The Battle Over the Gospel
In the past 50 to 60 years there has been a great debate within the Church regarding the human nature of Christ. In this study the purpose is to present Christ and Him crucified as the substance of the first angel's message of Revelation 14:6 and to discuss how it was possible for Him to die.
The question involved in the crucifixion of Christ is: how was it possible for Him to die for our sins? This must involve the kind of human nature He took upon His divine nature in order for Him to die. What kind of humanity was He obligated to take? This is no peripheral issue. It is central to the plan of salvation. Could Christ have died if He took Adam's sinless pre-fall human nature? A presuppositional question is: Could Adam have died in his pre-fall sinless nature?
It is impossible to overstate the emotional nature of the debate over the humanity of Christ in the church today. At stake is how a person feels about his or her belief in Christ Jesus. This is a passionate topic, and it is imperative that we strive to be charitable in our interactions with those with whom we disagree. Behind every theological position there is a real person with sincere thoughts, needs, and feelings; thus my desire is to respect him or her as a fellow Christian.
It is not my intention or my desire to attack anyone who differs with me. My hope is for clarity with charity. Clarity will not be possible without focusing on certain statements that do not appear to square with the crucifixion of Christ. All things must be seen in the light of the cross. With this in mind my goal in this present discussion is clarity.
To present Christ and Him crucified as the substance of the first angel's message, we must address also the role of the occult cryptic Babylon, referred to in the book of Revelation, and her intoxicating potion that will one day soon change the thinking of the worldly wise. Most doctrines, even the doctrines of devils, contain a morsel of truth. Our challenge is to avoid the lure of reductionistic thinking and allow all the evidence its rightful place. Nearly any teaching can be made to look very attractive and appealing based on a portion of the evidence. We desperately need the cross of Christ to be the central theme in our discussion.
The central theme of the book of Revelation is Jesus Christ and Him crucified (Rev. 1:1, 5; 5:6; 12:11; 13:8). The person of Jesus is the good news of salvation. He is "the gospel of God" (Rom. 1:1-3). This is especially true of His death, burial, and resurrection which comprise the gospel according to 1 Corinthians 15:1-4.
Another theological theme in the book of Revelation is the line of demarcation between an antichrist city called Babylon and the people of God. We read of fierce opposition to Christ and the gospel of God. This opposition comes from the system called Babylon, which is also illustrated by another metaphor: a harlot and her prostitute daughters (Rev. 17 and 18).
The Meaning of Babylon
The term Babylon comes from the Semitic form Bab-ilu, meaning "the gate of god." (See among others: Brown, Driver and Briggs, Hebrew and English Lexicon; Easton's Bible Dictionary; The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Dictionary.)
"The Babylonian name Babilu (Babel or Babylon) meant 'gate of god.' In ancient times the city gate was the place where official visitors conducted public business. The name Bab-ilu reflected the belief that Babylon was the place selected by the gods to meet with human beings, and the claim of Babylonian kings that the gods had commissioned them to rule the world" (The Seventh-day Adventist Encyclopedia, under the heading "Babylon, Symbolic").
"The oldest attested extrabiblical name is the Sumerian ká-dingir-ki (usually written kádingir-ra, 'gate of god')" (The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Revised; see also The Anchor Bible Dictionary).
The meaning of Babel was later changed to reflect confusion. The Hebrew root from the word balal means "to confound" and refers to the confusion at the Tower of Babel (Gen. 10:10; 11:19). It comes to us today with this connotation, but we must remember its etymological religious root: "the gate of god." Putting the two thoughts together we get our understanding today that the metaphor of Babylon means ecclesiastical confusion in these last days.
Throughout the Old and New Testaments, Babylon stands theologically for the community that is anti-God. Moreover, the general consensus of the Church from earliest times is that Babylon is a symbol for Rome.
However, as a symbol, Babylon embraces more than the empire, city, and culture of Rome. It is the entire sphere of idolatry and worldliness which exists in opposition to the people and work of God. It is a worldliness epitomized first by Babylon and then by Rome. Both Babylon and Rome taught self-salvation, but Babylon, as the mother of harlots and abominations in opposition to God (Rev. 17:5), is the very antithesis of the Savior of the world and of the Church as the Bride of Christ, the New Jerusalem, and the Kingdom of God.
In Rev. 14:8; 16:19; 17:5; and 18:2, "Babylon" means Rome, not considered as pagan Rome, but as the prolongation of that ancient power in the papal and apostate Protestant forms. Rome, pagan and papal, is regarded as one power but in two phases. Apostate Protestantism reflects, as in a mirror, this power. It is its image.
Today we must look at Babylon through the eyes of those in the 20th and 21st centuries with the current political, economic and religious situations while we also look to the past for guidance, clarification, and the significance of how we got here.
The second angel's message was first given in the time frame and context of the first apartment ministry of Jesus in the heavenly sanctuary. William Miller and his associates thought that the first angel's message was the cleansing of earth by fire when Jesus returns. The Protestantism of his day generally rejected Miller's message as well as the message that followed, which announced the second apartment ministry of Jesus as our High Priest in the antitypical Day of Atonement.
When Protestant churches rejected Miller's message concerning the second coming of Christ it was noted that Babylon had daughters, and that Protestantism, by following the same pathway as the papacy, had become a part of that apostasy.
Charles Fitch began to preach a call based on Revelation 18. He equated the fall of Babylon with the fall not only of papal Rome but also with that of apostate Protestantism. For him and those with him, Babylon was the antichrist, which included all churches, Protestant and Catholic. His call was clear: "If you are a Christian, come out of Babylon! If you intend to be found a Christian when Christ appears, come out of Babylon, come out Now!" (Charles Fitch, Come Out of Her, My People. Rochester, N. Y.: J. V. Himes, 1843 (emphasis in the original); see also G. Damsteegt, Foundations of the Seventh-day Adventist Message and Mission).
In Revelation 14:8 and 18:2, announcing the fall of Babylon, we have an echo of Isaiah 21:9 (cf. Jer. 51:8), which is the Old Testament call to God's people to leave that city in the Middle East. In Revelation, Babylon refers no longer to the city on the Euphrates and not only to papal Rome, but to all of Christianity in a fallen condition. The message of the fall of Babylon in Revelation 14:8 and again in 18:2 is valid only if it follows and accompanies the true proclamation of the everlasting gospel of the first angel of Revelation 14:6, 7.
Babylon is the metaphor which God gave John in order to illustrate the antichrist power in the last days. The resistance of Babylon of old to the gospel of God in the Old Testament typifies the antagonism of spiritual Babylon in the Revelation. The two Babylons ultimately represent spiritualism in the earth controlled by the enemy of the gospel of God. The leader and controller of the organizations represented by the metaphor is Lucifer (see Isa. 14:4, 12-14).
The fall of Babylon is the falling away from the everlasting gospel of Christ crucified as preached during the time of God's judgmenthour(Rev. 14:6-7). God does not abandon Babylon in her guilt, but warns her of her fallen condition (vs. 8). The fall here is not the image of merely falling, but rather it suggests lying prostrate after a fall rather than the fall itself.
Later in Revelation 18:2 the message of the fall of Babylon is repeated, but it is presented with an additional message giving information that Babylon at that time not only rejects the threefold message of Revelation 14:6-7, "the everlasting gospel," but that she becomes completely possessed and inhabited by demons as the result of that rejection.
It is the goal of devils to do away with the blood of Christ. Here is what the synagogue of Satan teaches:
"Spiritualism will sweep the world and make it a better place to live. When it rules over all the world, it will banish the blood of Christ" (The Teachings and Phenomena of Spiritualism, page 72).
An attack against the death of Christ is a central attack against the gospel of God. The metaphor of "is fallen" is oriented to the fact that Babylon must answer to the Lord as her Judge. The fall of Babylon finds its last-day fulfillment in the departure of Protestantism at large from the purity and simplicity of the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is so because the papacy departed from the gospel and has been in a fallen condition for centuries, notwithstanding her claim to be the only true church and the Mother of all Christian churches.
Consider one of the foundational teachings of this so-called "Mother" church. Today there is a powerful Marian movement sweeping not only Catholicism, but within Protestantism there are those who are being converted to Mary because of the overwhelming power exhibited in Marian apparitions in many parts of the world.
Rome insists that devotion to Mary is essential to Christian worship: "The Church's devotion to the Blessed Virgin is intrinsic to Christian worship" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 971 [the use of paragraph numbers instead of page numbers is because there is a difference in pagination between the hard and soft cover editions]). This latest and most comprehensive Catechism continues in the same paragraph: "The liturgical feasts dedicated to the Mother of God and Marian prayer, such as the rosary, an 'epitome of the whole Gospel' expresses this devotion to the Virgin Mary." According to this notion both the Marian feasts and the rosary represent, and are a summary of, the Catholic gospel.
The "In" Mary Salvation Motif
"In" Mary is the gospel of Rome: a marvelous counterfeit of the biblical "in Christ" motif. This gospel of Rome is summed up in this concept: the Church is saved "in Mary." Notice: "In her we contemplate what the Church already is in her mystery on her own 'pilgrimage of faith,' and what she [the Church] will be in the homeland at the end of the journey" (Ibid., paragraph 972 [emphasis supplied]).
Again: "'But while in the most Blessed Virgin the Church has already reached that perfection whereby she exists without spot or wrinkle, the faithful still strive to conquer sin and increase in holiness. And so they turn their eyes to Mary,' in her, the Church is already the 'all holy'" (Ibid., paragraph 829 [emphasis supplied]).
And again: "As St. Irenaeus says, 'Being obedient she [Mary] became the cause of salvation for herself and for the whole human race'" (cited in Ibid., paragraph 494).
The Immaculate Conception
The so-called "good news" of this clever gospel is the call to worship Mary, the call to worship her so-called "immaculate heart." Visions and pictures displayed of this immaculate heart are said to be the reason for the numerous physical healings and conversions of both Protestants and Catholics at various shrines around the world. According to Catholic doctrine, Mary's sinless heart is the direct result of an immaculate conception.
There is a lot of enthusiasm generated in the Catholic community for the modern day apparitions of the so-called immaculate Mary. Many have disregarded the reality of salvation and cannot be dissuaded from this false gospel that can save no one.
"Through the centuries the Church has become ever more aware that Mary, 'full of grace' through God, was redeemed from the moment of her conception. That is what the dogma of the Immaculate Conception confesses, as Pope Pius IX proclaimed in 1854:
"The most Blessed Virgin Mary, was, from the first moment of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of almighty God and by virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, Savior of the human race, preserved immune from all stain of original sin" (Ibid., paragraph 491).
Panagia means "All-Holy" and refers to Mary's supposedly sinless human nature:
"The Fathers of the Eastern tradition call the Mother of God 'the All-Holy' (Panagia) and celebrate her as 'free from any stain of sin, as fashioned by the Holy Spirit and formed as a new creature'" (Ibid., paragraph 493).
The purpose of the so-called immaculate conception of Mary was to give Christ a holy human nature, the same as her own and the same as Adam's sinless nature before he fell.
"The Holy Spirit, 'the giver of Life,' is sent to sanctify the womb of the Virgin Mary and divinely fecundate it, causing her to conceive the eternal Son of the Father in a humanity drawn from her own" (Ibid., paragraph 485).
The Immaculate Conception, The New Adam, and Reconciliation
"Jesus is conceived by the Holy Spirit in the Virgin Mary's womb because he is the New Adam, who inaugurates the new creation. … By his virginal conception, Jesus, the New Adam, ushers in the new birth of children adopted in the Holy Spirit by faith" (Ibid., paragraphs 504, 505 [emphasis in the original]).
To the Catholic mind salvation must come through the union of the divine nature of God and an immaculate or sinless nature in Christ as the "New Adam." In this thinking, Jesus had to take the holy flesh of Mary in order to have the sinless nature of the pre-fall Adam. According to this gospel the only way fallen man can be reconciled to God is through a sinless natured Christ.
"The Word became flesh [from Mary's immaculate nature] for us in order to save us by reconciling us with God" (Ibid., paragraph 457 [emphasis original]).
According to this concept, Christ in fallen human nature could never reconcile us to God.
"For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven; by the power of the Holy Spirit, he became incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and was made man" (Ibid., paragraph 456).
According to the gospel of Rome, in order to save us, Jesus, the New Adam, had to begin where the first Adam began. That is, in an immaculate human nature received from Mary, rather than where Adam began in passing over the same ground as Adam did when he was tempted on the point of appetite.
This dogma teaches that Jesus had to come in the same kind of nature as God created in Adam in order to obey every requirement of God and to be our representative. However, if Jesus came in a fallen nature and obeyed all of God's requirements by faith in God's power, Jesus would demonstrate that Adam, before he fell and after he fell, could obey God's law through faith.
The immaculate conception of Mary is rejected by most Protestants. However, many of these same Protestants believe and hold as sacred a similar immaculate conception of Jesus. In general, both Catholicism and Protestantism deny that Christ,in the incarnation, came under the jurisdiction of the innate law of human heredity. Somehow He was "exempt" from this law. In the denial of this law of God, both Catholics and Protestants reject the gospel of God regarding His Son in fallen human nature.
There are some Adventists who deny that Christ came subject to the law of heredity as did the rest of humankind. In a book recently published, this denial is stated in the form of a question: "If Jesus had a sinful nature by inheritance, how could he develop a perfect character?" (see Frank Phillips, His Robe Or Mine, p. 125). A fatal flaw in this book is that Christ's equipment (His human nature) is confused and confounded with His performance (His character) in that equipment.
A few pages later (p. 130) Elder Phillips used Webster's definition of blemish to interpret the statement in 1 Peter 1:19 that we were redeemed "with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot." Evidently not recognizing that Peter spoke metaphorically of Christ as God's sacrificial Lamb, Phillips wrote that according to Webster a blemish is "'an imperfection that mars or damages immaculateness'" (emphasis by Phillips). This language seems to be perilously close to the Catholic dogma of the Immaculate Conception. Phillips stated the consequent of this even more clearly than Rome does: "Reconciliation through sinful human nature is obviously impossible" (p. 129 [emphasis Phillips]).
However, the word in the original for "blemish" is used in Ephesians 1:4 in relation to God's purpose from eternity in regard to character and not to human nature: "we should be holy and without blame ("without blemish") before Him in love." We, while in fallen human nature, are to be without blemish. Blamelessness, purity, spotlessness, and being without blemish have to do with the heart and mind that mankind can have in sinful human nature, by faith in Christ, through the indwelling Holy Spirit.
The Theological Dictionary of The New Testament has this to say about Christians standing before God in relationship to being without blemish:
"In the NT ["without blemish": amomos] is used of the perfect moral and religious piety of Christians to which believers are obligated by membership of the holy community of the last time."
Ephesians 1:4, 5:27; Philippians 2:15; Colossians 1:22; Jude 24; and Revelation 14:5 are referred to and then this point is made: "The point is always that Christians must manifest this blamelessness before the judgment of God and of Christ. The orientation is thus religious and eschatological."
Since we in our fallen human nature can and must be unblemished in character, there is no reason to believe that Christ was blemished in our same fallen human nature. Further, when the Holy Spirit comes to dwell in us now He is not contaminated. So, when Christ took upon His holy divine nature our sinful fallen nature 2,000 years ago He likewise was not contaminated.
The Cross and Fallen Human Nature
The crucifixion of Christ is the most essential component of the gospel of God. Only by Christ's death can we be redeemed, justified, reconciled, and saved (Rom. 3:24-25; 5:9-11). There is no other way. Our salvation is in the death of Jesus and not in Mary and her so-called immaculate human nature. Neither is it in Adam's pre-fall nature. To teach that salvation comes to us through Christ in sinless human nature is to proclaim the gospel of Rome.
Consider this: it is impossible for sinless nature to die. If Jesus would have come to earth in the sinless nature of angels He could not have died. If Christ had come in Mary's so-called immaculate nature He could not have died. If Jesus had come in Adam's pre-fall nature, it would have been impossible for Him to die. Thus His crucifixion could not have been possible. Consequently there could be no true gospel and no hope for the fallen human race.
If Christ had side-stepped the law of heredity through an immaculate conception or a special creation to make Him like Adam before he fell, we who are under that law could never hope to be saved from our inherited tendencies. We are to overcome our inherited tendencies by faith in Christ. However, if Christ came in sinless nature with no tendencies toward sin, and we must overcome inherited tendencies, then we must do something that Christ would not dare to do. There is better News than this.
Christ had to die to redeem us. He had to take mortality upon Himself. Mortality comes because of a nature with an inherent tendency to die. Only a sinful fallen nature is subject to death. Adam was not subject to death until he sinned. Since he sinned, every person, without exception, inherits the tendency to die.
Both the first and the second deaths are related in this way: both come from Adam's sin. We inherit the first death as a consequence of his sin. The second death is the punishment for Adam's sin and for our personal sins. Christ will destroy the first death when He comes the second time at the beginning of the millennium. He will destroy the second death at the end of the millennium. However, on the cross Christ died the equivalent of the second death. Christ, in taking upon Himself sinful human nature, enabled Himself to be executed by man and also to make Himself subject to the penalty of sin-the second death.
Any teaching that affirms that Christ came in sinless human nature denies the blood, the death, of Christ. It is a denial of the cross of Christ and thus against the "everlasting gospel." Babylon denies and does away with the blood of Christ.
On the other hand, only the teaching that affirms that Christ took upon Himself our sinful fallen human nature is in harmony with the gospel of God and with the cross. Only this teaching affirms the death of Christ and can refute and counteract Spiritualism's boldly arrogant and offensive boast that it will "banish the blood of Christ" "when it rules over all the world." This is the devil's gospel, and his goal for Babylon is to deny vigorously that Christ took upon His divine nature our sinful nature with its inherent tendencies to sin and to death.
To counteract and completely overthrow the counterfeit gospel of Babylon, God sent a "most precious message" of Christ and His righteousness. This message of Christ's righteousness is a righteousness by faith as opposed to a righteousness by human nature as it was with Adam before he fell and by Mary's so-called immaculate righteousness. Christ in fallen human nature was righteous by faith alone and not by Adam's pre-fall human nature.
The Everlasting Gospel Is About the Genealogy of Jesus
We now need to concentrate specifically on the "everlasting gospel" of God concerning His Son in human nature as the "seed of David according to the flesh" (Rom. 1:1-3; Rev. 14:6).
Under the solemnity of an oath that would not be annulled, God promised to David a descendant to sit upon his throne. The oath reads: "The Lord has sworn in truth to David; He will not turn from it: 'I will set upon your throne the fruit of your body'" (Psalm 132:11). There are those who believe this psalm was written by Solomon and was to be sung at the dedication of the temple in Jerusalem. Peter applies this verse to Christ, and states unequivocally that David knew this promise was about Christ: "Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne" (Acts 2:30).
Christ was in the loins of David genetically when the promise was given to him. To illustrate, consider Hebrews 7:9, 10: Levi, the great-grandson of Abraham, was in his loins when at that time Abraham was childless. Levi was in Abraham genetically. So the human nature Christ inherited was from David.
Paul, while at Antioch in Pisidia, preached to the Jews that from David's "seed, according to the promise, God raised up for Israel a Savior-Jesus" (Acts 13:23). The word "seed" in the language used by Paul is spermatos, from which derives our English word sperm. The sperm of David was the reproductive cell by which the traits of his human nature were passed on from one generation to the next down to the humanity that Christ would inherit from His own mother, Mary.
Consider briefly the design and function of sperm. Within the sperm are chromosomes, threadlike linear strands of DNA and associated proteins in the nucleus of the cell that carry the genes and which serve in the transmission of hereditary information. Within the chromosomes is located the "recipe" for our hereditary traits. A gene is a hereditary unit that occupies a specific location on a chromosome and determines a particular characteristic in an organism. Transmitted from parent to offspring are the colors of skin, eyes, and hair, and all other physical characteristics. Hereditary mental and moral weaknesses are likewise transmitted through the genes. However, genetic tendencies to sin are not to be construed as excuses for bad conduct.
That which is inherited through birth is termed "nature." Mental and moral limitations, which enfold man without conscious volition, are part of this legacy. The physical structure with its established tendencies, received from previous generations, is included in this legacy. Heredity is the law of transmission. You and I are everything that our ancestors contributed and delivered to us mentally, morally, and physically at conception, combined with prenatal influences up to the time of birth. We all, without exception, were born with a fallen human nature inherited from our parents and the rest of our ancestors, reaching all the way back to the fallen Adam and Eve.
Our first parents were created with sinless natures. All their tendencies were toward goodness and purity. Had they remained faithful to God, their offspring, through the law of heredity, would have inherited only holy tendencies. But because of their sin, all of their offspring without exception were and are born with tendencies to sin. Adam, Abraham, David, and Mary could not give to any of their descendants a higher nature than they possessed.
Some People Blame "Bad Genes" for Their Sins
Included in genetically implicated sins would be alcoholism and homosexuality. Genes can predispose one person to getting drunk more readily than another person, but those genes do not force that person to drink alcohol. The same principle applies to homosexuality. Genes may give some males fewer androgens (steroid hormones that develop and maintain masculine characteristics) than others, but those genes do not make anyone engage in homosexual behavior. Nor do limited amounts of androgens cause that kind of conduct.
In writing to the Corinthians, Paul stated: "I keep under my body" (1 Cor. 9:27). He recognized that if his body was not kept under control, its hereditary clamoring would make unreasonable claims. The inherited desires and impulses and passions were severely disciplined by the power of God in cooperation with Paul's choices. The flesh, or fallen nature, is to be "crucified with all its affections and lusts." This is accomplished only by the grace of God in putting to death the temptations to sin that come from within our hereditary makeup. Every thought, desire, and impulse, is to be brought into "captivity" to Christ. His life becomes the vitalizing power in the life of the believer, thus the temptations that assail us from within and from without are resisted and overcome.
Full of significance are the words, "from [David's] seed, according to the promise, God raised up for Israel a Savior-Jesus" (Acts 13:23). Paul, in his introduction to his letter to the Romans, takes up this same thought and presents Christ "born of the seed of David according to the flesh" as "the gospel of God" (Rom. 1:1-3). The gospel is the good news about the genealogy of Jesus. Not only is this a great theological truth, it is a most comforting thought for frail, erring mortals. God's power was manifest in controlling our human heredity, in Christ, when He became incarnate. God's holy power kept Christ from sinning. This is how God condemned sin in sinful flesh (Rom. 8:3). Christ continually submitted His will to God's will, thus inherited tendencies to sin were never allowed to exhibit themselves in thought, word, or deed. This is the good news!-the "everlasting gospel" of God (Rev. 14:6).
The New Testament introduces us to Jesus through His genealogy (see Matt. 1:1-17). This is "the book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham." David had all the passions of fallen human nature through the law of heredity. We will take a brief look at the ancestry and the posterity of David, the line from which Christ came as to His human nature. Concentrated in Christ were all the weaknesses of humanity, especially of the line of David from the family of Judah. Christ's fight of faith and consequent victory give hope and comfort to mortals weakened and bowed down with hereditary weaknesses.
Of the men mentioned by Matthew, several were extremely wicked: Jacob-selfish, crafty, deceitful; Judah-a man of licentious conduct, whose children were born of an impure woman (see Genesis 38); David-an adulterer and a murderer; Solomon and later Manasseh-brought into Israel the idolatrous worship of Molech, the national deity of the Ammonites who offered their children in sacrifice to him; Manasseh also practiced this abomination (see 2 Kings 21:6). Ahaz was a leader in apostasy. Of Rehoboam, Abijam, Jehoram, Amon, and other kings of Judah, the record is about the same. Some of these men had not one redeeming character trait.
At one time the royal line was nearly eliminated by Ahab and Jezebel's daughter. Joash, the last rightful heir to the throne, as a baby was hidden in the temple for 6 years (2 Kings 11:1-3; 2 Chron. 22:10-12). Satan knew that Christ would have to come through this line. Thus he moved the worshippers of Baal to try to destroy the royal line of Judah. Having failed to destroy it, he proceeded to corrupt it. Although Judah's descendants ruled in Israel and later in the kingdom of Judah, they lost all ability to control themselves. They were kings, but they were the weakest of the weak, morally. This was the royal line of Judah. Royal, but royal rogues!
There are four women (other than Mary) mentioned in Matthew's account of the genealogy of Jesus. Of the four, two were adulteresses, Tamar and Bathsheba. One was a harlot, Rahab. Ruth the Moabitess was from a race that was the offspring of incest between Lot and his oldest daughter (see Gen. 19:30-38).
Jesus chose to come from such an ancestry. Search His ancestry for a Daniel, an Isaiah, an Elijah, a Moses, a Joseph, or a Jeremiah. They are not there. They are conspicuously absent.
Can You Fathom Such Love as This?
Truly, Christ became one of us. Not only was Mary not immaculately conceived, she was not an "incubator" for Christ, she was His mother. She inherited sinful nature with sinful tendencies like all the family of Adam. And Jesus is not ashamed to call us "brethren." This should give us encouragement regardless of the hereditary background from which we originate, and of which we had no choice.
God, by an oath to David, swore that from his loins must come Christ, the Messiah, the Savior of man. David was given the gospel in that oath concerning Christ as the fruit of his body, as recorded in Psalm 132:11. That good news continues to ring in our ears as we hear it. God was morally and ethically bound to send His Son to the lost human race in order to save it. Christ came and fought and conquered sin in our nature. "In all things it behooved Him to be made like unto His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that He Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able to succor them that are tempted" (Heb. 2:17, 18, KJV). Because He "was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin" we may know that He is "touched with the feelings of our infirmities" (Heb. 4:15, 14).
Whether we are weakened by ancestral infirmities or with sins that we have habitually practiced, we can know that we have a complete Savior. He, burdened with inherited weaknesses, was also weighed down with the committed sins of the world. These were all placed upon Him.
Although having never sinned, Jesus knows what we go through. He knows how much divine power we need when we are tempted, for He received power from on high, by faith, while He walked this earth as a man. He is our Savior, not only from the penalty of our committed sins, but He is able to save us from giving in to our sinful tendencies.
This is the everlasting gospel that will be preached universally as a "witness" to every nation, kindred, and people and then the end will come (Matt. 24:14; Rev. 14:8, 18:1). It is this soft, winsome, but powerful gospel of Jesus that will confront and demolish spiritualism's counterfeit global gospel. The gospel of Jesus and His faith righteousness will reach into Babylon and compel God's people, by the restraints of His love, to "come out of" Babylon and away from her false messages of immaculate conceptions that produce a counterfeit righteousness (Rev. 18:4). Do you hear the call? Have you heeded it? Will you come out of her?
Charles Fitch, in his clear call first given in 1843, said: "If you are a Christian, come out of Babylon! If you intend to be found a Christian when Christ appears, come out of Babylon, come out Now!"
[Gerald L. Finneman is chaplain at a medical practice in Marshall, Michigan.]