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Recently, a young Christian presented some material of concern, which decried the deity of Jesus Christ. It came from a Jehovah's Witness source. Since this evil has long plagued the people of the Lord, from early times till now, in its essence, it seemed good to share the vital parts of the response, with very minor changes. Some points are added with more leisure, and the matter has been expanded for more general reference; while personal details are omitted or changed, in the interests of privacy for the one concerned: but the issues are not private!
 

Here then we see THE WAY OF ALL FLESH, the way carnal man, Biblically defined, moves to doom. It is incorporated in the way of the Christadelphians, Unitarians, Christian Science, Spiritism, Mormonism and inferentially more than these. The necessities of basic Christianity, indeed its very foundation, are thus waived in a brio of density, a compromise of immensity, a patronage of the infinite with finite degradation, that instantly divorces such movements from

• 1) fellowship of Christians
• 2) involvement in any Church inter-communion
• 3) the Biblically defined name of Christian
• 4) continuity of spiritual discourse, once this element is overthrown.

While further exposure is in order, further involvement is not (see Romans 16:17). The case has long been covered, as with a Communist spy; and while challenge may be met (cf. Titus 3:10), remember II John 9-10! AVOID does not mean, Keep talking! Now we shall show the folly of this defilement of the name of Jesus Christ. Thus this refutation of that evil error applies equally to other cults with the same basic severance from Christ, and erection of a new One without the eternal, unchangeable, Biblically revealed glory of the Lord Jesus Christ^*1A.

Hi! Blessings in Christ.

He, the equal with God as Paul indicates in Philippians 2, shows it in life as well as in word. His riches are literally unsearchable, as becomes the infinite Being that He is (Colossians 2:3, Ephesians 3:8, Psalm 145:3, 147:5). The finite cannot equal the infinite. It can neither contain it, be its depiction, nor comprise it. Hence, ALL the riches of wisdom and knowledge are in Christ, express image:

"the knowledge of the mystery of God, both of the Father and of Christ,
in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (cf. John 16:15).

There you see the keynote sustained in Colossians, the divine sublimities, the mystery of God, it  includes BOTH the Father and Christ. It is not one without the other; it is not the other without the One. It is joint and several. THAT is how Christ's riches can be "unsearchable" ! (cf. Ps. 147:5 where this acclaim is that of God’s own place "His understanding is infinite"). THAT is how the one who SAW Christ, saw the Father, or the one who knew Christ, KNEW the Father, without blasphemy, folly, or phoney pretence. (Both as in John 14, cf. Hebrews 1:3.) There is NONE LIKE GOD, He declares! Thus Christ is He, God Himself.

Indeed, as I Cor. 1:29-30 shows also, Christ is the WISDOM of God to His people, "IN ORDER THAT, according as it is written, He who glories, let him glory in the Lord."  (Emphasis added.) In the light of Jeremiah 9:23-24, Isaiah 42:8, where the necessity of glorying ONLY in the Lord is shown, this passage of Paul indicates decisively that when CHRIST is the source of glory, THAT IS glorying in the Lord. Since God forbids it to another, its presence here shows that Christ is that One: God the word. For Him, says Paul (Phil. 2), it was deemed nothing to be snatched at, to EQUAL God. HENCE ALL the riches are HIS, as GOD HIMSELF.

Indeed, since NO ONE knows the heart but the Lord (Jeremiah 17:9-10), and wisdom REQUIRES this knowledge, and Christ IS this wisdom, it is obvious that He as both gloried in and as the wisdom which in itself is God's unique prerogative, is the Lord (Psalm 145:3, Isaiah 40:13-14,18, 28, 42:8, 45:21- "to whom will you liken God!",  "there is none beside Me"). Hence His predicted arrival is heralded with the words, "Behold your God!", said of Him who will come, take the lambs in His arms (Isaiah 40:10). None is like Him, none can match Him, He alone is without limits, unsearchable, infinite, intrinsically revelatory of God, His wisdom incomparable, past any resemblance by any!

THIS is what the above verses declare. THAT is how the LORD can and did take the lambs in His arms, when GOD Himself declared He would personally come and BE the faithful shepherd HIMSELF (Ezekiel 34, fulfilled in John 10), dispensing with the others. HE did what He said. Precisely.  "I," said Christ, "am the good shepherd" (v.14). That is how Christ can DISTRIBUTE from all His Father has, AS HIS OWN (John 16:15).
 

• THAT, then,  is now having Christ as the WISDOM OF GOD to you, is ipso facto, in itself,  a way to glory in that Lord who FORBIDS others in this place.
 
• THAT is how knowing Christ IS knowing the Father: IF you know the ONE, you know the OTHER, for the WHOLE expression of the Father is to be found in Christ, called the EXACT REPRESENTATION of His Being. With NONE like HIM, here we have the ONE who fully identifies.

There is nothing exact about the finite portraying the infinite; but when the Word of God, the expression definitive of God Himself, portrays Him, then as God, God shows God. Since NONE is like Him, no other could BEGIN to do that. You are at that plain, level, elevation, reality, and it is as God sees fit to be and to act.

Christ not only begins to do it; He indicates that HE ACHIEVES it. That, it is not an attainment (directly excluded); it is an exhibition. Christ IS the wisdom of God (I Corinthians 1:24).
 
 

What is below is a procedure strongly recommended; but do not let this make you think we are not entirely eager to be of service. It is just that when dealing with bogs like this one, one has to have some method, preferably. If you need any detail or help on the way, do not hesitate to ask.

Yes, there is help available. The Christian may boldly say, the Lord is my helper, and to Him one must look. He does not fail. In what follows, in His name then, one shall simply proceed to cover the ground of some of the basic points made in the material sent, starting at the first, and showing it contemptible in its confusion and error, so that any superstructure built on such a foundation is mere for demolition and needs no further attention. Thus we shall look at the basic matter before us, from this and that aspect, covering it, like field-glasses, from this and that area in the arena, to help you focus.

That done, there is no need for more; for if one be wrong at the outset and in the basics, the foundation cracked and weak, it is but vain to use the lift. If you should need more, after study of all here shown and the references given, you will of course be welcome, as I shall remind you later in more detail. But first, STUDY to show yourself a workman approved to God, and the work needs to be done (II Timothy 2:15).

First, I should suggest you read thoroughly in The Shadow of a Mighty Rock, Ch. 7, Part 4, on pp. 532-560. (You need to go at the end of this file when you have it, to the next file also, which is found by using the hyperlink there provided). This will show the basic renegacy of the JW approach, really an old one, that condemned in the early centuries of Church History, under the title of Arianism and thoroughly corrected in the days of Athanasius.

Secondly, on the Colossians 1:15ff. matter, and matters relating to the whole issue here raised: we shall use this as an occasion for thorough identification of this entanglement of vain philosophy with scripture, so that the latter being enforced and the former removed, the simplicity of the reality can appear. As with many things, there is no great difficulty in the thing itself (as the level of the Lord's having taught it with His own clarity and power in and through His word); it is rather the tampering and distortion which takes a little time, as when you have burrs on your trousers, from a hike! At times we shall note various major aspects as we proceed, in our numbered points.

1) First-born : Of course the term is not normally used of the Son of God, for the very good reason that the Son of God is not normally on this earth. As with the term 'love', in the Bible, the meaning is specified by the context. God is wholly original and Himself, "I am that I am" , and we have to follow what He says closely.

It is precisely this meaning which is required to be found, when one realises that it is AS a participant by incarnation in the creation, that this reality of birth occurs. Hence it IS found in the New Testament.

2) In the Old Testament, we read of the parallel, of course, to the eikwn (Col. 1:15), the image, the representative, and manifesting exponent of the nature of Deity. In Micah 5:3, for example, we learn of the Judge of Israel, who incarnate, is prophesied to be smitten on the cheek (even though He IS the firstborn of all creation): that His "goings forth have been from eternity", and in Isaiah 48:16, that God the Sent, who is speaking (Isaiah 46:13ff.),  is to be provided as sent, by God the Sender (precisely as in John 8:19,42,58). Here in Isaiah 48:16, we find that He who is the first and the last, the God of Israel, always there, says, "The LORD God and His Spirit have sent Me."

It is not for us to dictate to God what is His manner of being, but to LEARN. It is as simple as that. GOD has no equal, near equal, is wholly incomparable by ANYTHING or ANY ONE, we have seen, and Christ is equal in honour, receives for ever the same honour, worship and glory (indeed WITH the Father IS the temple in heaven - Revelation 21:22). If there is height or depth, in His intrinsic nature, even to having life in Himself, Christ has it. No more shocking and devious defalcation of the integrity of the word of God is conceivable than this, to make what is in all respects equal, unequal, to make what is infinite to be known when you know the finite, to reduce to the infinite abasement of being created, what is always with God, as God (John 1:1, Philippians 2:1-10) : for there is ONLY ONE^*1.

3) Thirdly, the term is used, in partial parallel format, in 'first born from the dead', as Thayer in his famous Greek English dictionary points out - se Revelation 1:5. This ALSO has the concept of begotten, just as Christ was begotten when the Holy Spirit overshadowed Mary: INTO flesh, FROM heaven which is His native habitat as One enjoying glory with His Father (John 17:1-3), with whom He is One in being, in action and in honour (John 5:19-23, 10:30-33).

4) Charged in the episode noted, in John, with making Himself equal with God (John 10:33), Jesus did NOT simply deny this equality. How could He! Rather He referred to HIS WORKS as indicative of His status, just as earlier He had explicitly REQUIRED that He receive EQUAL HONOUR with the Father, and this, not of His own will, but AT THE FATHER'S REQUIREMENT, even that of God who refused absolutely to give HIS GLORY TO ANOTHER (Isaiah 42:8), and stipulated repeatedly (e.g. Psalm 89:6), that no one IN HEAVEN OR on earth could even be COMPARED with the Lord.

An eikwn! an image! Heaven forbid! IF it was not God the WORD, the EXPRESS IMAGE (the term in Hebrews 1), who like words, when perfect, fully expressed the infinite and inimitable God.

5) Moreover, in the case of 'first-born from the dead',  the word of God is indicating that although OF COURSE Christ was not the first to become alive from the dead (for example Lazarus was raised earlier), yet HE WAS the One of first-born rights in the matter, the heir, the one who received the honour and glory appropriate to that status, explicitly equal with that of the Father (as in John 5:19ff., John 10:30ff., Philippians 2:1ff.).
 
 

OVER DEATH He had the rule and pre-eminence, the image of first-born from death, since He OVERCAME it; just as He held it over life, since in life HE created it (Colossians 1:16). As to death, He broke it. THEREFORE (just as in Colossians 1), He is seen in eminence and pre-eminence, in Revelation 5 for example, where the glory of God is explicitly shared, that which God REFUSES to give to another, for ever and ever (Rev. 5:13).

What He CAME to do in incarnation, He FINISHED in redemption, bodily arising from the dead as in Luke 24:38-42, and Acts 2:31. NOT ROT, was the criterion in Psalm 16 quoted by Peter at Pentecost; and that was the position affirmed by the apostle. This was fulfilled. Revelation glories in it, just as Colossians in the incarnation, at the point in view. In these passages, the coming of God in the flesh is implied or expressed. It is what makes the thing possible.

In NEITHER case is this sort of format - incarnation or crucifixion and resurrection of the body crucified - Christ's natural habitat as Lord of glory (I Cor. 2:8). In BOTH, He comes to build or to break, and in each His power is OVER the realm concerned, not as a participant by nature, but by deed and power, to provide for mankind (cf. Titus 3:4ff.). All the more therefore, in BOTH, does glory follow His humiliation, and this, on the one hand, is from the form of God Almighty, and on the other, from the de-formation of horrendous death, into resurrection and all this conveyed to those who believe in Him (Romans 10:9), as it is defined in the Bible.
 

• HOW is it defined ? Resurrection is defined in terms of
 
• a) non-rotting of the flesh of Jesus Christ, and all that follows and
• b) the restoration to life of that which did not rot


• as in Acts 2:31-32^*2A. As Peter shows, David who uttered the prediction of the Messianic resurrection, DID have his body rot. His words applied to Jesus Christ who did NOT have His body rot; and it is concerning THIS Jesus  that God raised from the dead, not someone or something else. Thus I Corinthians 15:1-3, as Professor Machen pointed out, notes of the THING buried that it arose. There is continuity of reference. HE was buried and HE rose. That is what is written in I Corinthians 15:4.
 
• Christ is the first born from the dead, then (Revelation 1:5), who was dead and is alive for evermore; and the first born in coming to this planet from the realm of Creator.

a) who first comes to a given parent, normally in flesh;
b) the one who has in the terminology concerned, in the day in question, the rights of the heir.
He inherits what is going, AS the first-born.

Now as to death, likewise, Christ is NOT, then, the first-born in the normal sense, as noted. This is NOT POSSIBLE. In other words, Paul is using, as people sometimes do, and the Bible does when it is dealing with world-firsts which belong only to God, language which is to be interpreted within the model of the case. The Church's historic position as early defined was simple: Christ was ETERNALLY GENERATED from the father. Christ is after all, GOD'S WORD, and just as our words exhibit all the time, the life we have; so with Him.

It is a CONSTANT expression. It does not cease with the Eternal One, and it does not begin. It is relative to HIM. In any case, He is first born into flesh for the purpose of the atonement, and certainly light of glory CONTINUALLY shines forth (as in Hebrews 1), and words as we shall note shortly, are a CONTINUAL expressive medium. They DO have equal honour with the speaker, for they represent thoroughly (if he is all-knowing and perfect), his heart, soul, mind and being. Where the Being is always complete, the words are always there; and where the Being is eternal, the word is eternal with Him.

Thus if I spoke of a musician, we would understand the term ' he was the first born of violin concertos' to mean:

a) he was pre-eminent in that field, as a first born would be ; and

b) he was the one beyond all others, its author.

There would not be the slightest suggestion about the character of his birth. That was not in point. With Christ, however, IN ADDITION to this, there is the fact that He is expressly called the ONLY BEGOTTEN SON of God. GOD had no other incarnation, nor will ever have (Ephesians 1:10), nor was there ever ANY God before Him, nor will there be after Him (Isaiah 43:10-11). This birth is the sine qua non, the essential condition of His being in the creation at all, in the world which was made by Him, so that anything made at all, is His construction (as carefully defined in John 1:3).

Now in the case of Colossians 1, there is no question at issue in the context concerned, of Christ's METHOD of being born. That is NOT THE TOPIC, however much it is a background to the presentation. It is rather a question of being eminent, pre-eminent, relative to creation. The topic is NOT mode of being born; it is His being the image of the invisible God (Col. 1:15) or the exact representation of Him (Hebrews 1:3 - a different Greek word), something which as Thayer points out, is more than a mere copy: it represents and exhibits the original. It is for this reason that we can find in Colossians 2:3, as we do, that "the knowledge of the mystery of God" is something which involves this, that it is "both of the Father and of Christ".

Even if you take it to mean the mystery of God, and of the Father and of Christ, you still have Christ the one "in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge".  The 'whom' is singular, and so for a list would refer to the last and nearest member of it. Thus, apart from the inherent limitations which are found the voluntarily adopted format of flesh and specified mission, during His life on earth, if GOD knows it, CHRIST knows it. If GOD has it, CHRIST has it. If it is high, it is not too high for Him; if it is low, He is there; profound, it does not dazzle Him. If it requires the whole gamut of the godhead to be available, Christ is there also. What God has, He has.

There is no line of demarcation in quality, in eminence, in capacity. HE is GOD EXPRESSED, His word. Spirit and word are co-ordinates. With GOD, however, we are ceaselessly and emphatically, dramatically and insistently told, there is NO equal, NO near equal, NOTHING and NO ONE LIKE Him (Psalm 89:6-7, Isaiah 46:9). This applies BOTH in heaven AND on earth.

What is in His form (Phil. 2), is also CALLED God in the context of "Your throne O GOD", in a way separated expressly from all else (Hebrews 1), is the very brightness of His glory and express image of His Person, is His word from the beginning; is the One who has no snatching to do, to achieve equality (Phil. 2), is to receive equal honour with the Father (John 5), is not only LIKE His Father. He is indistinguishable in STATUS, power and position.

When He is also designated by the SPECIAL signature names of God, such as "I AM" (John 8:58) and "the first and the last" (Revelation 2:8, Isaiah 44:8) and is to receive the adulation and worship which God INSISTS are DISTINCTIVES for HIMSELF ALONE (as in Isaiah 45:22-23, Philippians 2), it is clear that there is only one option. Accept what is stated, that Christ is GOD the word, God the sent, God Himself, in one of His persons in which He is pleased to exist and consist, or else evacuate words of all meaning, logic of any place. WHEN however you do that, all your own talk is automatically to be equated with zero, as if you had not spoken, in consistency. At that, there is nothing to answer.

In these and such things, if Christ were in His own nature less, He could not present the infinitudes of God. Thus in Colossians 1:15ff., we move from God as God, to His primacy of place in the creation when He comes. Image of the invisible God, He is no idol, but divulges what God is (John 1:18), as that very eternal life of God (I John 1:1-3), as having that throne of God Himself (Hebrews 1:8), in His own name (Revelation 22:3), as having life in Himself (John 5:26), JUST AS the Father has. THIS is what Christ declares.

This is life in itself, eternal life, which He both IS and is able to confer (Matthew 11:27, I John 1:2), while the Christian has it conferred. What IS eternal life by nature, has life in itself, does not begin. What is given eternal life, did NOT have it before it began. That is the appalling simple difference, lost in the clouds of incredible confusion on the part of those who dissent from the word of God, depart from Christ, and still in provocative confrontation, cling to the name of the Christ who is thus denigrated, rejected and reformed.

On the contrary, these scriptural terms lead both necessarily and naturally to one staggering result. Seeing CHRIST IS seeing the Father (as in John 14, Matthew 16:17, 6:40) and thus to see, is to gain eternal life. It results in obedience in this, that the new nature is thus conferred (I John 3:9), not in perfection (Colossians 3:10), but categorically with characterisable results. As to Christ, then, there is nothing of His essential divine nature left out: He is expressed definitively by the brightness of His glory and when known, leaves out NOTHING of the godhead in His divulgements. If GOD has it, Christ shows it. Infinity however is NOT shown by the finite, and any such concept is a derangement of infinite proportions.

This then is the eminence of the ONE in Colossians 1:15, the image of the invisible God, the express image, who before Abraham so much as achieved existence, can say with the Lord who defines Himself for communication to Israel as "I am"': this also and no less, "Before Abraham was, I am." This is the marvel which leads immediately to His being the first born, on arrival in fleshly format in this world.

Now, let us be clear. Certainly, there is an additional propriety in the actual fact of the incarnation, and this is implicit; but it is not actually being pursued, correct as it is, at this point. The focus is His pre-eminence, lordship and creation of all things. Even so, the term 'first-born' here does, for all that, give depth and precision to the analogy with that normal depth and wonder of the word of God. It is His. He expresses Himself perfectly. As IMAGE of the invisible God, and creator of all things, He is relative to the creation into which He came, as the first born. What ELSE could He be, when in it by incarnation!
 
 

6) To change the imagery: in Hebrews 1, Christ is the brightness of His Father's glory. Is this to be understood also in terms of a physical idea as to His very being, even though GOD IS A SPIRIT! That would be worse than unimaginative: it would be blasphemous. Light shines just as long as its source is illuminating. It is the total correlative of the light source.

ALL creation is HIS work, and HE is its original. That is the teaching. You see it in John 1:3, where ALL THINGS MADE are, as made, the RESULT of HIS action. This verse by itself is the end of the road for the appalling anti-witness of the JW's, who abuse the truth and betray Christ.
 

Not only is He the creator of all things (which incidentally means all things, so that if it is a creation, then He created it - the category of creation is exhausted by His activities, and He is not of it, even if He determines to come into it: or it would NOT be exhausted by His activities): there is more. In fact, John in this statement, makes the point thunderously apparent. He invades indifference, he pulverises obtuseness.

If anything, the apostle here indicates, is a made thing, then He, the Christ, made it. The category of the made, without Him, has NOTHING in it. Find ANY made thing and for this as for EVERY made thing, THERE is its author. Who is this author ? CHRIST, without whom NOTHING that was made, was made. Nothing made escapes His net. The made category is His universally, remorselessly.
 

• HENCE, unless the word of God be rejected

(which is logically impossible as shown in The Shadow of a Mighty Rock, but here we are simply seeing what it says, in any case),
 
• the JW's must be. That is all there is to it. THIS is what the Bible requires.

Do not therefore dabble with them, do not listen to them, once they are exposed as of that cult, do not discuss with them. They are a forbidden category (Romans 16:17). IF someone comes for HELP, saying, I DO NOT KNOW, or I DO NOT UNDERSTAND, that of course is difference. THEN they do not come with this doctrine, for if one does NOT know, then he is NOT TEACHING. In other words, II John 9-11 with Romans 16:17, must be followed.

Pastors must meet challenges of course (Titus 1:9), and various people have various gifts, and as the case requires can meet challenge by the power and grace of the Lord. You should certainly see with clarity the enormity of their error for yourself, from the word of God. But in this sphere, it is really a matter of discussing things so basic that blasphemy and error readily creep in: this is one of their points of attack, trying to or so acting as to ensnare the unprepared into errors in speech, which create the very confusion the devil lusts for, for as to him, he is the father of lies (John 8:44). Accordingly, I shall adopt what seems best for you at the end of this letter.

But let us revert.

Thus, it would be quite simply a lie, in John 1:3, to take but one case: if HE were a thing made. But GOD does not lie! ( Titus 1:2, see Barbs, Arrows and Balms  6).  HOW on earth or in heaven itself, could anyone be there before He was, in order to make Himself! The whole idea of the JW dogma is simply that of spies. This body USES the NAME of Christ, and yet denies His place; they call themselves Jehovah's Witnesses, but CHRIST is Jehovah's witness, since EVERY KNEE must bow to HIM (Philippians 2); and yet to Jehovah also. Christians BEAR Christ's witness about to others; they do not re-CREATE it, as if the Lord of old were their special precinct, and they could a) re-make Him, and then b) give their testimony of Him. The Lord in the Old Testament is HE who in the new Testament has come to earth as in Isaiah 48:16, Zechariah 3:9, 2:8, 12:10, Micah 5:1-3.

Only Saviour as we show, only Creator, as equally is demonstrated from the Bible for this purpose -  is the Lord, 'Jehovah', on the one hand, and Christ on the other (Isaiah 43:10-11, 45:12,18,24, 46:5,9 with 48:13,16 - see Items 8, and 12 below).

They are correspondingly ONE; for the ONLY ONE CANNOT be two beings. HOW He consists, however within Himself, is entirely another matter. You see the ONE, you see the OTHER; and they act as ONE, in FORM, in GLORY, in being WORSHIPPED (as in Revelation 5:6-8,14) in the very celestial precincts of eternity. Hence baptism is in the name which NONE can share, where ALL glory is held (Isaiah 42:8, 43:10-11, 45:21ff., ), the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit (cf. II Corinthians 3:17, Matthew 28:19).

(I shall use the term 'Lord' for 'Jehovah' now, since the latter is merely a composite from mixing vowels, and not found in the original at all, whereas 'Lord' does relate. It is made by putting the vowels for 'lord' under a quite different word).

It is BECAUSE HE ALONE IS GOD, that every knee must bow (Isaiah 45:22). Hence when every knee must ALSO bow to Christ, HE MUST be God. God did not abdicate from His word or His place or His principles.

HIS WORD STANDS. His unique prerogatives are assigned to Christ, always His word. "ALL," said Christ accordingly, "that the Father HAS is MINE" ! (John 16:15). NO ONE CAN have in his own name as Lord (Luke 6:46), all that the Father has, without being His equal. This accords with the fact that to Him it is declared, "Your throne O God is for ever and ever" (Hebrews 1:8-12). This too is THE GOD! HE sends the Spirit who takes of the things that are HIS and gives them (John 16:14-15, 15:26). His is to possess;  ours is have access.

Those who deny His deity as alone creator and alone saviour, while God alone is both of these, as Him to whom ALL are to bow, when likewise, this is the defined prerogative of God: they must fall. Do not parley with such!

GOD is ONE and REFUSES to GIVE HIS GLORY TO ANY. There is none like Him (Psalm 89, Isaiah 40:18, 46:5) in heaven or on earth. How many times does He need to say it, who also says that Christ is His image, His exact representation, and contains in Himself, in bodily form, ALL the FULNESS of the Godhead (Colossians 2:9). He repeats it, and thus here we repeatedly emphasise it, like light in the darkness of shade.
 
 

7) There is no other member of the category (if it WERE one) God. There is one God, says Paul in Ephesians 4:4-6. Psalm 82 is obviously a grave censure on pretenders among the great, who will DIE LIKE MEN, though they vainly assume the place of God Himself (see Joyful Jottings 14 for extensive treatment here). With only ONE God, there is really nothing to talk about. In John 1:1, the word is God apart from all else, because God says there is no other ... only objects of ridicule who vaunt themselves. Christ Himself claimed the reality, attested by works, while they had the cheek to act as if gods, though without the reality!

Thomas called Christ, 'THE GOD OF ME' (from the Greek, using the definite article before 'God') and in doing so, spoke TO HIM (Christ). Christ did not reject this, any more than the charge that He was making Himself equal with God, when threatened with stoning (John 8:32-33); but on the contrary, He made it a criterion of Christianity, SO to believe (John 20:28-29). It was in these TERMS of name, that Thomas capitulated before Him. YOU, said he, are THE GOD OF ME, and THE LORD OF ME! Is blasphemy then to become the foundation of Christianity for all time (as in John 8:28ff)! God is not soft on idolatry (cf. the ten commandments in Exodus 20, Deuteronomy 32:15-21 gives an incandescent repudiation of such folly of esteeming as God what is NOT GOD, and I Corinthians 6:9-10 indicates that an idolater CANNOT be in the kingdom of heaven at all).

That Jesus Christ who so acted and enacted, then, is not a false foundation, not an idol; but it is the Jehovah's Witness brand of heresies as noted at the outset, which create, compose and proclaim a false foundation, securing Christ's testimony AS Jehovah TO Jehovah, into their own hands, and defiling the word of God by this subjection of the word of God to their idle philosophies (cf. II Corinthians 4:1-2), which contradict the word of God multitudinously, and hence proceed from another source.

It is THE GOD or nothing. There simply is not anything else.

In Isaiah 45:23ff., you see both EL and ELOHIM (English rendering here) referring to God as the ONLY ONE. There IS not any other. HE does not know of any other (Isaiah 43:10ff.). Does then the JW organisation know more than He does ? Where does the blasphemy end ! That is why contact should end. It is unfitting (Proverbs 14:7). If possible this appalling error is aggravated by the Mormons, who would even have their 'God' start as man, according to their own acclaimed work.

Whether however God is to be reduced and confined to such contortions by this or that strategy, procedure or process, in itself a derogation of His greatness, majesty and immutability (Malachi 3:6, Hebrews 13:8), to be started up in some scenario which lacks the means to do it, or to be reduced in some scenario which invents the means to do it, verbally, lacking power and authority, sanction and sufficiency, it is all one. HE is spoken of where He does not exist; where He does exist is not spoken of; His WORD is debased, both written and incarnate, His GLORY is squandered where it does not belong, on that which is not God (Deuteronomy 32:21).

The ONLY GOD there is, THE GOD, has NO ONE and NOTHING even comparable to Himself AT ALL. The one who has, is NOT GOD, therefore. It is an invention. what is to be said of this, then ?

Human inventions in the god category, are idols when worshipped, and they do not, because they CANNOT SAVE (cf. Jeremiah 10:11). THEY, these inventions of philosophy, without ground or basis in word or deed, shall perish, says Jeremiah; these which did NOT make the heavens and the earth, shall perish from under heaven, perish on earth. But what of this extravaganza of creation, creation of gods BY a creation called man ?

It is a fatal philosophic exercise; and it is the worse for daring to use the divine name, which Christ used of Himself, while giving the words and works RIGHTLY to attest the Lord, 'Jehovah' (John 14), which are stripped from Him in this recreation of God, making of Him a being without this divine, eternal and felicitous fellowship of which He Himself speaks (Micah 5:1-3, John 17:1-3, Hebrews 1, John 1), within Himself: one God, three persons, one Being, three inter-related, one nature, in harmonious unity.

This degradation of 'God' is the basis for nothing but ruin. It represents the catastrophic misuse of the creative power dowered by THE CREATOR to this creation, mankind, in a daring act of conjoined defiance and worship, so that like a rocket aimed at the moon, and missing it, it proceeds nameless in horror to the deepest darkness. (Cf. II Peter 2:1,17-20, I Timothy 6:1ff., II Timothy 3, 4:1-3, Jude^*2 and Benevolent Brightness or Brothy Bane 87). Such things are specified as to become MULTIPLIED AND MULTITUDINOUS in these our times, the last times (as shown in SMR Ch. 8, Answers to Questions Ch. 5).

Thus, lives are grievously wasted in this mockery which so readily becomes an inveterate confusion, and neither in this world nor the next is there hope or glory, for the riot of rebellion from His word and His sovereign reality is like witchcraft. Much toil is only for an endless end of debasement to what debases the judge.

Accordingly, do not meddle with such things, rejecting them as you would false practice in business. it is not necessary to deal with them continually. They, being wrong, are to be dismissed in their folly as they come to teach; and only those who humbly seek help, are to be helped.
 
 

8) There is NO OTHER SAVIOUR but He who is God; whereas of course, Christ IS the saviour who bears sin and so justifies (Isaiah 53:4ff.). Again, there is no other name given to men, under heaven, by which they may be saved (Acts 4:11-12).

THIS is the SAVIOUR. GOD ONLY is the Saviour. This is God. That is all.

Regard it well. Christ THE Saviour, NO OTHER name is permitted to man for this; GOD is the ONLY Saviour, no one else is permitted this designation for the souls of man. Christ both performs this operation and secures this result, has the name and is given it so that there is NO OTHER NAME given to mankind under heaven by which they must be saved. It is not an option. It is a necessity. This is the salvation, which Christ performs, with GOD the ONLY Saviour.

Christ is God. Case open and closed.

There really is nothing to talk about, unless rebellion. Do not, let me stress this for Christian life is assuredly not only talk, but action: do not talk to rebels, since Romans 16:17 tells you to AVOID them. Their talk is vain. For your sake, I answer your query in its substance and stand ready to help, if you have residual need, and know the truth.
 
 

9) Thus when, in John 8:58, Christ takes the very NAME which God reserved as definitive of Himself (Exodus 3:14), "I AM", and uses it moreover in such a way as to indicate that time restraints do not control Him, that He precedes even Abraham AS the God who spoke to Moses (adopting His name for Himself), He is saying directly what is shown indirectly, but categorically, in the matter of every knee bowing to God, as the irreplaceable and only one, and this as His honour and due.

Indeed, this very phrasing is being used of Christ in Philippians 2, following the statement that He, being in the form of God, did not esteem it an act of rapacity to be EQUAL WITH GOD. GOD is infinitely above all. Christ as His equal is likewise. There is, we recall, but ONE GOD (Exodus 20, Isaiah 43, 45, as noted), so that being in the form of God is BEING that infinitude than which nothing is greater, so that it is indeed a categorical and final reality, that Christ before coming to earth, being EQUAL with HIM, did not deem or consider it robbery, a subject of seizure, to BE EQUAL. He had it already: to be it was therefore not a subject of taking possession, as by robbery.

That is what is stated in Philippians 2:6. Incidentally, you get the phrasing (X of God: form of God, will of God, glory of God), in just the exact identical grammatical structure as in Philippians 2:6, later in that chapter, at 2:11 as also in Philippians 2:11. God is not in the business of confusion, and knows who He is, and uses language appropriately without ambiguities which delete His name! There is indeed NO OTHER GOD, as He STATES in Isaiah, nor does He KNOW of One; but HOW He consists is His business.
OURS ? it is to learn and to believe, not contest and repress the repeated statements of God!

Further, the HONOUR OF GOD IS EXCLUDED from being given to another (Isaiah 42:8). What takes it and is given such due, is an idol. But with Christ, such worship is a criterion of Christianity, the name of God is His over and again, and He moreover says this: "WHATEVER HE (THE FATHER) DOES, THE SON ALSO DOES IN THE SAME WAY" ! (John 5:19), adding this, if you do not believe Me, then believe Me for My work's sake! (John 14:11). We may do things to more people than Christ did on earth, using technical means; may find more ways of doing so; but our works are wholly overshadowed by His, who is the source. What He chooses, of course, to do through His people, with HIS OWN works (continuing them, as Acts 1:1  implies), is entirely His own business, His own power, in His own name. But let us return to the fact that whatever the Father does, the Son does in the same way.

NO ONE could play tennis like John McEnroe, unless that person were his equal; but no one could at all play every shot and take every strategy and perform every mode, movement and model, precisely as John McEnroe, UNLESS he were a) as good as he was or b) superior, and was merely finding it fairly easy to imitate him in ALL respects. The only one who could do ALL that the Father does in the SAME WAY is either His complete equal, or superior. He is NOT superior, for it is specifically stated that BEING EQUAL with GOD was not something to be seized or snatched, but for all that He became a servant. Thus all that the Father has, He declares, is His; and so the mystery of God, both of the Father and of Christ, includes ALL the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Col. 2:3).
 
 

If YOU have the form of a man, then all that a man is, is yours. Your feature, focus and proceed as a man, you look like a man. This is your morphology, to put the Greek into English in a way with which we are quite familiar.

If however it is the form of God which is in question, then all that God has, is of, with and in the One who has this form. The form of a man is noted in this context, to enable the identity of Christ as MAN to be seen. Likewise then, the FORM OF GOD which precedes this identification of Christ, entails all that God is. That is what was by nature Christ's. That is the parallel to all that the Father has being His (John 16:15), and Christians can receive of this by the Lord taking from "what is Mine" and declaring it to them.

10) If Christ were in His form (Philippians 2:1ff.), so that being equal was not a thing to be snatched at, and this is stated: the matter once again, has nothing more to be considered. It was from this He saw fit to humble Himself to the form of a servant, we read. Hence, THEN and THEREFORE and relative to this condition, GENUINELY (as in Hebrews 2, for it was FITTING to the captain of salvation to be so placed), He could thirst, could leave in His heavenly abode knowledge not needed (indeed precluded) from His messianic mission (such as the time of His return, this being if you like, a military secret NOT available for those who would NOT KNOW when He came, not taken, not shared).

This vulnerable, commissioned SERVICE which He performed as the Son of man, Son of God, is restored to His Father who sent Him, who of course, even when the Son subjects Himself (I Cor. 15:28), is pleased to honour Him with the equal honour to Himself (the state of the case, John 5:19ff., Revelation 22:3, 5:13, 21:22).

Thus, we read, jointly is the throne occupied, jointly are Father and Son the Temple, jointly they receive all honour and glory: for whatever the Father does, the Son does in the same way, the Father insisting that the Son have honour EQUAL to His very own; and this, it is God who CANNOT lie; for in Christ all the fulness of the godhead is dwelling in bodily form. So in humility, so in love, so in grandeur of life, does God move, without strife, without inequality, in the eternal fountains of the beauty of holiness.
 

• It is, however, not love without humbling;
• it is not service without pain,
• not loss without explicit exposure and limitation for the sake of the mission:
• while that, it is not of His Being,
• but of its EXPRESSION, its form, its outward manifestation, its casing in flesh.

Just as no one could fill the form of God without the infinitude which requires such a form, so no one could take the form of a servant without the vulnerabilities and avenues of action which relate to the form of a servant. He went, says Philippians 2, from the one to the other.

Thus, it even went so far that the one who would SEE Him (that is understand and perceive Him, in his/her heart, by the revelation of the Holy Spirit - as in Matthew 11:27, 16:17), AND BELIEVE, has ETERNAL LIFE (John 6:40), yes, and would be raised up on the last day; and this by the word of God, through the living Word.

• "And this is the will of Him who sent Me (as in Isaiah 48:16, Zechariah 2:8),

that every one who sees the Son, and believes on Him, may have everlasting life:
and I will raise him up at the last day."

Thus when the notable young man came (patronisingly ? Mark 10:17ff.) to Christ, and addressed Him, "Good master" - asking him like some philosopher or theologian, what he had to do to inherit eternal life, the answer was a deft and brilliant, a beautiful and searching one. That form of address is wholly unacceptable when you are speaking to God about His life and how to gain it, live it and be His! There has to be a realisation of the ONE to whom you are speaking, when you thus speak to the Lord!

Is HE, who IS eternal life by nature (I John 1:1-4), to give some rules about how to inherit it, as if it were a slot machine product, or a matter of this or that procedure, to gain the inheritance spiritually for ever! Was the young ruler to gain such an eternal inheritance by advice from a teacher, just as, perhaps, he had gained the earthly one in terms of laws of inheritance duly being instructed about these, which had made him, though young, so very rich! Far from it! His whole perspective was blighted by blindness, and without the jar, the jolting and shattering of complacency, there was for him, nothing to be done.

Thus Christ narrated the commandments, as one might who, being a prince, is asked how you become princely. The pith is of course you are BORN one, and to be BORN you need to find the ONE from whom this proceeds. Since this is no mere physical process, it involves faith and hence sight, so that you might find that in which to believe (as in John 6:40). The TEST proceeded as we  see in the narrative in Mark 10. WHY do you call Me good ? NO ONE is good but God.

Does this bring the necessary realisation ? Is he going to see that "he who has seen Me has seen the Father", as He Himself declared to those who DID believe in Him ((John 14:9) ? Or is the young ruler going blindly to go on, in the very presence of the One who HAS THIS VERY ETERNAL LIFE IN GIFT, as HIS OWN, to think in terms of DOING ONLY! This was the question which surged into the Olympic style atmosphere of suspense and testing at that moment, in that phase, while the eternal events unfolded, for good or evil, in the young man's life.

The young ruler had at least, it seems a clear conscience. Performance had always been a MUST for him, and when he indicated to Jesus that from his youth he had KEPT these things, the Lord loved him. Outside salvation, he was yet intense, determined and resolute. Why more remained ? Why EVERYTHING REMAINED. He had yet to KNOW GOD, to FOLLOW HIM personally, to become the sort of person who, born again, would even faintly appreciate what it meant to yield ABSOLUTELY the very sovereignty of one's life, so that its actual texture and pattern is of the Lord, its living is directly derivative from Him, and its inspiration personal, the commandments, like road rules, being indeed crucially important, but not the way you MAKE THE VEHICLE in the first place!

FOLLOW ME! That might sound easy. ONE THING YOU LACK. It is the main spring, the ground itself indeed. "SELL WHAT YOU HAVE, give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven: and come, take up your cross, and follow Me."

You will notice part of this is not in our customary blue for quotations from the Bible. This is because on purpose, there is an omission. "SELL WHATEVER YOU HAVE" - this is the actual word of the Lord.
It is an exhaustive, pre-empting totality which is required to be DIVESTED, so that in him might be INVESTED what is to be found only in such radical ways. On my computer at one stage, a piece of equipment had to be installed FIRST, or it would not work. Hence the whole set of programs had to be REMOVED, and only then, with the new piece PUT IN FIRST, could the rest be added. So here.
 
 

The young man was grieved as well he might be, for he had great possessions.  What! yield the authority, the eminence if not indeed pre-eminence among many, the capacity to be kind with your own because you are yourself and have your inheritance, your traditions, your preferences, and actually ... come to think of it, be at peace with God your Creator as God your Saviour and TRUST Him, this Jesus Christ,  as Lord! That! never. It savours of fanaticism, seems a deadly religious passion, is far and away too much.
 

But why is there this sort of reaction as at least is strongly suggested by the words: "he was sad at that saying, and went away grieved". It follows quite simply from one thing. He did not BELIEVE that Jesus REALLY WAS THE CHRIST, the SON OF GOD, who had enjoyed glory with His Father before creation, 'Jehovah' Himself, the Lord indeed (and there is but ONE of these - Ephesians 4:4),  the One who spoke to Moses, the only Saviour. This "good master" was too good! He wanted too much! HE WANTED WHAT IN ALL FAIRNESS AND WISDOM ONLY GOD COULD AND SHOULD WANT! Why, it would be idolatry SO to follow Him in such an absolute way (if He were not Himself God!).
It would pre-empt the powers of God, disturb the settled realities of the creature-creator relationship and be condemned by God Himself for spiritual fickleness.

Thus TOLD the final and necessary answer, vesting all that was God's in Christ, the young man left it all - left what ? He abandoned all the realities of life. He did not, on the other hand,  leave the bane of his particular life, his own pathological compulsion, or obstruction in possessiveness of spirit, acquisitiveness of nature or emblem of nobility or power: others have other obstructions, but this was his own! The reality, relish or domain of RICHES! And as to that ? He simply did not have the legs to go any further, because the heart did not instruct them to do so. He did not believe. THAT was the criterion, as with Thomas, who, however (John 20), DID believe, so saying, THE GOD OF ME AND THE LORD OF ME. That is what is implicit, there made explicit.

So the test was concluded at that time. The young ruler did NOT SEE, and did NOT BELIEVE and so did not DO. As James says, "Faith without works is dead". If you have something living, do you know what it does ? it lives its life. That is the nature of life. It does what it is. NOT following MEANT not believing.

In this way, you see many parallels, but one is in Luke 14. UNLESS YOU FORSAKE ALL THAT YOU HAVE, YOU CANNOT BE MY DISCIPLE, said the Christ. "Whoever he be of you, who does not forsake all that he has, he cannot be My disciple." Cannot, not merely means does not! No, in principle, it is impossible. Yielding personally to Christ that of which ONLY GOD HIMSELF is Lord, is essential.
It is inconceivable that God’s prerogatives, be not Christ, THE Lord’s. It is required.

• That is final, necessary, inevitable. When it comes to God, unless you treat Him as God, you do not relate! It is required IN PRINCIPLE, and there He stood as Jesus Christ, God manifest in the flesh, the Lord of glory.

 
• "GOD IS A SPIRIT and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth" - John 4:14.  Form does not hide from faith (I Tim.3:16, I Cor.2:8, John 14:9, Matthew 16:17ff., Psalm 62:1-3, II Samuel 22:32).

 
• Until you SEE Christ as God, it is idolatry and fanaticism and folly to surrender all; why, that is the prerogative of GOD ONLY, and would invade the whole beauty of holiness with a specious relationship as if to God, to a mere creature.  To fail in this, however, is absolute failure, and final folly.

 
• THAT is the point. Christ was without sin simply because GOD was His eternal Father, so that on entry to this world, His paternity prevailed (I Peter 2:22), whose nature, being incompatible with sin, did not have what is natural to ALL men, since the fall, all the seed of Adam (Romans 5:12).

As begotten into this world by the Holy Spirit, Christ Jesus was given the fleshly format which STATEDLY was the role of the Son of God (Luke 1:35). Conceived into flesh, THEREFORE He was to be called the Son of God. THAT was the reason for the title so given, and that included the paternity of the eternal, enshrining into flesh Himself (Hebrews 2:14), even He whose throne is the throne of God Himself (Hebrews 1:8).

• first the young man would be directing his thoughts to GOD HIMSELF, the only one intrinsically GOOD and its source,


• and when this left him still distant from the crucial point,
 
• suddenly acting AS GOD and demanding what ONLY GOD could righteously or biblically command:
 
• namely, a total yielding without anything left over,
 
• an utter dependence on Christ Himself personally,
 
• and a trust in Him which is not only necessary for the Son of God (as in Psalm 2:12),
 
• but forbidden for any one else but God (Jeremiah 17:5).

In a nutshell, Christ called on the young man to see Him for who He was (and is), and to turn from the requirement of Jeremiah 17:5, which sees only the externals and forbids trust in that, in man, in flesh, in creation. THEN He called on him to find in Himself, in His own Person as Jesus Christ, the God who brings streams of water (Jeremiah 17:8, as in John 4:14 also) - not desert which is the lot of those who trust in not-God, in creation (Jeremiah 17:6 cf. Romans 1:17ff.). This can come ONLY when HE is the trust and HE is the Lord. This is the whole basis crisis and requirement, to identify and so follow GOD; and it occurs when the LORD is seen as God as in I Kings 18:39:

"The Lord, He is the God; the Lord, He is the God!" "WHY," said Christ, "do you call Me Lord, Lord, and not do the things that I say!" (Luke 6:46).

For as to the gods of the heathen, they are but idols! (Psalm 96:5), and such more generally are but make-believe, make-shift perishables (Jeremiah 10:17) who shall, in addition to not qualifying for the very simple reason that they did not make the heaven and the earth (which is true ONLY of God, as in Isaiah 44:25, 45:12,18, and hence of Christ as in Colossians 1), perish from these premises! THAT is what Jeremiah 10:17 is saying. They did not make heaven and earth and yet are called 'gods' - monstrous, for the ONE who DID that IS GOD! The others, mere pretenders to the divinity which is that of the ONLY Creator, will perish WITH the creation. THAT is where THEY belong, and nothing can save them or those finally theirs.

Christ however is the Creator and so God; and hence it is fitting for Him to require EVERYTHING ELSE to be discarded in order to follow Him. What, discard God in order to follow Christ! Preposterous nonsense! unbelief might protest. Quite the contrary: it is ONLY BECAUSE HE IS GOD, that it is fitting. On that it all turns. Here is the beginning and the end; here is the revelation which inspired Peter (Matthew 16:17), without which there simply is not anything at all ... except of course, idolatry in following a creature as if he were the Creator. Failure to identify God is fully fatal!

Hence UNLESS you forsake ALL that you have, you CANNOT be My disciple, declared the Christ. It is necessarily so . It FOLLOWS IF He is God; it is FORBIDDEN if He is not. He is; and therfore the rich young ruler fell where the Jehovah's Witnesses fall, with the whole array of misled sects which are in concert with this rich young ruler failure.
 

• Thus the prerogatives of God are claimed by Christ IN ACTION as in word and name
• (just as, we have seen, or shall see, in honour, glory, status and form);
• and exactly as with Nicodemus,
• He treated the patronising, the blind hope of finding some THING from Him, rather than Life as from GOD,
• by shocking the enquirer into reality.

With Nicodemus (John 3), instead of acquiescing to his 'praise' - told that no man could do what He did except God was with Him: Christ indicated that the case really went far deeper. Nicodemus would need RE-generation. Christ's  authority for such disastrous seeming (but actually splendid) teaching ? His reason for demanding things at the very level of re-creation ?

This: that He knew even heavenly things, as the One who had come down from heaven (John 3:11-13, 6:41,38.46); for none could ascend there by nature, but it was His by nature was to be able to come down (I John 1:1-3). Indeed, HIS was to be trusted if one would not perish, even though it was cursed to trust in man. He was IN HEAVEN. THIS was His habitat, His natural preserve, and from there He came with the words of His native land, the heaven that was His own. Such was His teaching as recorded in John 3. Indeed, no one "has seen the Father, except He who is from God: He has seen the Father" - John 6:46, 1:18.

Requiring the 'forbidden', rejecting the inadequate, Christ as God used shock methods at times to bring people to realisation, and in principle, you see it set forth point by point in Luke 14. But let us return.
 

WHY do you call ME GOOD ? since only God is good ? IS IT BECAUSE YOU SEE WHAT I AM, WHAT I BOTH DO AND AM ABOUT TO DO: ACT AS GOD and use the prerogatives which are ONLY HIS ? If so, act. If not, then you do not believe, cannot receive and you fail in your expressed desire for eternal life. In effect, it is as if He is saying, Unless you treat Me as God, in a way which is excluded UNLESS for God, then you do not understand and are rejecting the very source and substance of what you seek! It was a rhetorical question, but a probing one.

WHAT, He is enquiring, IS YOUR REASON for this form of address, for the term ‘good’ in the greeting, ‘good master’ ? Is it because literally you realise what the word good means, or is it a mere formality ? There is no function in formality, and absolute trust in Him was the minimum prerequisite, one which if real would lead to life itself. Further, ‘Teacher’ (Mark 10:20) is a term far less than what reality requires for the Prince of Life (Acts 3:15).
HE, as Lord, that eternal life WITH the Father, requires action fitting ONLY for THE LORD (Luke 6:46, I John 1:1-3, John 8:58).
 

These were tests which could not well be made if His glory were as the sun and His brightness a dazzlement (as in fact it was in the transfiguration, Matthew 17:4-8); but He had humbled Himself, and dwelt amongst us, even in the world which was made by Him, being exposed in it, but equally exposing what was in it, by His searching. This glory, temporarily dispelled for His mission,  was however disclosed to believers as an additive, as at the transfiguration, while withheld from unbelievers, as at the young ruler's departure, for it would spoil and frustrate the test. Now in His HUMILIATION, MANY THINGS could occur, and these allowed faith to operate in its place, tested, disclosed as to being authentic or other, amazed into life while the Lord opened the eyes.
 

Accordingly, in His humiliation (Philippians 2:6ff.), He could thirst,  and similarly, He could be arrested, choose NOT to have twelve legions of angels protect Him, could (for the time, but look at what happened to the Jews afterwards!), be mocked, as He is now, by those who reject the place of God for Him, fail to realise WHO He is, and indeed teach otherwise, who are to be avoided (Romans 16:17, I Timothy 6:3), who  do not know Christ and stumble at His words (I Peter 2:8).
 
 

In THAT capacity as Messiah on service in humbled human format, it is of course true of Christ that the Father is greater than He, since that is the whole POINT of the exercise of Christ's humbling of Himself. He statedly LEFT the glory to perform, as One of no reputation (Isaiah 53) the task for man, being made like man, yet without sin to perform as man, the task for man, of arresting sin by bearing its judgment for all who come by faith to Him as He in fact is (I Peter 3:18, Hebrews 2:14ff.).

The Father has no such format, no such vulnerability! But as to Christ, He is of equal honour to the Father, as He states (in John 5:19ff). His identity continues underneath and over the format chosen.

(Just so, a prince could not,  as a common soldier, choosing such a role, access his princely powers, BECAUSE the humbling was the point at issue.)

This brings up an important principle. When you are seeking the mind of Christ, you MUST accept what He says. You do not try to GET BEHIND Him (that is for Satan!), and try to grasp Him like some piece of machinery or ground plan of engineering. God is ABSOLUTE and is absolutely to be believed, trusted and followed. You see THAT is a MOST important lesson.

WHEN He says that He is of equal honour to the Father who refuses to give His glory to another, you then KNOW that fact. You receive it, believe it and operate on it. When the same thing is told you in Hebrews 1, John 5, 6, 14, 11, Philippians 2, then you know it even more steadfastly than before, but it is always known, once it is said. Then, as indeed with any serious study, where the truth is involved, you do not gainsay, get behind God and see Him as an OBJECT for your mental manipulation. You ACCEPT what He says and GO ON FROM THERE. Hence you see the environment of terms, just as a lawyer does.
ANY fact is to be taken in conjunction with EACH OTHER FACT, in a document or series of documents relating to an institution, a noted lawyer divulged. Each is to be interpreted with the presence in effect, of each other.

Hence when you come to a particularly absorbing event or feature or phrase, in life, you look at what your friend or associate has said BEFORE, and may later look at what he will say afterwards, and you look at his nature: and you interpret accordingly. Far more is this so with Christ who IS the TRUTH, and whose every word is true without qualification of any kind. In this way, you are stirred and stimulated in your mind to new understanding (just as the rich young ruler was NOT,  BECAUSE he was not a believer). So you gain, you do not run around unstable in doctrine, unsettled in understanding, but grow in illumination and conception, as with a friend. Everything is laid down with certainty, and more is added with assurance. Do this and to you will come stability with understanding, as in Isaiah 33:6.

"Then wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of your times, and strength of salvation: the fear of the LORD is his treasure."
 

Each and every scripture is correct, is to be believed. It is not for us to take the word of God, and accept this, reject that, decide we do not like the other. It is all true (II Timothy 3:16), and what it says is always clear, always right, never dispensable, or erodable. Sometimes it tests, as it says it does; but it is clear (Proverbs 8:8-9). What is clear when it is abused however! - the case here, is this:  "they stumble, being disobedient to the word to which they also were appointed" - I Peter 2:8.

11) Now we revert to the first born, to ponder it further in context.Since God is NOT a physical being, but a Spirit, and Christ is His image, His expressive and identifying focus, then it is of course impossible that anything not spiritual could be stated of Him, as to His own essential being. How is a spirit, in the image with total exactitude, of God, to be the first born of CREATION ? How is ONE on WHOM ALL that is material and physical, rested for its coming into being, and by whom it so much as consists (Colossians 1:17), Himself to BE physical (that is, in His own essence)! We have already seen the folly of such thought at that level.
 
 

• Hence, being
 
• a) a spiritual being and not a material one, in Himself and
• b) coming to earth,
 
• He has to take a certain place. This then is the new level, and it is a change of form, for a purpose, an injection into a realm, to perform a feat (Colossians 1:19ff.).

What then is it to be ? Since Luke 1 tells us very clearly that the REASON WHY He is called the Son of God is this, that the Holy Spirit so acted on Mary that the Holy One resulting derives this name, it is clear that the idea of SON in this case, is what happened when the sublime, divine one came into human form, precisely as spelled out most clearly in Philippians 2. That is the force of the word 'therefore' in Luke 1:35. He is first and only, in all creation, His advent being into His own, from the state of having been alive, for His own part, from the beginning. This, indeed, as Micah 5:1-3 indicates, from eternity, which is of course the nature of "I am", for whom time is neither limit nor container, and of the eternal life (I John 1:1-3), which was with the Father, and which Christ is and manifests.

Our time that passes, in fact, is a creation itself (as in Romans 8:28-29), so that Christ, having created all things, has created this creation called time, and so of necessity, is before and beyond all time. Time has nothing to do with His being: He is before all and any time, hence eternal. HE is God, and made the very existence of time. He, being in the form of God, entered our time constraints for a purpose, atonement, redemption, resurrection, declaration and manifestation of the glory of God, so that He who had seen Him, had seen the Father.

Hence when God says that He Himself ("I, even I") will come and replace the foolish shepherds who serve themselves and not their flocks (Ezekiel 34:11, Isaiah 11, 53 cf. Zechariah 12:10) as the faithful Shepherd, it is Christ who announces, "I am the good shepherd" (John 10:11,14) who "gives His life for His sheep", and then does so, as prophesied by God of God!

It is all true. It all follows. It is all integrated, unique, divine, a matter of the nature of God as revealed. It is a matter of learning, not teaching: HE, He says, does not receive the testimony of man. As to man, this is His mission, His messianic mission. In fact, it is to ALL THINGS visible and invisible. It is the scope of God that is the work of God.

The humiliation to which Paul refers in Philippians 2, then, the voluntary mission humiliation, it is one of the MUSTs of His mission. Again, He enjoyed glory with His Father before the world existed (John 17), and this merely reinforces the fact that His being was before creation and creation is ALL a result of His action. The glory, there, we learn from John 5, is EQUAL.
 
 

When therefore HE came to earth, it was as a formatted Servant, in the way described. For all that, not to such a one of such being as this, is any ordinary title to be given when He comes to the creation in creature's clothes. At once, we see WHY the Bible is stating something the EXACT opposite of the JW position, right here in Colossians 1:15ff.. It is stating that the reason WHY He is the first born of all creation is this: that ALL THINGS were created by Him. The term 'creation' is obviously correlative to 'created'. They are of one root.

It is as some one with a relationship to creation that He gains a title; and the REASON given is this, that HE did the creating of the whole lot. Now it would not be true, as before, to say this, if SOME THINGS, such as His own mighty and exalted person, were not created by Him. The TOPIC is creation, the scope is all. PANTA, the Greek, is ALL INCLUSIVE. God has spoken. His statement can be limited in one way only: by insertion. That is precisely what Satan loves to do; insertion or desertion. This time, both!

John, we recall, is even more emphatic, NOTHING says he, was made without Him, that was made.

Now one does not, to be sure, say that the REASON why one is called a creation is this, that one is the creator. That is rather too foolish for words! Colossians 1:15ff. is not accordingly saying anything but the OPPOSITE of this. Is it not enough that the sense is distorted, must it be contradicted! Problem! There is but one here, and it is this: that the word of God is rejected, and this with that gross abuse that it is flatly contradicted. THAT, it is problem for the soul of the unconverted of the most serious dimensions, but it has nothing to do with interpreting the word of God. It is a problem in salvation, not in understanding.

He is the CREATION, BECAUSE HE IS THE CREATOR! Such nonsense is not what is being said in the least degree. That would be like saying, I am a book BECAUSE I am an author. If one said that, you would presumably not then try to humour him, but send him straight off where I would belong … (unless of course he were joking). But to make a joke of God, this is not wise...

The categories however qualified, are, as to being, mutually exclusive. In his role, He is first born for two reasons:

1) He WAS born by the action of the Holy Spirit - God NEVER did it before or will afterwards, for it is IN CHRIST all are to be gathered in one; and

2) in so coming, He took precedence, in created mode, over all of it, SINCE ALL of it is precisely what He created in the first place.

The STATE of being God is adjoined to

the STATUS of being the first born of creation,

BECAUSE He made everything whatsoever. As John points out, the made category has NO member that He did not make. He is not in it therefore.
 

12)  IF you have some status BECAUSE ALL THINGS are the fruit of your labours, in their existence, then that status is creator, relative to all things, and requires and exacts your NOT being one of them. Otherwise -

• A. you are not the creator of all things (the category), and

 
• B. the ground of the name is falsified.

As the IMAGE of the invisible God, therefore, and creating all things,

which is the prerogative of God only

(for there is NO OTHER CREATOR AS THERE IS NO OTHER SAVIOUR - Isaiah 45:11ff., and it is GOD and NONE OTHER who created the heavens "BY MYSELF" , He says - Isaiah 45:24, "ALL ALONE" !):

Christ has therefore as creator, the status of the only deity there either is, ever has been or will be (Isaiah 43:10-11). This is definitive and final.

"ALL ALONE"! This is what God has said. That too would be a lie, if Christ were a different being, not GOD HIMSELF. That too is definitive and final. ONLY if Christ be God can He have done the creation; and only if Christ is God can God be the only Creator. The same with Saviour. Again, there is nothing to it: all the roads are the same.

As creature, though He was FAR from first born in that He came very late into this mode, He is still the first-born BECAUSE HE is its creator. He is NOT the first born because He is NOT the first born (in time), but because HE IS (in majesty). THAT happens to be WHAT IS WRITTEN, the cause and the consequence: and that is that. He IS this, has this role, because of His status who took this format, namely, the creator of the whole existence  and reality of this material world, as also of the spiritual, invisible creations: ALL of them that so much as are. Of these, He is not one, since they are ALL His creation. THAT is the relationship expressly given, categorically proclaimed and incisively declared; and the cause for it stated in the scripture. Hence He has all pre-eminence over it, the first and the last (Colossians 1:18, Revelation 2:8, Isaiah 44:6).

ALL creation is specified as His coverage because ALL things are His creation. The ground is given and the result is given, and they match.
 
 

I do not know that you need anything more, when you have read the pages in The Shadow of a Mighty Rock noted above as well, and looked up sects in the index, and so on. (That is, on the Home Page, you will find topical indexes, near to each other in a list: one for the SMR and the other for the rest of the volumes. Each of these indexes provides for 'sects'. ) However, I shall perhaps write further later, on any other points that merit any attention, if you ask, DV. I know that when one is in a bog, it is sometimes surprising how much it takes to drag one out; but this I think should suffice. It is your option, nevertheless, if things still stick anywhere!

However, as you see, this heresy is sheer rubbish. It MULTIPLY CONTRADICTS THE WORD OF GOD, and is not worthy of Him. It denies to Him, what is His. It is an anti-testimony.

The church rejected it from the first for the very good reason that it is flat contradiction on all sides, of what is written. Thus in Col. 2:9, just as Christ was the image of God (and in Isaiah 46:9 we learn this of God, that "there is NONE LIKE ME"), and the exact representation of Him in focus in the places shown above, SO again, HE COULD NOT BE OTHER THAN GOD, for the very simple and sufficient reason that GOD SAYS otherwise. What is precisely like God cannot be when what is like God does not exist! That is simple, fatal and final. What is eternal is Christ. It is in HIM one must believe, NOT in His denial! If a man or woman is going to deny Him, there is no need to go through all these contortions; but then, the deceiver sometimes prefers this (as in II Cor. 4:1-2, II Cor. 11:1-4, 13-15).

NO ONE is LIKE HIM. Christ is HIS EXACT REPRESENTATION, both, in Greek, eikwn and carakthr.

Christ accordingly, as in all things and on all occasions, is God. The change specified in Luke 1 and Philippians 2 is one of FORM. That really is all there is to it. I advise you yet again, strongly to avoid this heretical folly, and not to deal in it. The facts are far otherwise than any strained endeavour to use the uniqueness of God to make Him un-unique! It is all really rather ridiculous. That is one reason for the commandment already noted, to separate.

IF a person wants help, as you apparently do, and you are most welcome, then that is fine. One helps, as a doctor helps a cancer patient, by virtue of what is available, and the Lord and His word, these are available, and it is just as well that there is in fact, NONE like HIM! In your case, you have been in an infected area, and need to be delivered from its hideous germs. Do not linger in that evil. It is forbidden. IF the person wanted help, then you could help.

Our Web Site, World Wide Web Witness Inc., is open to any challenge. I suggest you therefore could advise that the answers have been given to you, point out the site if the attacker wants to attack, and indicate that it is all there in SMR pp. 532-560, also, as noted,  under 'sects' in the Home Page of World Wide Web Witness Inc.. It is also in part summarised here!

However, to fulfil all righteousness, let us go into it a little more, to help your perspective.
 

13) Incidentally, the IDEA of ADDING to God's word IN ORDER to get its meaning is forbidden in Proverbs 30:6. This idea, duly mentioned in one of the squirming disconformities, should be duly dismissed. Someone might add to it to cover an idiomatic difference, but here there is no slightest ground. What is written, as in Matthew 4, in Christ's confrontation with the devil, is what stands. NO permission is given by God. His mouth is His own, and it is not lent out.

Again, THE PANTA, the ALL THINGS include those in heaven and in earth (as in Colossians 1:19ff.), where all beings relative to salvation are noted, To reconcile ALL THINGS to Himself, was the desire of God, through His Son.

There is no exemption. It is imperative to the thought that there should be none. Not only would it be an addition, but a contradiction of the very force of the passage which is without any limit. His right over ALL creation is because ALL things were His product. TA PANTA, the all things, is the phrase used BOTH here and in Colossians 1:19, and this is a totality, and mirrored in the scope of His creation. TA PANTA is what He created; TA PANTA is what God is willing to have reconciled through Him. In this God is the only Saviour, and Christ is the Saviour, as in Creation, God is the only Creator, and Christ is the Creator. Accordingly, in Colossians 1:19, there is given immense emphasis: all things, the whole arena - the all things - whether in heaven or in earth. There is nothing able to omitted from such a coverage.

It would be impossible to be more emphatic as to the all inclusive character of the assertion: all things are made by Him, whether thrones, or dominions, "visible or invisible" (and NOTE that SPECIFIC addition of invisible), and similarly, to ALL THINGS, in the willingness of God, is the scope of reconciliation available, "by Him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven", says Paul. Thus, he further declares, "that in ALL THINGS He may have the pre-eminence," (Colossians 1:18). The NATURE of this entire passage is to VOID any and every object or creature, power or interest from exclusion.

It is ALL inclusive of creation, and ALL exclusive of exception. The DEED all inclusive in every realm of the made, is creation; the WILLINGNESS, in every earthly and heavenly sphere is likewise, to all. It is the ENCOMPASSING CHAPTER. There is no way out of creation for creatures; and there is no way out of the gracious mercy of God, for those whom He made, except (as in the succeeding verses) by unbelief: as here in this area of concern which you have brought.

It is a terrible thing in the face of such encompassing and wonderful grace and mercy, for false teachers to find their way out. It is better to be near volcanoes, except of course, there is a willingness to learn, and a seeking, NOT a false teaching. It is that which is totally and automatically EXCLUDED, as noted from Romans above.
 
 

14) What then do we find here ?

It is, then, precisely the same in 1:15 as in 1:18, 1:20. If God had meant most things, or nearly all things, there are words for this. He did not use them. When one means all things, one can say this. When the realm is what is made, then it means there is no exemption or exception. Otherwise words have no more meaning. Indeed, it goes further: thrones, dominions, heaven or earth, all things are covered, and it is repeated at the end. The whole concept of limitation is denied.

Is it in heaven ? (as Christ was shown to have been in John 17),
THEN it is created by Him.

Is it a heavenly being of ANY type ?
then it was created by Him.

Earth then ?

Just the same. Powers, potencies, principalities, it is all one. THEY are but His work.

There is ONE Creator; HE is it. There is ONE creation; it is what He did.

15) To add words, is to subtract sense, it is to deny the scope emphasised, and to abort the reasoning behind the title, first-born, which rests on this totality which is so heavily defined, being HIS. The REASON WHY He is first born of all creation, as stated in scripture, is NOT that He did NOT create all things (such as Himself), but that HE DID! It is NOT saying this: Now you have the role of first-born in the whole and entire creation, because you did NOT create it all.

16) The thought rather is this: You have this role and situation because you DID! ALL creation is simply a specification of ALL things; for what is more than creation is God; and what is less than God is creation.
 
 

• There is ONE CREATOR, and that is God. GOD SAYS SO. In Christ (Col. 2:9) was "ALL THE FULNESS OF THE GODHEAD IN BODILY FORM". Now the fulness is all that there is. It includes all the specifications, or realities. It is thus all powerful, all knowing and eternal. Less than that is NOT all the fulness. It is because of this that He can be, and should be worshipped just as He was recognised as deity by Thomas, and for the same reason is it that He is called the first and the last (Isaiah 44:6, Revelation 2:8), definitive title of God.

We who are Christians do not have the fulness of the Godhead in bodily form, for if we did, we would lack nothing of the creator's unblemished purity and character; just as it is not true of you or me that he who has seen us has seen the Father. The thought would make blasphemy itself blush! (John 14:7,9). It is not true that to know you or me is to know God either, though it is true and affirmed of and by Christ. in John 14. NOTHING short of God can fully express Him, for ALL His characteristics are necessary, all His quality must be there and available and undistorted in its magnificence and completeness. Voluntary foregoing of any external features for His mission does, then and therefore, nothing to diminish the quality and reality of His identity.

God also says that Christ is the Creator of all things. That then fits. For One in whom ALL the fulness of the Godhead rested in bodily form, this is ONE of those features: to be the creator. There is nothing more to be said, except someone wants to contradict God. HE only, He affirms, and alone is the creator. In Christ is this feature expressed, in Christ is this Being expressed, in knowing Christ one knows God. So it sits separately, so it sits also together.

As to Christ, He does not open a possibility; He confers by the sight, the reality (John 6:40), and with it, the salvation. The sight is denied to those unsaved. The sight is opened by God Himself (Matthew 11:27, 16:17).

If anyone wants however to add to what is written, or subtract, then those who insist on so acting become mere heretics, content not to take what God gives, but in effect, insisting on telling Him what to say. The idea of adding words is surely in itself a farce sufficient, when there is no question of any idiom. The sense is the same in both languages. There is no 'problem' to solve linguistically; the only problem is that faith is lacking and acceptance of what is written is lacking. THIS is not a problem which need be shared!
 
 

• Thus Christ is SHOWN as BOTH the image of the invisible God and the firstborn of all creation,
• as the RESULT of the consideration that
• ALL THINGS being created by Him in all realms, heavenly and earthly.

To BE creator of all things MEANS, in other words, that He is firstborn as to creation, and follows from His being the image of God, the very One Himself, the Word, that God always there, there being but One. As to His being, He is the likeness of the One who has no likeness, that is, His very image and expression; as to His work, He is the first-born, and as to the performance, HE DID IT. That is what it says in Colossians 1.

This merely accentuates the folly of trying to make all things His creation, without qualification, and then making them NOT His creation. To add a limitation or qualification of all things is adding to the word of God, it is contradicting it also; and it is heresy.

It does not seem PROFITABLE to consider any more points, since the first is so decisively wrong, and contradicts scripture in MANY separate categories. When a dunce fails to know that 2+2 = 4, it is not much to the point to wade through his errors. FIRST teach him the fact, and then see if he can do better, and provide something worthy of inspection. IF says John, there is anything that is made, then HE made it.

NOTHING, says John 1:3, is the name of what HE did not make in the category of the made. Christ ? HE is not nothing. That is all there is to it. BECAUSE, says Paul, Christ is the creator of ALL THINGS IN HEAVEN AND EARTH, spiritual terrestrial, physical, any type of being whatsoever, he indicates, THEREFORE He has the firstborn's role, even though by self-humiliation, He came to inhabit it, to be in it (as in Philippians 2) in the form of a servant. Indeed, Paul indicates, it is appropriate to see Him as BEING the image of the invisible God, and showing His precise nature as deity, and to deem Him first-born, because He is the creator of all things. There is no 'and'. The image and first-born, these are correct specifications for the One who could and did create everything that is.

Since the JW's are famed for their failure here, and take over the work of Christ, blasphemously for themselves, as the witness to Jehovah; whereas He has done this Himself (John 8:58, 5:41, 8:16-17), and receives no man's testimony, as He declares, but requires that we receive His own: it is then time to move to the word of God and from all involvement here. Christ Himself has shown the criterion of truth who ALONE is master and requires NONE to 'help' with their false teaching, making 'another Jesus', as the JW contingent does. Therefore, "avoid" them simply: Romans 16:17 is terse here!

Do you not recall Paul saying of some with tears, that they are the enemies of the cross! So here (Philippians 3:17ff. cf. II Cor. 11). Note also Ephesians 5 and II Corinthians 6:14, I Timothy 6 and II John 9-10. (If you become interested in the topic of separation in due time, you may also see it at Ch.7, The Kingdom of Heaven.)

Nevertheless, if ANY thing troubles you after you have done all this work thoroughly, for YOUR sake, I shall then look to address it. You will then be MOST welcome! Note well, then, and study The Shadow of a Mighty Rock, pp. 532-560 and Barbs, Arrows and Balms Appendix IV, , where the Colossians matter is briefly but adequately presented. You need to read also, Biblical Blessings, Christ the Pinnacle.

To you, in this letter, in your apparent concern, I have covered and recovered the basic issues, so that you might see now from this, now that aspect, like a view. But every pinnacle is one, God as man. Without that, no man can come to God (John 8:21,24,58). THAT is part of the flavour of the Cross and concerning this, we are forbidden to glory except in it - its provision from God, the God who provided it, its basis, its plan of salvation, the Redeemer who died on it, its message of free salvation (Ephesians 1-2, Romans 5:1-15, 3:23ff.). It is HIS cross. It is HIS resurrection that follows on and consummates it (Romans 4:25).

Meanwhile, it might be good if you could simply let us know how you are progressing shortly. You may find, at a more personal level, some interest in The Frantic Millenium and the Peace of Faith Ch. 3.

If any of the hyperlinks in this letter should happen not to work, you can go to the Home Page and look in the margin for LIBRARY, which then opens up any book you select, and lets you go to the chapter desired. In the case of The Shadow of a Mighty Rock, it has the additional facility that you can use the box which comes up when you select that particular work, and simply state the page number you want.

In the name and service of Christ,
with every good wish,

Robert

Philippians 1:20-21

for World Wide Web Witness Inc.
 
 

See on this topic also:

Spiritual Refreshings for the Digital Millenium Ch. 8,
Tender Times for Timely Truths Ch. 12,
A Spiritual Potpourri Ch. 12.
 

*1A
The Seventh Day Adventist involvement with so many other sects, at this point.

This of course applies AT THIS LEVEL also to Seventh Day Adventism, in this, that they invent without scriptural warrant, a new christ who is busy with temple work, in 'investigative judgment', determining status, whereas the state and status of the saints of God has been determined before the world began
( Ephesians 1:4-5, Romans 8:29ff.; cf. White, Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 357), and the expression of it in time is merely the performance of the WHOLLY KNOWN WITH NOTHING TO FIND OUT WHATEVER (see - Acme, Alpha and Omega : Jesus Christ Ch. 11). Various contemporary twiddles can do nothing to remove the utter heresy of White's doctrine that sin is not cancelled, but remains "on record in the sanctuary until the final payment" (The Great Controversy p. 357).

This relates to the unfulfilled prophetic perversion that Christ would return in 1844, that since then He has been AT WORK in the sanctuary, and the normal Seventh Day illusion that you cannot now be wholly assured of salvation. HOW COULD YOU BE when another Christ with another work and another Gospel is even now doing another thing, so that the final result is something to be made known to the Father.

The whole matter contravenes I Timothy 2 concerning women's inauguration of doctrine to the uttermost point (fault one), and the Biblical grounds given for this ( I Tim. 2:13-15), presented with the utmost vigour, underline the gravity of the imperative in the exclusion. I Cor. 11:5 in the light of I Cor. 12:28-30 and the above, can provide no exception to the directive didactic of the apostle (cf. A Question of Gifts XI pp. 101ff., A Spiritual Potpourri Chs. 10 -11 ).

Further,

• the teaching on sin in Hebrews 9-10, Colossians 1 and Romans 5 (utterly),
• addition to the gospel by ANYONE (Galatians 1),  and
• the prohibition on adding to the word of God

Indeed, HOW COULD Christ be scheduled for 1844 by some pronouncement torturously and allegedly made from prophecy (in fact dealing with nothing remotely like this), when "it is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the father has put in His own power" (Acts 1:7). This was in answer to the direct question, IS IT NOW ? (Cf. I Thessalonians 5:1-2). The return of Christ is to come as a thief in the night. Thieves do not announce their preferred time! (cf. Matthew 24:45ff., Mark 13:32). "You do not know when the time is," said Christ, so "take heed, watch and pray" - that is the nature of the case. The man taking the far journey returns when you cannot tell. You know the sort of region of time (Luke 21:28), but you CANNOT know the time. This had to be pointed out once again when another more recent error was made in a work indicating it would be 1994! How OFTEN is this error against fundamentals of the Biblical faith, to be made! Some, like Miller, who was behind the 1844 muddle, at last repented. In this sect, however, there is a stolid continunance in error.

Thus the whole post-1844, allegedly contemporary investigative judgment by Christ rejects

• the assured knowledge in advance of the Godhead of who are His,
• the apportionment of His people to the Son by the Father from the first,
• the nature and knowledge of the time of Christ's return which has NOT been accompanied in this delusive precipitancy, with "the restoration of all things" (regeneration, lit.), in 1844,
• the whole surprising impact of advent of His coming when His servants cannot, must not know, and
• the declarative character of the actual coming so that the earth reels with it (Matthew 24:30), so that "all the tribes of the earth mourn",
 
• and is altogether such an addition, perversion, subtraction and recharacterisation of the power and position, the work and effectuality of Christ, and what He did by means of death, as to deserve a judgment the warrant for which is multiple, one which only total rejection can categorically remove. In fact the Daniel 8 word is on a former time of history, duly fulfilled over two millenia ago! (Cf. SMR pp. 886ff., Biblical Blessings Ch. 1.)

In fact, those who are called (Hebrews 9:15) are brought to a heavenly inheritance BY MEANS OF DEATH FOR THE REDEMPTION OF THE TRANSGRESSIONS. How ? "By means of death for the redemption of the transgressions". We are not only justified, but sanctified through what ? ONE OFFERING (Romans 5:1-11, Hebrews 9:12, 10:10,14). We "have received the atonement" (Romans 5:11). What sins did HE BEAR IN THE PAST ? whatever prevents "justification of life" (Romans 5:18, and what is the result ? that the many are "made righteous" (Romans 5:1, 19, II Cor. 5:19-21).

What is left to be justified when life is justified ? Nothing to do with life! What remains when sin in terms of the everlasting Gospel of grace (as in Romans 4, outlined with dual coverage and scope from the early times cf. Barbs, Arrows and Balms 17), is REMEMBERED NO MORE (Hebrews 8:12) and this as quoted by Hebrews from Jeremiah 31:31-34 (cf. Psalm 32:2-3, 130:3). "Thou," said Hezekiah accordingly (Isaiah 38:17), "hast cast all my sins behind Thy back." Who are these then, who distort the word of God, with their own words, and would entangle again, as in Romanism, with the hopes and fears of the flesh, carnal and invented concerns and considerations. No at all: Be not entangled in any form or manner with the yoke again, but stand fast in the liberty of Christ! (Galatians 5:1).

Have you then begun in the power of the Gospel and the freedom of grace through faith in the objective Christ and His work (by which you HAVE BEEN SAVED, Ephesians 2:8, Titus 3:5ff.), as Paul admonishes the Galatians (Ch. 3), then hear him concerning this Seventh Day distortion: "Do you not know that they who are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham. And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the nations through faith, preached before the gospel to Abraham, saying, In you shall all nations be blessed!"

The justification is not of the Jew only, but of the Gentile; it is by the SAME faith as that in which Abraham was assured, believing God (Romans 4:25ff.), and it is this sure faith which is beyond the law, before the law, after the law, saving faith, the Spirit assuring our spirit that we are the children of God (Romans 8:16). The law says Paul in Galatians, fortified the sense of sin, but it did NOTHING to alter the nature of grace! Romans 4 illustrates and confirms this with the utmost rigour. YOUR SINS and your INIQUITIES I SHALL REMEMBER NO MORE! There is Gospel, there is assurance, and there in Romans 5, is the certainty, that having been justified (5:1) by faith, HOW MUCH MORE will you be saved from wrath by Him!

What does Colossians 1:21-22 clearly teach ? This: that you were alienated from God and enemies in your minds: no limit. What is accomplished by Christ ? This: He acts "to present you holy and unblamable and unreprovable in His sight". HOW ? "In the body of His flesh through death."

• To ADD matters to this is
 
• 1) to contradict its declaration as from God
• 2) to remove the Gospel
• 3) to impugn the veracity of the inspired apostle
• 4) to reject his godly insistence on waking up from carnal additiveness, such as many of the Jews in their traditions had (Mark 7:7, Romans 10:1ff.).

Thus we see, as in other schisms and heresies from time to time, that the nature of the error CAN be used by God to help His people define with more conspicuous clarity what they say, and in this way, can deepen. However: Needs be that offences should come, but woe to those who bring them (Matthew 18:7, I Corinthians 11:19).

For further on this and other aspects of this, see Biblical Blessings Ch. 12, and Appendix I, II and III.
See also Index: Sects. What IS prophetically based is this: that the very proliferation of sects and schisms, without biblical ground or authenticity is significant. The appalling plethora of false christs, false prophets or prophetesses like Mrs White, Russell and so on, not to mention the theological inventions of many major denominations, is precisely what IS predicted in language loud and clear (Matthew 24:24, I Peter 2, I Timothy 4, II Timothy 4) for a time with the characteristics of this one, including the freeing of Jerusalem for the Jews (as in Luke 21:24).

One simple criterion which may be effectively applied to the core of sects most generally, apart from their distortion of the PERSON of Christ, is then their discrediting of all or part of His WORK. On this, see The Kingdom of Heaven... Appendix.

On the phenomenon of  the desecrative invention of 'another Jesus' and other sect matters, see especially: Tender Times for Timely Truths Ch. 8, SMR Ch. 9, pp. 864ff., 866ff., and on the related need to close with the ACTUAL Christ with total assurance, see Stepping Out for Christ Ch. 7, Acme, Alpha and Omega: Jesus Christ Ch. 10, and Biblical Blessings Ch. 16. As noted this is a cardinal revelation of the evil of the Seventh Day Adventist sect, that it does not come to terms with it. It cannot, as one sees above. It does not. It is grievous for those afflicted with this error at the personal level; but then, what does one expect when the revealed God is not the One on whose word the matter stands, but various thoughts and ideas, mixed like some turbulent streams, concoursing with violence.
 

*1
See on that simple fact: Jeremiah 25:2-6, Exodus 20, Deuteronomy 32:39, 15-21, Psalm 96, Exodus 15:2, 15:11, Isaiah 45:22 (EL), 45:21 (ELOHIM). The Bible flatly states repetitively that in the arena, area of GOD, there is ONE. NONE is like Him. NONE is to have His glory given to him. NONE other is Creator, Saviour.

Within God's being, ONE has His Honour equally, ONE is His eternal expression and NONE dare come as His living, unchangeable word, but HE into this realm and reality. Equally ONE is the HOLY SPIRIT, and in trinity does God abide, living as
 

• ONE in being ,
 
• THREE in mode of consisting. Amputation is not acceptable.

This ONENESS is as vastly affirmed as could possibly be.

• 1) Jeremiah 25 with Psalm 96 has a flat, blanket prohibition in this area. Neither Jew nor Gentile can create anything here. There is ONE. To elevate Christ to a goddishness less than GOD is therefore flat contradiction, and total stultification.
 
• 2) Exodus 20 makes it clear others of this exaltation are NOT to be found before God's face.
 
• 3) Exodus 15:2 uses the term EL of the only God who is to be served, as in Isaiah 45:22.
 
• 4) Deuteronomy 32:39 states that there is no other ELOHIM with the Lord.
 
• 5) Deut. 32:21 indicates the divine wrath in provocation because they have acted towards a NOT GOD (EL), which is thus forbidden. It is THE EL and ELOHIM in the arena of God, or wrath and intense injury such as Jude indicates (see End-note *2) for such a case. NOTHING else under EITHER name in this realm, is permitted, because it DOES NOT EXIST. It is a NOT god, NOT God. Both, each, all. It is excluded.
 
• 6) Isaiah 45:21 further indicates there us no other God beside Him (ELOHIM), and 45:22 indicates that the Lord is GOD, and there IS NOT ANY MORE ( EL). How often does it have to be said: there is NO OTHER EL, NO OTHER ELOHIM, NO OTHER DIVINE GLORY. It is exclusive, inclusive: HE is the ONE. Any one else seeking a ticket, place, position, status in the realm of godhead, of deity, of divinity, is NOT there. There is no place found.
 
• Such a multiplication enterprise in the divine arena  is bogus, fanciful, erratic, provocative, fat-hearted kicking as with Jeshurun (Deuteronomy 32:15); and it arouses a divine wrath in its idiotic insistence on telling God what is not the case, ascribing glory  to what is not God. In the end, this consigns is to the utmost darkness (Jude 13), for ever. This is no mere exercise in poetry; it bears the seal of destiny.

When you see what Jude has to say (*2 below), you will realise that the Old Testament and New Testament language is ONE. It is ONE God and He says what it is HIS OWN MIND to say.

He asks us to mind our business, which is to find His speech, eventually come as Christ the Lord incarnate, and follow Him. It is not to add (Proverbs 30:6, Deuteronomy 12, 4, Revelation 22, SMR Appendix D); it is not to subtract likewise. It is to ACCEPT and BELIEVE. It is like a photograph of a distant region. You do not ARGUE that the rocks MUST be like this or that. What they are, you see; and what you see you accept or reject. God has spoken. There is nothing else but to conform to reality or to deny it. If you deny it, then you deny your own life, for this is its source. We have shown the necessity of the Biblical truth on this site; it is now time to realise that it is THEREFORE not subject to invention, contention. HE HAS SPOKEN. Contradiction is not only irrational; it is ludicrous.

GOD is NOT subject to leadership. (Have a look at Peter when he was temporarily carried away in Matthew 16:19: GET BEHIND ME SATAN! come the words of divine rebuke.) REBUKE IS FAR BETTER THAN RUIN. IN this area, it is ONE OR the other! People involved in such errors should rid themselves of them, for their own mercy's sake, for the love of God has provided things far better. Better grasp a deadly cancer as friend, then this error!
 

Incidentally, in Jude below, the case of Dathan, Abiram and the sons of Korah shows the zestful care with which one should NOT associate with these rebellions. Read it, if you will, in Numbers 16.
 
 

RELISH THE RESURRECTION, and avoid gaseous infirmaries
If you are a Christian, resurrection of Jesus Christ is the form of what is coming to you
(I John 3:1ff.)!

The writings of  Russell's Studies in Scripture, in 7 volumes, holds some of the most devious fiction possible to imagine. Thus on the resurrection, in Vol. 2, p. 129, he states this: "We know nothing of what became of it {our Lord's body} , except that it did not decay or corrupt. Whether it was dissolved into gases or whether it is preserved somewhere as a grand memorial of God's love ... no one knows."

The Bible knows. Thus in Acts 2:25-32 we gave the following data supplied. A Christian believes them, a heretic (as in Titus 3:10, Romans 16:17) can believe ANYTHING. WIth heretics however, after due rebuke, one does not spiritually associate according to the scripture (see also Proverbs 14:6-7).

1) David the king had a body which rotted. His grave remained.
2) David as prophet however spoke of a person whose body would not rot, but whose joy remained.
3) Knowing that the Messiah was to come, and in one line to be a descendant of his own, he predicted that in bodily terms, Messiah would be raised up, and indeed resurrected, so that two things would become true of this Being:

a) His soul would not be left in hell (and Psalm 22 shows something of His sufferings) and
b) His flesh would not rot.

Relative to the delusion and profusion of confusion in Russell's writings, there here is a flat contradiction. The one contradicts the other, and the other contradicts the one.

"CONCERNING the resurrection", the affirmation is made, by Peter, that Christ's body did not rot.
It is not an assertion put forward concerning some memorial, as Russell surmises possible, or concerning some immediate and miraculous procedure into gaseous form, without any rotting in the process, no putrefaction, just instant deliverance into hot air. No, this is flatly contradicted. A resurrection is not a memorial, and it is not gases.

In and through Peter, there is an assertion that: relative to resurrection, it is true to affirm that Christ's body did not rot. Now what IS resurrection in such terms ? It is an arising of what had been dead.
What is the thing of which the focus is given, in this arising ? It is the body.

What, then, in particular is to arise in a resurrection which, specifically relative to the body, is one in which it is affirmed that this body does not rot ? Is it an arising, perhaps, of something which is NOT the body, perhaps of a spirit ? But in that case, why is it that emphasises that concerning the resurrection the BODY,  it did not rot ! It is as specific as a laboratory experiment.

• CASE: BODY NOT ROTTING.
• PHENOMENON: RESURRECTION.
• RELEVANT BEING: JESUS CHRIST.
• CONTINUITY OF BEING: AFFIRMED, THIS JESUS.
• CONCLUSION: THIS JESUS WAS DEAD, AND HIS BODY DID NOT ROT, BUT THE PHENOMENON OF RESURRECTION OCCURRED IN THIS REGARD.
 
• CURRENT DESTINY OF BODY OF DAVID BY NORMATIVE PROCEDURE: TOMB.
• CURRENT DESTINY OF BODY OF CHRIST: RESURRECTION OF BODY. HE AROSE.

The SUM OF IT: The two, body and resurrection, and the One, the Messiah are categorically affirmed. The connection of the one, the body, and of the other, the resurrection, is the Messiah, of whom both are affirmed, and of whose body, this is affirmed, that it is relative to its resurrection that it did not rot. Not relative to its gases or memorial: its resurrection. Further, we are told that THIS JESUS God raised up. It is not some other Jesus. It is specific. It is this ONE. It is THIS ONE who is Messiah, it is this ONE who was crucified, and relative to resurrection, it is THIS BODY which did not rot, and this Jesus who is raised up.

ONE BEING is counterpoised to another: there is David and the Messiah. Of the one, a statement is made in contrast to that for the other. For one, the body rotted, for the other it did not. For the one the burial place is still there, but for the other something different happened. It is of HIM and of HIS body that it is affirmed, in direct contrast to the case with King David, that the prophet had spoken NOT of himself, but of the Messiah, concerning the resurrection, in this, that His body did not rot.

Thus the topic of resurrection does not at this point or in regard to this prophecy relate to the King David at all; but it relates dramatically and emphatically and by complete contrast to the Messiah; and the manner in which it relates is this, that HIS body did not rot. Now if your body does not rot, and the issue is the occurrence or otherwise of the resurrection of THIS SAME BEING, then to affirm these two points in succession and in concert is to leave no room even for the most astute wriggling and evasion, deception or delusion. Topic: MESSIAH ONE. MESSIAH UNCHANGED (THIS JESUS). BODY one - His; contrasted BODY two - David's. David's - rotted; tomb ? present. Christ (this Christ) ? BODY two - did not rot; concerning resurrection ? as noted. Result ? "This Jesus has God raised of which we are all witnesses" - Acts 2:32.

Concerning the resurrection, we know it did not rot, and this Jesus is raised. Russell here stops half way, and this might seem a pass mark except for one little thing: the MATTER IN HAND is the resurrection. He denies it; Peter affirms it.

 
• The one in question ? that of Christ.
• The topic relative to that of Christ ? the body.
• The affirmation relative to this body of Christ ? It did not rot.
• The context of this affirmation ? the resurrection.
• The individuality or generality of the resurrection in view ? "the resurrection of Christ" - Acts 2:31. The difficulty or ignorance left on the fate of the body of Christ ? None.
• HIS BODY, HIS RESURRECTION, THIS JESUS. HE AROSE.

It is not relative to gases, not relative to a memorial, and not for that matter, relative to any other corps or corpus of liberal theology which supplants God's own thoughts with their own, that the dissolution of Christ's body is denied. We are not being advised that what arose was radicalism, or rebellion, or revolutionary fire, or liberty to contradict God and escape untouched, or affirm that the church is the resurrection or anything else at all!

We are being told that what did NOT find corruption (that is lose its integrity in the use for which it was provided) was the body of Christ. The use now assigned for this, the relationship affirmed for it, is in resurrection. Now a resurrected body does not walk around ex-owner. Hence we are told equally that "THIS JESUS GOD RAISED UP". The consignee of the resurrection is specified! The case is open and shut.

The habitual association is affirmed in that the removal of the same was expressed in execution.
What God then executed was the execution. He raised up this same Christ, who, having had a body before at His disposal on earth, had now this totally non-rotting vehicle there again as before "for it was not possible that He should be held by it {death}" - Acts 2:24. His SPIRIT was assigned to His Father (Luke 23:46), but His body was undoubtedly taken out. Death removed the body from Him; but it could not manage this task, says Peter; it was even impossible. It had to relinquish its quarry, whom God raised up.

As to gases of dissolution and memorials and radicalism and imagination without and against the Lord, ALL those things will indeed rot (the memory of the wicked, says Proverbs, will rot), but what is declared of Christ, THIS Christ, and relative jointly to His body and His resurrection as the SAME being is one thing: the denial of the one is in context of the affirmation of the other. NOT rotting in body, HE instead arose resurrected.

Let us be clear. Christ is designated relative to four things:
His death, His body, His resurrection and the procedure.
 

He died (1);
His body did not rot (2);
He had a resurrection of His very own (3);
it is this which relates to the non-rotting of His body;
without ceasing to be Himself, He is raised up, body in the state just noted (4).


Same Christ; non-rotting body; raised up; phenomenon called resurrection.

How it is possible to seek to delude oneself on the face of this, it is impossible to know, for who knows the deviousness of the human heart but the Lord (Jeremiah 17:9-10). Quite simply, it is relative to His own personal, individual resurrection, His and that of no one else, that Christ's body is declared not to have rotted. This puts it out of the reach of decay processes, or indeed any processes antagonistic to the result of resurrection FOR that body as HIS, so that HE arose.

Incidentally, on this one point alone, this mis-faith, this dis-faith is doomed, and it leads to doom. Romans 10:9 makes believing in one's heart the resurrection of Christ a crucial point in salvation. The resurrection is of a Person WHO a) was buried and b) was raised, the body, once again in I Cor. 15: 1ff., being the thing in view relative to resurrection. To disbelieve the resurrection scripturally defined is the same as to disbelieve Christ, scripturally defined.

Another Jesus, naturally enough would have another resurrection. The JW situation has both: another Jesus does not save, and another resurrection is not this. Hence it is doomed doubly, in a two out of two total departure from the word of God.

The fact that in Luke 24 we see Jesus in the presence of the apostles, body intact, and eating does nothing to reduce the total flatness of the JW contradiction. The emphasis on His NOT being a spirit is again in remorseless contradiction to the Russell concept that the body thus displayed is in some memorial or was gases. Gases do not eat. The additional fact that in John 20 we find Thomas invited to investigate digitally the wounds, alas for this monstrosity of the JW perversion of the word of God, is also flatly contradictory to the concept that the body was that of someone else.

Not only is this so, but the hand is invited to be THRUST INTO the side of Christ. It is impossible to thrust your hand INTO a side which does not have an aperture created in it. The ISSUE was WHETHER THIS JESUS WHOM THEY KNEW HAD OR HAD NOT RISEN FROM THE TOMB, bodily, Thus you do not reach forth your hand to put into the side of a spirit. Thomas was not convinced that Christ's body was up and walking.

To become so convinced, he had to have a tactile impression, a visual one and a co-ordination of the two. The affirmation was that Christ was risen. Thomas was satisfied that if he could find the body correctly mutilated, and then have this tactile research as verification, it would prove to be so. He believed. This is therefore what he believed. He was not investigating a memorial or gases: he was checking out the body of his Lord, to see whether or not that Lord had arisen, taking this same body with Him. He was satisfied on inspection, that this was the case, and then CHRIST did something.

He, we read in John 20:29, made this BELIEVING, believing THIS particular thing, a criterion of Christianity; along with the response of Thomas, namely, "Thomas answered and said to Him, 'My Lord and my God!" Believing is this, at least included. Your LORD AND YOUR GOD took a body which was raised, and relative to this raising, it did not rot, was investigable digitally, visually, and in being confirmed raised with the distinct and highly distinctive properties of the One walking about with it, wound areas intact, became a criterion of believing.

Indeed, when the angel indicated that HE was not there but RISEN, there was the further intimation that He would go before them to Galilee. If HE was not there, then the person customarily an intact combination of body and soul, known as Christ, had left. The One whom they in due course met in Galilee was this one, at the fire with the bread adn fish, who gave this to them. Since this Jesus was NOT TO BE FOUND IN THE TOMB BECAUSE He had risen, as the angel attested, and the rising was the ground of the evacuation of HIS body from the tomb, it is inevitably the case that the THING IN VIEW for the evacuation, is the BODY of the One whose body was put there, and whose life had been taken, but now with and through that body, was again made manifest. The HE not there is the residue, the body; the HE risen is therefore the same, as in I Cor. 15.: "Christ died ... He was buried ... He rose again." What was buried, rose! Moreover, it was HE! That really is all.

The difference FOR that body is that it WENT from the tomb. The thing that happens in resurrection is the return of LIFE. The METHOD in which this happened in this case is that the LIFE TOOK THE BODY, which has been the subject of extreme focus. Resurrection is restoration of life; when it relates to the body, it is restoration of life to the body.  IT WALKED OFF.

You may like to look at the resurrection in terms of the Biblical faith, from its own premises in some detail in Spiritual Refreshings for the Digital Millenium Ch. 5, and to pursue it in Ch. 6, while considering further in Biblical Blessings Appendix IV, Excursion I, and Ch. 15 of the same, and SMR Ch. 6. The events are also covered in The Kingdom of Heaven Ch. 9, Section 14.
 
 

*2
Jude is of great interest here. It is in a sense like examining a corpse, to see precisely what penalties are in mind for alienation from the true God at this level, WHILE USING HIS NAME! Still, it is salutary, for the word of God is given, all of it, for our instruction in righteousness (II Timothy 3:16).

The ancient Jewish practice, so desolating to the nation of old, and as foretold in Deuteronomy 32 as we have seen in *1 above ... of adding gods which do not have the advantage of existence, to the SINGLE GOD who IS THERE, is something which both invites and invokes a categorical conclusion in shame, ceaseless and tormented, just as the cause is twisted and an exercise in prodigies, at the ingratitude level.
 

• In Deuteronomy we see its profundity in sanctions from above: in JUDE, we see the New Testament parallel. Let us consider this.


Thus we find there that the faith once for all delivered to the saints is to be FOUGHT FOR (cf. Scoop of the Universe 43, where this is demonstrated). So likewise does Proverbs 28:4 and the example and words of Christ and the apostle Paul (as in Matthew 11:20ff., 22:15-46, Luke 11:47-54; II Corinthians 10:5, Acts 13:10ff., 13:44-46, 15:2). You take the battle for the souls of men, where it is, and fight like men for the faith of the unchangeable God, the unchanging Christ, the I AM, both God the Sender and God the Sent, who consists as He is, and takes no instruction from anyone as to His 'life-style'!
 

• In Jude, then, the faith is to be fought for, it is unchangeable as in Galatians 1. Now who are those who secure from the word of God in this book, a condemnation most tremulous, tumultuous and endless ? It is a category of person. What is the nature of this category, the character of the activity so fully banished ?

 
• It is this.  Some came into their midst who TURNED THE GRACE OF GOD INTO .... aselgeia. That is the Greek word. The Thayer lexicon advises as follows on this word: "unbridled lust, excess, licentiousness, lasciviousness, wantonness, outrageousness, shamelessness, insolence.
 

When we compare this realm of verbal flair with the examples of Jude we see that it is all there. There is Sodom and Gomorrah (Jude 7), doing their thing before it did for them a ruin so notable, there are the group of Korah,  in their incredibly autocratic  seeming DEFYING OF THE AUTHORITY OF MOSES, with NOTHING more added (Jude 5, as in Numbers 16). They challenged vitally the whole construction of the revelation so grandly confirmed for so long, and substituted their thoughts for that revealed, and indeed, for the whole course prescribed for the nation. They withdrew in effect, from what WAS required, in insisting on what was NOT granted.

The cases in Jude, the examples given,  are ALL covered by this word of outrageous insolence and degradation. It is ENOUGH that the authority of the true God via His chosen revelation is not accepted, while HIS NAME is being used, as with Korah. THIS is precisely what is being done by the Jehovah's Witness assault on the Biblically recorded Christ.

Hence this qualifies, as does Korah, as an example of the situation in view. Now it is worse, indeed, for the ultimate has come! If the former cases exemplified the trend, the current one is its consummation. Hence the description of the fate of such folly is wholly apt for citation in such a case as this, concerning the misuse of the divine authority by dispersing His explicit teaching on WHO HE IS and WHAT HE REQUIRES. It is unbridled and intemperate, using the name of 'witness' for false witness, of the Lord for the defilement of His revelation. It is not new. Nor is the result.