Zoli – God’s Son and Mary’s Son

Dear Pastor John,

You write in the Father and Son book** that the Son of God came to earth when Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist, and after Jesus came out of the water, the holy Spirit descended on him in the form of a dove. Now, I have believed that we are made up of body, soul and spirit, and since we were made in the image of God, God is the same way, and He created the Son the same way, too.  If I’m drawing the right conclusions, apart from his heavenly body and the Spirit (God’s kind of life) that the Father gave him, the Son also had a soul, or in other words, a consciousness. Like you wrote in the Father and Son tract,* “You are you, and I am I. We will never become one person, and neither will Jesus ever become the Father, or the Father become Jesus.”

Assuming I’m in the right train of thought, when Jesus was born from Mary, he didn’t yet have God’s kind of life, he only had a human spirit, and he also had his own soul, his consciousness that made him Jesus, the son of Mary, separate from every other creature (just like each one of us are separate persons from each other). So the question that came up in my mind is this: What did Jesus receive when the Son of God entered his body, or as the gospels put it, when the holy Spirit descended on him? Did he “only” receive God’s kind of life, or did he also receive the consciousness of the Son, or, in other words, his soul? If it’s the latter, then did the two persons (the Son of God and Jesus, the son of Mary) become one person? When the Son emptied himself and took the form of a servant (Philippians 2:7), what happened? Did the Son (meaning his soul, his consciousness) leave his heavenly body, and entered Jesus’ body, also bringing God’s kind of life with him? Assuming this is what happened, was the Son entering Jesus’ body a once in history event, when two persons (or two souls) became one?

Now, as I was writing this, I was thinking about my own life, and how receiving the holy Ghost did actually give me a new consciousness. It’s not that I don’t have my memories from before my new birth, but I, indeed, have become a new person. (Doesn’t it even say in Revelation that we will receive new names, or a stone with a new name on it?) So maybe the same thing happened to Jesus? He received “only” the spirit of the Son which created a new consciousness in him? In that case: What happened to the body and the soul (the consciousness) of God’s Son who existed in heaven from the beginning of creation?

Some of these questions might sound too technical or theological, but they did come up in my mind, so I thought I would ask you, whether there are definite answers to them.

Thank you, and God bless you, Pastor John.

Zoli

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Hi, Zoli.

You are seeing Jesus’ baptism rightly.  The Son of God divested himself of his heavenly glory and came to the body which God has prepared for him, as the scripture says: “When coming into the world, he said, “Sacrifice and offering have not pleased you, but a body you have prepared for me” (Heb. 10:5).

Your question concerning the blending of Mary’s son with God’s Son when the Spirit descended on Jesus is one I have pondered over many times.  I know that we, too, receive the Son (and the Father) when we receive the Spirit (Jn. 14:23), but it seems that something more than that was happening when the Spirit came down like a dove upon Jesus, for another person (the heavenly Son) was taking possession of a human body.

As I show in my online book, God Had a Son before Mary Did ** from that time on, God’s Son and Mary’s son had become one and, as one, shared two histories.  Here is an excerpt from that book:

The People’s Confusion: Two Sons

Everyone who was acquainted with Mary’s son knew where he came from:

Matthew 13

54. When he came to his hometown, he taught them in their synagogue, and they were astonished and said, “Where’d he get this wisdom and miracles?
55. Isn’t this the carpenter’s son?  Isn’t his mother called Mariam, and his brothers, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas?
56. And his sisters, aren’t they all with us?  So, where’d he get all these things?”

The Jews of Jesus’ time had been taught that when the Messiah appeared, no one would know where he came from, and since they knew where Mary’s son came from, they were certain that Jesus could not be the Messiah: “We know where this man’s from, but when the Messiah comes, nobody will know where he’s from” (Jn. 7:27).  And in the very next verse, the Son of God admitted to the people that they knew where his temple came from: “You know me, and you also know where I’m from” (Jn. 7:28a).  However, every . . . time the Son spoke of coming from God in heaven instead of from Mary in Nazareth, his words provoked turmoil:

John 7

28b. “I haven’t come on my own, but the One who sent me is true; Him you do not know.

29. I know Him because I am from Him, and He sent me.”

30a. Then they tried to seize him.

It is little wonder that even Jesus’ relatives thought he had gone insane:

Mark 3

21. And his kinsmen came out to take him, for they were saying, “He’s lost his mind.”

Persecution notwithstanding, the Son of God never stopped testifying that he came from heaven instead of from Nazareth and from God instead of from Mary, which completely bewildered those who had heard him say previously, “You know me, and you know where I am from”:

John 8

14b. Jesus answered them and said, “You don’t know where I come from or where I’m going.

. . .

19. Then they began to say to him, “Where is your father?”  Jesus answered, “You don’t know me or my Father; if you had known me, you would have known my Father, too.”

So, according to Jesus’ own words, the people knew him and his father, and they did not know him and his Father; and they knew where he came from, and they did not know where he came from.  So, what can we say about this, except that the people were confused and that they were not confused?  They knew what they thought, but what they thought they knew was right only when speaking of Mary’s son.  Of God’s Son, they knew nothing.

Jesus understood their predicament.  And he loved them.

So, Zoli, these things indicate that what happened when God sent His Son to Earth to enter into the body of Jesus is beyond human comprehension.  The mystery of the holy Faith of Jesus Christ is not the Trinity, as Christians say; rather, the mystery is how two persons, Mary’s son and the Son of God, became one.  We know that it happened when Jesus was coming up out of the water after being baptized by John, but beyond that, what happened is just a mystery.

Yours were thoughtful questions, and they deserve thoughtful answers, which I have attempted to give, but there is only so much anyone can say by way of explanation.  That said, however, I will add the following relevant information from the apostle John, which has arrested my attention frequently over the years.

The opening verse of John’s gospel is familiar to many: “In the beginning, the Word was there, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”  But the opening verses of John’s first epistle say the same thing in different words: “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we beheld, and our hands touched: the Word of life.  And the life was revealed, and we saw it, and we are bearing witness and showing you the eternal life which was with the Father and was revealed to us.”

It is remarkable that in his epistle, John speaks of the Word of God as if he were a thing: “That which was from the beginning…. the life was revealed.”  These comments by John are relevant to the questions you asked, but the mystery remains, at least for me.

One last observation.  The terms “Father” and “Son” are used only as tools to help us mortals understand that a loving relationship existed between God and His Son, not to reveal that God and His Son are big versions of human fathers and sons.  The ancient Greeks imagined that the gods were big versions of humans, but the truth is that God and His Son are a different life form from humans.  And so, they can do things which humans cannot imagine.

Thank you for your questions.  They are the same ones I have had for a long time.

Pastor John

*  Going to Jesus.com Tracts – The Father And The Son

**   Going to Jesus.com – God Had A Son Before Mary Did

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How Long Did the Crusades Last?

John,

Did the crusades last 2 centuries?

Wendell

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Hi Wendell,

The first Christian Crusade to recover territory for the Pope was in 1095.  Crusades to recover Palestine continued, sporadically, for two centuries or so.  However, the very last Crusade was made in 1588, when Spain sent its vast, famed Armada against England to bring that nation back into the Catholic fold.  So, in reality, Christians waged Crusades for almost 600 years.

Pastor John

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Anti-Christ and Tartarization

Pastor John,

Is an anti-Christ spirit a tartarized spirit?

Billy M.

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Yes, Billy, the spirit of anti-Christ is a spirit that is damned before the Final Judgment, but cursed to live in sin.  However, we must be careful here because many of God’s dear children are influenced by that wicked spirit but have not provoked God to tartarize them.  That is why the Father is calling His children to come out of Christianity, the religion invented by the anti-Christ spirit.  We do not want to cling stubbornly to that abomination so long that the plagues which God will send upon it fall on us:  “Then I heard another voice from heaven, saying, “Come out of her, my people, so that you will not participate in her sins and receive of her plagues!” (Rev. 18:4).

Pray for the children of God who have not yet come out of that false relighion to walk with Christ and with one another in the Spirit of truth.

Pastor John

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Questions from the Pentateuch

I am sending three questions from the Old Testament

Steve

Question #1. In Exodus 24, we are told that Moses and Aaron and sons, along with 70 elders saw and had a meal with God?  But when Moses saw God he had to cover his face from then on.  Why did these people not get the same outcome after seeing and eating with God?

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Answer #1.  Several times in the Bible we are told of men seeing God, when what really took place is that they were in God’s presence, and were so overcome with the experience that they felt that they had seen Him.  Two examples come to mind:

In Genesis 32, after wrestling with an angel all night, Jacob said, “I have seen God face to face” – but he had not seen God at all.

Then we have Isaiah (6:1), who said, “I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up,” and Amos, too, said, “I saw the Lord” (Amos 9:1), but neither of them looked upon the face of God, for God told Moses when he asked to see God, “You cannot see my face.  For no man can see me and live” (Ex. 33:20).

So, while those men in Exodus 24 certainly had an amazing experience, they did not see God, as we think of seeing someone today.  They were just in the presence of God, and were no doubt amazed at it.

Question #2. If only the high priest could enter the Most Holy Place, how were they to take it down and put it up?  Someone would of had to go and disassemble it.

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Answer #2:  The Kohathites were chosen by God and anointed to carry the furniture of the tabernacle when the camp moved.  But before the Kohathites could enter the tabernacle to pick the furniture up, the high priest had to go in and cover the furniture with a large blue cloth (Num. 4:59).

Question #3. How did they put Aaron’s budded rod in the ark, or lift the lid of it if they couldn’t touch the ark?

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Answer #3: God commanded Moses to put Aaron’s rod inside the ark of the covenant, and he had the authority to do that.  Moses was allowed to enter the holy place, and it appears that he could go into the most holy place, too (Num. 7:89).  The rule concerning who could and could not go into the tabernacle did not apply to Moses.

I hope that helps.

Pastor John

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The Rightness of Being Wrong

Pastor John,

I ran across this BLOG last night.  Very true and very sobering.

Amy B.

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Wow. That “being right” thing has been on my mind lately. That trap is awful. I love the blog- and especially the sentence, Everything you think you are right about is working against you, for it is keeping you from being willing to be wrong.

I love these sober and good thoughts. Thank you.

Donna N.

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The Rightness of Being Wrong

How wrong are you willing to be?  Jesus was so willing to be the most wrong person in the world that he made himself “a curse for us” (Gal. 3:13).  However, Jesus learned to do that only by following his Father’s example.  He was the perfect reflection of the Father in all things (Heb. 1:3), and he was willing to be wrong because he saw that depth of meekness in his heavenly Father.

We are like God only to the extent that we are willing to be wrong and that we are willing to step aside so that others may have their way.  Repeatedly in the Bible, we see God making the choice of preferring for people to have their way than to force them to obey His will.  He will not make us puppets to His will; He will not force us to do what is right.  And yet, knowing that His ways lead to peace and joy for us, and knowing that our own ways lead to misery and regret, and in the end, death, He sends His messengers to us to plead with us not to go our own way but to follow Him.  He calls for us to forsake our ways only because He loves us.

Everything you think you are right about is working against you, for it is keeping you from being willing to be wrong.  Paul said that knowledge makes people proud (1Cor. 8:1).  He saw that knowledge makes people unwilling to be wrong; that is, it makes them unwilling to let go of their “rightness”, and it causes them to look down on others who do not have the same knowledge.  Jesus showed us that God is not like that.  No one had as much knowledge of God as Jesus had, and yet he suffered for others as if they were more important than he was.  But more than that, he did not impose his way of living on others, even though he knew that his way of living would save them.  He begged others to repent and believe on him, and warned them of what would happen to them if they did not, but if they chose not to follow him, he backed off and let them go their own way because that is what his heavenly Father did.

Jesus humbled himself to let evil men have their way, even with him.  He was willing to let them be “right”, to let them win over him and even kill him, if that is what they wanted to do, but their doing so cost them their souls.  That kind of winning in this life costs people everything. 

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The god of this World

Pastor John,

When does the Bible state that Satan became the god of this world?

Margarite

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Hi Margarite!

The Bible never tells us when Satan became the god of this world.  It may have been when Adam, who was at the time the god of this world (cf. Gen. 1:27–28; Ps. 8:5–8), submitted himself to the serpent’s guidance instead of to God’s.

Thank you for that good question!

Pastor John

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Sacrificing Children

John,

It has always been hard to even read the parts of the Old Testament which speak of babies being sacrificed to Baal.  In reading about that this morning, I wondered if a correlation could be drawn between sacrificing children to Baal and spiritually new-born “babes in Christ” being killed in the spirit with the false doctrines in Christianity?

Wendell

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Absolutely!  In fact, there have been many more new-borns in Christ sacrificed on the altars of Christian sects than there were children offered to Baal and Molech in the Old Testament.  How it must hurt the heart of God!  The feelings He expressed when Israel sacrificed their children are no doubt magnified now:  

“They have built the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire as burnt offerings to Baal, which I did not command, and did not speak, nor did it come into my mind!” (Jer. 19:5).

“You took your sons and your daughters, whom you had borne to me, and these you sacrificed to [heathen gods], to be eaten!  Was your fornication a small thing, that you slaughtered my children and gave them up, making them to pass over the fire for them?” (Ezek. 16:2021).

Yes, Wendell, there is a correlation between the Old Testament sacrifice of children and the New Testament form of it.  Peter touches on it in 2Peter 2:18–19, when he describes ministers who are successful in the eyes of men, but who are not sent by God: “Making pretentious, vain speeches [eloquent sermons], they entice . . . those who once had truly escaped from those who live in error, promising them liberty, themselves being servants of corruption in.”

Thanks for the question.

Pastor John

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John 18:26

Good Morning, Pastor John,

John 18:28 says, “Then they led Jesus from Caiaphas to the praetorium, and it was early morning.  But they did not enter the praetorium so that they would not be defiled but might eat the Passover.”

Why would entering the praetorium have defiled the Jews?

Those foolish, evil men!  How God must have felt seeing them worried about defiling themselves for Passover when they were leading the Lamb of God to slaughter!

Beth D.

P.S.  I have heard you pray when we are all together and ask God to let us honor His Son.  I feel that prayer this morning.  It left me asking God to please let me have a heart to honor His Son.

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Hi Beth.

Entering the praetorium would not have defile those men any more than they were already defiled in God’s sight, but their tradition held that entering a Gentile’s residence would defile them, and the praetorium was the official residence of the Roman governor.

Yes, to be given heart to honor God’s Son is a great blessing, earnestly to be desired.  May God always do that for us!

Pastor John

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Tartarus

Hi, Pastor John;

I enjoyed the Hell book* reading, and it brought to me the fear of God and soberness, talking about Tartaus and eternal damnation.  I have had this question on my mind for a day or so.  In the section, Can Someone In Tartarus Repent? you wrote, “In Tartarus, no soul is ever granted the Godly sorrow that produces repentance.”  My question is, can a fallen believer or person that is “tartarized” on this earth still speak in tongues in the Spirit as unto God, or are tongues also tartarized forever, too?  Will God allow a tartarized soul to continue to speak in tongues, allowing that person to think all is well? 

Thank you,

Billy

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Hi Billy.

First, there is a difference between a believer being backslidden and a believer whom God has tartarized, as Peter described in 2Peter 2.  If backslidden believers do not repent, they will be damned, of course, but a tartarized believer is already damned, “twice dead” as Jude said.  And the author of Hebrews tells us that for such men, there is no sacrifice possible for their sin.  Peter limits the curse of tartarization to men who once received the Spirit, but who are now ministering false doctrines to God’s children.

As for your question, Jesus said that on the Day of Judgment, when he casts some believers out of the kingdom of God and into Torment, they will say, “Lord! Lord!  Haven’t we prophesied in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and performed many miracles in your name?” (Mt. 7:22).  From that, it is clear that God will not withdraw His Spirit and the gifts it gave to some people until the end, and that includes other manifestations of the Spirit, such as speaking in tongues.  The continuation of manifestation of the Spirit in the life of a tartarized person always makes them feel that their personal lives are acceptable to God, but in the end, they will learn that He had only been using them to try the hearts of others.

It is indeed a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

Pastor John

*  Going to Jesus.com – What the Bible really says about HELL

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The Lord’s Prayer

Hi Pastor John,

I have spent the last two days talking to Jesus, just having a real heart-to-heart with him about relationships and fellowship.  I have been asking him about fellowship for a while now.

Today, I noticed a video titled, “The Lord’s Prayer”, and I skipped past it because most of the time such videos just feel disappointing.  After I skipped it, I was thinking about the title of that video, and I felt the Spirit surge through me, and I heard the thought, “What was the Lord’s prayer?  It was to make us one, like he and his Father are one.”

That thought and the Spirit felt so good that I searched “make them one”, and I found John 17!  Have I ever even read John 17?  It’s so good!  Surely, I have read John 17!  But I know I have never felt John 17 like this!  Just read what prayer our Lord prayed! 

Jesus prayed to be glorified by his Father; he prayed for us to know him and our Father.  Jesus prayed for God to keep us!  Jesus prayed for God to sanctify us with His truth; he prayed for us to have his joy!  He prayed for us to be one so the world might believe that God sent him.

I feel like Jesus reached down into my heart and taught me more about how he feels about fellowship.  Fellowship is about Jesus!  It is for us, but it is about Jesus. 

When you read his heart in that prayer, it makes you know that having anything other than fellowship is against our Jesus. 

And verses 22 through 26 just makes me cry. 

John 17:

      1. Jesus spoke these things, and then he lifted his eyes toward heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son,   so that your Son might also glorify you,

2. since you gave him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all those that you have given to him.

3. And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.

4. I glorified you on earth; I’ve finished the work that you gave me to do.

5. And now, Father, glorify me to beat your side with the glory I used to have with you before the universe existed.
6. I have manifested your name to the men whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.

7. They know now that everything you’ve given me is from you

8. because I have given them the words that you’ve given me, and they received them, and they truly do know that I came from you, and they have believed that you sent me.

9. I pray for them. I’m not praying for the world, but for those you’ve given me, for they are yours,

10. and all things that are mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them.

11. And I’m no longer in the world, but these are in the world, and I’m coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name which you have given to me, that they may be one, just as we are.

12. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in your name. Those you gave me, I watched over, and not one of them has been lost except the son of damnation, that the scripture might be fulfilled.
13. But now, I’m coming to you, and these things I’m saying in the world so that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves.

14. I’ve given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I’m not of the world.

15. I do not ask that you take them out of the world but that you keep them from the Evil One.

16. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.

17. Sanctify them with your truth; your word is truth.

18. Just as you sent me into the world, I also sent them into the world.

19. And for their sake, I sanctify myself so that they may also be sanctified with truth.

20. And I’m not asking for these alone, but also for those who believe in me through their word,
21. that they all might be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they may also be one in us, so that the world might believe that you sent me. 

22. And the glory that you’ve given me, I’ve given to them, that they might be one, just as we are one: 

23. I in them, and you in me, so that they might be perfected in unity, and so that the world might know that you sent me, and that you have loved them just as you loved me. 

24. Father, I desire that where I am, these whom you’ve given me might also be with me, that they may behold my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. 

25. Righteous Father, even though the world doesn’t know you, I know you, and these know that you sent me, 

26. and I have made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

Beth D

 

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