Poster | Thread | RobertW Member
Joined: 2004/2/12 Posts: 4636 St. Joseph, Missouri
| Re: | | Quote:
Satan's temptation was for Christ to use His powers selfishly. Christ could do anything. He could forcefully make the entire earth bow to Him. Instead, Christ used His power always in love, not seeking His own, instead giving. Even when Christ walked on water, this was not for His benefit, but for the benefit of His disciples who would grow in faith because of i
I think the term would be 'to grasp' the power to be God. But Christ made Himself of no reputation (Philippians 2). Being found as a 'man' (v8). He did always those things that He saw the Father doing. This is how Christ is our example in all things. It is what makes Him our ensample. He became us to show us how to live like Him. This does not work if the circumstances are greatly different between what He became and what we now are. The truth that was in Him can and must become the truth that is in us.
The miracles and signs gave witness that He was the 'One' (Matthew 11:3). God bore Him witness. The question in our times to us is not a lot different than it was for Him. Paul said in I Corinthians that when He came he would not know the speech of them that were puffed up- but the [i]power[/i]. This is God bearing witness and Paul being sensitive to what that witness was. The spirit's of the prophets are subject to the prophets, but I cannot see man weilding the power of God. The Holy Spirit is leading us- not we Him. This is the message Balaam had to learn. He could not 'curse' unless God allowed it.
For our Lord to function as He was teaching us to function it required responding to the revelation of God's will by the Spirit. This is not Lone Ranger spirituality. This is being led of the Spirit in all things. _________________ Robert Wurtz II
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| 2006/12/11 12:15 | Profile | RobertW Member
Joined: 2004/2/12 Posts: 4636 St. Joseph, Missouri
| Re: | | Quote:
However, to reject the notion that sin cannot abide in the Presence of God is to severely misunderstand His holiness. Was the Son of God forsaken?
I think it is worth noting here that sin upon the conscience in the presence of God is a most horrendous thing. In this sense sin certainly cannot abide in the presence of God. Isaiah cried out in Isaiah 6 and the angel took a coal from the altar upon his lips- but that, like the blood of bulls and of goats and ashes of an heifer could not make the comer (Isaiah) thereunto perfect as pertaining to the conscience as a remembrance of sin was still made for him also every year. Only the blood of Jesus Christ can purge the conscience from dead works to serve the living God.
I have never heard this factored into the equation as it pertains to our Lord 'becoming sin' for us. The weight of our sin upon His conscience. This in itself would create a tremendous sense of estrangement from the Father. Adam sought to hide from God. Isaiah cried WOE IS ME! And our Lord cried out, "MY God My God... why hast thou forsaken me?" I don't know how it all plays out, but there has to be a very real sense of what Isaiah felt- if in His humanity He has suffered in our place. _________________ Robert Wurtz II
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| 2006/12/11 12:32 | Profile | philologos Member
Joined: 2003/7/18 Posts: 6566 Reading, UK
| Re: | | wilhelm42 posted Quote:
As it regards the question of the cry of Jesus Christ on the Cross, it would be supremely negligent to disregard the original intention of these words as spoken by David in prophetic utterance in Psalm 22.
I really appreciate your comprehensive post, many thanks. The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy and Psalm 22 is certainly 'the testimony of Jesus'. The references to 'pierced hands and feet' mkae this plain and this was certainly never 'the testimony of David'; neither was the casting of lots over his clothes.
It seems to me that David 'heard' this testimony and recorded it. This could take us deep into the wonders of inspiration but I am expressing this conviction here because I think that this may be 'David quoting Jesus' rather than the cross utterance being an occasion of 'Jesus quoting David'.
As you rightly say, this passage is clearly Messianic and then we just have to explore what 'the cry of dereliction' signifies. As regards... Quote:
To say that Christ was utterly forsaken in complete measure by the Father is to reject His own words when He says in John 16:32, "Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone: and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me."
...I am not sure we can use this promise as a 'proof' that Christ was not utterly forsaken. As I pointed out from Rom 4:25, Christ was 'abandoned' (handed over) for our offences.
I have also often wondered who the 'thou' is in Isaiah 12 [color=0000ff]And in that day thou shalt say, O Lord, I will praise thee: though thou wast angry with me, thine anger is turned away, and thou comfortedst me. Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid: for the Lord JEHOVAH is my strength and my song; he also is become my salvation. Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation. (Is 12:1-3 KJVS)[/color] This passage speaks clearly of identifiable states and I think it may be significant that the personal pronoun changes from the singular to the plural in v3, a switch which is hidden in the more modern translations. _________________ Ron Bailey
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| 2006/12/11 14:08 | Profile | Christinyou Member
Joined: 2005/11/2 Posts: 3710 Ca.
| Re: | | Hey Ron,
Great Post.
""It seems to me that David 'heard' this testimony and recorded it. This could take us deep into the wonders of inspiration but I am expressing this conviction here because I think that this may be 'David quoting Jesus' rather than the cross utterance being an occasion of 'Jesus quoting David'.""
2Pe 1:21 For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake [as they were] moved by the Holy Ghost.
A small understanding I might add. When Jesus in the garden saw in the cup the sin of the whole world, His manhood forced, by the seeing of what He had to take in His body, forced great drops of Blood through the surface of His skin. Being all God, He accepted it and said, "not my will but Yours be done. Wow!
That part Jesus Christ on the Cross that God the Father could not accept into His Kingdom and share the Throne with Him had to completely die and the life of the flesh which is in the blood was completely shed on the ground and Christ laying down His life in the flesh, that part of Christ was separated from the Father and like the Garden He felt that separation in the flesh, but in the Spirit He claimed, " It is finished" The Christ of God was then released and fulfilled, "O Lord, I will praise thee: though thou wast angry with me," not at the Christ, but at the Jesus the man that had the sin of the whole world in His Body that He drank in the garden. Then that body changed like ours will be on resurrection morning, He Rose and was glorified and now sits at the right hand of the Father in His Fathers House. Amen.
The Rest of the Story; "thine anger is turned away, and thou comfortedst me. Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid: for the Lord JEHOVAH is my strength and my song; he also is become my salvation. Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation."
The Living Water we are born again with Jesus Christ Himself, and the Spirit of Christ and believers being Baptized into One Spirit by The Holy Spirit.
Jhn 7:38 He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.
Christ Himself will come flowing our of us, which makes "Christ in you the Hope of Glory", truly wonderful in its light and warmth of the Father's Love.
In Christ: Phillip
_________________ Phillip
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| 2006/12/11 20:02 | Profile | roman Member
Joined: 2005/4/18 Posts: 41
| Re: | | Hi Ron B.,
Using the verse you quote "Isa 59:2 Isaiah 59:2 (KJV) [b]But your iniquities have separated between you and your God[/b]and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.
God got separated/abandoned Jesus; can we equally say that "Jesus died spiritually" which the same case as Adam & Eve when they sinned? They died spiritually & eventually physically.
This is a teaching I heard using that very passage.
Anyone can answer this question too.
Roman
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| 2006/12/11 22:39 | Profile | philologos Member
Joined: 2003/7/18 Posts: 6566 Reading, UK
| Re: | | God got separated/abandoned Jesus; can we equally say that "Jesus died spiritually" which the same case as Adam & Eve when they sinned? They died spiritually & eventually physically. I get a bit nervous when we begin to try to divide Christ's experiences into human and/or divine. The Son of God became the man Jesus and was fully God and fully man. What theologians usually call 'the hypostatic union' has been an area of great controversy down the years. I take refuge in the verse [color=0000ff]Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it. (Psa 139:6 KJVS)[/color] and as some of those wise old Quakers used to say 'we do not seek to be wiser than what is written'.
When we speak of God becoming man he did not do so in watertight compartments but became true man and chose to live as man while remaining God. To answer your question as simply as I can I would say that 'Jesus Christ' was forsaken. The Greek word translated 'forsaken' is a very strong one. It has built into it the prefix 'kata' which means 'thoroughly' and the verb 'leipO' which already means to forsake, so this is an extremely intense expression of 'abandonment'. The word is used elsewhere in the NT and following its use will show its strength of expression; Matt 27:46; Mark 15:34; Acts 2:27; Rom 9:29; 2Cor 4:9; 2Tim 4:10,16; Heb 10:25; 13:5
The person that God became in Christ was forsaken/abandoned; the whole person was abandoned. How could that be? Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, but God has revealed it was so and I am content to believe him. I don't know how the Holy One of God could become Sin either, but again I am content to believe it.
There is another verse which chills my backbone and leaves me worshipping...[color=0000ff]And the God of the peace, who did bring up out of the dead the great shepherd of the sheep in the blood of an age-during covenant our Lord Jesus, make you perfect in every good work to do His will, doing in you that which is well-pleasing before Him, through Jesus Christ, to whom [is] the glory to the ages of the ages! Amen. (Heb 13:20-21 YNG)[/color] I have quoted it here from Youngs LIteral Translation to make my point. Is this saying that it was 'through the blood of the everlasting covenant' that God raised Christ? I think it is. If so, Christ's own death was the basis upon which God raised him from the dead. That is to say that if Christ's blood had not been a full, perfect and sufficient satisfaction for the world's sin he could not have been raised. I don't want to trivialise the concept but Christ was first to put his death to the test and while still upon the cross he knew that the work was finished. This is seen too in the later section of Psalm 22 where 'while still upon the horns of the wild auroch he cries 'thou hast heard me'. The work was finished on the cross and the remainder of the psalm is in strong contrast to the first half; the first half being dark and brooding while the second half is full of hope and expectation.
The forsaking had been borne and with confidence he commits his spirit to the Father. What if.... Oh I daren't think but I know that this was no theatrical gesture but a real plunge into that death of which physical death is only a pale shadow. _________________ Ron Bailey
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| 2006/12/12 6:34 | Profile | RobertW Member
Joined: 2004/2/12 Posts: 4636 St. Joseph, Missouri
| Re: | | Quote:
God got separated/abandoned Jesus; can we equally say that "Jesus died spiritually" which the same case as Adam & Eve when they sinned? They died spiritually & eventually physically.
When certain members of the faith movement began to take the scriptural revelation to conclusions of their own logic a problem developed in which they assumed that Christ both went to hell for us and also had to be born again. Ron has rightly noted that it was on the cross that our Lord declared "It is finished". And because certain have taken this too far others such as Hank Hanagraff have taken a posture that denies the deriliction all together as it has been historically known. This is an unfortunate over-reaction to error. This is another way that error can beget error.
To say that Christ was forsaken of the Father on the cross is not the same as stringing certain other passages together with this and saying He descended into hell to suffer and become fallen and in need of regeneration. I have heard certain teachers then conclude that the 'burnt offering' was a picture of Christ in hell. I think this is completely wrong. A burnt offering speaks of absolute consecration. A burnt offering cannot be eaten as was the Passover. It was reserved totally to God. It was completely God-ward. Man could not benefit from this offering in the sense of eating it after the sacrifice was made. He was left to gather the ashes. these ashes were used in the Temple service occasionally, but this was certainly different than, lets say, a Passover meal comprised of the sacrifice.
I will try to find and post some of a list of quotes I once had found that deals with many respected and famous writers dealing with Psalm 22 and the Deriliction. It demonstrates that the concept as Ron presents it is well documented in Church history.
_________________ Robert Wurtz II
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| 2006/12/12 8:57 | Profile | RobertW Member
Joined: 2004/2/12 Posts: 4636 St. Joseph, Missouri
| Re: | | From Calvin's commentary on Matthew, Mark, Luke:
46.And about the ninth hour Jesus cried. Though in the cry which Christ uttered a power more than human was manifested, yet it was unquestionably drawn from him by intensity of sorrow. And certainly this was his chief conflict, and harder than all the other tortures, that in his anguish he was so far from being soothed by the assistance or favor of his Father, that he felt himself to be in some measure estranged from him. For not only did he offer his body as the price of our reconciliation with God, but. in his soul also he endured the punishments due to us; and thus he became, as Isaiah speaks, a man of sorrows, (53:3.) Those interpreters are widely mistaken who, laying aside this part of redemption, attended solely to the outward punishment of the flesh; for in order that Christ might satisfy for us, 285 it was necessary that he should be placed as a guilty person at the judgment-seat of God. Now nothing is more dreadful than to feel that God, whose wrath is worse than all deaths, is the Judge. When this temptation was presented to Christ, as if, having God opposed to him, he were already devoted to destruction, he was seized with horror, which would have been sufficient to swallow up a hundred times all the men in the world; but by the amazing power of the Spirit he achieved the victory. Nor is it by hypocrisy, or by assuming a character, that he complains of having been forsaken by the Father. Some allege that he employed this language in compliance with the opinion of the people, but this is an absurd mode of evading the difficulty; for the inward sadness of his soul was so powerful and violent, that it forced him to break out into a cry. Nor did the redemption which he accomplished consist solely in what was exhibited to the eye, (as I stated a little ago,) but having undertaken to be our surety, he resolved actually to undergo in our room the judgment of God. 283 Leur foreenerie noun, doit blen estonner, et nous faire dresser les cheveux en la teste; their madness ought greatly to astonish us, and to make our hair stand on end. 284 Plus aisément on leust laissé passer sans enquerir la signification; it would more easily have been allowed to pass without inquiring into its meaning. 285 A fin que Christ fist la satisfaction et le payment pour nous; in order that Christ might make satisfaction and payment for us. 196
But it appear absurd to say that an expression of despair escaped Christ. The reply is easy. Though the perception of the flesh would have led him to dread destruction, still in his heart faith remained firm, by which he beheld the presence of God, of whose absence he complains. We have explained elsewhere how the Divine nature gave way to the weakness of the flesh, so far as was necessary for our salvation, that Christ might accomplish all that was required of the Redeemer. We have likewise pointed out the distinction between the sentiment of nature and the knowledge of faith; and, there ore, the perception of Gods estrangement from him, which Christ had, as suggested by natural feeling, did not hinder him from continuing to be assured by faith that God was reconciled to him. This is sufficiently evident from the two clauses of the complaint; for, before stating the temptation, he begins by saying that he betakes himself to God as his God, and thus by the shield of faith he courageously expels that appearance of forsaking which presented itself on the other side. In short, during this fearful torture his faith remained uninjured, so that, while he complained of being forsaken, he still relied on the aid of God as at hand. That this expression eminently deserves our attention is evident from the circumstance, that the Holy Spirit, in order to engrave it more deeply on the memory of men, has chosen to relate it in the Syriac language; 286 for this has the same effect as if he made us hear Christ himself repeating the very words which then proceeded from his mouth. So much the more detestable is the indifference of those who lightly pass by, as a matter of jesting, the deep sadness and fearful trembling which Christ endured. No one who considers that Christ undertook the office of Mediator on the condition of suffering our condemnation, both in his body and in his soul, will think it strange that he maintained a struggle with the sorrows of death, as if an offended God had thrown him into a whirlpool of afflictions. John CalvinComm on Mat,Mar,Luk (V3) _________________ Robert Wurtz II
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| 2006/12/12 9:28 | Profile | beenblake Member
Joined: 2005/7/26 Posts: 524 Tennessee, USA
| Re: | | Lord Jesus, I pray you will shut mouths of those who speak in err, and that by this prayer they will come to see their own sin.
In the name of Christ, Amen _________________ Blake Kidney
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| 2006/12/12 15:08 | Profile | GraceAlone Member
Joined: 2006/8/23 Posts: 232 Orlando, Florida
| | 2006/12/12 15:30 | Profile |
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