sin. Since He is everywhere in the universe at once (omnipresent through the Holy Spirit) then if sin is anywhere in that universe it will be destroyed. This is the main reason why there is not an eternally burning hell where sinners go for eternal punishment. If they are still alive with sin in them burning away in hell then sin still exists in the universe, and God will not let that happen.

My question back to you is this; does the Holy Spirit and the spirit of evil live in the same person at the same time? If so, how does that work? In other words, will God save you in your sin and in spite of your sin and take you to heaven with sin still in you merely hidden by the robe of Christ's righteousness? (Does that question make sense?)

I guess what I am really asking, Robert, is what happens to sin in the end? I really do appreciate the help in understanding this.

[TreeOfLife]

Re “the Female Part of God…”

So…, let me see if I have this straight;

…

Who made the body of Jesus Christ? The same beings that made the body of Adam; God the Father and the Holy Spirit.

So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.Gen.1:27.

And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God. Luke 1:35.

These two texts show conclusively that God the Father and God the Mother, the Holy Spirit (the male and female parts of God…)

Dear Musicman,

When some years ago I realized clearly that the Trinity is not a name for the God of the Bible, it was as if scales fell off my eyes, such that I could see, whereas before I had been unable to perceive the reality of the one and only image God in His wisdom is providing for me in the Holy Writ. It was as if a veil was lifted from before my face…

Before that time, I too had been considering whether the Holy Spirit should be thought of as the female aspect of God. Yet, I realized that the words ‘the Holy Spirit’ are not comparable to a female member of a family as are the words ‘Father’ and ‘Son’ to a male member. I realized that there was something yet to be learned. I made a thorough search for ‘the Holy Spirit’ in the Bible and on the EGW CD-ROM both and studied the hits I found carefully and under prayer and I learned much that I did not know before. Yet, I found nothing to support the concept of the Holy Spirit standing exclusively or predominantly for the female aspects of God.

Realizing that you too have been interesting yourself in the issues of the nature of the persons of the Godhead, who they are and what they stand for, I am thinking that perhaps you’ll find value in partaking in some of things I was able to see and understand once the scales had fallen from off my eyes… and what I was given to understand once the veil was lifted from before my face?

Here is the link to another post of mine touching upon some basics in that regards…

Shalom,

Tree of Life ©

[Robert]

...the Holy Spirit does not give birth (born again) to anyone in which sin still lives.

That is pure nonsense....This is heresy 101....It's worse than Catholicism.

Heb 6:4 It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5 who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, 6 if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.

If sin isn't still in the believer then he/she couldn't fall away.....

[Robert]

1Co 6:19 Do you not know that your body [your humanity] is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;

Eph 1:13 And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit,

[Musicman1228]

Robert,

I will look at that link sometime today, thanks for the info. I am sure I will find some interesting material there.

Something from my perspective to think about:

Jesus mentioned the names of the Trinity in the great commission -

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and (in the name) of the Son and (in the name) of the Holy Spirit, Matt.28:19.

Jesus said that God has three names. In my research here is what I have found as the names; Father God/Almighty; Creator God/Son of God/I AM; Holy Spirit God/Wisdom-Sophia (in Greek).

You mentioned scales falling off your eyes. So did Paul (via Luke).

And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and he regained his sight. Acts 9:18.

Who put the scales on Paul's eyes and for what reason? What land creature are scales associated with?

Thanks for giving me your thoughts on this.

[Dr. Rich]

Robert wrote: "That is pure nonsense....This is heresy 101....It's worse than Catholicism." This was written concerning Musicman's rant about the Holy Spirit being the female characteristic of God.

What Robert and Treeoflife failed to do is provide valid evidence supporting their position or opinion. Not one court in the country would allow hearsay evidence from people who had never met Jesus in person or even received their knowledge from those personally authorized to provide the first hand eyewitness accounts and words from the only one sent from heaven to testify to the truth. Therefore, I must discount every piece of evidence and enter only the evidence given by musicman which is clearly supported by scripture taken from eyewitnesses and give that to the fact finder.

The reason why this rule is important is that if one allowed evidence from anyone in the world who said they received a vision from God or said they prayed and were inspired and came up with their own ideas, then there would be no way to establish what is the real truth. It does not matter what others say or teach, what matters is what Jesus said and taught to His eyewitnesses. Anyway, this is how I see it as an investigative lawyer.

So, Robert and Treeoflife, you and others still have a chance to rebut musicman’s evidence. But please remember the rules of evidence.

[Robert]

Since the Holy Spirit lives in you does that defile It? In other words because the Holy Spirit resides in sinful flesh (yours) does It become a sinner?

Answer: No!

Why not? Because the Holy Spirit remains Itself. It, Deity, doesn't become you. Otherwise It would be a sinner. Likewise you remain yourself, sinful. God and human flesh in one body.

Now reverse this: Christ, as God, came and tabernacled in our corporate fallen, humanity. Did that make the Son of God a sinner? No!

Hence, to legally save our fallen humanity, Christ's Deity assumed our fallen life that was under the curse of the law.

Case closed,

Rob

[Musicman1228]

Rob,

Please show me from the words of Jesus Christ (not Paul) where He said that the Law is a curse. If Jesus actually takes on our fallen nature and our sin then He becomes sin for us, which would make the Son of God a sinner and unable to act as the Passover lamb.

[wayfinder]

If the law was a curse then God cursed Israel when He gave them the Ten Commandments. Then He cursed them again when they worshiped the golden calf; because they broke the covenant which had cursed them. If they broke the covenant that cursed them, would that remove the curse?

[Dr. Rich]

Hey, so I made a typo--so sue me. Try reading the account in Gen.