The Nugget:
2Th_2:3 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;
My Comment:
Being deceived about spiritual things is exceedingly dangerous. To know the truth about spiritual things, we must learn that truth directly from the Bible itself. Any viewpoint not in agreement with the Bible is wrong!
This post is a continuation of the previous post at Daily Bible Nugget #443, Ephesians 5:6, also posted today.
I am presenting a portion of the discussion at the “Islam and Christianity Debate Group” from today. You will find, if you read this discussion carefully and all the way through, that you will learn some aspects of important Bible doctrine you have not known about before. This is important reading!
Paul warns us in 2 Thessalonians 2:3 that we must take care that no man deceive us. There will come a falling away from belief in Jesus Christ, which ultimately will lead to the revelation of the man of sin, the son of perdition, the Antichrist. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ now as your Savior, for if you do not, and these times come to fruition in our day, you will be in for a heap of trouble!
The Muslim Challenge:
My Answer:
Uthman Muhammad Aboki, you may have missed reading my answers elsewhere on this site to the several interesting questions you mention above. I will see if I can answer each question briefly in summary form:
Question 1, “How could he be God who worshipped God?
Answer 1: Unlike any other man who has ever lived, Jesus was both a man and God at the same time. The Bible shows that Jesus Christ had two natures in One Person. Jesus Christ in His divine nature has always existed (Hebrews 13:8; John 8:56, 57, 58; John 1:1; Micah 5:2) but since His birth in Bethlehem to the virgin Mary, Jesus has taken upon Himself a human nature, such that even now in heaven Jesus is still a man (1 Timothy 2:5). So while Jesus was here on earth in His human nature, He could properly worship God. I see no problem here.
Question 2, “How could he be God who was helpless before his torturers?”
Answer 2: Jesus Christ was hardly helpless. He voluntarily acquiesced to the abuse He suffered in order to be the perfect atoning sacrifice for our sins. Recall that when Judas the traitor led the Temple guards and the Pharisees and Chief Priests to Jesus to identify Him in the garden of Gethsemane, once He was identified, and He spoke, all His would-be enemies fell to the ground as though He had powerfully knocked them off their feet, John 18:6. Remember that Jesus stated, in answer to Peter, “Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?” (Matthew 26:53, 54). Consider also what is stated about this in Hebrews 12:1-3,
Heb 12:1 Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,
Heb 12:2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Heb 12:3 For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.
Heb 12:4 Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.
Question 3, “How could he be God who wept?”
Answer 3: That Jesus wept does not denote weakness but His compassion. Just as Jesus had compassion repeatedly toward people He met in the Gospel accounts (Matthew 20:34; Mark 5:19; Luke 7:13), so God the Father has expressed compassion toward us in the Old Testament accounts (Exodus 34:6, 7; 2 Kings 13:23; 2 Chronicles 36:15).
Question 4, “How could he be God who never knew when the Day of Judgement will be?”
Answer 4: It is evident that Jesus did not know the day nor the hour of His Second Coming because it was not given by God the Father to Him to know at that time. The reason why Jesus was not given to know at that time the precise time of His return is that such knowledge if shared with us would directly conflict with the duty Jesus immediately commanded that we always ever be watchful for His return, as an encouragement for us to live at all times a life pleasing to Him so that we not be embarrassed or ashamed when He does appear for us (Mark 13:32, 33, 36; 1 John 3:2, 3). This is a strong encouragement to live a life of holiness until He comes (Hebrews 12:14), for without holiness no man shall see the Lord.
Question 5, “How could he be God, who said he can, on his own do nothing?”
Answer 5: Jesus was absolutely obedient to the Father’s will, such that at all times He did not pursue His own will, but the will of the Father. In His taking on human nature, Jesus took on also the position of the Second Adam, such that whereas Adam failed in his obedience to God, Jesus perfectly fulfilled as a Man His obedience to God, thus qualifying to be the perfect and sinless sacrifice for our sins as He became our atoning sacrifice.
Question 6, “How could he be God, who hears from someone else and declares?”
Answer 6: Once again, Jesus was sent by God, and it was His commission to declare God’s message faithfully and truly. To suppose this is detrimental to His Deity is to fail to acknowledge what the New Testament record clearly reveals, that Jesus possessed two natures in His one Person simultaneously, for He was truly man and so had a human nature, and He was truly God, for He ever possessed a Divine Nature. This is what is called in theology the Incarnation of Christ, and the Hypostatic Union. These truths are very clearly to be inferred from the evidence we are given about Jesus Christ in the divinely inspired record of the New Testament.
Question 7, “How could he be God who admitted there is Someone else who is greater than him?”
Answer 7: God the Father is called by the name Jehovah in many places in the Old Testament. Jesus Christ (who has always existed) in His pre-incarnate existence, that is, His existence before He was born in Bethlehem, is also called Jehovah in the Old Testament, as I have thoroughly and at length explained here before. At Genesis 19:24, we read of two Jehovahs on the scene at the same time. The Jehovah that is upon earth had previously visited Abraham when three “men” (Genesis 18:1, 2) appeared while Abraham sat in his tent door. If you follow the narrative carefully in the subsequent chapters, you will read that two of the men are spoken of as angels. But the third Person is called the Angel of Jehovah, is also called Jehovah, and is also called God. Since the Bible tells us “no man has seen God at any time,” and tells us that “God is spirit,” and that spirits are invisible, so the Spirit who is Jehovah as God the Father so cannot be seen, the Person Who Abraham saw must be identified as Jesus Christ in His pre-incarnate form, as Jesus Himself claimed in John 8:56, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad.” Jesus stated “Before Abraham was, I am,” thus affirming His eternal pre-existence and identification with the Jehovah who came to visit Abraham. Therefore, Jesus is the God that Abraham saw and talked to. But since, therefore, there are two Jehovahs in the One Godhead, Jesus as the second person called Jehovah has always voluntarily taken the subordinate position within the Godhead. Subordination does not imply inequality. As a man, Jesus on earth before His bodily resurrection from the dead in a glorified body, could properly say that the Father is greater than He. I see no problem there.
Question 8, “How could he be God who died, even if it’s for a minute?”
Answer 8: It is clear that the physical body of our Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross. But since He possessed a conscious spirit, and since spirits cannot die, He as God the Son did not die in spirit, only His human body died, so He was always conscious as God and in full control at all times. See Luke 23:43 and Hebrews 1:2, 3.
Question 9, “How could he be God who was raised from death by God?”
Answer 9: The Bible attributes the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to all three persons of the Godhead:
(1) Jesus said He would raise Himself from the dead in John 10:17, 18. “Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again.
John 10:18 No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.” Jesus Christ predicted this as recorded in John 2:19, “Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”
(2) The Bible states that God the Father raised up Jesus in Acts 2:32, “This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses.”
(3) The Bible teaches that the Holy Spirit raised Jesus from the dead in Romans 8:11, “But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.” The same truth is taught in 1 Peter 3:18, “For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit.”
Question 10, “How could a Jew be God?!”
Answer 10: The Messiah was predicted in many Old Testament prophecies to be a Jew, of the Seed of David (2 Samuel 7:12), and of the seed or offspring of Abraham (Genesis 22:18), and to be the son of God (Psalm 2:7). These predictions begin in the Book of Genesis (See Genesis 3:15; Genesis 49:10) and continue with more details throughout the Old Testament. The Deity of the Messiah is required and asserted in Zechariah 12:10, “And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced” and affirmed in John 19:34, “But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water” and confirmed to be the fulfillment of this very prophecy (Zechariah 12:10) in John 19:37, where it is quoted: “And again another scripture saith, They shall look on him whom they pierced.” The statement “They shall look upon ME” is spoken by Jehovah Himself in the context of Zechariah 12:10, thus proving the Deity of the Messiah. Therefore as the second Jehovah in the Godhead, the Messiah is God, born in Bethlehem in accordance with Messianic Prophecy at Micah 5:2, born of Jewish parents, and therefore Jesus Christ Himself is a Jew, but also He is God. The evidence is most clear and direct: this is what the Bible teaches, and I have carefully cited the Bible prophecies that prove this is so.
Question 11, “How could he be God who lamented saying, My God My God, why have you abandoned me?”
Answer 11: This expression, a quotation of Bible prophecy found in Psalm 22:1, is cited by Jesus Christ while on the cross. None of the generally known English translations give the proper rendering here. The Lavender Translation has it right, and says “Why did you leave me in this circumstance?” What circumstance was Christ left in? He was left in the redemptive role: suffering, bloodshed, death! God cannot leave, forsake, or run out on God the Son. God IS one, as in a state of being, and there cannot be departure whatsoever among the Trinity, of the One from the Other. God’s effort was not abandonment, but redemption!
Much more could be said upon this point, but my intention has been to keep this as clear and brief as possible. You have asked very good and helpful questions which have made this discussion possible. If you need me to explain any of these points more, please feel free to ask and I will be very pleased to do so, Uthman Muhammad Aboki. Thank you again for your very good questions.
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