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John 1.12, How many times should I say it to you? (seventy times seventy… I know!!)
Jesus is a:
who was born
- SINLESS AND HOLY AND RIGHTEOUS
by
and
- The enlivening Spirit of God
He was
with
Because God was pleased with him - all his life up until the anointing with the ‘oil of Gladness’ (Holy Spirit) Jesus had done nothing of a sinful nature, he was dutiful to his parents (Mary and adopted human Father, Joseph… he was not ‘Fathered’ by Joseph, as you know!) and was in a constant engagement with his spiritual Father, YHWH GOD.
Who was he? He asked this of his companions. And they answered rightly:
- ‘You are the Christ, Son of the living God’
They did not say, ‘You are God Almighty, Yahweh in the flesh’.
The very disciples who were with Jesus identified him as ‘The Christ’, ‘Son of God’. And this justified a blessing from Jesus to Simon (later renamed as ‘Peter’):
- Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven.
- …
- Then he ordered his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah (‘the Christ’)
It was important that the Father identified Jesus as the Messiah / Christ to those whom the Father chose to reveal it you so that the prophesies should be fulfilled that the people were to hate him (Jesus) and he (Jesus) should die for them, nevertheless! Hence Jesus told the disciples not to reveal him to anyone… and also why Jesus rebuked the demons that shouted out that he, Jesus, was the messiah!!
So what does ‘The
Christ’ (‘The
MESSIAH’) mean? It means:
Why was that
title so appropriate to the identity of Jesus?
Answer: Look back to the prophesies that were written in the Torah.
‘
Biblehub.com’ says this (Note: I do not lightly use external references but this one is a completely agreeable definition):
- “This word [Messiah / Christ] also refers to the expected Prince of the chosen people who was to complete God's purposes for them and to redeem them, and of whose coming the prophets of the old covenant in all time spoke. He was the Messiah, the Anointed, i.e. consecrated as the king and prophet by God's appointment.”
EXPLICITLY, the verse in Isaiah 42:1 sums up the entirety of what was to come in that one verse:
- “"Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him, and he will bring justice to the nations.…”
There it is right there… ‘I will put my Spirit on him’.
God said that about
HIS SERVANT,
the Messiah.
It could hardly be said that
GOD spoke so about
HIMSELF (
ITSELF??) - even less so that God should put his spirit on him/itself when the Spirit is that same GOD whose Spirit it is…!!!
GOD, YHWH, the Father, ANOINTED the Son of Man with holy oil, which, in case you are not aware, is a solemn ceremony for the appointment of a King and/or a Priest. The oil was a special concoction known to and used by ONLY another priest for such appointments (I’m sure I don’t need to tell you these things because you already know them… yes?? Or check them out in the Old Testament!)
So how much greater is an anointment with the Holy Spirit of YHWH to that of an earthly anointment by a prophet or priest? Immensely so, is the answer, incomparable. AND we know that Jesus was not only appointed so as ‘King’ but ALSO ‘High Priest to Almighty God’. Which raises the question of how can Jesus be GOD and HIGH PRIEST TO GOD… when he IS GOD (according to your belief) when a high priest is especially holy and of a less sinful nature than general mankind!
But not only that verse but also verses 5-8:
- “This is what YHWH God says-- the Creator of the heavens, who stretches them out, who spreads out the earth with all that springs from it, who gives breath to its people, and life to those who walk on it:
- "I, YHWH, have called you [The Messiah] in righteousness; I will take hold of your [Messiah’s] hand. I will keep you [Messiah] and will make you [Messiah] to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles,
- to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.
- "I am YHWH; that is my name! I will not yield my glory to another or my praise to idols.”
God reveals his name (YHWH) and declares his glory is to himself alone. This has nothing to do with Jesus… It is to do with PAGAN GODS.
God’s NAME is not
‘I AM’… ‘I am’ is the MEANING of ‘YHWH’. Saying ‘I am…’ does not make the speaker declare himself as being ALMIGHTY GOD… because the MEANING of a name is not used that way. Witness Simon Bar-Jonah, who is called ‘Peter’ (‘Cephas’), then. Tell me what this should mean:
- ‘The ROCK that followed the Israelites in the wilderness was Christ’
YHWH GOD speaks of things to come as a certainty. Here, he declares what the messiah will do when the messiah comes - how he will bring justice to the nations.
However, the Jews expected a WARRIOR messiah to free them from the Roman oppressors. This is seen in the exuberance of the Psalm Sunday celebratory events … followed by the rage against Jesus a few days later!
Let’s throttle back a bit…
God created the first man, Adam… SON OF GOD (Luke 3:38). He was dutiful, loyal, righteous, holy in God’s eyes, doing all that God taught him, directed him, commanded him, to do … until…
Adam sinned… no longer Son of God.
God was angry with Adam and with all his offspring because sin was in all of the procreation of man, of Adam… BUT God looked upon one who was so far less sinful that he saw that there could be a redemption BY MAN FOR MAN.
God prophesied that such a redemption must come from the SACRIFICE of a completely holy, Righteous, sinless MAN, to offset the sin caused by Adam:
- “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned-- (Romans 5:12)
Because of the sin of Adam, ALL MANKIND was subject to eternal death …no matter how pious they may have been… ALL were subject to DEATH… and that is why a REDEEMER was required… a redeemer, messiah, Christ, that was sinless, holy, and righteous in God’s eyes should lay down his life to redeem mankind from eternal death.
- “Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who is a pattern of the one to come.” (Romans 5:14)
But here is the saviour, the redeemer, the messiah, the Christ:
- “But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man [Adam], how much more did God's grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many! (Romans 5:15)
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John 1.12, what can you not see as a parallel between Adam and Jesus, written here clearly:
- Jesus, the pattern of Adam… Born of the Holy Spirit from an inert body / Created holy sinless, and Righteous - SON OF GOD.
- Adam: (red dust) of the earth, lifeless and inert … ENLIVENED by the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit of God
- Jesus: ‘Seed of a Woman’ (in Mary), lifeless and inert… ENLIVENED by the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit of God
- “The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you--they are full of the Spirit and life.” (John 6:63)
This enlivening put the SPIRIT of the man into the inert body to make it a LIVING SOUL. A creation in this way is of PURE, HOLY, SINLESS NATURE and as such produces a sinless, holy, righteous SON OF GOD (could it be anything else?). Why is it surprising that Jesus, thus born, is called, ‘Son of God’?
But more than that…. Jesus REMAINED sinless, Holy, and Righteous, loyal to his creator Father and God, dutiful Son, a worthy one for God to say to him:
- “You are my Son… this day I have become your Father”
and Jesus went on to fulfil the task set to him by his Father God thus fulfilling the prophesies of God laid out in Isaiah 42:1, interceded by the ANOINTING at the river Jordan and as the apostle says:
- “You know what has happened throughout the province of Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached--how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.“ (Acts 19:37-38)
And such words say nothing to you as to the truth, @
John 1.12?
And finally, WHAT PURPOSE is there to your Jesus God-Man
ACQUIRING the
ethereal earthly throne of King David, being
HEIR TO GOD, if he IS GOD?
You don’t seem to know how to credibly answer that question (or any other I set you!).
Here it is again:
GOD created a physical world to be inhabited and ruled over by a man made in his image….
(continue in next post..)