At this point in our study on the
Trinity, we need to synthesize what
the Bible teaches about Jesus.
For example, the Bible teaches that
Jesus and the Father are separate,
distinct, co-eternal members of the
Godhead. Jesus is not a created
being. Like the Father, Jesus
is a God who is “from
everlasting to everlasting.” (Nehemiah 9:5, John 1:1) Jesus
and the Father have independent
wills. (John 6:38, Luke 22:42) The
Father spoke through Jesus to ensure
the Jews understood that Jesus and
the Father are compeers (equal in
standing, ability, or accomplishment)
even though they assume different
roles. (John 5:18, Matthew 26:63-66) The
Father not only gave Jesus the words
to speak, but also told Jesus how and
when to say them. (John 12:49, 14:24) The
Father declared to the Jews that
Jesus was a God just like Himself,
but the Jews rejected the Father’s
testimony and crucified
Jesus for blasphemy. (Matthew 26:65,66)
In Revelation 19:13, Jesus’
name is the “Word of God”
because the Father speaks through Him
to the universe. According to
Jesus, no one has ever seen the
Father (John 1:18, 6:46) for He
lives in a glorious, unapproachable
light. (John 6:46, 1:18, 1 Timothy 6:15,16)
Therefore, when the Father wishes to
say something, He usually speaks
through Jesus. (John 17:8) The
Bible teaches that Jesus created
everything, including the universe,
for the Father. (Hebrews 1:2, Genesis 1:1, John 1:3, Colossians 1:16)
When the name God is
used in the Old Testament, the Bible
is actually referring to Jesus!
In fact, 97% of the Old Testament
references concerning God pertain to
Jesus. Jesus created Adam and
Eve and drove them out of the garden,
sent the flood in Noah’s day,
spoke to Moses from the burning bush,
passed over Egypt, killed
Egypt’s firstborn and delivered
Israel from slavery, spoke the Ten
Commandments from Mt. Sinai, and
spoke to the Old Testament
prophets. If we understand
Jesus, John 1:11 makes
total sense, “He came to
that which was His own, but His own
did not receive Him.”
Jesus could not and did not die in
our place. Yes, you read the
statement correctly. Instead,
Jesus died so the Father could transfer our
guilt to Heaven’s temple through
Jesus’ blood. This is
necessary because a substitutionary
death cannot produce salvation.
When a person sins, he is not only
condemned to death for his sin, but,
he is also transformed by the law of
sin—He becomes a slave to
sin. (John 8:34) Since
a substitutionary death has no effect
on a sinner’s slavery to sin, a
substitutionary death is inadequate
for salvation. Because
sin has transforming power, the plan
of salvation includes the transfer of
Christ’s transforming power. We
need His propensity for righteousness
to replace our natural propensity for
sin. (Romans 1:16)
The
Father Asked Jesus to Give Everything
When we understand who Jesus is, the
process required and ransom he paid
to save sinners is mind
boggling. No one will ever be
able to intelligently
question the legitimacy of
the Father’s plan to save
sinners. When we study the plan
of salvation, we must approach the
topic with a set of presuppositions.
These include the following facts:
The Father is righteous and true; He
lives and acts within boundaries set
by laws of love; everything He does
is to benefit His children; the
Father has infinite wisdom, so He is
deliberate and purposeful in
everything He does. As we
investigate the plan of salvation, we
will not be disappointed because the
facts prove that the Father chose
the very best way to
save sinners. The Father could
not use a magic wand to
erase sin and save sinners, because
the Earthly temple service teaches
that God does not forgive sin.
Each sin is a recorded fact.
Therefore, the Father designed a plan
to legitimately save sinners whereby
a sinner can be separated from his
guilt. However, to transfer
guilt, a member of deity needed to
die. The Father determined the
best way to transform “slaves of
sin” into people who love and
cherish righteousness was to transfer the
power of righteousness from Jesus to
sinners. Of course, this transfer could
only be possible if Jesus came to
Earth, produced the needed
righteousness (overcame every
temptation), gave up His propensity
for righteousness, and ceased to
exist.
When Jesus was on Earth, He said that
the Father gave Him authority to
forgive sins. (Luke 5:24) Jesus did
not imply that He could forgive sins
with a simple command. If this
were possible, it would not have been
necessary for Jesus to die!
When Jesus agreed to come to Earth to
save sinners, the Father made him the
judge of mankind. (John 5:22,23) Jesus
will save everyone who has obeyed the
voice of the Holy Spirit because He
has transferred their
guilt to the temple. The
Transfer Doctrine (see Part 4) and
Jesus’ words are not in
conflict. This doctrine
explains how Jesus separates guilt
from the sinner and forgives them.
The Father has given each sinner the
power of choice, but He has offered
salvation to sinners with one
condition. Sinners must
choose to obey the Holy Spirit’s
voice if they want to be saved.
The Holy Spirit constantly confronts
us because each of us has
intelligence, reason, and the power
of choice. We have freedom to
choose if we want to live by
faith. As Meshach, Shadrach,
and Abednego demonstrated, living by
faith is to obey the Holy
Spirit’s voice, do what the
Spirit says, and leave the
consequences with God. (Daniel 3:18) The
Father requires faith as a condition
of salvation for everyone who wants
to live with the Trinity
throughout the endless ages
to come! (See Matthew 12:31,32.)
I am sure that Jesus was shocked when
He heard the details of the
Father’s plan to save Adam and
Eve, and their offspring; Jesus would
have to pay the ultimate price to
save sinners. The Father
offered Jesus a reward if He
was willing to go forward with the
plan. The Father promised Jesus if He
successfully carried out the plan,
the Father would resurrect Jesus
and restore everything
that He gave up. Additionally,
the Father promised Jesus that He
would ultimately be exalted forever
as equal to the Father; this is why
the last book in the Bible is called
the revelation of Jesus Christ.
As a bonus, the Father would give all
the redeemed to Jesus as personal
property. (Notice this transfer
in John 17:6.) The
faith one God put into another
God’s promises illustrates the
faith required to be part of
God’s family.
The
Title “Son of God”
Instead of killing Adam and Eve on
the day they sinned (which the law
demanded), the Father
legitimately stayed their
execution because Jesus submitted to
the Father’s plan of
salvation. On that day, Jesus
became man’s intercessor (high
priest). (Hebrews 5) The Father
and Jesus entered into a covenant and
this promise is recorded in Psalm 2:
“I will proclaim the decree of
the Lord [the Father]: He said
to me [Jesus], ‘You are
my Son; today I
have become your Father.
Ask of me, and I will make the
nations your inheritance, the ends of
the Earth your possession. You
will rule them with an iron scepter;
you will dash them to pieces like
pottery. Therefore, you kings,
be wise; be warned, you rulers of the
Earth. Serve the Lord [Jesus] with
fear and rejoice with
trembling. Kiss the Son [obey
Him, submit to His authority], lest
He be angry and you be destroyed in
your way, for His wrath can flare up
in a moment. Blessed are all who take
refuge in Him.’ ” (Psalm 2:7-12, insertions
and underlining mine)
The Hebrew word for son is ben and
it means “a subject, a slave,
one under authority.” Ever
since the day Adam and Eve sinned,
Jesus has been called “the ben,”
the son, the slave of the
Father. We see this submission
stated in John 8:42, “I
have not come on my own; but He
sent me.” John 6:38 says, “For
I have come down from Heaven not to
do my will but to do the will of
Him who sent me.” Jesus
told the Jews that it was not His
idea to appear on Earth.
Instead, the Father sent Him.
He came as a subject under authority
because the Father required Him to do
this to save sinners.
Clearly, two wills and two separate
persons are involved: One God
“The Sender,” the other
“The Sent.” Now that
you know these things, look at this
verse through informed eyes: “For
God so loved the world, that He
gave His only begotten Son, that
whosoever believeth in Him should not
perish, but have everlasting
life.” (John 3:16 KJV)
Even though Jesus is an eternal God,
this verse calls Him the
Father’s “only begotten
Son” for several reasons.
There
are two stories in the Bible
about parents slaying an only
child as a burnt offering to
God. The first is Abraham
offering Isaac (Genesis 22)
and the second is Jephthah
offering his daughter. (Judges 11:3-40)
Even though Abraham was
willing to kill Isaac and
Isaac was willing to die,
both were spared.
However, in Jephthah’s
case, I believe he killed his
willing daughter. These
two examples are parallels of
the Father’s incredible
anguish in giving us
Jesus. The Father loves
Jesus more than any parent
can love an only
child and had it
been possible, the Father
Himself would have come and
died for us. Even
though it was the intent of
wicked men to kill deity
while He hung on the cross,
the Father took Jesus’
life.
The
love between members of the
Trinity is the greatest force
known in the universe. The
Father could not give more or
pay a higher price than to
give us Jesus! Jesus
had to die the death that
sinners will die so that
everything belonging to Jesus
could be transferred to
those who obey the voice of
the Holy Spirit. From a
standpoint of sin’s
penalty (which is sudden
death), the Father will not
impose greater suffering on
any sinner than what Jesus
suffered. From the
standpoint of restitution,
the Father will impose
suffering on sinners in Hell
in proportion with the
suffering they imposed on
others. For sinners who
are unable to make
restitution for the suffering
they caused (like the thief
on the cross), Jesus has paid
the price. This is why
He was scourged and beaten
beyond human endurance before
going to the cross.
Finally,
how does a changeless God
legitimately satisfy the law
that says, “The
soul who sins is the soul
that will die?” The
answer is found on the
cross. The Father made
an innocent Jesus suffer the
second death (2 Corinthians
5:21) so that He
could legitimately transfer everything
that belonged to Jesus to
repentant sinners. (Romans 5:17-19)
Jesus
is Eternal God
“In the sixth
month [of
Elizabeth’s pregnancy],
God sent the angel Gabriel to
Nazareth, a town in Galilee.
. . He said to Mary:
‘You will be with child
and give birth to a son, and
you are to give him the name
Jesus. He will be great and
will be called the Son of the
Most High. The Lord God [the
Father] will give Him
the throne of His father
David, and He will reign over
the house of Jacob forever;
His kingdom will never
end.’ ‘How will
this be,’ Mary asked the
angel, ‘since I am a
virgin?’ The angel
answered, ‘The Holy
Spirit will come upon you,
and the power of the Most
High will overshadow you.
So the Holy One[of
Israel] to be born will
be called the Son of
God.’ ” (Luke 1:26-35,
insertions and emphasis mine)
Jesus is called “the
Holy One” in the Old
Testament about fifty
times! Gabriel gave a
statement to Mary that
confirmed the baby forming
within her was the God of the
Old Testament. Jesus
became an obedient
slave of the Father
because of Jesus’
infinite love for his Father
and sinners. Jesus
humbled Himself to live in
poverty. He came as a
homely looking man, a man of
sorrows who would suffer more
than any sinner would have to
suffer. God sent Jesus
and He obediently came to
give us all that belonged to
Him. Jesus is not a
superman, He is much more
than that: He is an eternal
God who took on the lowly
form of a man to share His
riches.
