The inherited inherent divinity of Christ
Jesus declared, “I am the resurrection, and the life.” In Christ is life, original, unborrowed, underived. Desire of Ages p. 530.
This father-in-son principle is seen elsewhere. “The Heir, as long as He is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though He be Lord of all.” (Gal. 4:1). The Heir is Lord of all, not only before He is presented, but even before He is begotten. The inherited inherent divinity of Christ is seen in several examples.
The biblical model of God’s expectation that the father’s character be in the sons; and that his consequences or rewards be anticipated in his children.
In King Solomon (1Ki. 3:14;6:12), in King Abijam (1Ki. 15:3), in King Asa (1Ki. 15:5), in Amaziah (2Ki. 14:3), Ahaz (2Ki. 16:2), Hezekiah(2Ki. 18:3), Josiah (2Ki. 22:2), Jehoshaphat (2Chron. 17:3), and, we can assume, the rest of the kings of Judah, King David’s example was expected to be seen; David forever being the benchmark for the succeeding reigns of his progeny, the spirit of David residing in them. Each king above was compared or contrasted to King David, as if David’s seed were expected to own replicas of his spirituality and sterling character, by virtue of coming from his loins. And the Lord’s tendency to remember David’s faithfulness and thereby to bless his descendents on his throne was because they were “in David”. Being “in” David and from David’s genetics they would be an aberration not to do as David did and a conflict in God’s mind. In the end, the Messiah was to come out of David, and would resolve the many aberrations and conflicts by being all that David had been. “The sceptre shall not depart fromJudah , nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto Him shall the gathering of the people be.” (Gen. 49:10).
“Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do.” (Jn. 8:44). These were accounted for at the very beginning when the Lord told the serpent, “I will put enmity between thy seed and her seed.” “As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” (1Cor. 15:22).
We all became sinners the day Adam sinned, because we were yet in his loins when he fell. The moment he fell from glory he surely died, and we all died in him, as one person said it, “All their unborn children die as they both bow down to Satan’s hand.” But, the one who unites with Christ by faith, “is born of God” and “doth not commit sin; for His seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.” (1Jn 3:9). So long as we abide in His Son, God reckons us to be blameless and harmless, and declares that in Christ we possess His unbroken, eternal righteousness just like His Son does. Reborn in Christ, we all live and were never subject to sin and death, by God’s omnipotent forbearance and mercy as He looks steadfastly on His Son for our sakes. Our first birth proves true over and over our immutable, woeful lot in Adam. Who can dispute that in Adam we all sin and die with him? Who disagrees that our birth on earth has made us inveterate sinners and rebels; that of the fallen nature of the world, “their throat is an open sepulcher”, “with their tongues they have used deceit”, and “the poison of asps is under their lips”? (Rom. 3:13).
“The tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell.
For every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind:
But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.” (Jas. 3:6-8). “In many things we offend all. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body.” (Jas. 3:2).
Yet, when we come to the Son with repentance, not even the accuser of the brethren can deny the reality of Christ’s rebuke against the old devious devil when we are adopted into the family line of God’s dear Son. Satan flees when the Son of God says, “The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan;... is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?”
“But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared,
Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;
Which He shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour.” (Tit. 3:4-6). “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.” (1Pet. 1:23).
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to His abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” (1Pet. 1:3). “Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth Him that begat loveth Him also that is begotten of Him.” (1Jn. 5:1).
Now, in Christ we have access to everything He is and has. His love is our love, and always has been because justification by faith through grace causes God to discard our past. Our old hatred and anger are, as it were, blotted from past existence, and God looks upon them no more. His Son’s gentleness is ours and, as far as God is concerned, always has been. He calls things which never were as though they ever were. His Son’s joy, His peace, His longsuffering are ours and have characterized our every moment of existence since the new birth, and more than that, the Father declares that we had no previous life in Adam once we are in Christ. Our first birth is null and void. To give us this perspective, God promises He will, “create heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.” (Is. 65:17). Our life in Adam and his fallen nature, in his corrupted spirit, is past; now our life in Christ is judged by the new life from His nature transforming ours through the power of His Spirit.
By virtue of being born in Adam, all are judged the punishment that, until the end, will exist in him; and whosoever will be reborn in Christ will, by inheritance, have the life that is in Him. To live inside, to be part of, the growing bodies inside of Adam and Christ, and be effected in both of them is a strange concept that does not square easily to the modern westerner; but it truly has deep biblical roots, and it gives us inductive clues about the Father’s bringing forth of His pre-incarnate Son.
Following the biblical model above, all in Christ are like Christ and receive all of His prestigious royal benefits, His righteousness, His honor, the special love of His Father, now our Father. So likewise, in His Father, Christ has the deepest traits and equality in divinity with His Father. “That all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father. He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father.” (Jn. 5:23). The Son is the fullness of the Godhead manifested. As our genetics is made of our parents’ genetics, so the Son’s divinity was made of His Father’s and the Holy Spirit’s.
This model of multi-generational singularity, that exists by the Creator’s devising, is seen all through the human race. As the Creator designed “the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind” (Gen. 1:12), likewise, Adam’s genes trace their way to this last generation. In one biblical example, in Aaron Levi received tithes and in Abraham Levi paid tithes. “For he [Levi] was yet in the loins of his father, when Melchisedec met him [Abraham].” (Heb. 7:9,10). Abraham’s DNA, his person, were in Levi and Levi was genetic code in Abraham’s growing body, and thus he was in Abraham genealogically and literally (genetically). What Abraham did, Levi was acting out, before he was born. What Levi was and did later on he did by virtue of inheritance from his great-grandfather. Levi was reckoned to have committed Abraham’s act of giving tithes to Melchisedec [Christ] because he abode in Abraham. He inherited the act and was imputed the act as though he were alive and moving inside of Abraham’s body when the act was made. Twisted logic? A biblical paradigm.
Similarly, Christ “hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name.” (Heb. 1:4). In God, and not originally of Himself, does Christ now possess His most excellent divinity. Indebted to God, and joyfully so, does He have His person and His Father’s personality and character, omniscience and omnipotence. And thus it is that “all things were created by Him, and for Him.” (Col. 1:16). For the Son was yet in the loins, or bosom, of His Father when His Father made the universe. Then, at “the time appointed of the Father,” “when the fulness of the time was come” (Gal. 4:2,4) the Son was sent to create our solar system. Then “He spake, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast.” (Ps. 33:9). A divine paradigm and mystery.
Michael, the manifestation of Godhead intimacy.
“Thou art fairer than the children of men: grace is poured into Thy lips: therefore God hath blessed Thee for ever. Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest wickedness: therefore God, Thy God, hath anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above Thy fellows.” (Ps. 45:2,7). David saw that in His pre-incarnate being, the Son was anointed with gladness not His own. Even gladness was Christ’s pre-incarnate gift of His Father through union and communion with the great King, as also the Son’s joy and peace and love—His righteousness—is the anointing to every sinner who unites and abides with the Son, our King. “In Him was life; and the life was the light of men.” (Jn. 1:4). “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and He that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on Him.” (Jn. 3:36). The Son was the holograph of the Father’s hologram, Michael was the glad tidings of His Father’s gladness and life; He was the stamp of His God’s righteousness and grace, the fullness of His Father bodily.
I don’t write these things to belittle or diminish Jesus Christ the Lord of lords. It was He who came down upon Sinai with His Father in fire and thunder and lightning. But my heart is encouraged in the Lord’s constant acceptance of His Father’s greatness, in His humble surrender to His Father God. The Son of God leads the universe in exemplifying service, even bold service. His meekness is by no means weakness.
“Gird Thy sword upon Thy thigh, O most Mighty, with Thy glory and Thy majesty.
And in Thy majesty ride prosperously because of truth and meekness and righteousness; and Thy right hand shall teach Thee terrible things.
Thine arrows are sharp in the heart of the King’s enemies; whereby the people fall under Thee.
Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: the sceptre of Thy kingdom is a right sceptre.” (Ps. 45:3-6).
“Oh that Thou wouldest rend the heavens, that Thou wouldest come down, that the mountains might flow down at Thy presence,
As when the melting fire burneth, the fire causeth the waters to boil, to make Thy name known to Thine adversaries, that the nations may tremble at Thy presence!
When Thou didst terrible things which we looked not for, Thou camest down, the mountains flowed down at Thy presence.” (Is. 64:1-3).
“For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.” (Is. 57:15). “Though the Lord be high, yet hath He respect unto the lowly: but the proud He knoweth afar off.” (Ps. 138:6).
All of the Father’s infinite gifts and fruits, all of His infinite character traits and capabilities and power, are fully His Son’s by bequeathal. “All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth.” This was not an arrangement in which They have play-acted in order to give us a spiritual object lesson. It was the actual transmission of infinite joy in the mystery generation of the Son from the Father; it was the way the divine Beloved, the royal Son appeared back in the dateless ages of eternity past.
“All that the Father giveth Me shall come to Me.” (Jn. 6:37). “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.…
The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father do: for what things soever He doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise….
For as the Father hath life in Himself; so hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself;
And hath given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of man.” (Jn. 5:17,19,26,27). Christ’s authority to judge came as His Father’s reward for stepping so low to be made man and die to redeem us. “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him.” (Jn. 1:18). “But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name…
And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only Begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth….
And of His fulness have all we received, and grace for grace.” (Jn. 1:12,14,16). But, what do you do with a child begotten today? Do you analyze him, dissect him, boil him down, and see what makes him tick? Or do you love him and rejoice over him?
God in Christ—Christ of God.
“God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself”? (2Cor. 5:19). Based on the “being of Adam” model explained above, we see that even though the Son of God felt completely separated and forsaken of His God, God was there, feeling the separation and death of His Son, in spirit residing in His Son, and for us, symbolically hanging on the cross with Him.
Christ was embodying God who was of God since the beginning in order to offer the wisdom and righteousness of God to the pre-Controversy, unfallen universe. Christ’s submission to be formed into a spiritual body manifesting God for the benefit of the angels and the unfallen worlds was a great act of kindness and condescending grace toward them. But, for the Son of God to be further deformed and limited into a corporeal body by “the power of the Highest” (Lk. 1:35), represented another giant step of self-abasing, condescending grace and loving-kindness from both Father and Son. “God was manifest in the flesh.” (1Tim. 3:16).
Christ, God’s spokesperson who did not speak of Himself.
“God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the Fathers by the prophets,
Hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, whom He hath appointed Heir of all things, by whom also He made the worlds.” (Heb. 1:1,2). Who spoke in ancient times? Who created the worlds? Was it God or the Son of God? Or was it both Father and the Son? Paul said the divine Person of the Old Testament was the Son of God. “They drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.…
Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed of serpents.” (1Cor. 10:4,9). And John agreed that the Son was the one who spoke for God and created from the beginning. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made.” (Jn. 1:1-3).
How then could the writer of Hebrews say that it was God the Father who spoke to us in the Old Testament, unless it was them both, “God in Christ” (Gal. 3:17), speaking through His Son, the Son of God being the embassadorial manifestation of the non-embodied, Spirit Father of glory (Jas. 1:17)? (This is not to say that the Father did not exist except in some dimension of His own. He did exist in our reality, though only His glory was fearfully visible. He could speak at the transfiguration and be readily heard like thunder by the three disciples.) The Son being involved with His Father in creation was like a joey being carried around in a marsupial’s pouch, or as Ezekiel, another “son of man,” was carried about by Christ to speak for Him to the Jews (Eze. 8:3,5). Michael was the lampstand, continuously fed oil by the olive trees. (Zech. 4:1-6).
The Son was the Father’s messenger of divine will, God’s thoughts made audible. “He that cometh from above is above all: he that is of the earth is earthly, and speaketh of the earth: He that cometh from heaven is above all.
And what He hath seen and heard, that He testifieth; and no man receiveth His testimony. …
For He whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God: for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto Him.
The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into His hand.” (Jn. 3:31,32,34,35).
“Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared.
Beware of Him, and obey His voice, provoke Him not; for He will not pardon your transgressions: for My name is in Him.
But if thou shalt indeed obey His voice, and do all that I speak; then I will be an enemy unto thine enemies, and an adversary unto thine adversaries.
For Mine Angel shall go before thee, and bring thee in unto the Amorites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites: and I will cut them off.” (Ex. 23:20-23).
“My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest.” (Ex. 33:14). “In all their affliction He was afflicted, and the Angel of His presence saved them: in His love and in His pity He redeemed them; and He bare them, and carried them all the days of old.” (Is. 63:9).
“Mine Angel.” “My presence.” “The Angel of His presence.” “Yahweh.” “The Lord.” This Angel was the Son who spoke with His own power given to Him from His Father. The pre-incarnate Christ possessed the divine power of His Father, having inherited it; and constantly united with His Father, He was constantly renewing His omnipotence, omniscience, and immortality. It was the Son who in “the glory of the Lord appeared in the tabernacle of the congregation before all the children ofIsrael Israel
“How long will this people provoke Me? and how long will it be ere they believe Me, for all the signs which I have shewed among them?…
But as truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord.
Because all those men which have seen My glory, and My miracles, which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have tempted Me now these ten times, and have not hearkened to My voice;
Surely they shall not see the land which I sware unto their fathers, neither shall any of them that provoked Me see it: …
How long shall I bear with this evil congregation, which murmur against Me? I have heard the murmurings of the children ofIsrael
Say unto them, As truly as I live, saith the Lord, as ye have spoken in Mine ears, so will I do to you:
Your carcases shall fall in this wilderness; and all that were numbered of you, according to your whole number, from twenty years old and upward, which have murmured against me, …
But as for you, your carcases, they shall fall in this wilderness.
And your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years, and bear your whoredoms, until your carcases be wasted in the wilderness.
After the number of the days in which ye searched the land, even forty days, each day for a year, shall ye bear your iniquities, even forty years, and ye shall know My breach of promise.
I the Lord have said, I will surely do it unto all this evil congregation, that are gathered together against Me: in this wilderness they shall be consumed, and there they shall die.”(Num. 14:11,21-23,27-29,32-35).
It was Christ whom Moses beseeched, “They have heard that Thou Lord art among this people, that Thou Lord art seen face to face, and that Thy cloud standeth over them, and that Thou goest before them, by day time in a pillar of a cloud, and in a pillar of fire by night. Now if Thou shalt kill all this people as one man…” (Num. 14:14,15). It was the Son who spared the innocent and ignorant in this debacle, and He slew the guilty. “And the men, which Moses sent to search the land, who returned, and made all the congregation to murmur against him, by bringing up a slander upon the land, even those men that did bring up the evil report upon the land, died by the plague before the Lord.” (Num. 14:36,37).
It was Yahweh, the Lord God, the Son, who later said, “I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.” (Mal. 3:6). “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.” (Heb. 13:8).
The Son, the image of His Father.
The pre-incarnate Son was the bodily form of the blinding Father, the concentration of His Father’s cloud of glory, “who being the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person,” “the image of the invisible God.” (Heb. 1:3;Col. 1:15). “A bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye Him.” (Matt. 17:5).
The Son was clothed with His Father. “And I saw another mighty Angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon His head, and His face was as it were the sun, and His feet as pillars of fire.” (Rev. 10:1). “I saw in the night visions, and, behold, One like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought Him near before Him.” (Dan 7:13). “And was transfigured before them: and His face did shine as the sun, and His raiment was white as the light.” (Matt. 17:2). “And as He prayed, the fashion of His countenance was altered, and His raiment was white and glistering.” (Lk. 9:29).
The Son, the only Begotten of His Father.
The Pre-existent, Self-existent Son of God.—Christ is the pre-existent, self-existent Son of God.... In speaking of His pre-existence, Christ carries the mind back through dateless ages. He assures us that there never was a time when He was not in close fellowship with the eternal God. He to whose voice the Jews were then listening had been with God as one brought up with Him.—Signs of the Times, Aug. 29, 1900.
As one brought up. Of Christ’s pre-incarnate, heavenly state Paul wrote, “Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:
For by Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by Him, and for Him:
And He is before all things, and by Him all things consist.…
For it pleased the Father that in Him should all fulness dwell.” (Col. 1:15-17,19).
In the Son is divine life begotten but not created. “In Christ is life, original, unborrowed, underived.” Desire of Ages, p. 530.
His Father’s divinity,—as it were—spiritual infinite genetics of Omnipotence, Omniscience, Omnipresence, Godhead, Creatorship, Kingship, Fatherhood, and even Immortality were inherited by the Son when He came forth, not created, but divinely begotten from His Father’s bosom. In this respect it was that in Christ, by inheritance of God’s original, unborrowed, underived life, life is inherited in the Son—inherited original life, inherited unborrowed life, inherited underived life, as His Father’s life is. And to partake of Christ’s life is to partake of God’s and to find the Son immediate surety for God’s favor and acceptance.
“This is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.” (1Jn. 5:11).
This father-in-son principle is seen elsewhere. “The Heir, as long as He is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though He be Lord of all.” (Gal. 4:1). The Heir is Lord of all, not only before He is presented, but even before He is begotten. The inherited inherent divinity of Christ is seen in several examples.
The biblical model of God’s expectation that the father’s character be in the sons; and that his consequences or rewards be anticipated in his children.
In King Solomon (1Ki. 3:14;6:12), in King Abijam (1Ki. 15:3), in King Asa (1Ki. 15:5), in Amaziah (2Ki. 14:3), Ahaz (2Ki. 16:2), Hezekiah(2Ki. 18:3), Josiah (2Ki. 22:2), Jehoshaphat (2Chron. 17:3), and, we can assume, the rest of the kings of Judah, King David’s example was expected to be seen; David forever being the benchmark for the succeeding reigns of his progeny, the spirit of David residing in them. Each king above was compared or contrasted to King David, as if David’s seed were expected to own replicas of his spirituality and sterling character, by virtue of coming from his loins. And the Lord’s tendency to remember David’s faithfulness and thereby to bless his descendents on his throne was because they were “in David”. Being “in” David and from David’s genetics they would be an aberration not to do as David did and a conflict in God’s mind. In the end, the Messiah was to come out of David, and would resolve the many aberrations and conflicts by being all that David had been. “The sceptre shall not depart from
“Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do.” (Jn. 8:44). These were accounted for at the very beginning when the Lord told the serpent, “I will put enmity between thy seed and her seed.” “As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” (1Cor. 15:22).
We all became sinners the day Adam sinned, because we were yet in his loins when he fell. The moment he fell from glory he surely died, and we all died in him, as one person said it, “All their unborn children die as they both bow down to Satan’s hand.” But, the one who unites with Christ by faith, “is born of God” and “doth not commit sin; for His seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.” (1Jn 3:9). So long as we abide in His Son, God reckons us to be blameless and harmless, and declares that in Christ we possess His unbroken, eternal righteousness just like His Son does. Reborn in Christ, we all live and were never subject to sin and death, by God’s omnipotent forbearance and mercy as He looks steadfastly on His Son for our sakes. Our first birth proves true over and over our immutable, woeful lot in Adam. Who can dispute that in Adam we all sin and die with him? Who disagrees that our birth on earth has made us inveterate sinners and rebels; that of the fallen nature of the world, “their throat is an open sepulcher”, “with their tongues they have used deceit”, and “the poison of asps is under their lips”? (Rom. 3:13).
“The tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell.
For every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind:
But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.” (Jas. 3:6-8). “In many things we offend all. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body.” (Jas. 3:2).
Yet, when we come to the Son with repentance, not even the accuser of the brethren can deny the reality of Christ’s rebuke against the old devious devil when we are adopted into the family line of God’s dear Son. Satan flees when the Son of God says, “The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan;... is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?”
“But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared,
Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;
Which He shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour.” (Tit. 3:4-6). “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.” (1Pet. 1:23).
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to His abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” (1Pet. 1:3). “Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth Him that begat loveth Him also that is begotten of Him.” (1Jn. 5:1).
Now, in Christ we have access to everything He is and has. His love is our love, and always has been because justification by faith through grace causes God to discard our past. Our old hatred and anger are, as it were, blotted from past existence, and God looks upon them no more. His Son’s gentleness is ours and, as far as God is concerned, always has been. He calls things which never were as though they ever were. His Son’s joy, His peace, His longsuffering are ours and have characterized our every moment of existence since the new birth, and more than that, the Father declares that we had no previous life in Adam once we are in Christ. Our first birth is null and void. To give us this perspective, God promises He will, “create heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.” (Is. 65:17). Our life in Adam and his fallen nature, in his corrupted spirit, is past; now our life in Christ is judged by the new life from His nature transforming ours through the power of His Spirit.
By virtue of being born in Adam, all are judged the punishment that, until the end, will exist in him; and whosoever will be reborn in Christ will, by inheritance, have the life that is in Him. To live inside, to be part of, the growing bodies inside of Adam and Christ, and be effected in both of them is a strange concept that does not square easily to the modern westerner; but it truly has deep biblical roots, and it gives us inductive clues about the Father’s bringing forth of His pre-incarnate Son.
Following the biblical model above, all in Christ are like Christ and receive all of His prestigious royal benefits, His righteousness, His honor, the special love of His Father, now our Father. So likewise, in His Father, Christ has the deepest traits and equality in divinity with His Father. “That all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father. He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father.” (Jn. 5:23). The Son is the fullness of the Godhead manifested. As our genetics is made of our parents’ genetics, so the Son’s divinity was made of His Father’s and the Holy Spirit’s.
This model of multi-generational singularity, that exists by the Creator’s devising, is seen all through the human race. As the Creator designed “the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind” (Gen. 1:12), likewise, Adam’s genes trace their way to this last generation. In one biblical example, in Aaron Levi received tithes and in Abraham Levi paid tithes. “For he [Levi] was yet in the loins of his father, when Melchisedec met him [Abraham].” (Heb. 7:9,10). Abraham’s DNA, his person, were in Levi and Levi was genetic code in Abraham’s growing body, and thus he was in Abraham genealogically and literally (genetically). What Abraham did, Levi was acting out, before he was born. What Levi was and did later on he did by virtue of inheritance from his great-grandfather. Levi was reckoned to have committed Abraham’s act of giving tithes to Melchisedec [Christ] because he abode in Abraham. He inherited the act and was imputed the act as though he were alive and moving inside of Abraham’s body when the act was made. Twisted logic? A biblical paradigm.
Similarly, Christ “hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name.” (Heb. 1:4). In God, and not originally of Himself, does Christ now possess His most excellent divinity. Indebted to God, and joyfully so, does He have His person and His Father’s personality and character, omniscience and omnipotence. And thus it is that “all things were created by Him, and for Him.” (Col. 1:16). For the Son was yet in the loins, or bosom, of His Father when His Father made the universe. Then, at “the time appointed of the Father,” “when the fulness of the time was come” (Gal. 4:2,4) the Son was sent to create our solar system. Then “He spake, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast.” (Ps. 33:9). A divine paradigm and mystery.
Michael, the manifestation of Godhead intimacy.
“Thou art fairer than the children of men: grace is poured into Thy lips: therefore God hath blessed Thee for ever. Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest wickedness: therefore God, Thy God, hath anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above Thy fellows.” (Ps. 45:2,7). David saw that in His pre-incarnate being, the Son was anointed with gladness not His own. Even gladness was Christ’s pre-incarnate gift of His Father through union and communion with the great King, as also the Son’s joy and peace and love—His righteousness—is the anointing to every sinner who unites and abides with the Son, our King. “In Him was life; and the life was the light of men.” (Jn. 1:4). “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and He that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on Him.” (Jn. 3:36). The Son was the holograph of the Father’s hologram, Michael was the glad tidings of His Father’s gladness and life; He was the stamp of His God’s righteousness and grace, the fullness of His Father bodily.
I don’t write these things to belittle or diminish Jesus Christ the Lord of lords. It was He who came down upon Sinai with His Father in fire and thunder and lightning. But my heart is encouraged in the Lord’s constant acceptance of His Father’s greatness, in His humble surrender to His Father God. The Son of God leads the universe in exemplifying service, even bold service. His meekness is by no means weakness.
“Gird Thy sword upon Thy thigh, O most Mighty, with Thy glory and Thy majesty.
And in Thy majesty ride prosperously because of truth and meekness and righteousness; and Thy right hand shall teach Thee terrible things.
Thine arrows are sharp in the heart of the King’s enemies; whereby the people fall under Thee.
Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: the sceptre of Thy kingdom is a right sceptre.” (Ps. 45:3-6).
“Oh that Thou wouldest rend the heavens, that Thou wouldest come down, that the mountains might flow down at Thy presence,
As when the melting fire burneth, the fire causeth the waters to boil, to make Thy name known to Thine adversaries, that the nations may tremble at Thy presence!
When Thou didst terrible things which we looked not for, Thou camest down, the mountains flowed down at Thy presence.” (Is. 64:1-3).
“For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.” (Is. 57:15). “Though the Lord be high, yet hath He respect unto the lowly: but the proud He knoweth afar off.” (Ps. 138:6).
All of the Father’s infinite gifts and fruits, all of His infinite character traits and capabilities and power, are fully His Son’s by bequeathal. “All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth.” This was not an arrangement in which They have play-acted in order to give us a spiritual object lesson. It was the actual transmission of infinite joy in the mystery generation of the Son from the Father; it was the way the divine Beloved, the royal Son appeared back in the dateless ages of eternity past.
“All that the Father giveth Me shall come to Me.” (Jn. 6:37). “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.…
The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father do: for what things soever He doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise….
For as the Father hath life in Himself; so hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself;
And hath given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of man.” (Jn. 5:17,19,26,27). Christ’s authority to judge came as His Father’s reward for stepping so low to be made man and die to redeem us. “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him.” (Jn. 1:18). “But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name…
And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only Begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth….
And of His fulness have all we received, and grace for grace.” (Jn. 1:12,14,16). But, what do you do with a child begotten today? Do you analyze him, dissect him, boil him down, and see what makes him tick? Or do you love him and rejoice over him?
God in Christ—Christ of God.
“God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself”? (2Cor. 5:19). Based on the “being of Adam” model explained above, we see that even though the Son of God felt completely separated and forsaken of His God, God was there, feeling the separation and death of His Son, in spirit residing in His Son, and for us, symbolically hanging on the cross with Him.
Christ was embodying God who was of God since the beginning in order to offer the wisdom and righteousness of God to the pre-Controversy, unfallen universe. Christ’s submission to be formed into a spiritual body manifesting God for the benefit of the angels and the unfallen worlds was a great act of kindness and condescending grace toward them. But, for the Son of God to be further deformed and limited into a corporeal body by “the power of the Highest” (Lk. 1:35), represented another giant step of self-abasing, condescending grace and loving-kindness from both Father and Son. “God was manifest in the flesh.” (1Tim. 3:16).
Christ, God’s spokesperson who did not speak of Himself.
“God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the Fathers by the prophets,
Hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, whom He hath appointed Heir of all things, by whom also He made the worlds.” (Heb. 1:1,2). Who spoke in ancient times? Who created the worlds? Was it God or the Son of God? Or was it both Father and the Son? Paul said the divine Person of the Old Testament was the Son of God. “They drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.…
Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed of serpents.” (1Cor. 10:4,9). And John agreed that the Son was the one who spoke for God and created from the beginning. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made.” (Jn. 1:1-3).
How then could the writer of Hebrews say that it was God the Father who spoke to us in the Old Testament, unless it was them both, “God in Christ” (Gal. 3:17), speaking through His Son, the Son of God being the embassadorial manifestation of the non-embodied, Spirit Father of glory (Jas. 1:17)? (This is not to say that the Father did not exist except in some dimension of His own. He did exist in our reality, though only His glory was fearfully visible. He could speak at the transfiguration and be readily heard like thunder by the three disciples.) The Son being involved with His Father in creation was like a joey being carried around in a marsupial’s pouch, or as Ezekiel, another “son of man,” was carried about by Christ to speak for Him to the Jews (Eze. 8:3,5). Michael was the lampstand, continuously fed oil by the olive trees. (Zech. 4:1-6).
The Son was the Father’s messenger of divine will, God’s thoughts made audible. “He that cometh from above is above all: he that is of the earth is earthly, and speaketh of the earth: He that cometh from heaven is above all.
And what He hath seen and heard, that He testifieth; and no man receiveth His testimony. …
For He whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God: for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto Him.
The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into His hand.” (Jn. 3:31,32,34,35).
“Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared.
Beware of Him, and obey His voice, provoke Him not; for He will not pardon your transgressions: for My name is in Him.
But if thou shalt indeed obey His voice, and do all that I speak; then I will be an enemy unto thine enemies, and an adversary unto thine adversaries.
For Mine Angel shall go before thee, and bring thee in unto the Amorites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites: and I will cut them off.” (Ex. 23:20-23).
“My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest.” (Ex. 33:14). “In all their affliction He was afflicted, and the Angel of His presence saved them: in His love and in His pity He redeemed them; and He bare them, and carried them all the days of old.” (Is. 63:9).
“Mine Angel.” “My presence.” “The Angel of His presence.” “Yahweh.” “The Lord.” This Angel was the Son who spoke with His own power given to Him from His Father. The pre-incarnate Christ possessed the divine power of His Father, having inherited it; and constantly united with His Father, He was constantly renewing His omnipotence, omniscience, and immortality. It was the Son who in “the glory of the Lord appeared in the tabernacle of the congregation before all the children of
“How long will this people provoke Me? and how long will it be ere they believe Me, for all the signs which I have shewed among them?…
But as truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord.
Because all those men which have seen My glory, and My miracles, which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have tempted Me now these ten times, and have not hearkened to My voice;
Surely they shall not see the land which I sware unto their fathers, neither shall any of them that provoked Me see it: …
How long shall I bear with this evil congregation, which murmur against Me? I have heard the murmurings of the children of
Say unto them, As truly as I live, saith the Lord, as ye have spoken in Mine ears, so will I do to you:
Your carcases shall fall in this wilderness; and all that were numbered of you, according to your whole number, from twenty years old and upward, which have murmured against me, …
But as for you, your carcases, they shall fall in this wilderness.
And your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years, and bear your whoredoms, until your carcases be wasted in the wilderness.
After the number of the days in which ye searched the land, even forty days, each day for a year, shall ye bear your iniquities, even forty years, and ye shall know My breach of promise.
I the Lord have said, I will surely do it unto all this evil congregation, that are gathered together against Me: in this wilderness they shall be consumed, and there they shall die.”(Num. 14:11,21-23,27-29,32-35).
It was Christ whom Moses beseeched, “They have heard that Thou Lord art among this people, that Thou Lord art seen face to face, and that Thy cloud standeth over them, and that Thou goest before them, by day time in a pillar of a cloud, and in a pillar of fire by night. Now if Thou shalt kill all this people as one man…” (Num. 14:14,15). It was the Son who spared the innocent and ignorant in this debacle, and He slew the guilty. “And the men, which Moses sent to search the land, who returned, and made all the congregation to murmur against him, by bringing up a slander upon the land, even those men that did bring up the evil report upon the land, died by the plague before the Lord.” (Num. 14:36,37).
It was Yahweh, the Lord God, the Son, who later said, “I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.” (Mal. 3:6). “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.” (Heb. 13:8).
The Son, the image of His Father.
The pre-incarnate Son was the bodily form of the blinding Father, the concentration of His Father’s cloud of glory, “who being the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person,” “the image of the invisible God.” (Heb. 1:3;Col. 1:15). “A bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye Him.” (Matt. 17:5).
The Son was clothed with His Father. “And I saw another mighty Angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon His head, and His face was as it were the sun, and His feet as pillars of fire.” (Rev. 10:1). “I saw in the night visions, and, behold, One like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought Him near before Him.” (Dan 7:13). “And was transfigured before them: and His face did shine as the sun, and His raiment was white as the light.” (Matt. 17:2). “And as He prayed, the fashion of His countenance was altered, and His raiment was white and glistering.” (Lk. 9:29).
The Son, the only Begotten of His Father.
The Pre-existent, Self-existent Son of God.—Christ is the pre-existent, self-existent Son of God.... In speaking of His pre-existence, Christ carries the mind back through dateless ages. He assures us that there never was a time when He was not in close fellowship with the eternal God. He to whose voice the Jews were then listening had been with God as one brought up with Him.—Signs of the Times, Aug. 29, 1900.
As one brought up. Of Christ’s pre-incarnate, heavenly state Paul wrote, “Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:
For by Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by Him, and for Him:
And He is before all things, and by Him all things consist.…
For it pleased the Father that in Him should all fulness dwell.” (Col. 1:15-17,19).
In the Son is divine life begotten but not created. “In Christ is life, original, unborrowed, underived.” Desire of Ages, p. 530.
His Father’s divinity,—as it were—spiritual infinite genetics of Omnipotence, Omniscience, Omnipresence, Godhead, Creatorship, Kingship, Fatherhood, and even Immortality were inherited by the Son when He came forth, not created, but divinely begotten from His Father’s bosom. In this respect it was that in Christ, by inheritance of God’s original, unborrowed, underived life, life is inherited in the Son—inherited original life, inherited unborrowed life, inherited underived life, as His Father’s life is. And to partake of Christ’s life is to partake of God’s and to find the Son immediate surety for God’s favor and acceptance.
“This is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.” (1Jn. 5:11).
posted by David | 10:38 AM
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