Question: What qualified Jesus to be the Savior of the world?
Answer: According to [false] traditional Christian teaching two reasons are given that qualified Jesus to be the Savior of the world. First of all, as the creator of human life, his life is worth more than all human life, qualifying him to be its Savior. Secondly, as God in human flesh, he remained sinless even though tempted in all points as all men are. What is wrong with this picture?
What is wrong with this picture is that it constitutes syncretism [the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil]. Yes, as the born son of man and the begotten Son of God, Jesus remained sinless even though tempted in all points, that is good. No, since Jesus was not the creator of human life, therefore the idea that only the creator’s life can atone for the sins of the world does not exist. It is nothing but tradition based on mythology and that is evil.
Jesus was not the creator in Gen 1:1 for the simple reason that Jesus was not born until 4000 years later. Yes, God created all things through Jesus, but when he did Jesus was not yet Jesus but the Word of God. God Almighty spoke through the power of his Word, and it was.
The only condition that qualified Jesus to be the savior of the world was that he was the only so BEGOTTEN (at conception) Son of God and BORN son of man (through Mary), who overcame the temptations of Satan and remained 100% sinless, keeping all of his Fathers commandments. He died (the innocent for the guilty) satisfying the demands of the law and making us acceptable to the righteous demands of the Father. God resurrected (BORN AGAIN) his firstborn Son and declared him Savior of the world.
Question: Was Jesus God while on earth for 33 ½ years?
Answer: The upfront answer is: No, Jesus was not God during His 33 ½ years on earth for the simple reason that He died, and God cannot die. God is not subject to death for death is but part of His physical creation.
If then Jesus was not God; what was He? We know that Jesus was born of his physical human mother Mary, and therefore was born as a physical human being. We also know that Mary was not impregnated by a physical father, but by a sinless spiritual father, God Almighty. In other words from the point of conception, Jesus was a spiritually BEGOTTEN God being and a physically BORN human being. As such he lived, suffered was tempted, never sinned and died. After three days and three nights in the grave, God His Father, resurrected Him from the dead, causing him to be BORN AGAIN spiritually, now fully God, never able to be tempted or die again.
To put this in context, let’s consider you and me in comparison to Jesus.
We know that you and I were born of our physical human mothers and therefore we were born as physical human beings. The difference, in comparison to Jesus, was that our mothers were impregnated by sinful physical fathers who were spiritually BEGOTTEN children of their sinful father Satan. In other words you and I were physically BORN human beings, spiritually BEGOTTEN of Satan. Jesus minced no words when he told the unconverted that they were of their father the Devil.
But, Jesus also provided the solution to this problem when he told us through Nicodemus that we MUST be BEGOTTEN / BORN AGAIN. We must renounce our spiritual father Satan and replace him with our new spiritual father God. In the process we reject faithless Adam and replace him with faithful Abraham as our physical father. After repentance of sin and acceptance of Jesus’ sacrificial death on our behalf, we are now BEGOTTEN children of God. We live, we suffer, and we die, and will be resurrected, BORN AGAIN spiritually, then fully God (beings), never able to sin or die again.
Jesus, as the first born Son of God, truly was and is our example to know and understand how to become additional Sons of God in the ONE God Family.
Question: Does 1 Cor. 10:4 prove that Jesus existed as Jesus, before he was born as Jesus?
Answer: In the New Testament, one of the prove texts used for the pre-existence of Jesus Christ is 1. Cor. 10:4 which says: “For they drank from that supernatural Rock which followed them, and the rock was Christ.”
Let’s ask the most obvious question: If the Rock was Christ, why turn Christ into a Rock? Or, we could ask: Was the Lamb at the Passover a lamb, or was it Christ? On the one hand the answers are self evident that the Rock and Lamb are symbols of Christ; on the other hand the answers are not self evident because the Churches of God teach that the Rock was not just a rock, but that the Rock literally was an existing Being, the Lord Jesus Christ. Her we have one of the mysteries of Catholicism, which is the mystical transubstantiation of a symbol – a rock, into Christ’s real presence, a second God Being, when in reality the “Rock” was no more a “distinct conscious entity” than is the “Lamb” or the “Word” or the “Spirit” or the “wisdom” of God.
1. Cor. 10:4 comes to us from Gen. 17:6 that says: “Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb; and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, that the people may drink.”
The context of this verse is the Exodus where the LORD God went BEFORE Israel by a pillar of cloud, and a pillar of fire by night to LEAD Israel out of Egypt. Are we to believe that Jesus the Shepherd was there literally, FOLLOWING the sheep? Not very likely!
Even my RSV Bible makes the following comment on Ex. 17:6: “The rock spoken of here is a type of Christ (1. Cor. 10:4). Just as the life–giving water flowed from the rock, so does eternal life flow the Rock Christ Jesus. And as the water was there for all who appropriated it, so is salvation available for all who lay hold of it by faith (John 1:12). As thirst is quenched by water so spiritual thirst is satisfied forever by faith in Christ (Jn. 4:14).”
Obviously, 1 Cor. 10:4 does not prove any existence of Jesus before He was born of Mary 2000 years ago.
Pre-existence Christology IS nothing but Trinitarian Mythology! The fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil!
Question: Was Jesus an adopted Son?
Answer: Jesus was the only (so) begotten, firstborn Son of God. Begettal and birth are not involved in adoption, they are only required for true son-ship.
Jesus was not an adopted son, notwithstanding the use of the word “adopted” in four places in the KJV. The same Greek word (Strong’s 5206) can be and is correctly translated as “sonship” in other translations.
To be ADOPTED is a process from without (transfer of ownership); in contrast, to be BORN is a process from within (transfer of DNA).
Question: Was Jesus a created being?
Answer: The answer to that question depends on whether or not you believe that Jesus is the Son of God.
To be created or to be born are two mutually exclusive concepts. Creation is instantaneous, God spoke and it was. Son-ship is a process that requires time, a husband and a wife.
When Jesus was baptized, God spoke for all to hear that: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
If Jesus is the Son of God, he cannot be a created being.
If Jesus is a created being, he cannot be the Son of God.
Therefore, since God said that Jesus is his Son, Jesus cannot be a created being. It’s elementary!
Question: Why do some teach that God consists of two Persons when the Bible says in Deut. 6:4 that there is only one God?
Answer: Deuteronomy 6:4 reads: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one!”
In Mark 12, the scribes asked Jesus: “which commandment is the first of all?” Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
Since there is no other commandment greater than these, God wanted to make absolutely sure that Israel and you and I today understand that the Lord our God is ONE Lord, and not two or three or many. Gen 1:1 says the same: “In the beginning God” (singular, not Gods plural).
Then in John 1:1 God makes the same point: “In the beginning was the WORD (of God), and the WORD (of God) was with God, and the WORD (of God) was God.” Since many do not understand this verse, allow me to personify the verse for clarity. In the beginning was my WORD, and my WORD was with me, and my WORD was me. How many persons does that make? ONE person! The LORD our God and His WORD is ONE person.
Then, just to make sure, God through the prophet Isaiah tells us that: “I am the LORD, and there is no other, besides me there is no God.”And, through the Apostle Paul God tells us in Heb.1 that: “In many and various ways God spoke of old (O.T. time) to our fathers by the prophets; (in contrast) but in these last days (N.T. time) he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he (God) created the world.” God spoke through and by his WORD, and it was.
Considering the above, why then do some teach that God consists of two persons? The reason why this teaching exists is because of the (false) belief that Jesus existed as Jesus before He was born as Jesus (an oxymoron). The idea of Jesus pre-existing his own birth is the theology of the Roman Catholic Trinitarian teaching that claims that the second person of the trinity – Jesus, existed from all eternity. To be sure, there are some New Testament verses that seem to say that Jesus existed before he was born, but these verses are miss-interpreted by not clearly differentiating between Old Testament time (BC), and New Testament time (AD). In the beginning (BC) was the WORD of God, not Jesus, and not until N.T. time did IT the WORD of God became HE the SON of God (John 1:14).
There are three Roman Catholic teachings that go hand in hand: The trinity; pre-existence and the incarnation, three non-biblical concepts that have been used to deceive the whole world. Eliminating one – the trinity, but retaining two – pre-existence and incarnation, still leaves you with a mystery God. God is a family, not a trinity, and a family consists of a husband/father and a wife/mother and children. The Family of God is not a dysfunctional family consisting of two males – Father and Son/Spokesman, and no wife for the Father, as the former Worldwide Church of God and most Church of God organizations today teach.
There was only ONE God (person) from the beginning and throughout O.T. time (BC), and there is only ONE God (family) in N.T. time (AD). The ONE God married Israel in O.T. time and fathered his first born Son Jesus in N.T. time through His legal wife Mary, who represented all of Israel.
Pre-existence theology is Roman Catholic mythology.
Question: Who was Melchizedek?
Answer: Since the Bible gives no direct answer to this question, I do not want to be presumptuous and claim to know the answer.
Here is what we do know: Hebrews 7:3 tells us that this Melchizedek “was without father or mother or genealogy, and has neither beginning of days nor end of life, but resembling the Son of God he continues a priest for ever.” There is only one known being in the universe that fits the above description and that is the Father, God Almighty – Yahweh Elohim.
In comparison, the Lord Jesus Christ has a father (God), has a mother (Mary), has a genealogy (see Matthew and Luke), had a beginning of life (when he was born), had an end of life (when he died), and is identified (only) as resembling Melchizedek – not as being Melchizedek.
Question: What exactly does the word “Godhead” mean?
Answer: The word “Godhead” is used three times (Acts 17:29; Rom 1:20; Col 2:9) in the KJV and is not used in most other translations. The Greek words theiots and theotes (Strong’s 2304, 2305 and 2320) are rendered in various translations as: the “Deity,” “deity,” “God,” “the divine being,” “divine nature” or “divinity.”
In the Catholic Encyclopedia on the Blessed Trinity it says: “The Trinity is the term employed to signify the central doctrine of the Christian religion – the truth that in the unity of the Godhead there are Three Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, these Three Persons being truly distinct one from another.”
Since the word “Trinity” is not in the Bible, Catholic theology is using the word “Godhead” in its place, in much of their writings. In other words the word Godhead is but a synonym for the word Trinity to describe the false concept of the three-in-one God, i.e., the triune God.
It is interesting to note that in a doctrinal paper on the Nature of God, one Church of God organization is using the word “Godhead” 48 times, often to describe another false concept, that of a two-in-one God, i.e., the binary God.
The bottom line is that the word “Godhead,” just as the word “Trinity” is not a biblical word and is not needed to define the Nature of God.
There was ONE God from the beginning, who married Israel in Old Testament time, who fathered His firstborn son Jesus in New Testament time, establishing the ONE God Family.
For additional info on the Godhead go to: www.logoslogic.info/mystery.html
Question: Was Adam and Eve’s creation by God complete?
Answer: The answer to this question is: yes and no, allow me to explain.
Yes, the physical creation of Adam and Eve was complete. The Bible says it was “very good.” No, the spiritual creation was not complete, or more correctly, spiritual perfection was not a part of the original physical creation.
Adam and Eve were given physical life and a human spirit that differentiated them from animals. They were created as fully (100%) physical human beings with no spiritual orientation either good or bad. There was no law and therefore no sin. The only command from God was not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that was in the midst of the garden, lest they would die. To be sure, since no one had ever died, Adam and Eve had no glue what it means to die. But, an understanding of death was not required in order to understand the command not to eat of this one specific tree. They were allowed to eat of all other trees and that included another specific tree, the tree of life.
What was the significance of these two specific trees? These two trees were symbolic, the tree of life representing the Holy Spirit – God, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil representing the Evil Spirit – Satan. Eating of one of these two trees would add a spiritual dimension to the physical Adam and Eve. They would obtain a godly nature by eating of the tree of life, or obtain an evil nature from eating of the tree of death.
As we know, they disobeyed God and ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They went, so to speak, into bed with Satan and thereby became the begotten children of Satan. To the unconverted, Jesus minced no words when He told them: “You are of your father the devil.”
It made them human beings with a double nature – a physical nature coming from God, and a spiritual nature coming from Satan. This double nature was then passed on through procreation to every human being ever born.
But God had already planned a solution to this problem with the birth of the second Adam, His firstborn Son – Jesus the Christ. Jesus told Nicodemus and by extension all of us that we must be begotten again. We must reject our inherited begettal from Satan, and replace it with a new begettal from God. We would thereby become begotten children of God, with a changed spiritual orientation away from Satan, now toward God. We would live and suffer with this new double nature and die. God will then resurrect us which constitutes our second birth (born again). This then will complete the process of perfecting our spiritual character, making us one nature, divine, perfect spirit beings as is our example the Lord Jesus Christ.
Question: Was there ONE God in Old Testament time, or TWO Gods, as most Church of God organizations teach?
Answer: Since God is not the author of confusion, the answer to this question is clearly given in Gen 1:1 and John 1:1, and many scriptures throughout the Old Testament.
“In the beginning GOD” (singular) One GOD! Not two Gods (plural) as most Church of God organizations teach.
“In the beginning was the WORD; and the WORD was with God; and the WORD was (“the” not “a”) God” Yes, in the beginning and throughout Old Testament time was the ONE GOD and His WORD.
Isaiah 44:6 confirms this: “This is what the LORD says (through His WORD) – Israel’s King and Redeemer, the LORD Almighty: I am the first and I am the last; apart from me there is no God.”
Isaiah 45:5 ads: “I am the LORD, and there is no other, besides me there is no God.”
God is not the author of confusion, the word of God is clear, there was but ONE God. Confusion comes when we introduce a pre-existent Jesus as a second God from the beginning and throughout Old Testament time, and one can no longer know if a given scripture speaks of the Father or of the Son/Spokesman. There was only ONE God, the LORD God (Yahweh Elohim) throughout the Old Testament with many prophetic scriptures about a coming Son of God – a Messiah who was to be born in the future. In the “fullness of time” 2000 years ago, all prophecies from the Old Testament were fulfilled when Jesus was born, and the ONE God family was established.