I understand this is long and could be longer. Please give me a couple of minutes of your time as I think this is an important message to learn and maybe the most important. Time is short and what we believe about this issue could mean life and death. Please be willing to listen to The G-d of Israel and His message. Some will tell you He is complicated and we can not understand Him, but this is untrue as He has made His message easy enough for a child to grasp, let's seek to be like children willing to listen to our Dad. Every Christian is to be a Truth-Seeker. When a person finds Truth, they become an agent of that Truth and should be willing to communicate that Truth in a spirit of commpassion and love with concern. So absolutely essential is the enthusiastic pursuit of Truth that Paul wrote these awful words: "whose coming is through the efficiency of the works of satan with great power and false signs and wonders and in every unrighteous deception for those who are being destroyed, because they did not accept the LOVE OF THE TRUTH for them to be saved." (2 Thessalonians 2:9-10) In the mind of the Apostle, a love and seeking of the Truth is equivalent to a love of Messiah, who is the Truth and who spoke the Truth. Let us be most careful not to misunderstand Paul. A love for Yeshua and His Father, means a whole hearted love for all the Truth Yeshua taught. It is all to easy for one to say "I love Jesus" all the while failing to seek out the Truth He taught. When this happens, professing a faith in Messiah becomes hollow. We must, as Paul says, open our minds to love the Truth. This means giving up our own and others idea's, however cherished, and replacing them with Truth, as we learn it through G-d's Spirit from the Scriptures. We can and will not learn it all at once. We must grow in Grace and Knowledge (2 Peter 1:5, 3:18). We may not always be popular when we abandon old ideas and learn the Truth of Scripture. But what is more important, Truth or popularity and acceptance? It is the essence of error that it parades as Truth. That is why the deceptive work of satan is so successful. "The whole world lies in the devil's deceptive grip" (1 John 5:19). Exponents of error, Paul said, masquerade as angels of light (2 Corinithians 11:13,14). They preach Yeshua, but it's a false Jesus, not the real Yeshua of the Scriptures. They preach "the Gospel" but it is a distorted gospel which omits vital saving information. They speak of "spirit" but it is a counterfeit of the "Breath of Adonai." In view of this threatening environment in which the congregation must continually seek to see thru the evil one's tactics, does the Bible provide any tests for telling the difference between the fake and the genuine? Can we unmask the false versions of the faith propagated by the ememy? Can we detect the camouflage behind which error hides? The Apostle John instructs us to apply this test, a yard stick to measure our own understanding of the person of Yeshua. Who is He? The test is as follows: "You can know the Spirit of G-d by this: every spirit that declares that Yeshua Messiah has come in the flesh is from G-d, and every spirit that does not acknowledge Yeshua is not from G-d." (1 John 4:2, 2 John 7) What does it mean to recognize and acknowledge that Yeshua has "come in the flesh?" Since the phrase "come in the flesh" is hardly one current in contemporary christianity, let us turn for help to the Translator's New Testament, a fine document produced by twenty five scholars, seventeen being new testament specialists in universities and theological collages and eighteen missionary linguists (published by the British and Foreign Bible Society, 1973) Here is their reading of 2 John 7: "Many deceivers have gone into the world who do not accept that Jesus came as a human being. Here is the deceiver and the anti-christ." How would this vital test apply today? Are there systems of theology existing in our time which deny that Jesus came as a human being? According to the "official" definition of the person of Jesus, decided on at the council of Chalcedon (451 AD), and written into the creeds of nearly all denominations, Jesus is both fully god and man. Many who subscribe without question to this understanding of Jesus are unaware of the implications of this description. When we examine the meaning of the Chalcedonian definition more closely, some very remarkable facts emerge. In His book, "To know and Follow Jesus" (pub. Paulist press, 1984), the roman chatholic theologian, Thomas Hart, is critical of the traditional understanding of Jesus enshrined in the creeds of mainstream christianity by the concil of Chalcedon: " The Chalecedonian formula (Jesus is fully G-d and fully man) makes a genuine humanity impossible" (p.46). Hart explains: "The conciliar definition says that Jesus is true man. But if there are two natures in Him (divine and human, ie., he is fully God and fully man), it is clear which will dominate. And Jesus becomes immediately very different from us. He is omniscient (all-knowing), omnipotent, and omnipresent.... This is far from ordinary human experience. Jesus is tempted but cannot sin because he is God. What kind of temptation is this? It has little in common with the kind of struggles we are familiar with” (p. 46). Thomas Hart then describes the official view of Jesus further: According to the Council of Chalcedon, “Jesus is called ‘man’ in the generic sense, but not ‘a man.’ He has human nature, but is not a human person. The person in him is the second person of a "blessed trinity". Jesus does not have a human personal center. This is how the council gets around the problem of split personality” (p. 44). I want to stress the fact that the Jesus of the church council, and nearly all denominations calling themselves christian, whose decision is taken as binding by millions of church goers, is not a human being, has not come in the flesh according to Scripture and does not have a personal human center. If anyone should be puzzled that the Jesus of the churches creed in not a human person, I can confirm this fact is an official teaching by quoting a leading protestant source: "If we affirm that Jesus was a human person, we are driven into an impossable conception of double personality in the incarnate Son of God...." (Oliver Quick, D.D., Doctrines of the Creed, p. 178) Dr. Quick obviously finds himself unable to affirm that Jesus was a human person. He then goes on to admit, “If we deny that Jesus was a human person we deny by implication the completeness of his manhood” But he and the Council did in fact deny that Jesus was a human person! Dr. Quick is not prepared to affirm that Jesus was a human person! From these official statements about the person of Yeshua it appears that the "Jesus" of the churches - the trinitarian Jesus — is not a human person. The churches are forced into this position because of their conviction that the person of Yeshua is the eternal second member of a trinity. Yeshua for the mordern day churches is primarily G-d himself who later put on a half human nature. Lets add a statment from another book, "What think Ye of Christ" by Leslie Simmonds: “Now the doctrine of the Incarnation (and therefore of the trinity) is that in Christ the place of a human personality is replaced by the Divine Personality of God the Son, the Second Person of a most holy trinity. Christ possesses a complete human nature without a human personality. Uncreated and eternal Divine Personality replaces a created human personality in Him” (p. 45) These quotations demonstrate that the Jesus of the Council of Chalcedon, in whom all the major denominations believe, is not a human person. He became “man” but not “a man.” The roman catholic writer we cited earlier is rightly unhappy with this official definition. Having pointed out that the Chalcedonian Jesus is not fully a human person, he insists: “Jesus is one person. Jesus is a human person. Both points are clear in the New Testament” (To Know and Follow Jesus p.64). There appears to be a radical flaw in the churches’ understanding of the central figure of the faith. We must remember that the vital Truth-test we are to apply to any system of teaching has to do with the belief that Yeshua is a real human being (I John 4:2, II John 7). But as Thomas Hart states clearly: “The Chalcedonian (trinitarian) formula makes genuine humanity impossible” (To Know and Follow Jesus, p. 46). And on page 48 he admits: “The Chalcedonian formula has no basis in Scripture.” Astonishingly, the god/man of traditional belief is not a genuine human person. Could a person whose ego — his personal center — is fully G-d really be a human person, when the human part of him consists only of “impersonal human nature”? Could the promised descendant of David have lived before David and still be considered his descendant? Can a single person be 100% god and 100% man? No! Can G-d die? No! If Jesus is G-d, and G-d cannot die (I Tim 6:16), Yeshua cannot have died! And if Yeshua is G-d he must be omniscient. Yet the Yeshua of the Bible said he was not all-knowing. He did not know the day of his future coming (Mark 13:32) Neither sincerity nor majority opinions are safe guides to the Truth of the Bible. The spirit, or character, of every religious system must be examined before its teaching can be accepted. We are commanded to “test the spirits” (I John 4:1), that is, to test the teachers and teachings we are offered in the name of christianity: "Many false teachers have gone out into the world” (I John 4:2). Interestingly, the word used by John to describe the appearance of the false teachers is a form of the word “come”; that is to say that they have “made their appearance in public.” The same verb “come” describes the appearance of Yeshua: “He came as a human being” (I John 4:2, II John 7). To “come as a human being” does not imply that one has existed before one’s birth. It is force of habit which makes readers of the Bible understand the word “come” in that sense when used of Yeshua. It is often forgotten that John the Baptist also “came” (Mat. 11:14). He was, like Yeshua, “sent” (John 1:6). The disciples, too, were sent into the world, just as Yeshua was sent into the world (John 17:18): “Just as You sent Me into the world, I sent them into the world.” Moreover, the prophet — the Messiah — whom the Jews expected would “come into the world” (John 6:14; Deut 18:15-18) was the prophet destined to be born. Yeshua, Himself, equated being born with “coming into the world” (John 18:37). John urges us to believe in a Yeshua who is authentically a human being, not an angel who became man, nor an eternal Son of G-d who became a man. Throughout the New Testament we are exhorted to believe that Yeshua is the Messiah. The Church is to be founded on Peter’s confession of Yeshua as the Messiah (Mat. 16:16). John wrote his entire gospel to persuade us to believe that “Yeshua is the Messiah, the Son of G-d” (John 20:31). The early church in Acts “kept right on teaching and preaching Yeshua as the Messiah” (Acts 5:42). Paul “proved that this Yeshua is the Messiah” (Acts 9:22, 17:3, 18:5, 18:28). It is the “Man Messiah” who is the one mediator between the One G-d and man (I Tim. 2:5). No wonder, then that the spirit of antichrist denies that Yeshua is the Messiah. This is the arch-lie: “Who is the liar but he who denies that Yeshua is the Messiah?” (I John 2:22, 5:1). Being the Messiah dos not mean to be G-d, but the Son of G-d, come in the flesh, as fully human! It is crucially important to understand that the Messiah promised by the Old Testament was to be a real descendant of David (II Sam. 7:14). G-d would be the Father of this descendant, according to the promise, but the Messiah would be “the fruit of David’s body” (Psalm 132:11). There is no hint here or elsewhere in the Old Testament that G-d had been the Father of the Messiah for all eternity, much less that the Messiah was to be the uncreated member of an eternal trinity. Rather, he was to be a “prophet like Moses” raised up from an Israelite family (see Deut. 18:15-18, Acts 3:22, 7:37). The traditional Yeshua of the creeds is alien to this Biblical picture of the Messiah. The real Yeshua of history in whom Luke believed was the Son of G-d, not because He had been G-d from eternity but because of his miraculous conception. In Mary’s womb a real human person came into existence. Note the direct causal link between Jesus’ coming into being as the Son of G-d and the miracle which happened to Mary: “The holy spirit will come upon you and power of the Most High will cover you, and for this reason the holy one who is birthed will be called the Son of G-d” (Luke 1:35). This Yeshua is a genuinely human person, though supernaturally conceived. He is the descendant of David. If he were not he could not prove his claim to be the Messiah. If, however, this person is actually G-d, putting on “impersonal human nature,” why would his descent from David matter? Could one not receive “impersonal human nature” from a mother of any nationality? The theory that the person of Yeshua is not that of Mary’s Son begotten by the Father in Mary (Matt. 1:18, 20), but that of a preexistent person surely destroys both the genuineness of Yeshua's humanity and his descent from David. The Jesus of Trinitarian and Chalcedonian theology is officially not a human person — ”man” but not “a man.” Such theological jargon, as many should realize, is in desperate need of revision. The most important question of all is whether the Chalcedonian Jesus, in whom millions profess belief, qualifies as the one who came “as a human being” (1 John 4:2). The difference in John’s mind between the real human Yeshua and the one who only appears to be a man is the difference between light and dark, Christ and antichrist. One may profess to believe in Yeshua as Messiah but negate this confession by denying that he is a fully human person. John’s Truth-test (I John 4:2, II John 7) is critically relevant to our times. Belief in Yeshua as the Messiah, a real human descendant of David is still the Biblical criterion for proof that one is drawing inspiration from the spirit of Truth. It remains as true as ever that the fundamental doctrinal test of the professing Christian has to do with his view of the person of Messiah. The denial of the humanity of Yeshua is the fatal flaw detected by the Johannine test. G-d’s Son is the Son of Mary and of David. Of sonship prior to His conception in history the Bible has nothing to say. Such a notion is destructive of Yeshua's genuine humanity and genuine descent from David. Yeshua, the Jewish-Christian Messiah, needs urgently to be reinstated at the heart of Christian devotion. Belief in Him and in His Father, the only true G-d, leads to salvation (John 17:3). Peace and Grace! Post edited by: barry, at: 2007/04/12 19:12

Post edited by: barry, at: 2007/04/12 19:26