The Origin of Jesus

Some time ago, I was studying some articles published by the Mormons (Church of the Latter Day Saints). My curiosity got the best of me when I read that they believed that Jesus and Lucifer were brothers. Knowing what I know of the Scripture, I immediately took offence to this and was grieved in my soul for the slander aimed at the very One who is responsible for my eternal salvation. Alike, many Christians take offence of this dastardly defamation of Deity but nonetheless, I feel we need to take a closer look at what the Word of God declares. Let it be known amongst His children that God is very capable of defending Himself. I am only a witness of these truths set forth in my heart.

“God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high; being made so much better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. For unto which of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee? And again, I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son? And again, when he bringeth in the first-begotten into the world, he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him. And of the angels he saith, Who maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire. But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore, God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. And, thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands: they shall perish; but thou remainest; and they all shall wax old as doth a garment; and as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail. But to which of the angels said he at any time, sit on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool? Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?” Hebrews 1:1-14

If nothing else, we can see that established here in the Scripture there is a distinct difference between the Deity of God and the angels of Heaven. It was God alone that created the heavens and the universe. Angels are very strong and powerful as far as their God given abilities allow, but they do not possess the power of creative abilities, such as bringing into existence living forms of air breathing life. Angels are not Deity. They are created beings, ministering spirits according to the Scripture, just one-step above humankind. The Bible admonishes us not to worship Angels, but rather instructs and encourages us to worship only the true and living Jehovah God and His adorned Son; one in the same, Jesus is this person.

“I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me: That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else. I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness: let the earth open, and let them bring forth salvation, and let righteousness spring up together; I the LORD have created it. Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, ‘what makest thou? Or thy work, He hath no hands?” Isaiah 45:5-9

God’s Christ Jesus set forth a discourse explaining just who He was when the Disciple Phillip asked to see the Father of Glory.

“Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him.’ Philip saith unto him, Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto him, ‘have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? He that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father? Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works' sake. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father. And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it. If ye love me, keep my commandments.” John 14:6-15

“For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.” 1Timothy 2:5-6

“Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.” Philippians 2:5-13

In this Scripture, we can identify Christ as being one in the same with God the Father who is altogether omniscient, all knowing of all things. God is also omnipresent, which means He has the ability to place Himself in many different places at the same time. Angels on the other hand cannot perform in this manner and this includes Lucifer. It can be said that God wears three hats at His choosing. This takes a lot of power, much more than our sun can display at one time, but our God is more than capable. For example, I have the power of the Holy Spirit inside of me and at the same time, so do many others that believe Christ is the Son of God. There is nothing in the entire universe that God cannot do based on His will.

“And Jesus came and spake unto them, {after the Resurrection and upon His ascension} saying, ‘All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.’ Amen.” Matthew 28:18-20

Therefore, Christ is the express image of God the Father and is an extension of Himself in a bodily form as stated in Hebrews chapter one. God’s purpose was not to expose Himself as Almighty God Himself. He did that with Moses and although He tucked Moses safely away in the rock, His presence almost killed Moses. No one but the Angels can physically approach the true and living God Jehovah. Our God is a God of fire, a consuming fire according to Hebrews 12:29. Holy and righteous altogether and nothing that defiles can come into His presence. Thus, the purpose for His Christ; He approaches the Father of Lights on our behalf. You and I, as born-again believers in Christ Jesus now have access to the Throne of Glory. However, to put forth Himself to humankind as what appears to us as a separate entity is Christ or the Saviour. God is merciful to us. He gave us Himself in a bodily form known in the Scriptures as the Logos or the Word. Before Christ was born to Mary and the world, He was known to Heaven’s entire host as the WORD.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men.” John 1:1-4

This is the wonderful grace of the Father giving us an opportunity to approach Him, believe in Him, and above all, worship Him. We cannot approach God the Father without approaching His extension of Christ first, a living breathing person we can touch, feel, and one glorious day, see with our own eyes. The Scripture assures us as born-again children of God that we who know Him will see Him face to face in the very near future. By faith, we must accept God’s Christ first in order to have access to the Father.

As for the statement of the Mormons’ claim that Lucifer is the brother of God’s Christ is to say that Christ is equal to the Angels. Lucifer, the Light Bearer, was the anointed cherubim that served at the fiery altar, which is at the base of God’s Throne in Heaven. This is most definitely a false statement of the Mormons because this statement takes away the Deity of the Son of God. It is altogether blasphemy and truly the statement of an unbeliever. A false statement because through the knowledge of the Scripture, we know that Christ is the Son of God, the Father’s express image and the very likeness of His glory. Not a duplicate mind you, but an express image; there is a difference…think about that for a moment.God the Father is a Spirit, a consuming fire and He purposed himself to have a body to walk among men. We have further witness of the Apostles in the Scripture according to the Disciple Luke when he wrote about the entrance of the Son of God. I feel the Scripture best describes the Trinity with the works performed at the First Advent of Christ, the Lord’s conception at Nazareth.

“And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary. And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women. And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be. And the angel said unto her, ‘fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God. And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.’ Then said Mary unto the angel, ‘how shall this be, seeing I know not a man?’ And the angel answered and said unto her, ‘the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. And, behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age: and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren. For with God nothing shall be impossible.” Luke 1:26-37

  

This Scripture alone gives us the account of the three offices and purposes of God the Father by showing us the inner workings of the Triune God. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, all three are one in the same with Christ Jesus. Puzzling no doubt, but God the Father chooses to give the name of Jesus to us so we can better understand our God and give us a feel for closeness and intimate relationship with God the Father. He gives us what seems like another individual but in the real spiritual sense, is still the same person. We must keep in mind what God said about Himself; “I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me.”

I am sure at times that many feel the Scripture might seem to contradict itself; sometimes it does to me too, but I know this is only because of my human inabilities. I have to remind myself this is my God that loves me and gives me the ability to understand His ways. Many things, such as our maturity and how long we have known the LORD, depends on whether or not we receive this valuable information. His ways of Holiness and Righteousness are so much higher than our ways and sometimes foreign to me. I know from experience that writing about this subject can be, and probably is, very difficult to comprehend, let alone understand it. In our walk of faith we must realize that even as adults we are alike unto babies who know that someone is taking time to pay attention to them yet they do not have a clue as to who or what this person is. Christians are similar because by faith we accept that a higher power wants to give us time and space to grow gracefully in the knowledge He gives us, spoon-fed so to speak, a little at a time as not to discourage us. I am not going to sit here and tell you that I fully understand all things, how arrogant that would be of me. The LORD gives knowledge or withholds knowledge from me just as He gives to you what we can digest at the time. We have to keep in mind that our walk with God is a walk of faith. Whether or not we understand it is irrelevant, simply believing is enough for the LORD at this time. Understanding will come from the LORD as we mature into adults and stay close to the Word of God.

“Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works' sake.” John 14:11

Challenging God

How many of us can remember the time we did something that we knew that was wrong but did it anyway? In fact, we totally ignored the small voice of our conscience speaking in our ears not to go there. When I was a lot younger, that type disobedience was more frequent than not. The world labels it ‘youthful exuberance’ or as the motion picture, society labels it, “A Rebel without a Cause,” but the Bible calls it flat out rebellion. Some folks seem never to grow up and the youthful exuberance turns into right out sin. There are times in my life that I totally dismissed the inner voice and went on with my intentions. Let us face the truth of the matter. It always feels better to disobey than to obey. Neo-pagans say that if what you want to do does not hurt others, then by all means do it. In other words, we give ourselves license to do whatever feels good. The Bible calls this licentiousness or lewdness of the flesh.  Despite all we have been taught and instructed God’s wonderful grace does not give the child of God license to sin. We commit sin because of the simple fact that we are Adam’s children, children of the fallen race of Eve; fallen to sin because of our unbelief of what God says He means. The world at large has a legitimate excuse, but on the other hand, Christians do not. However, ignorance will not be an excuse when the time of judgment comes to the earth. What we do comes natural to the flesh and we do not seem to have any qualms with performing evil continually until God intervenes with His Holy Spirit. I noticed at a very early age my own children would lie in their crib and as a baby lie about anything just to get our attention. They would not be satisfied with lying there playing with their little trinkets; they wanted more. The child achieved this by lying through crying, tearfully asking to be coddled thereby escaping the confines of the crib. This type of behavior continues throughout our entire lives until something or someone intervenes and brings to a halt or at the least curbs our devious ways of deception. With this information at hand now, I ask the question again: how many of us challenge God every day. I raised my hand. If you would be honest with yourself, you will raise your hand too.

“For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.” 1Samuel 15:23

There is a Greek word that comes to mind and that word is hubris. Hubris means extreme pride and or arrogance to the point of challenging God. Somewhat like youthful exuberance or rebellion but on a slightly lesser scale. There seems to be degrees of hubris. Sometimes, hubris can become a criminal act when someone gloats over a victim or conquest such as war. The Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler was always carrying on in this manner. I remember seeing the Nazi films were Hitler danced a little jig on camera when gloating over the fall of Paris, France in the very beginning of WWII. This can happen to anyone who leaves his or her desires and lusts unchecked for a long period. Some will use mind-numbing narcotics such as valium or alcohol to quiet the voice in their mind long enough so they can find a little pleasure in their sin for a season. The strategy is if they can hold their conscience at bay long enough they will have more pleasure in committing the sin they so enjoy. The truth of the matter is that Satan attacks the mind and for the most part that is humankind’s weakest point. Even intellectuals have weak places in their mind. It is a design flaw by design of God. There is no such thing as superman in reality; there is always a flaw in there somewhere.

Satan will use anything to control the mind, even to coerce people to commit murder and suicide in the same instance. If Satan cannot get you to commit murder then maybe he can get you to commit adultery. So many people commit adultery without the aid of alcohol or drugs. Even in the church, you can find people that have committed adultery and act as if it was nothing. This is a blatant disregard of God’s Word. This is the very sin Adam and Eve was found guilty of, disregarding the Word of God, which carries a heavy toll in the end. A fact remains for Christians is that we will face the Bema Seat of Christ.

“And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:”

Hebrews 9:27

Evidently and by our volition, it just feels good to figuratively give God the middle finger and go on in defiance of His word only to prove they can. People will purposely take the name of the LORD in vain. Cursing their way through life and not realizing they will give an account of every word they utter.  It is their way of slandering and getting back at God.  Therefore, so-called Christians do this all the time. One’s actions reveal the heart’s desires. Little do they know the repercussions will follow just as seeds sown into the wind will find lodging to grow someday.

“Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is.” 1Corinthians 3:13

Whether or not we as Christians realize it, we commit spiritual adultery just about every day we live. By spiritual adultery, I mean that we can turn like a chameleon into a worldly person and commit spiritual suicide through the worship of idols. Another truth is anything, if pursued in the world that is not of God, is deemed and classified idol worship by the Bible. If I am not careful, for example, I could become guilty of idolizing my favorite barbeque restaurant by worshiping this delicious treat. I could turn Eastern Carolina vinegar pork barbeque into an idol very easy by just ignoring the warning reminders of my conscience. I am beginning to salivate. The Holy Spirit that resides in me tries to warn me to back off and give my lust for barbeque a time out. I know that too much pork of any kind is not a healthy or wise choice. It can cause severe health problems at an early age. So you might be asking, why do it at all if I know it might be bad for me? Therein lays the dilemma. See, I am human after all. I also love to smoke cigars but I totally refrain from that practice all together with the help of a Holy Ghost conviction. On the other hand, I do not possess a Holy Ghost conviction for the use of pork as of yet, mainly because I have not asked the LORD for one. The fact is that Satan will use and attack us with anything and everything to get us to destroy ourselves. He will not have to lift a finger because he knows just how weak-minded we all are. He uses this underhanded knowledge of us all with discretion.  I know to some people that might sound silly and extreme, but it accounts for so many people committing gluttony, which leads to obesity and other health related problems. Yes, there is no doubt committing gluttony is outright sin. It is a deliberate attempt to destroy God’s creation and the dwelling place of His Holy Spirit. God does not want this for His children; would you want it for yours?

“Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?”

1Corinthians 3:16

Another truth is that America is overweight and it is because we do not control the insatiable desires of the mind and heart. We do these things in total disregard of our health and personal mentality. Yes, Satan will use food to destroy you if you let him. This one place I am sure we all could use a Holy Ghost conviction; I know I need this for myself. This is the reason we are encouraged by the Word of God to cleanse ourselves daily by reading and praying over God’s Word. The Word of God is the cleansing agent for the child of God administered by God’s Holy Spirit. It is just this simple, if God does not curb our fleshly lusts and desires through the daily reading of His Word and praying for our daily needs, there is no hope for any of us. Even the self-helps of Ala-non including the twelve steps from addictions cannot help. Addictions of any kind are open sin and be taken away with entirely by the power of God’s Holy Spirit. It just comes down to whether or not we really want help. All we have to do is just ask the LORD and He would be glad to oblige. There is a saying in the rescue ministry that you cannot help someone until the person has bounced off the bottom. Only then can you present Jesus to a person to help them with their addictions. These type people live in constant denial of their sin and situation.

“If we say that we have fellowship with him {God}, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” 1John 1:6-10

Our addictions of the flesh, whether it is gluttony, pornographic material, use of tobacco products, alcohol consumption, illegal narcotics, or just being ungrateful, unthankful, and complainers is unmistakably a mirror of the heart itself. Sin is sin is sin. These vices of choice prove to ourselves who really is in charge of our life. It is an undeniable fact for the Bible tells us so.

“For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he:” Proverbs 23:7

Not to worry though little lambs; there is a balm in Gilead. Christ Jesus is the answer to all our problems. We can only be convinced of this fact by the Holy Spirit of God. As I said before, sometimes we have to bounce off the bottom first. So many times, we really do not want to heal because we rather enjoy our sins, even if just for a season. The reality of all this is if we do not possess a Holy Spirit conviction of any of these things that plague us, there will be no healing to be had for any of us. In some instances of my life, I came to realization that I needed help with my lusts and desires, good and bad. I found myself praying and asking the LORD for help, to give me relief from the sins that so easily beset me. Today, I stand relieved of these sins of evil conception. By the power of my LORD Jesus, Satan found himself in full retreat. Only by the Grace of God have I found peace of mind and peace in my soul.

“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30 {words of Christ in red}