The Father and The Son
The doctrine of the nature of God , His Son and the holy Spirit has become a standard for Christian orthodoxy. Trinitarianism is required by virtually all of Christianity. Yet the Bible makes many statements that contradict this belief.
More than that, hidden within the prophecies of the Old Testament and the revelation in the New Testament scriptures, is a love story between the Father and His Son, a love revealed by the sending of the Son to redeem men from their sins and giving of the holy Spirit to men.
In the video available at right, Pastor John Clark, Sr. reads the tract "Is Jesus God?" Not only does he read the tract but there is much other good understanding to be received from this reading. We hope you are blessed by what you can learn in this video and from the rest of this topical study page.
Thought for Today
Sep. 09
JESUS' GLORIFIED BODY
Handle me
and see, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have."
Luke
24:39
For a little while after Jesus was crucified, the Lord's disciples were afraid of what might happen to them. After all, if Jesus didn't escape death at the hands of the Jewish elders and Roman soldiers, what could they expect to happen to them if they were caught? They gathered together behind locked doors to console one another, all of them feeling insecure and alone. One day while they were together, and to their great astonishment, the Lord Jesus appeared in their midst, seemingly out of nowhere. They were speechless.
What the disciples thought they were seeing can be very instructive. The Bible says that when Jesus appeared in their midst that they thought they were seeing a ghost instead of the actual person of Jesus. That is the reason for the words that Jesus spoke to them: "Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Handle me and see, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have." It was Jesus himself standing in their midst, the same Jesus that suffered and died on the cross; it was neither a vision nor a ghost.
This can teach us a valuable lesson if we have ears to hear; to wit, when Jesus arose from the dead, he was still in his natural body, the same one in which he was crucified. His hands and feet still bore the marks of the nails driven into them by the Roman soldiers (Lk. 24:40), and his side was still torn open from the thrust of the Roman spear that he received after he died. So wide was the gaping hole in his side that Jesus would later invite Thomas to stick his hand into it (Jn. 20:27). Thomas doubted that Jesus was really resurrected, but when confronted with the torn flesh of Jesus' body, the astonished disciple could only manage to utter, "My Lord and my God." Yes, Jesus arose from the dead with the same body in which he died. He even ate food on several occasions with the disciples, demonstrating the fleshly quality of the body he was using at that time.
How does this truth about the physical body of the resurrected Jesus fit in with Paul's assertion that Jesus was made a "life-giving spirit" (1Cor. 15:45)? The answer is that Jesus was glorified and given a spiritual body after he ascended to the Father in Acts, chapter 1, not before. During the forty days after his resurrection, which he spent with his disciples, he remained in his natural body. He walked with them, and he talked with them daily. Even when he ascended into heaven, he was still in his natural body. But when in heaven he offered that slain body to God for the sins of the world (Heb. 10:10), the Father glorified the Son with a spiritual body, one that outshines the sun in brightness. If Jesus had been in his glorified, spiritual body while here on the earth with his disciples, they could not have endured the power and brightness of it. Even in John's vision of Christ in Revelation 1, he was overwhelmed by the power and majesty of Jesus' glorified body:
This shining body that John saw was not the body Jesus was in when, on the third day after his crucifixion, he came forth from the tomb. But after he ascended to the Father and was accepted by Him, this was the body he was given. The holy Spirit was then sent down from heaven as God's witness that His Son was sinless and that He had accepted his sacrifice and had glorified him. "The Spirit is the witness because the Spirit is truth." The holy Ghost is still God's witness. That is why no one can say that Jesus is Lord without it and know that he is telling the truth (1Cor. 12:3). The holy Ghost was not given to men before Acts 2 because Jesus was not yet glorified (Jn. 7:39). He was glorified only after he died and ascended into heaven, when he was set down at the Father's right hand.
Remember this simple little lesson; it will save you from the craftiness of false teachers. There are Christian ministers in this world, famous ones, whom many of God's own saints trust as teachers and guides, who would have you to believe that Jesus was in a spiritual body and that the disciples received the holy Ghost before Acts 2. There is poison in their message, and by drinking of that polluted water, multitudes have been defiled. But in the truth is life and health, and by drinking from Jesus' fountain, the few who love God sincerely have been purified and made worthy of salvation.