Christ's human nature...

[Guest]

It is only by being united with God that man can live without sin.

AMEN!

[doug yowell]

Preach it,brother!!

[Sonny]

By "condemned," I mean that humans are not condemned to suffer eternal death merely by virtue of being born with a fallen nature.

If it weren't for Christ then all humans would stand condemned to suffer the second death both because they have a sinful nature and because they have sinned.

Let us look at the following:

Ephesians 2:1 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. 4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy---

In verse 3 Paul explicitly states that the desires and thoughts of the unregenerate mind are in complete harmony with the desires of human nature. They are a unit - they are one in purpose and intent.

[John317]

.. 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature .

That is the NIV. However, I prefer to stay with the literal rendering of these verses, in which case this part of verse 3 reads, "in the lusts of our flesh."

Originally Posted By: Sonny

In verse 3 Paul explicitly states that the desires and thoughts of the unregenerate mind are in complete harmony with the desires of human nature. They are a unit - they are one in purpose and intent.

On the basis of your understanding of this verse, what conclusion do you reach with respect to the human nature of Christ?

[Musicman1228]

Did Adam have human DNA? Yes.

How did Adam get his human DNA? God.

Was the DNA that Adam received from God sinful? No. It was neither sinful or righteous.

Was Adam less human than someone that has sinful DNA due to sin? No.

Do human beings today have sinful DNA based on the disobedience of Adam? Yes.

Who made the DNA that became the body of Jesus Christ? His Parents-God the Father and the Holy Spirit.

Does God produce ANYTHING that is sinful? NO.

If God does not produce anything sinful would this also include the DNA of Jesus? Yes.

Therefore, Jesus had NO sinful DNA acquired by any means including from his physical birth mother.

God produced the DNA of Jesus just as He did for Adam. Adam was fully human, just as Jesus is fully human-both have DNA that was made by the union of the Father and the Holy Spirit. Adam was FORMED from the dust, Jesus was born of a human and sinful girl, who acted as His surrogate/birth mother. If Jesus had ANY sin in Him from ANY source then He could not act as the perfect Passover Lamb, and thus would have been unable to purchase a Kingdom for God (Rev.5:9-10).

[Gerr]

The discussion is about the human nature of Christ, that's the reason for the focus on His humanness. Otherwise I agree that the only way we could live holy lives is in the same way that He depended on His Father.

[Dr. Shane]

Just as He was born again, conceived by the Holy Spirit in Mary's womb, joining the Divine seed with the human DNA, so must we be born again. It will only be a reality for us at the second coming when we all will be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye.

So what is the kingdom of God that Jesus said was "at hand" 2,000 years ago?

[John317]

...Who made the DNA that became the body of Jesus Christ? His Parents-God the Father and the Holy Spirit.

Does God produce ANYTHING that is sinful? NO.

If God does not produce anything sinful would this also include the DNA of Jesus? Yes.

Therefore, Jesus had NO sinful DNA acquired by any means including from his physical birth mother.

God produced the DNA of Jesus just as He did for Adam. Adam was fully human, just as Jesus is fully human-both have DNA that was made by the union of the Father and the Holy Spirit.

The above is where your argument falls to pieces. You're assuming, without any valid biblical foundation, that God made the DNA that became the body of Jesus Christ and that His parents were the Father and the Holy Spirit. But the Bible doesn't teach this. Christ's body resulted from His formation within the womb of His mother, Mary. He inherited her genes.

Quote:

Adam was FORMED from the dust, Jesus was born of a human and sinful girl, who acted as His surrogate/birth mother. If Jesus had ANY sin in Him from ANY source then He could not act as the perfect Passover Lamb, and thus would have been unable to purchase a Kingdom for God (Rev.5:9-10).

Merely being born as a human being related to other humans didn't make him sinful and imperfect. He was perfect because of his choices, not because of a special birth or nature.

[Musicman1228]

John said, "The above is where your argument falls to pieces. You're assuming, without any valid biblical foundation, that God made the DNA that became the body of Jesus Christ and that His parents were the Father and the Holy Spirit. But the Bible doesn't teach this. Christ's body resulted from His formation within the womb of His mother, Mary. He inherited her genes."

But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. Matt.1:20.

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.

“As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill.”   (7) I will tell of the decree: The LORD said to me, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you. Ps.2:6-7.

[Dr. Shane]

Christ's body resulted from His formation within the womb of His mother, Mary. He inherited her genes.

[Sonny]

On the basis of your understanding of this verse, what conclusion do you reach with respect to the human nature of Christ?

Before regeneration I believe that the mind is fully in harmony with the desires of human nature. Hence we are born sinners. As a man, Jesus never had his human mind dominated by our sinful, human nature.

If, through the incarnation, Christ took our sinful nature then Christ was "made sin" and came under the curse of the law the moment of conception. This seems to fit with what Jones taught in relationship to Galatians 4:4,5.

[wayfinder]

It is fact that Jesus is an eternal being, the only change he experienced was that of substance. previous to His being placed in Mary's womb, He had the "form" of an angel and God's name was in Him.

Exodus 23

20 "Behold, I am going to send an angel before you to guard you along the way and to bring you into the place which I have prepared.

21 "Be on your guard before him and obey his voice ; do not be rebellious toward him, for he will not pardon your transgression, since My name is in him.

22 "But if you truly obey his voice and do all that I say, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries.

23 "For My angel will go before you and bring you in to the land of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hivites and the Jebusites ; and I will completely destroy them.

Exodus 3

2 The angel of the LORD appeared to him in a blazing fire from the midst of a bush ; and he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, yet the bush was not consumed.

3 So Moses said, "I must turn aside now and see this marvelous sight, why the bush is not burned up."

4 When the LORD saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, "Moses, Moses !" And he said, "Here I am."

The Angel of the Lord goes on to say to Moses

Exodus 3:14 NAS

God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM "; and He said, "Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to you.' "

And Jesus said:

John 8:58 Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am." 59 Therefore they picked up stones to throw at Him, but Jesus hid Himself and went out of the temple.

They picked up stones to stone Him because He in fact was saying Iam the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and Moses. They picked up stones to kill Him for claiming to be the God of Israel.

John 17:5 NAS

"Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.

Here is the point. Jesus was the Angel of the Lord (Michael), who is and was and is to come. If God the Father and Holy Spirit used Mary's egg and a sperm from ?, Jesus could not no would not have preexisted a time before Mary's egg and any of her DNA would have had to change who He had been for ever; therefore His claim to be the God I am would be false, His claim to having been with God and sharing His glory before the world was would be sperous. What occured was that the Father and Holy Spirit gave Michael a body of flesh while maintaining His cognazant being, in other words He retained the knowledge He had as Michael and His charicter and personality. Jesus told Nicodemus that He had desended from the heavens and testified to all that He had seen in heaven, therefore He could not have had a begining as a different being in Mary's womb.

John 3

11 "Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know and testify of what we have seen, and you do not accept our testimony. 12 "If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things ?

13 "No one has ascended into heaven, but He who descended from heaven : the Son of Man

Jesus nature was human and He remained righteous in all His ways, demonstrating obedience to God. As a human He depended upon His Father for the power to perform wonderous works, that is why He could do nothing of Himself. Jesus presence of being, who he had always been, His thoughts, experiences, and memories remained intact. He is God, because He has always been God, and He is man, because He was born of a woman; the Firstborn of God, and born of man, with the right of Redeemer of the righteous. Son of God and Son of Man.

[Guest]

G: It IS true that even born again sinners cannot truly meet the requirements of the law. That is why believers are not under law but under grace. The ONLY way that we can keep the law is through His imputed righteousness. Walking in the Spirit (sanctification), we will never measure up (as Robert used to say & I believe he was right on this), but grace says that if we act by love, even if it falls short, is by grace through the merits of Christ accepted as fulfillment of what the law requires. That's how I understand it.

Gerry, when you say "we are not under the law but under grace", you begin to sound just like Robert. Most people who use that phrase don't even know what it means. It DOES NOT mean that we can now break the law without suffering the consequences. For the wages of sin is death. And sin is the transgression of the law. Rom 6:23, 1Jn 3:4

Grace is the power to keep the law. And when you are doing that, you are not under the law because there is no law against doing right. Paul summed it up when he said:

Gal 5:22,23 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.

My Bible tells me that there will be a people who will walk holy in the sight of God, without a mediator. BEFORE Jesus comes. EGW says it too. She also said this:

Through his imparted righteousness he would place all human beings where they will be on vantage ground. He came to this earth and lived the law of God that man might stand in his God-given manhood, having complete mastery over his natural inclination to self-indulgence and to the selfish ideas and principles which tarnish the soul. {7MR 320.1}

But as Christ humbled Himself to our nature, He could be tempted. He had not taken on Him even the nature of the angels, but humanity, perfectly identical with our own nature, except without the taint of sin. . . . {CTr 208.6}

There can be no true conversion without the giving up of sin...{FW 24.3}

Through every device possible Satan has sought to make of none effect the sacrifice of the Son of God, to render His expiation useless and His mission a failure. He has claimed that the death of Christ made obedience to the law unnecessary and permitted the sinner to come into favor with a holy God without forsaking his sin. He has declared that the Old Testament standard was lowered in the gospel and that men can come to Christ, not to be saved from their sins but in their sins. {FW 90.2}

[Sonny]

Here's A.T. Jones including his comments on Galatians 4:4,5

Made under the Law

Your thoughts?

[Woody]

Quote:

"you begin to sound just like Robert"

and that can be a good thing

[wayfinder]

So then God cursed Israel at Mt. Horeb when He gave Moses the Ten Commandments and when God spoke each commandment in the hearing of the people of Israel. Now that is rather duplicitus of God, cursing them with the Law and then not allowing Balaam to curse them when they entered the promised land. Well I guess once cursed always cursed. But why did God curse Israel by giving them a covenant, the covenant of His kingdom. The covenant of His kingdom is a curse, that does not sound like God at all. Then Jesus is cursed with the same curse so He can remove the curse that He cursed them with in the first place, huh?

[Sonny]

Galatians 3:13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree." 14 He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.

2 Corinthians 5:21 For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

[Dr. Shane]

Grace is the power to keep the law. And when you are doing that, you are not under the law because there is no law against doing right. Paul summed it up when he said:

Gal 5:22,23 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.

[Guest]

Here's A.T. Jones including his comments on Galatians 4:4,5

Made under the Law

Your thoughts?

Looks like a pretty neat website.

[wayfinder]

Please show me from the Old Testament or the testimony of Jesus, where this curse is spoken of and where Christ had a sinful nature. Christ was the Passover Lamb and as such had to be spotless, no sin in Him or on Him. Salvation has always been open to the nations/gentiles, Jesus did not open salvation to gentiles specifically, He opened a trust by His blood to purchase men from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation and has made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God. (Revelation 5:9,10)

Isaiah 56:6 "Also the foreigners who join themselves to the LORD, To minister to Him, and to love the name of the LORD, To be His servants, every one who keeps from profaning the sabbath And holds fast My covenant ;

7 Even those I will bring to My holy mountain And make them joyful in My house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be acceptable on My altar ; For My house will be called a house of prayer for all the peoples."

Salvation has always been open to everyone, Israelite and foreigners alike, the requirement was that all males be circumcised and that they keep the covenant (Ten Commandments). Is it any wonder that the evil one says God's Law brings a curse. If this is true then when God gave Israel the Law and required foreigners to keep it also, they would be under the same curse that Israel was. This is teaching that the Law of God is a curse upon those who promise to keep it.

As far as the cursed is anyone who hangs on a tree. God was talking about a guilty criminal who is killed and hung on a tree. Jesus was not killed and hung on a tree. He was nailed alive to a cross beam and not because He was guilty of anything.

Matthew 5:18 NAS

"For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished.

Jesus never said, or implied, that He was freeing us from the curse of the law, He upheld the Law as righteous and good and a requirement for the righteous.

Proverbs 28:4 NAS

Those who forsake the law praise the wicked, But those who keep the law strive with them.

1 John 2:4 NAS

The one who says, "I have come to know Him," and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him;

Revelation 14:12 NAS

Here is the perseverance of the saints who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus.

[Gerr]

R: Gerry, when you say "we are not under the law but under grace", you begin to sound just like Robert. Most people who use that phrase don't even know what it means. It DOES NOT mean that we can now break the law without suffering the consequences. For the wages of sin is death. And sin is the transgression of the law. Rom 6:23, 1Jn 3:4

G: Sound like Robert? No way!!! Have you ever seen any post of mine even intimating we are free to break the law because we are not under law but under grace? After receiving grace instead of death for sins incurred, how do you express gratitude? Keep breaking the law that causes death? Righteousness can NEVER be imputed in anyone who is deliberately/intentionally breaking the law. Does not Paul clearly say we are not under law but under grace? I have maintained this even during discussions with Robert.

Here is how grace operates:

"When it is in the heart to obey God, when efforts are put forth to this end, Jesus accepts this disposition and effort as man's best service, and He makes up for the deficiency with His own divine merit. But He will not accept those who claim to have faith in Him and yet are disloyal to His Father's commandment. We hear a great deal about faith, but we need to hear a great deal more about works. Many are deceiving their own souls by living an easy-going, accommodating, crossless religion." FW p.51

[Gerr]

Originally Posted By: Sonny

How so? Look at Gerry's reference to Psalms 51:5

"Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me."

David brings out two points:

a] He was sinful at birth

b] He was sinful at conception.

Those that get that out of Pslams 51:5 miss the point.

1) The passage is difficult to translate. Different versions of the Bible translate it differently.

2) David's point is that he is a worthless human being. The passage is part of a prayer he was praying of repentance. His point is that he is sinful through and through. Nothing good is in him.

3) He is not teaching anything about original sin or the nature of Christ.

Catholics use this verse to support the papal doctrine of original sin. That is a perverted use of the verse. The verse is all about our need for Christ because of ourselves we have no value.

I like the NASB translation of the verse.

"Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me."

I don't see him talking about his nature at all but rather about his environment. If someone were to ask me why I eat corn I could reply, "I was brought forth in Iowa, and in the mid-west my mother conceived me." We eat a lot of corn in Iowa. One would expect me to eat corn if I was born in Iowa.

G: Maybe you need a pair of glasses to see more clearly. Had it been translated "brought forth INTO a sinful world" or "brought forth INTO iniquity", you might have a toe to stand on, but that is NOT what it says to get the idea that the verse is talking about environment!

There is a HUGE difference between Iowa and iniquity. IOWA IS A PLACE. INIQUITY IS A CONDITION. THEREFORE, TO BE BROUGHT FORTH IN INIQUITY IS TO BE CONCEIVED/BORN INTO A CONDITION OF SINFULNESS!!!

[Musicman1228]

Gerry,

I agree with your last paragraph; sin is a condition that exists in all naturally born human beings. This condition is not present in God in any form, whether the Father, Holy Spirit, or Son. The ONLY way for God to be able to pay the penalty for the forgiven sins of the Kingdom of Heaven is for God to have NO SIN IN HIM. As Wayfinder so well pointed out Jesus Christ the Passover Lamb could have NO SIN in Him OR on Him and still be fit to pay the penalty for those particular sins. If Jesus had any sin in Him He would have lost His status and family name "God". If Jesus Christ had ANY sin in Him from any source, including His DNA, He would have been judged UNFIT by God and found unworthy to accomplish this task. As is was God did find Jesus worthy; therefore Jesus could not possibly under any circumstances have had any sin in Him what-so-ever, including in His DNA.

[Twilight]

Consider this thought:

Jesus was born with the "flesh", but as He was born again, that flesh was "dead".

At any time, it could have come to life.

One slip and Jesus could have made way for it and the flesh would have come alive.

So Jesus was born with the "flesh", but like all those that are born again, it was "dead flesh".

Your thoughts?

Mark

[olger]

Jesus had to grapple with something that Adam didn't. An inner will in conflict with His Father's will.

Garden of Eden.

Garden of Gethsemane.