Some of Satan’s ministers were subverting the souls of some of the Corinthian Christians with “another Jesus, another spirit, and another gospel” than that preached by the true apostles of Jesus Christ. Tongue in cheek the apostle Paul said to those who were being taken in, “you might well bear with him” ( 2 Corinthians 11:4). Later in this same context he mentions the fact that “..such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works” (Vs 13-15). When one teaches that which is at odds with what the Bible teaches about God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, or the doctrine of Christ on any point, such an one becomes (even if unwittingly, and in ignorance), a “minister of Satan” (Romans 6:16; 2 Peter 2:19). Only the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, has the power to make men and women “free” from sin and error (John 8:31-32; 1 Peter 1:22-25).

The above was the condition of some of whom Paul wrote to the Philippians, in (3:18). He was probably speaking of those who were troubling them from among the Jews who had accepted Christ, and obeyed the gospel, but were trying to mix the two systems of Judaism and Christianity, binding circumcision on Christ’s disciples.  He said their end was “destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things” (V-19). There are many in the religious world today who fall into this category unfortunately because of their misunderstanding of many things, including the “nature of Jesus on earth.”  Some are preachers of the gospel supported by local churches who circulate around the brotherhood holding protracted meetings spreading their peculiar ideas about the “nature of Jesus.” Many in the brotherhood are oblivious to what they are up to, for they feign humility and doctrinal purity, all the while denying the true nature of the Son of God Almighty, lowering Him to the status of “mere man” while on earth. Some say He is still “human or man” now that He is back in heaven at the Father’s right hand.

 They maintain that unless He is still a man, He could not be our high priest and intercessor. The passage often referred to as “proof” is 1 Timothy 2:5, the “man Christ Jesus.” They also throw in (Hebrews 4:14-16). I maintain that 1 Timothy 2:5, is accommodative language not to be taken literally, for flesh and blood cannot inhabit that eternal realm (1 Corinthians 15:50). The passage in Hebrews calls Him the Son of God in heaven, not a man. (V-14).

This age old question has been asked many times. The Bible gives a definitive answer. He is the Christ the Son of God (John 20:30-31). When folks wanted to make of Jesus of Nazareth a “mere man” in the first century, He asked them a question, the answer to which showed that he was indeed man, but He was much more than a “mere man!”

Once Jesus asked the question “..what do you think of Christ? whose son is he? They said unto him, The son of David. He said unto them, how then doth David in spirit call him Lord, saying, The Lord said unto my Lord, sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool? If David then call him Lord, how is he his son” (Matthew 24:44-45)? Jesus was setting forth the fact that He was more than a man, He was and is divine. He pre-existed all mankind and is in fact the creator through whom God made the worlds, He is “the word” (John 1:1-4; 14; Colossians 1:16-17).

When Peter was inspired to confess the identity of Jesus Christ as the divine Son of God, Jesus said this was the rock on which He would build His church (Matthew 16:13-18). Take away anything from the full deity of Christ and you have the New Testament church’s foundation weakened to that degree. If He was a “mere man” on earth, the only thing making His church superior to human denominations at least foundation wise, is the fact that He was admittedly the “perfect man” (1 Peter 1:19; 2:22; Hebrews 4:15).

When Jesus said to Philip “If you had known Me, you should have known the Father also: and from henceforth you know Him, and have seen Him. Philip said unto Him, Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us. Jesus said 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, show us the Father” (John 14:7-9). Jesus also said “before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58). The “I am” means He is self existent, He is God! Jesus is God the Son, the second person in the Godhead or Godhood (Acts 17:29; Romans 1:20). Some are unaware of the fact that there is graduated authority in the Godhead. God the Father is the first person. God the Son the second. God the Holy Spirit the third. They are equal regarding deity. They are not equal regarding authority, hence the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd parties in the Godhead. The fact that the Father “gave all authority to the Son” (Matthew 28:18; Ephesians 1:22-23; Colossians 1;18), shows that He had it to give. The fact that Christ will turn it all back to the Father at the end of this age when He delivers the kingdom, shows that Christ is now reigning (1 Corinthians 15:23-24). The fact that Christ sent the Holy Spirit to His chosen apostles, shows Christ’s authority over the third person in the Godhead (John 16:12-13). See (1 Corinthians 11:3). Some among us are now teaching that the only powers possessed by Jesus when He was housed in the flesh were the powers given Him by the Holy Spirit. They maintain that he “emptied Himself of all intrinsic (inherent) powers of deity” to become total man, even possessing a human spirit. The Scriptures teach that He was “God housed in the flesh” as we have seen. In (Hebrews 10:5), the Hebrew writer quotes from (Psalm 40:6-8) where the Son is saying to the Father “..a body Thou hast prepared Me.” The Spirit person of Jesus Christ was housed in a human body prepared for that purpose. This is the incarnation. To deny this is to deny a fundamental of “the faith”  the gospel of Jesus Christ! If the Spirit Person of Jesus Christ who is called “the Word” did not actually come housed in the flesh, the “anti-Christ” were right about this matter, but John said that those who so taught were the “deceivers and were anti-christ” (2 John 7). Those who so taught in the first century “had not God” said John. If we accept those who so teach, we suffer the same fate for “bidding Godspeed” to this error! (2 John 9-11). Paul wrote to Timothy about the “Mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, believed on in the world, received up into glory” (1 Timothy 3:16).

Above when Jesus said to Philip “If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father” there’s some interesting information. Since “God is Spirit,” how could Jesus be “Just an ordinary guy like you and me,” (to quote an old statement once made by John Welch of Indianapolis, Indiana. A statement he has since retracted, but every argument he continues to make about the “nature of Jesus” says he still believes just that), and still show us the Father? It would be interesting to hear some sensible explanation. I know from such passages as (Isaiah 9:6 and Matthew 1:23), that Jesus was in fact in every respect, “God with us.” If He wasn’t, He could not have shown us the Father. If so, pray tell me how? It must follow that Jesus possessed the attributes of deity while housed in a fleshly body. “A Spirit hath not flesh and bones” (Luke 24:39). It logically follows that it wasn’t the body of Jesus that “showed us the Father” and so it must have been His Spirit. If Jesus came with a “human spirit” and the only powers of deity He possessed were those given Him by the Holy Spirit (the same as the power by which the apostles did their miracles as John Welch teaches), He would have been unable to “show us the Father.” See?

A debate was conducted 6/19-23, 95 in Lousiville, Ky., in which John Welch debated the proposition following: “Resolved: The Scriptures teach that when Jesus came to earth His  spirit was changed.” Gene Frost denied this proposition and  affirmed the following: “Resolved: The Scriptures teach that the inner being of Jesus, His Spirit, was unchanged when He came to earth.” As you know if you’ve read this far, I totally agree with what Gene Frost affirmed. John is still selling said debate and advertising it on his web page.

I will readily admit to ignorance concerning many things surrounding the incarnation of Jesus. There are things about his earthly sojourn as “God with us” that I cannot understand fully and therefore cannot explain. These to me are “the secret things that belong to God” of which Moses wrote in (Deuteronomy 29:29). “..those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever..”

John Welch and company make much “hay” over the statements in Scripture where Jesus is said not to know certain things, and had to learn others. To them this means that He divested Himself of all of the intrinsic powers of divinity, and what He knew and learned came to Him by the same process that you and I learn. Listen to John in his booklet “The Word Became Flesh.”  “The question has come to our minds about whether Jesus was a freak, a prodigy. From the manger, did he have knowledge and abilities beyond other humans? Jesus is aware at an early age of his relationship to God and his responsibilities to Him.  However, he is not a freak, “Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man” (Luke 2:52).  If Jesus had to increase in wisdom he certainly did not have all wisdom and knowledge from birth or from 12 years old. Once again, this is the normal human process of learning” (Page 11).

John Welch further writes; “This passage (Hebrews 2:12-13 ket) establishes unequivocally that he was subject to all the requirements of faith just as we are. Thus, it is a certain fact that while a man he “walked by faith and not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7). His knowledge on earth was not the certain knowledge of the divine Son of God, but subject to the same frailties as human knowledge. Faith results from that knowledge. In addition, it was acquired by those means available to humans; “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17). What Jesus knew, he had learned as a result of reading and inspiration. These are both means available to other humans.  These are both subject to either belief or disbelief....He could believe or disbelieve. He must apply himself to be true to those beliefs and to acquire them in the first place, they were not inborn and innate. For these reasons, he is a man with full power to be our example” (Ibid pg. 13).

To suppress His divine attributes while serving in the role of our Savior on such occasions as depict Jesus not knowing certain things, and having to learn others, only serves to deepen my impressions of His intrinsic powers as deity, not destroy it as it has in the minds of John Welch and company!  There are several passages which seem to indicate that there were some things that the Father in heaven did not know. Do these make God a human and take away from His divinity? To use the statements indicating some things that Jesus did not know to deny that He possessed the intrinsic powers of deity, can be used with equal force to deny God the Father possessing such powers. God evidently did not “know” that mankind would become as sinful as he did. In fact God was grieved in heart when He viewed man made in His image now in total servitude to Satan. It even “repented Him that he had made man on the earth.” Twice He said this in the context of (Genesis 6:5-7). Still we learn from the inspired Scriptures that Jesus being offered for man’s sins was in the mind of God from eternity. “Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you” (Read 1 Peter 1:13-25). On Pentecost the apostle Peter by inspiration said of the deliverance of Jesus that it was something that was “by the determinate council and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain: Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that He should be holden of it” (Acts 2:23-24). This was bound to happen for it was prophesied. Jesus is called the “Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8).

“And the Lord said, because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous, I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether  according to the cry of it, which is come unto  Me; and if not, I will know” (Genesis 18:20-21). Evidently, God the Father, who possesses omnipotence, omniscience, immortality, and omnipresence (Psalms 139:7-24; Romans 16:27; Genesis 28:3; 1 Timothy 1:17), suppressed these attributes on occasion when it suited His purpose. Could not Jesus who is God the Son, do likewise? As has been oft stated, “that which proves too much, proves nothing.” Welch, Sharp, and others, have made too much of certain passages which seem to them to uphold their “perfectionist doctrine," and are guilty of “throwing out the baby with the bath water.”

We have read and heard of Jesus being put down as possessing all the powers of deity on earth because He had to learn some things and because He did not know when He would return etc. All such is simply a smoke screen emitted in an attempt to accommodate the “doctrine of sinless perfection.” Those who set forth this doctrine of “can know all and can do all,” not only admit that no one lives up to this perfect standard, but they themselves are living proof of its utter falsity! Because all will sin, and because all do sin, is why all need the perfect Savior whose blood appeased the wrath of a holy God and paid the price for our sins that we would have had to pay had we not accepted and obeyed the “gospel of the grace of God” (Acts 20:24; 2 Corinthians 5:17-21; Romans 5:6-17; Romans 3:23; Romans 6:23; Isaiah 53:11; 2 Thessalonians 1:6-10; Acts 2:22-38, 40-41,47).

This study could be prolonged to deal with many other things which have a bearing on this issue, such as the temptations of Jesus and whether or not He could have failed in His mission to be our perfect redeemer, etc. But it seems to me that enough is written herein to refute the ungodly doctrine being spread even among the churches of Christ, which, regardless of their affirmations that they do believe in the “deity” of Jesus, their Jesus is “another Jesus” than the Jesus depicted on the pages of inspiration. It would be interesting to sit in on a study between these brethren who are denigrating Jesus’ full deity on earth and in heaven, and those who are strictly materialist, who teach that Jesus was a good man but not divine. Recently I was reading in a Watchtower publication about the nature of Jesus and was shocked to read almost identical arguments made in that publication that are being made by some of the publishers and writers of “Faith and Facts” quarterly, and “With All Boldness Magazine.” One such “argument” was “God cannot die.” Jesus Christ died. Therefore, Jesus was not God. We would say as did Jesus to the materialist of His day, the Sadducees, “ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God” (Matthew 22:29). The body of Jesus (God the Son) died, but not the Spirit within that body, for it is eternal! As he was dying he said “Father into Thy hands I commend My Spirit..” (Luke 23:46). Paul said that the blood Jesus Shed was the purchase price of the Lord’s church (Ephesians 5:25). Elders at Ephesus were told to “..feed the church of God which He purchased with his own blood” (Acts 20:28). Death means separation (James 2:26), God the Son died in the sense that He was separated from the Father by the guilt of our sins. This caused Jesus to cry out in anguish of soul, “My God, My God, why has Thou forsaken me” (Matthew 27:46). He was tasting the hell you and I deserve, being separated from God by the guilt of our sins! God the Father “saw the anguish of His soul and was satisfied” (Isaiah 53:10-11).

While maintaining that he believed in the deity of Jesus, in the debate in Bowling Green, John Welch used (James 1:13) to argue that Jesus had given up all intrinsic powers of deity when He came in the flesh, along with (Philippians 2:6-7). The argument made some others and me, conclude that he was denying the deity of Jesus and I so stated. The argument runs thus: “God cannot be tempted with evil (James 1:13). Jesus was tempted in all points...”

 What is the conclusion one would logically draw from the above use of this passage? Would it not be therefore, Jesus was not God? Certainly it would! Then why do they get so upset when we accuse them of denying the deity of Jesus?

 Jesus was not tempted to engage in the sinful practices that draw you and me into sin. He did not lust after a woman! That would have been sin (Matthew 5:28). He was tempted from without to disobey the Father and to serve Satan or to use His powers selfishly for His own good and comfort but He refused all such. The perfect holy one sent from God would have failed to be our sinless sacrifice if He had committed even one sin.

Prophecy Cannot Fail-Scripture Cannot be Broken (Deuteronomy 18:22; John 10:35b).

When Peter and John were threatened and told not to speak henceforth to any man in the name of Jesus, they went to their own company, and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said unto them (Acts 4:13, 17-18, 23). Then Luke records the following. “And when they heard that, they lifted up their voice to God with one accord, and said, Lord, Thou art God, which hast made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all that in them is: Who by the mouth of Thy servant David hast said, Why did the heathen rage, and the people imagine vain things? The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord, and against His Christ.

For of a truth against Thy holy child Jesus, whom Thou hast anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together, For to do whatsoever Thy hand and Thy council determined before to be done..”(Acts 4:24-28). Whether we are ever able to fully comprehend the nature of the temptations of Jesus as compared to ours, one thing we know is, He was “the holy child Jesus,” of prophecy, and if He had sinned, Scripture would have been broken and prophets would have been revealed as false prophets.

In Matthew sixteen shortly after promising to build His church, and give the keys of the kingdom to Peter (and later all of the apostles), Jesus began to inform them of what must transpire. “From that time forth began Jesus to show unto His disciples, how that He must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day, Then Peter took Him, and began to rebuke Him, saying Be it far from thee, Lord: But He turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind Me, Satan: thou art an offence unto Me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men” (Matthew 16:21-23). Too much human wisdom is being used in an attempt to understand things that do not fit into human logic by those who want Jesus to be a mere man bereft of the attributes of deity. God’s ways and God’s thoughts are as high above man’s ways and man’s thoughts as are the heavens above the earth. So says (Isaiah 55:8-9).

It is a crying shame that while the world is hell bound, brethren in Christ who know the gospel plan of salvation from alien sins, the worship, organization and work of the New Testament church, must expend so much energy fighting such an issue as “the nature of Jesus!” Churches of Christ are being split and long time friends and brethren are being alienated. Give up on this thing brethren! Stop preaching “Another Jesus.” We have all we can do to faithfully serve the Jesus revealed in the Old and New Testaments (John 14:15-23; Luke 6:46. ket