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“Oh, the unspeakable greatness of that exchange,—the Sinless One is condemned, and he who is guilty goes free; the Blessing bears the curse, and the cursed is brought into blessing; the Life dies, and the dead live; the Glory is whelmed in darkness, and he who knew nothing but confusion of face is clothed with glory.”

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Location: Kingsland, Georgia, United States

A person God turned around many times.

Sunday, October 25, 2020

Omnipresent guilt and shame

"For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me." (Psa. 53:3).

Does emotional pain destroy the mind? Is it healthy to be swamped in self-destruction? "My sin is ever before me." Haven't you been there? Man says that constantly viewing personal shortcomings and mistakes is unhealthy. Psychology teaches us to never go there. But the Bible shows us differently.

"And whosoever shall fall on this Stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder." (Matt. 21:44).

That was Jesus speaking. Is Jesus the Master of disaster? Isn't He the world's Redeemer? Isn't He the one who pledged His life, at the risk of losing His eternal existence, in order to bring us safely home again to set us all before His Father? "By so much was Jesus made a surety of a better testament." (Heb. 7:22).

And the concept of suretyship comes from Judah's bargaining with his father Israel when he needed to take his brother Benjamin on a dangerous trip to Egypt in order to buy food for their hungry families. Judah promised his father, "I will be surety for him; of my hand shalt thou require him: if I bring him not unto thee, and set him before thee, then let me bear the blame for ever." (Gen. 43:9).

Jesus, the only Begotten Son of the Most High God, pledged Himself to successfully battle the lethal temptations to serve self, temptations exquisitely engineered by devious Lucifer. Jesus must remain sinless through all that in order to make the provision to save every soul of humanity from the wrath to come.

But His excruciating death, while pleading for only mercy upon His beloved fallen race, didn't guarantee the eternal life of every member of humanity. No, it didn't! Universalists teach that everyone is going to heaven. But the scriptures over and over again warn against that delusion. There were idols to let go of in order to lay hold of heaven's boon of life and health.

Yes, Christ's self-sacrifice provided the carte blanche opportunity for grace that could save the world from the wrath to come. Yes, the good news is that He can for sure save us. "God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him." (Rom. 5:8,9).

But we must be convinced to want to be saved. We must be dying to have eternal life. We must die to live.

Doesn't everyone want to be saved? Yes, everyone does. But they aren't dying for it. They must give up everything. There must be an exchange. From our treasure chest there must be a transaction to Jesus' account an equivalent value of His death in our place. The rich young ruler was required to give up all for the joy and infinite pleasure with the Bread and Water of Life. He must be willing to walk away from all his future life of worldly wealth and prestige, which he would not do, but Zacchaeus gladly did.

It cost Jesus and His Father everything to have us back again delivered from sin and Satan. Shouldn't we feel obliged to reciprocate? If we truly appreciate our liberation from demonic enslavement and being spared infinite condemnation upon our thunderstruck consciences on the Day of Judgment, which would be grinded upon by burning guilt and fear until we would cease to exist, then we would be eternally thankful and would be willing to do whatever our new Lord asks of us. We must give back what we stole, clear up lies we said to individuals, reconcile with enemies, forever to be gracious to others fully conscious of our wicked past. That's what despot-turned-saint Manasseh did. 

"He took away the strange gods, and the idol out of the house of the Lord, and all the altars that he had built in the mount of the house of the Lord, and in Jerusalem, and cast them out of the city. And he repaired the altar of the Lord, and sacrificed thereon peace offerings and thank offerings, and commanded Judah to serve the Lord God of Israel." (2Chron. 33:15,16).

"When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; if he turn from his sin, and do that which is lawful and right; if the wicked restore the pledge, give again that he had robbed, walk in the statutes of life, without committing iniquity; he shall surely live, he shall not die. None of his sins that he hath committed shall be mentioned unto him: he hath done that which is lawful and right; he shall surely live." (Eze. 33:14-16).

But, there's more. We must confess our faults to everyone we trespassed, and our sins to God. We must be born again. We must repent to God; when it comes to private sins, no one else has the need to know. But repentance to God is not hard to do when we have an overpowering need for His acceptance and have sought Him with all of our heart.

Repentance comes before the other actions listed above. Repentance to our offended and ashamed Father, His Spirit then working in us, gives us the motivation to do the other things.

Yet, repentance, which many people call the first work, isn't the very first work. Ah, no! We can't repent of our own goodness, because the word, "repentance", assumes that we are completely wicked and rebellious. Rebels don't relent; the wicked don't repent. They always make their get-away. With a grin on their face they are always a slap to God's face. And Paul made it clear that we all are wicked until we come to God.

"There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. 
Their throat is an open sepulchre;
with their tongues they have used deceit;
the poison of asps is under their lips:
whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness:
their feet are swift to shed blood:
destruction and misery are in their ways:
and the way of peace have they not known:
There is no fear of God before their eyes." (Rom. 3:10-18).

Then if we direly want to be saved, but we acknowledge the truth that we are incapable of only cheap, counterfeit repentance, then how can we be accepted by Christ and approved of God?

We need conviction of exceedingly sinful sin.

This is the first work, and the first test. Fail here and everything in the path laid out for your salvation is all for naught.

Deep, long conviction of sin is the first work. Not the conviction that the unbelieving world offers or wants to possess, not a repentance from it's own self-made list of sins for guilt and shame. No, no! That doesn't go nearly deep enough into our proud and rebellious heart! What does a Texas-size Judge want from a Rhode Island-size list of wrongs? Our Texas-size God needs a Texas-size list of wrongs and a Texas-size repentance. But we are from Rhode Island. How can we meet the Texas-size requirements of a Texas-size God? 

We go to the Texas-size Law of God! Oh, no? Oh yes! That's what we do! But, wait!! There's more!!!

We can only get to see the Texas-size Law of God via a Texas-size prophet of God. No Rhode Island-size prophet of Baal will suffice the Texas-size God of Law.

"Behold, I am against them that prophesy false dreams, saith the Lord, and do tell them, and cause My people to err by their lies, and by their lightness; yet I sent them not, nor commanded them: therefore they shall not profit this people at all, saith the Lord." (Jer. 23:32).

"Is not My word like as a fire? saith the Lord; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces? Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets, saith the Lord, that steal My words every one from his neighbour. Behold, I am against the prophets, saith the Lord, that use their tongues, and say, He saith." (Jer. 23:29-31).

"I have heard what the prophets said, that prophesy lies in My name, saying, I have dreamed, I have dreamed. How long shall this be in the heart of the prophets that prophesy lies? Yea, they are prophets of the deceit of their own heart; which think to cause My people to forget My name by their dreams which they tell every man to his neighbour, as their fathers have forgotten My name for Baal." (Jer. 23:25-27).

"I have seen also in the prophets of Jerusalem an horrible thing: they commit adultery, and walk in lies: they strengthen also the hands of evildoers, that none doth return from his wickedness; they are all of them unto Me as Sodom, and the inhabitants thereof as Gomorrah.
Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts concerning the prophets; Behold, I will feed them with wormwood, and make them drink the water of gall: for from the prophets of Jerusalem is profaneness gone forth into all the land.
Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Hearken not unto the words of the prophets that prophesy unto you: they make you vain: they speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the Lord.
They say still unto them that despise Me, The Lord hath said, Ye shall have peace; and they say unto every one that walketh after the imagination of his own heart, No evil shall come upon you." (Jer. 23:14-17).

"They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of My people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace." (Jer. 6:14). 

Who today is an authentic exponent of the Law of God? There's only one. Like Elijah stood alone against 950 prophets of Baal and Ashtoreth, and as Paul stood alone against the lions of Ephesus, Isaiah against the people of Israel, and the Lord of life alone against the mobs who cried, "Crucify Him! Crucify Him!", Ellen White has borne to the world the broadest depiction of sin since the world began. Therefore, hers has been the least popular message, albeit the most needed for these darkest days since the world began.

She writes of the "mighty Cleaver of truth",

"By God's mighty cleaver of truth we have been taken from the quarry of the world and brought into the workshop of the Lord to be prepared for a place in His temple. In this work the hammer and chisel must act their part, and then comes the polishing. Rebel not under this process of grace. You may be a rough stone, on which much work must be done before you are prepared for the place God designs you to fill. You need not be surprised if with the hammer and the chisel of trial God cuts away your defects ofcharacter. He alone can accomplish this work. And be assured that He will not strike one useless blow." Faith I Live By, p. 317.

In this final climax of the great controversy, we must be thoroughly humbled and shorn of sin. There is only one resource for the Texas-size humbling that will prepare us to be faithful until the end-- The Spirit of Prophecy counsels from Ellen G. White. 

Yes, all who go there will be chopped and squared, but all heaven is looking on, watching for the group that will rise to the top and surrender to being made subject to the mighty Law of God and of Love. Who will be at peace with rebuke? Who will so much trust in the wise love of the certified God of love that even His reproofs are gladly received. In short, who will join the hosts of heaven that trust in their Father and His Lamb to the point of perfect acquiescence, no matter how many times they are corrected and convinced of a shortcoming?

What holy angel is as holy as the Most Holy God and His all red Heifer who was burned to ash, His purest, only Begotten?

So, if we are going to fit into the happy scenes of Revelation chapter 4 and 5 and 7 and 15, then we need to start today by accepting the reproofs and consequences for our shortcomings and sins. Let the Spirit of truth grind on your conscience, reminding you of past derelictions of duty and times of dishonor to the God of goodness. Trust your God that, if you have been chosen to be intensely convicted of exceeding sinfulness, that He is sending you the gracious hint that you are being especially prepared for His glory. For likewise did He to His Son in Gethsemane until Golgotha.

"Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth: my flesh also shall rest in hope. For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to see corruption." (Psa. 16:9,10).

Saturday, October 17, 2020

Fair God all wise

God is fair. God is gracious, but He is also pragmatic.

Pragmatic: dealing with things sensibly and realistically in a way that is based on practical rather than theoretical considerations.

"When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under ('the curse of' (Gal. 3:13)) the Law, to redeem them that were under ('the curse of') the Law, that we might receive the adoption of sons." (Gal. 4:4,5).

The Son had been a Spirit like His eternal Father. But, an infinite burden was placed upon Him when His Father
sent Him into the human race for Him to live in a body corrupted by human nature that would have been condemned under the wrath of God were it not for the perfect submission of His heart and will. Continual divine wrath wasn't an arbitrary bestowal of God. Jesus lived under the guilt of lawlessness, and therefore under the restrained wrath of God, by His willing acceptance of the inherited nature of Miriam. Her corruptible spirit continually jarred the inherited, sinless Spirit of His Holy Father, attempting to seduce and overthrow the strong Spirit of His Father that kept Him from falling.

Nevertheless, Miriam's surrendered and converted and gentle spirit was very precious to Jesus, although not as desirable as the more gentle, voluminous, most holy Spirit of His Abba. Jesus would have accepted the unlimited wrath of Gethsemane and Golgotha for just His mother if she were the only one on Earth. But hers wasn't the only one that He would be unashamed to call His brethren. Besides her there would be billions that no man could number like the stars, and like the sand by the seashore for multitude.

The self-sacrifice of Jesus is not just an old tradition. Four thousand years of animal sacrifices looked forward to Him, but could not portray the full sacrifice in the fallen/sinless dichotomy of the Holy One. Although all nations were superstitious and under pagan indoctrination, Israel, through the ceremonial system handed down to them, had the truest understanding of the coming Deliverer from sin. 

While the pagan world had a slight concept of sin, sin was spelled out very clearly to the children of Israel who had the Ten Commandments in stone, and 614 civil laws that had no loopholes. A sloppy system of justice could only result in a sloppy conviction of sin, and a sloppy gift of mercy. But God does nothing sloppy.

The laws would condemn the guilty but not clear guilt without repentance. Hence the animal sacrifices. The whole civil and ceremonial systems created by Jesus represented His Father's mind. Jesus is full of truth, and more. He is also full of the grace of His Father's Spirit. 

Only in Israel was there righteousness through faith in the merciful, only true God. This was the purpose for the Israelite ceremonial system. Sanctification was the goal, to uplift the Israelite nation, and through them, to uplift all the nations of the world. "In thee shall all families of the earth be blessed." (Gen. 12:3). The religion that Jehovah gave Israel was not simply for pointing out sin, but for resolving it and salvaging souls from its destruction.

Since primordial Eden, the animal sacrifices all looked to the Messiah (see Gen. 3:15). Then, in 536 BC, Daniel received the famous 70 Week Messianic prophecy. This zeroed in on the exact year of 27 AD when Messiah the Prince would come. Daniel 9:26 said that 483 years after 457 BC (the 69th week of years) Messiah would be "cut off" (i. e. His murder/crucifixion). And Daniel 9:27 said that His cutting off would happen half way through that last week of years. 

(For a professional explanation read below. I'm using web link 
https://lifehopeandtruth.com/prophecy/understanding-the-book-of-daniel/70-weeks-of-daniel/)

"The 70 weeks of Daniel were to begin 'from the going forth of the command to restore and build Jerusalem' (verse 25). In 457 B.C., in the seventh year of his reign, King Artaxerxes issued a decree giving Ezra permission to return to Jerusalem to complete the efforts to rebuild the city (Ezra 7:6-10Ezra 9:9).

Using 457 B.C. as the starting point, we see that during the first seven prophetic weeks (49 years) the Jews who returned rebuilt the walls and city of Jerusalem despite the efforts of their enemies to thwart their work (457 to 408 B.C.). Messiah was to come after another 62 weeks (434 years). Counting 434 years from 408 B.C. brings us to A.D. 27—the year during which Jesus Christ was baptized and started His work as the Messiah. (To calculate, subtract 434 from 408, and add 1 to the positive since there is no year 0.)

The first phrase in verse 26 says that the Messiah would be “cut off” after the 62 prophetic weeks (counting the first seven weeks, a total of 69 prophetic week-years or 483 years)."

So, John the Baptist began preparing the way for the Saviour, who John baptized in the autumn of 27 AD when Jesus turned 30 years of age and could then be considered a religious leader. 3 1/2 years later He died to free from God's condemnation all who have compared themselves to the Law and to the prophets. 

Not self-produced righteousness is accepted by God. Only righteousness as an outgrowth of faith in God's powerful will can prepare the way to true righteousness. And that faith only comes through wrestling with God's scourging rebukes.

But when Paul tried to keep the Law that he saw was so holy and just and beautiful, it was like trying to remove himself from a pit of quicksand. The more effort and willpower he used to extricate himself from his sins in order to keep the Law, the deeper he sank into breaking the Law. Even if he got the letter of the Law down pat, then God judged him guilty of breaking the spirit of the Law, because he had no Spirit. Without having the Father's Spirit it is impossible to please the Father. By the time Paul submitted to the Law, he had made enough contact with God during his wrestling that he had real faith to know that God was the Person with whom he had been wrestling, and that God had already been pouring mercy upon him.

Once his self-will was broken, having surrendered to the Law, then God showed him his Messiah, as a Lamb slain by sin. Now Paul broke completely. All pride and rebellion gone, the Law to which he had surrendered was now written on his heart. His sinful nature now was anesthetized and God was doing major surgery. Now no more wrath of God abode upon him. No more condemnation. No more curse of the Law. He tasted the voluminous embrace of his gigantic, reconciled God, like a teddy bear the size of a constellation. The tender kindness of the omnipresent Saviour was overwhelming. Paul was soundly converted. 

Obedience now was the easiest thing. He knew the mercy of the everlasting God of love. "And the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus." (1Tim.1:14).

Before conversion all that Paul could cry was, "O wretched man that I am! Who can save me from this dead body?" But after conversion he could say, "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the Law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin." (Rom. 7:25). Now that Jesus revealed His love, Paul received a spiritual mind so that his thoughts naturally gravitated to the Law, as he mentioned in chapter 8. 

"For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit (do mind) the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the Law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God." (Vs. 5-8). 

Paul was unable to obey in chapter 7 because he could not mind the things of the Spirit. His mind, his nature, was carnal, in spite of his efforts to be good for God. Without a new heart toward God and the Law written in his heart, his acts of righteousness were filthy before God, and rejected. His heart and mind were fleshy, he was earthy minded, worldly, and nothing he could do pleased God. Therefore, after he bent all his willpower to keep the Law, he fell hopelessly before temptation. After all his good works the Spirit never bore witness that he was a child of God. Paul never received the approbation of God, but was left aggravated, distraught at being fatherless, and almost as resentful as Cain.

Once Paul saw the goodness of God toward him, he would keep seeking the Law, and leave his willpower up to God for the gift of obedience. And God's loving embrace made obedience possible. God's love is not optional. When it comes to obeying God, divine love is a must have. Afterwards, Paul wanted only to love God in heaven and His children throughout the earth.

All who have been through the same transformation can articulate the gospel like Paul could, "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the Law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." (Rom. 8:1-4).

More is involved here than Paul seeing the cross and crying for mercy. His whole nature changed. His desperate cry was the same that Jacob made in his wrestling with the Stone who was as unchanging and unyielding as the Law. 

Yet, Paul's unresponsive body wasn't the only offender. Although he could choose, and his body wouldn't listen to his commands, he must also surrender his heart and let God work in him. The worldly heart must repent and be born again by the reception of the Spirit and the conception of grace.

Whole consecration is what the God of heaven demands. Kinship with the world cut off, eyes single to holy things. Otherwise, any dealings with the things of God are treated as high treason, with the same death that was dealt to king Belshazzar (Dan. 5:1-5, 24-30), king Uzziah (2 Chron. 26:16-20), Uzza (1 Chron. 9,10), the men of Bethshemesh (1 Sam. 6:19). And maybe God was so tough with Paul because He was saying of Paul's highly self-exalted scriptural knowledge, "Thou knewest all this".(Dan. 5:22). As they all did.

Nevertheless Paul gained the amazing privilege to see that the biggest duty for the coming of Messiah was not to heal physical diseases and do miracles, but for Him to take on our body, with all the baggage that every sinner has, and do the miraculous--live a spotless life in that body! What hath God wrought!

Therefore, our fallen nature need not be a hindrance to victory over our every inherited or cultivated tendency to evil.

Jesus' being made in the likeness of sinful flesh is integral to our salvation by faith. Jesus' incarnation into His mother's carnal genetics and His Father's almighty spiritual genetics was to show all of fallen humanity that it is possible for them to overcome the sinfulness of their nature. 

In a victory perfectly acceptable to God through the power of the bosom of God, we can all overcome as Jesus overcame His sin nature and was resurrected from the tomb, all through the unending embrace of His Father's bosom. "That the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin." (Rom. 6:6).

Jesus wasn't just buried in dirt, but was encased in stone. And God took Him out of the tomb after He had walked with His Father non-stop like Enoch had walked with God. No mountain of sinfulness can withstand the Almighty when He desires to deliver His imprisoned faithful with eternal liberty. 

And if God would raise up His Son from the second death to eternal glory, He could raise up His disciples (and us) out of their (and our) unresponsive, dead bodies with a new Spirit from the unending embrace of God that tastes like eternal life--love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance-- "the powers of the world to come." (Heb. 6:5).

Day by day, the disciples watched Jesus' body obey His commands through joy in the Holy Ghost. So in their own walk with God, living honestly by yielding to His Law, His Son's Spirit would give them the power to command their will, and their body of sin would obey. With the powerful Spirit of Jesus present in their mind they would have what Adam had in Eden--a will that wholly responded to the holy God. Paul's new will, one of the by-products of his new born-again self, could satisfy the holy Law.

"With the (sanctified, not the fleshy) mind I myself serve the Law of God." (Rom. 7:25).

"Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin." (Rom. 6:6,7).

"Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the Law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to Him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God." (Rom. 7:4).

Exchanging their body's dead, empty motions for Christ's dead, motionless body that hung empty from the cross, their resistant, grumbling flesh was put down so that it was seen but not heard.

"(For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ." (2 Cor. 10:4,5).

"If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live." (Rom. 8:13).

Victory over the body was a work in progress, but it was also a gift from above and an ongoing blessing that beautified the world. Who wouldn't want that? "Who is he that will harm you, if ye be followers of that which is good?" (1Pet. 3:13). None. Everyone, populace and civil leaders, always felt safer when the obedient were around.

God is gracious, but He is also pragmatic. He is always tender-hearted to His children who stand before His Law and tremble under its power to humble into the dust.

"Like as a father pitieth His children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him." (Psa. 103:13).

But He is pragmatic to the hard-hearted and arrogant. They want only a business-like, cool relation to Jesus. No time for daily fellowship or spending time with Jesus the whole day of the weekly Sabbath. Such unconverted, unconsecrated, worldly-minded people, whether in the world or in the church, trigger the pragmatism in God. His pragmatism toward an apostate post-apostolic Christian Church (Rev. 2:18-23), a post-Reformation Protestant Church (Rev. 3:1-5), or a post-1844 Adventist Church (Rev. 3:14-19), is forthcoming for the same reasons: hard-heartedness, arrogance, unholy ambition, worldliness, cold, calculated, business-like relationship with God, the eyes of their heart divided between earth and heaven.










Tuesday, October 06, 2020

"By the which will" (the nature of Christ)

"For what the Law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." (Rom. 8:3,4).

I'm trying to understand the nature of Christ. Why do I think it's a salvation issue? Because I believe that the divine nature, which is a gift from God, is the key to obedience, as I will show in Christ's incarnation. The way He was incarnated is the same way we obtain the victory over sin, temptation, and weaknesses. Christ's incarnation teaches us how we are made children of God. Using Jesus' very existence as a man, the Father made for us a lesson book to navigate the way to heaven. So, this is very salvational!

On the internet an SDA pastor, Alex Ortega, speaks on the nature of Christ. His stance is firm that Jesus had a sinless nature, period. In no way did He had no bent to sin. His body was built that way--immaculate. We, with Paul, "groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body" (Rom. 8:23), but not Jesus. He was born with a perfect body. He had Adam's nature before his fall.

The ramifications of this view are that if Jesus had a body less pristine He couldn't be our Mediator before the infinitely pure God. Therefore, because He is infinitely pure, He can give us the grace to overcome sin. So, the saints will have overcome sin before Jesus returns. I used to be in that camp until yesterday. But wait. Don't think I'm in the opposite camp that claims that Jesus had the fallen nature of Cain! Please no. There's a third option. Please stay with me on this.

The brethren from the other camp have been labeled apostates who believe that Jesus didn't have a sinless nature. They believe that Jesus' nature was Adam's after his fall, so that sinners can be comforted by being able to identify with Jesus. But the concept incredibly lowers the standard of preparation for the latter rain, for the great tribulation, and, most all, for the powerful second Advent of Jesus. 

"Jesus couldn't be human if He were sinless. He would be a non-human, a super-hero, fictional, mythical. And, if He had Adam's nature before the fall then how could He truly identify with us unless He experienced our guilt and shame from our incessant failures under temptations?"

"Thus we couldn't trust Him to represent us before the Most High. And He couldn't truly represent us. He couldn't cover all the bases for the failures of our sinful flesh. His propitiation for us would come short of a full knowledge of our sinfulness, and God would have to wink at His Son's attempt at representing us." 

"Jesus wouldn't be an all-sufficient High Priest; and we wouldn't be complete in Him. We could never have certainty of salvation. We have Christ's justification provision, which infers that we will be sinning until the second coming. So, no one has the right to rob us of our hope in the mercy seat at any point before Jesus returns."

But this essentially disclaims Jesus' promise for power to keep us from falling. Doesn't this argument make itself a fulfillment of the last days church, "Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof" (1Tim. 3:5)?

From the other side of the aisle with it's flip side of the issue, the accusation arises that this view is only an excuse to sin, to live for the world without any renunciation of sin.

Maybe it is making excuse for sin, but is the other side of the aisle getting a bit miffed and Pharisaical because the post-fall-Jesus adherents aren't playing church right? Are the pre-fall-Jesus adherents sure their indignance is righteous? Are we seeing a repeat of Puritan history and maybe of Pharisee history? Are we beginning to see the fulfillment of Ellen White's statement from Healthy Living, 1169, page 280 (Review and Herald 1890, No. 7), "The modern church repeating the history of ancient Israel. 'The trials of the children of Israel, and their attitude just before the first coming of Christ, illustrate the position of the people of God in their experience just before the second coming of Christ.'"

But, there is a danger with the "Adam nature after the fall" belief. And it is not a small danger. It leaves them preaching peace and safety, deceiving others and themselves. The old world order, which Noah established, is wrapping up. "The time is short: it remaineth, that both they that have wives be as though they had none; and they that weep, as though they wept not; and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not; and they that buy, as though they possessed not; and they that use this world, as not abusing it: for the fashion of this world passeth away." (1Cor. 7:29-31). The resurrection of the modern tyrannical Roman Empire has been ongoing for a century, and is almost complete. We are seeing how the iron legs and feet of Nebuchadnezzar's dream (Daniel chapter 2) reach all the way down to the great, destructive Stone from heaven. The issues of overcoming the world's delusions and overcoming sin need to be uppermost in every Adventist mind.

The "Christ-Adam-nature-after-the-fall-no-need-for-victory-over-sin" stance also disregards Ellen White's warning from Great Controversy, p. 425,

"Says the prophet: 'Who may abide the day of His coming? and who shall stand when He appeareth? for He is like a refiner's fire, and like fullers’ soap: and He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and He shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness.'  Malachi 3:2,3. Those who are living upon the earth when the intercession of Christ shall cease in the sanctuary above are to stand in the sight of a holy God without a mediator. Their robes must be spotless, their characters must be purified from sin by the blood of sprinkling. Through the grace of God and their own diligent effort they must be conquerors in the battle with evil. While the investigative judgment is going forward in heaven, while the sins of penitent believers are being removed from the sanctuary, there is to be a special work of purification, of putting away of sin, among God's people upon earth. This work is more clearly presented in the messages of Revelation 14.
When this work shall have been accomplished the followers of Christ will be ready for His appearing."

Then the author finishes off with Malachi 3:5, a warning of punishment upon false teachers. This Great Controversy quotation is clear and cutting, and all SDAs need to study it.

If the saints can keep sinning until Jesus comes, then when would the heavenly sanctuary ever be cleansed? Prayers would keep coming in for mercy, and the sanctuary would continually be defiled. Jesus could never finalize the Day of Atonement. Our Saviour could never close up the Investigative Judgment. He could never leave the sanctuary to deliver His people from the time of trouble such as never was. His endangered children would be destroyed while standing firmly awaiting their Saviour. Satan would exult.

This "Christ-Adam-nature-after-the-fall-no-need-for-victory-over-sin"
teaching is not Adventist but Evangelical, which also preaches peace and safety. In light of the heavenly sanctuary this "sin til Jesus comes" teaching is a deadly heresy. It subtly removes all fear of God and any motivation to prepare for Judgment Day.

This is how I view the two camps on the nature of Christ and His victory being ours by doing as He did. But, although I have been an Adventist almost all my life, I've been outside the Adventist loop. I have never lived in an Adventist community. The congregations I've been part of have been small. So I may not understand all the nuances of both sides of the Christ's nature discussion. Therefore, I haven't heard the detailed, minute dissections of scripture on this point. 

Being outside the inner circle, I tend to look at issues differently, maybe that means I'm somewhat unbiased. As an outsider, my conclusions are often different, sometimes far from mainstream. I can only hope that Jesus has been my instructor.

In Romans 8:3,4 Paul's explanation should have worked to clear up all discussion concerning what God did with His Son in order to make fallen man's redemption possible. God sent His Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, (the exactness of that likeness to be determined). But, just like the ancient Jews, and the post-apostolic apostatizing Church, we have muddied the waters in our opposing efforts to make truth match our flawed personal experience in spiritual things. We all want to know that we made no mistakes in doctrine, and have nothing to correct. The stubborn heart wants to be able to say, "No going back to the drawing board for me! No having to wrap my head around (what it calls) another attempt to reinvent the doctrinal wheel."

So, misconceptions persist, and truth stands afar off. And we are under the displeasure of God.

"Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, prophesy, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God unto the shepherds; Woe be to the shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves! should not the shepherds feed the flocks?
Ye eat the fat, and ye clothe you with the wool, ye kill them that are fed: but ye feed not the flock....
Seemeth it a small thing unto you to have eaten up the good pasture, but ye must tread down with your feet the residue of your pastures? and to have drunk of the deep waters, but ye must foul the residue with your feet.
And as for My flock, they eat that which ye have trodden with your feet; and they drink that which ye have fouled with your feet." (Eze. 34:2,3,18,19).

Are we repeating ancient Israel's mistakes? We are muddying present truth like they did, and now truth is obscured, aiding the evil one to reap a larger harvest for the lake of fire.

The two Christ natures' vehement discussions have created a wide gulf between the two camps, which Satan is using to destroy God's last church. Hopefully this post won't make matters worse.

This post will look at verse 3 of Romans 8. A word that I believe is creating most of the ruckus is the word, "likeness". "God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, condemned sin in the flesh". "Well", theologians and lay-theologians might ask, "How close to identical is 'likeness'?" "Was Jesus like me in all respects? That couldn't be if He condemned sin in the flesh. He couldn't condemn sin with my sinful flesh." "If He was like sinful flesh, was He sinful? Was His flesh sinful?" So it has ended in the question, "Was His a likeness to Adam before or after the fall? Was He a sinless or a sinful 
human?" Can there be a third option?

I looked up the Strong's number for "likeness" in that verse to get other texts where it was used in scripture. It is G3667, homoioma, "a form", "resemblance". It occurs 6 times in the New Testament, 5 of the 6 being Paul's uses of homoioma. And I will copy/paste them below. But the object of my focus was, How closely do the other verses indicate identicalness or exact likeness in their contexts? Would the subjects for comparison be identical twins or fraternal twins? So, here are the verses; you decide for yourself.

"Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to (G3667) corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things." (Rom. 1:22,23).

"Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude (G3667) of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of Him that was to come." (Rom. 5:14).

"For if we have been planted together in the likeness (G3667) of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection." (Rom. 6:5).

"For what the Law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness (G3667) of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh." (Rom. 8:3).

"But made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness (G3667) of men." (Phil. 2:7).

"And the shapes (G3667) of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle; and on their heads were as it were crowns like gold, and their faces were as the faces of men." (Rev. 9:7).

Let's look at these six verses for their exact likeness or lack thereof. First Revelation 9:7, since it is least likely to apply to the Christ nature issue. Revelation 9:7 is highly symbolic, as would be expected from Revelation. John saw the destroyers of the sealing (see Rev. 9:3,4) morph from a prophetic figure that indicated their insatiable devouring of all desire for faith among the group God was trying to seal, seen in real life by the voracious appetite of locusts. Possessing the characteristic of a consuming appetite, the locusts then morph to a figure indicating relentless, satanically driven haste, as in horses racing to battle, or like an ancient cavalry sweeping over the world. The message is reasonable, even if the figurative picture calls up the strangest images. Nevertheless, the use of G3667, as a shape identical to a horse, can be assumed to have exact likeness.

So,  we can check the box for Revelation 9:7 using homoioma to indicate exactness and leaning toward Romans 8:3 speaking of Christ's nature exactly being Adam's sinful nature after the fall. Please be patient with my method for processing the truth on the Christ nature issue.

The next text is Romans 1:23. Disregarding the bulk of Romans 1:23, G3667 is talking about the heathen using their arts to carve stone and wood into the form of men and the animal kingdom. Sculpting got increasingly lifelike over the centuries in the ancient world until, during the Greek and Roman Empires, the likeness of the statues was exquisitely exact.

So, in conclusion, Romans 1:23 comes close to using G3667 "likeness" as exact and identical, especially in Paul's time. But the Greek and Roman idols still had the ages old problem: they had eyes but could not see, ears but could not hear, feet but could not walk. They had no life in them. They were only partially like real people. So, Romans 1:23 homoioma fails at perfect identicalness but it appears that Paul's denunciation intended exactness. And, again, this reflects on the likeness of Jesus to our sinful flesh, per Romans 8:3. So, if Paul's concept of homoioma (G3667) in Romans 1:23 mirrors his concept of homoioma in his Romans 8:3 "likeness to sinful flesh" statement, then homoioma makes Jesus' nature exactly like sinners.

Romans 5:14 says that the descendants of Adam didn't sin to the degree that Adam did at his fall. So, unless I read it wrongly, immediately I see no reason to question Adam's fall being tremendously greater than his descendants' trips over temptation, since we fall from weakness into sin, but Adam fell from sinless strength into sin. Therefore, Paul's intent was for a  perfect contrast in the similitude between the conditions of Adam and his descendants. The contrast was exact (homoioma), therefore exactness is expressed, implicating exact likeness of natures between Jesus and human flesh in Romans 8:3.

Romans 6:5 is a comparison of the Christian's and Jesus' death to self, specifically when He died on the cross. Here the identical likeness of the two natures comes through. The principle, "in our sphere", applies here. "We may be as perfect in our sphere as God is in His sphere." Testimonies for the church, vol. 4, pg. 454.

Now, obviously the Christian's and Christ's spheres are different. But that doesn't mean that the Christian's death to self will be less accepted by God than was Christ's death to self. But the Christian will strive for a closer likeness to Christ's example of death to self as He continuously strove for His Father's death to self. "I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straightened until it be accomplished!" (Luke 12:50).

The Christians' death was as intense in their sphere as Christ's was intense in His exceedingly greater sphere. This is what Hebrews 2:11 is about. "For both He that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren." Death to self is a major experience if it is real and genuine, inspired by and imparted from the glorified Christ in heaven. 

Other than the Son of God Himself, His closest model, Paul, was the quintessential example of taking up his cross and dying to self. For Paul, the death to self was an utter renunciation of our claims to anything. All was laid on the altar to be given up or retained according to God's requirement. Jesus gave us that example in Gethsemane and on Golgotha. He took the whole plasma of God's wrath for us. No one else can do that without cursing God and dying. No one loves the whole human race like the Son of God from whose handiwork they came. No one has such love that infinite obstacles couldn't, and still can't, prevent Him from struggling with superhuman exertion to save them from the wrath to come. Only the Son can welcome the Father's hot lightning and thunderous voice in the soul if it would mean saving His precious human race from the same destructive, anxious agonizing and eternal death.

And the Father did it that way, and Jesus wanted it that way, so that Their children could know without the slightest doubt that the Son of God has walked a mile in their moccasins through the valley of the shadow of death.

I think no one would disagree that Romans 6:5's use of G3667 implies an identical comparison between subjects, even though the spheres are desperate.

So far, with G3667 we have witnessed  an almost unanimous comparison of identical subjects, leading to a conclusion that Jesus had Romans 8:3's implied pulls and bents to sin.

For the moment we will skip over Romans 8:3's use of homoioma and reserve it's analysis for the final conclusion.

Lastly, Philippians 2:7 is a close relative to Romans 8:3, and we will treat Romans 8:3 as saying the same thing as Philippians 2:7. Jesus was made in the likeness of men. Hebrews has a lot to say on Christ's likeness to sinful humanity.

"But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that He by the grace of God should taste death for every man. 

For it became Him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. 

For both He that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying, I will declare Thy name unto My brethren, in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto Thee. And again, I will put My trust in Him. And again, Behold I and the children which God hath given Me.

Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same; that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.

For verily He took not on Him the nature of angels; but He took on Him the seed of Abraham.

Wherefore in all things it behoved Him to be made like unto His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. 

For in that He Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able to succour them that are tempted." (Heb. 2:9-18).

In every way Jesus was made like those who He came to redeem. And He came to redeem not only the straight-laced "Jews by nature", but also the in-the-gutter "sinners of the Gentiles". (Gal. 2:15). As confirmation of a broad range of sinful characters who Jesus came in our likeness to save, we need only look at the twelve sinful yet energetic men He gathered around Himself to train for leading His Earth-bound movement after His return to His Father. But also there's John 3:16 and Revelation 22:17. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." "Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely."

I. e. the Father didn't put His Son into a sinless Abraham or Enoch. Otherwise Jesus would have taken on the nature of angels. But neither was He put into an unsealed Abram, or He would have taken on an non-justified human conscience. He can never force the presence of His Spirit in an unconverted descendant of Adam. There would be nothing that harmonizes with His Spirit. This is the meaning of "separate from sinners". The new presence of Christ's Spirit in an unwilling conscience would cause a constant irritation until it would end in the brain's or body's disease and death, as it was with King Saul and Judas Iscariot, the religious leaders (and as He showed in His destruction of the image of Dagon). Christ illustrated this by a parable. "No man putteth new wine into old bottles; else the new wine will burst the bottles, and be spilled, and the bottles shall perish." (Luke 5:37).

God will send "the Spirit of His Son"(Gal. 4:6) only into those who have surrendered to the Schoolmaster crying, "Abba, Father". Abraham did that often.

Although the Spirit of the Son was put into a faulty body from sinful Miriam, yet in the same thought the writers of Hebrews said, "For such an High Priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens." (Heb. 7:26). So, the "body" that Thou "hast ... prepared Me" (Heb. 10:5) was unlike the angels' in that it was lower than theirs, that is, not sinless and excelling in strength. Hebrews 2:16 says that He didn't come with the nature of the unfallen, holy angels. He was the Son of man, our Mediator, yet separate from sinners. Meaning what? That He was different from sinners? In what way was He different from His children? In what way was He the same? How can Jesus take on Himself the nature of sinful Abraham, yet be separate from sinners? Hebrews 2:16,17 and Hebrews 7:26 are mutually exclusive. How can we resolve this difficulty?

We have yet to read from any scripture that says Jesus had a bent or propensity to sin. Is it even possible to know what Jesus had in His nature? Maybe. But we do know what came out of it. Sinless, spotless, unselfish love. He was the long awaited Prince of Peace. And out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks and actions take place, for sinfulness or sinlessness.

But--the argument goes--if we can't understand the mysteries of His nature--sinless or not--how can we trust Him to feel for us and represent our cases fully before God?

Here's a solution that is workable. Putting it all together: From conception Jesus inherited His mother's sin nature, weakened by 4,000 years of sin. And, He was conceived by the power of the Most High overshadowing Miriam. Thus, "that holy thing" inherited His Father's dominating divine nature, having been bound infinitely tightly to His Father for eons, since His beginning. Every other child of Adam, made in God's image, has inherited both parents' genetics, which would include mental power, and physical and spiritual power, also.

No child inherits only one parent's genes. One parent will dominate in some aspects of his being, and the other parent will dominate in other aspects. In the personality, the character, the spirituality, the intellect, the imagination, the artistic and mechanical skills and other science and art interests, the body size and shape and features, predisposition to certain diseases, et cetera, there will be dominant or recessive gene expressions in the child's genetic makeup that will create resemblances to characteristics of both parents. Elementary so far. Not hard to follow.

I think this begins to explain what the Son of God took on Himself. The body that His Father prepared for Him was a result of the lineage of Adam through Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, Nathan, all the way down to Miriam. No one in that lineage was sinless. Job, who was not in that lineage, was not sinless, per Job 32-42.
A lot of sin happened in that line. But  those sins were confessed and repented of. The descendants were saints by Christ's justification. Their hearts were redeemed; their lives were transformed. They bore the fruits of His Spirit. They lived surrounded by the holy environment of God's Law and grace, and rural country living that was filled with husbandry. Only "the redemption of (their) body" (Rom. 8:23) tarried.

Into such an unredeemed body, but redeemed conscience, God had the rights to incarnate His Son. "When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under ('the curse of' (Gal. 3:13)) the Law, to redeem them that were under ('the curse of') the Law, that we might receive the adoption of sons." (Gal. 4:4,5, cf 3:13). Miriam was not immaculate, but was under the curse of the Law, and needed deliverance from "the chastisement of our peace (Isa. 53:5), just like the rest of us whose peace is constantly chastened.

But, if Jesus inherited Mary's fallen nature, weakened by 4,000 years of sin, doesn't that mean Jesus inherited a fallen human nature? It would only make sense that He would. Wasn't He born of a sinful woman? Wasn't He was born under the curse of the Law? He must have inherited Miriam's nature. He was made like His brethren in all respects, wasn't He? We have a fallen nature. He was given the fallen nature that passed down through all the generations since Adam.

Sadly, as crack babies inherit their drug abused mothers' dependency on toxic substances, the Father subjected His Son to the wiles of a wretched body of death. The Father permitted His Son to witness His mother's dependence on self and her pulls of sin. But then how could her zygote be "that holy thing"? How could He be our Representative to God? A mediator doesn't represent only one party, but both. Nevertheless, the Godhead of two is one. And that oneness between God and His human Representative, I believe, is the ticket into understanding the mysterious nature of the God-man Jesus Christ, and the insight we need for our sanctification and sealing.

I believe three biblical texts clarify the inner workings of our unique Son of man.

1) "Now a mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is one." (Gal. 3:20).

2) "For there is one God, and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." (1 Tim. 2:5).

3) "No man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him." (John 1:18).

Putting those scriptures all together, what do they say? They tell me that God took a risk by His incarnsuated Son inheriting a big liability from Miriam. It affected Him negatively in His whole physical, mental, and spiritual strengths. The Son was now lower than the angels. Without His constant choice to depend on His Father's strongest SPIRIT, His nature could succumb to Satan's spirit that was stronger than His inherited human spirit.

Nevertheless, His tie of loving union to God was never once broken because of His Father's infinitely perfuse communion. Therefore, never for a moment was His obedience to His loving Father affected by Miriam's heirloom of sin. Even as a zygote until the dawning of His intelligence, the Son was kept by the sovereign will of Him who took no blame for the great controversy. Therefore, Satan could accuse the Father of no foul play by His action of taking the right, at the moment of conception, and without His Son's consent, to surround His Baby with the pure air of sin-free heaven. It was the action of love--the Law of the kingdom--doing what every loving parent should do in their sphere.

Since the controversy erupted, it had been only by unmerited tolerance that God had received Lucifer's grievance against His divine government. Lucifer could accept it or not, but the Sovereign King would never, never ever abandon His only begotten Prince and break His tie to "the Desire of Thine eyes", "whom Thou lovest" (Eze. 24:16; Gen. 22:22. These heart sentiments and bold maneuvers to protect His vulnerable Child are a message to His fallen offspring who will unite with the Son of God/Son of man who will identify with Him, and choose to make His fallen, yet sinless, nature theirs.

As His divine-human Son developed from infancy to childhood to young adulthood, God wholly approved of all His ways. Inadequate though His works were for Him to be the Propitiation, they were the outgrowth of an undying, burgeoning love for His dear Abba. Even while His Son still could not recognize Him as His Father until age 12, the Holy Father could, in the most  restful joy, recall similar blessedness in eternity past and impute perfect righteousness to Him, over and over again repeating, "This My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." 

The angelic hosts looked on in joy, approving the King's innocence before mighty Lucifer' libel, and learning of the pre-dawn era of peace that existed prior to their heavenly kingdom. The King could personally train up and instruct His maturing Beloved. He wove into His Son's lessons His embrace every day, every moment, constant, continuous. Even during the incarnation event and afterwards, His Prince never left His bosom.

From conception onward, despite His  sin inheritance, the divine nature that Jesus inherited from God was so deeply imbedded in Himself that Satan couldn't draw His attention away to poison Him with any doubts about God's character. Just as we all inherit predispositions to disease, and yet by maintaining a healthy lifestyle and making correct choices those diseases never manifest. We don't even know they exist; they have no bearing on our life. So it was for Jesus. 

As Adam ruled over Eve (Gen. 3:16) the sinless nature of the Most High ruled over Miriam's sin nature heirloom to Jesus. He had the sins of 4,000 years existing in the spiritual hormones and bents of His spiritual chemistry. Yet, His dominating Father's divine nature kept sin's foul, polluted parleying from making a peep, never coming close to rising above the blessed background of the divine orchestral harmony within the Spirit of the Son. Satan couldn't get even a toe hold in the Messiah; the Father made sure of it, in cooperation with His own diligent effort. And as He grew, increasingly He must choose to keep His loving Father in Him so that His human nature would remain silent and submitted to the Divine nature.

Never for a moment did Jesus' love ever flag on His Father's abounding love for Him. His changeless love for Father only strengthened at the very end when the planned for, and fully expected, wrath of His Father was pounding Him like Niagara Falls. He stood like Atlas, upholding a world of sinners while being pummeled into the dust. From womb to tomb, He had been surrounded by His Father's presence. Now the Father's Mount Everest-like, and His own Citadel-like, rock-solid connection could not diminish. Notwithstanding His agonizing, propitiatory self-sacrifice, His Abba remained everything to Him.

In conclusion, Jesus most certainly had our sin nature in full bloom, with all the trappings of bents and pulls to sin--just like His brethren. All that Hebrews 2 said to back up Philippians 2:7 is brought to bear on Romans 8:3. "God sending His own Son in the (identical human) likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh," His dependence on His Father's bosom giving the victory over His flesh nature. "Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same." (Heb. 2:14).

Jesus' dependence on His dominating Self-existent One kept at bay all the stored up evils that were inherent to the seed of Abraham. God had trained up His divine-human Son in the way He should go, and He would not depart from His Father's strong rearing. So when He was fully developed and ready for combat with the evil one, the Son went on His predestinated mission to save Adam's world that had fallen under the brutal, self-indulgent reign of Satan.

Today Christ's spiritual body no longer has the spiritual liability from Miriam. That aspect of His humanity was burned to soot, leaving a spirit body. But His ministry continues at His Father's throne. And, as He announced before His incarnation, and again in Gethsemane, upon ascension to finish His work of reclaiming the human race, He reiterated His oath when He took the book from His Father's right hand, "I come to do Thy will, O God." (Heb. 10:9, cf Rev. 5:6). 

Therefore, His Father's Gethsemane willpower is the same power to be given for our victory. For the last scripture continues with, "By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." (Vs. 10). 

The dominating, almighty will of the Father, and the all-merciful sacrifice of the Son, united with our utmost desperation, will constrain our victories over sin.

In every way Jesus was made like His brethren. That is our hope that enters within the veil whither He went. But no one has known the Father like the only Begotten; therefore no one yet, beside the Son, has been sinless.

This concept of sinless and sinful natures that were blended in Jesus is not confusing. Neither does it do damage to either group of the theological divide. It only unifies them if they will join forces by widening their big pictures to include each other's premises. And it also unifies their listening audiences around the prospect of being brought under our loving Father's dominating nature, His powerful will, all for discomfiting all the armies of the alien, and for copying Jesus' secret of victory for today's sealing and tomorrow's blotting out of sin. This is the biblical science, the science of salvation. "By the (Father's) will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ." (Vs. 10).

We need to unify around a practical science of salvation, not only intellectual science. We have only a little while left before the big, final trouble hits like a relentless hurricane. Righteousness by faith by Jesus is the answer. Righteousness to the third power. And He will give us His divine nature, as His Father gave Him His. 

"Now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy." (Jude 24,25).

"Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in Me. 
I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without Me ye can do nothing.
If a man abide not in Me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.
If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.
Herein is My Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be My disciples.
As the Father hath loved Me, so have I loved you: continue ye in My love.
If ye keep My commandments, ye shall abide in My love; even as I have kept My Father's commandments, and abide in His love.
These things have I spoken unto you, that My joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full." (John 15:4-11).

Thus, we too will be kept from falling, just as Jesus was kept by His Father. We will increasingly understand His conception, birth, and growth, through His Father's love, which is the only way to our new birth, our justification and the witness of the Spirit of Christ, our sanctification, our sealing, and the blotting out of our sins. And the more fully we comprehend it all, the more fully we will take part in it all.

It is "by the which will" that "we are sanctified". (Heb. 10:10). As they read the straight Testimony of Jesus and let the Father's dynamic will fortify their mind, He will fully control His 144,000 final remnant generation. And they will be glad for it.

No longer depending on the altar of sacrifice and justification for sins committed, their transformed tastes will love everything about Jesus' Father, their Father. They will depend on the altar of incense. As their faith and hope enters within the veil of the heavenly sanctuary, and they will live a Christian life without committing known sin. They in Him, and He in them. Like King Saul, constrained by the goodness of God to lay prostrate on the ground all night, filled with the fullness of God and praising Him, they will have the oil of joy after a long life of mourning. Like their Master in the heavens, they will have the oil of gladness above their fellows, they with Him in the bosom of His Father, and He and His Father in their bosom. The embrace restored between God and Adam. The glory of Eden, the first dominion,given back. Then shall the end come. And they will be fully prepared for it.