John 20:17 “Do not ‘touch’ me”?
Bob Ryan SDA
Christ’s argument at the moment of resurrection,
John 20:17, is that he does need to go before the Father and make that official
presentation - to get the official sanctioned approval from the Father that the
law is fully satisfied. ... God the Father and God the Son have conducted the
execution of the plan of salvation in a way that is public and formal as we see
in Daniel 7 “the court sat the books were opened.... myriads and myriads were
in attendance”.
The “Court of heaven” is something God uses to proclaim both his love and His
justice. As we see even in the case of
Job 1 and 2 God allows for objections to be raised and official verifiable
evidence to be presented in those “Court of heaven” contexts. What’s the point of creating intelligent
beings like the Angels if He is going to continually revert to a “trust me and
don’t think this one through” solution? In
fact what is the point of 6000 years of sin and suffering on earth if there is
nothing here being “demonstrated” or “proved”?
Why not simply “snip Lucifer out of existence” prior to his tempting one
single loyal angel? Better yet - why not
“redirect Lucifer’s cycle of thought” before he even knows he is thinking about
questioning God and save God the death of His son? It shows an “extreme degree of integrity and
accounting” with God that he takes NONE of those shortcuts.
Ed Sutton
The “presentation” of the Son to the Father was
physical, as well. One could get sidetracked here, I guess, by relying on a
translation or translations that render Jesus’ words to Mary as “Do not ‘touch’
me...”, I guess, but that is a less than ideal rendering here, IMO. I suggest
that the NASB is much clearer, here, in this rendering of John 20:17: 17, Jesus
said to her, “Stop clinging to Me, for I have not yet ascended
to the Father; but go to My brethren and say to
them, ‘I ascend to My Father and your Father, and My God and your God.’” Jn.20:17.
A short time after the encounter with Mary, Jesus was “held by his feet” (Mt.
28:9), and he specifically said to the disciples to “Handle Me and see...” (Lk.
24:39), less than 24 hrs, by any reckoning, of the encounter with Mary, and
later, ‘commanded’ Thomas to place his hands into Jesus’ side. (Jn.20:27)
The point was not “to avoid any ‘physical contact’“,
at all, in His words to Mary, but rather to announce that His work was of a
greater scope, than Mary was realizing. He was no longer going to be here, ‘physically’
in the presence of Mary, in the manner in which she had known, and He was
telling her this, in so many words.
By no stretch, am I ever presenting what can even be
remotely constrained as “another ‘gospel’“, in any manner, whatsoever, for I
have no intention of having any such near me, just as you say, as well.
Gerhard
Ebersöhn
Thank you, Ed Sutton. This is how I too,
feel; especially where you say, ‘His work was of a greater scope and Jesus was
telling her this’.
Bob Ryan SDA
You have exactly nailed the reason that Christ does
not focus on “The work he was doing while dead” [insinuating GE] -- His argument at the
moment of resurrection is that he does need to go before the Father and make
that official presentation - to get the official sanctioned approval from the
Father that the law is fully satisfied.
And as you note - this must have been done by the time He meets with Thomas but
had not been done when Mary met him. The
point is not that “Christ is not God or does not know something” the point is
that God the Father and God the Son have
conducted the execution of the plan of salvation in
a way that is public and formal.
GE
Ed Sutton’s and the NASB’s ‘Stop clinging to Me’ is far better
than “Do not ‘touch’
me”.
However, what about the most obvious
‘interpretation’ or ‘observation’ possible? Even according to just the English of the KJV, Mary never as much
as touched Jesus! From where then the idea she ‘clung’ to Him, but Jesus said,
No? From where too, Bob Ryan’s idea
Jesus needed still to obtain presence
with the Father? That’s the crux
of the matter! Rather the text and
context create no impression Jesus tried
to prevent Mary to touch Him, but that He commissioned
her to go straight on and proclaim the Gospel to his disciples that Christ in
being raised had obtained that
by which God was now God and Father of both Himself and them! A finished salvation that would rule out a future and still ongoing atonement— here’s the ‘point’ or ‘argument’, as Bob Ryan
has called it, Jesus wanted to make with saying, “Do not stay here with me (don’t hesitate, don’t linger), for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren
and tell them (when I ascend), I ascend to my Father (who through my resurrection has become) your Father too, and to my God, (who by my resurrection has been made) your God as well.” Prophecy
has been fulfilled in Christ in resurrection from the dead, having made peace: It
says, “He shall turn the heart of the fathers to
the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and
smite the earth with a curse.” Mal4:6 -- the very last words of the Old
Testament!
This New
Relationship had been accomplished by
the resurrection and in the
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead; it meant
Completed Redemption, Perfected Salvation, full and final,
made and established once for all! Now the Seventh Day Adventists claim it is not even begun with “... at the moment of
resurrection”,
but that Christ “...
does need to go before the Father and make that official presentation - to get
the official sanctioned approval” before
He could begin with making ‘final atonement’!
According
to the literal Greek, one may visualise the following:
Mary leans over (parékypsen) in order to look into the tomb, sees two angels,
converses with them, then all in one movement “she
these things saying turned around
/ back / away from” the opening,
“tauta
eipousa estrafeh opisoh”, “and saw
Jesus standing not knowing that it was Jesus. Said Jesus
to her, Woman, why do you cry? Whom are you looking for? That one (Mary) thinking He was the gardener, asked Him … Answered Jesus her,
Mary!”
Then
the interesting part: As Jesus spoke to her, Mary, while she recognised Him,
apparently shocked, “turning” – “strafeihsa”, “called out, Master!” --- her back to Jesus her head bent low
in awe and amazement, her hands covering her eyes? While Mary stands in this posture, Jesus commands, “Don’t stay with Me, for not yet am I gone to My Father, so go to my brethren and tell them (while I’m still with you), that I shall go to the
Father who (now that I am
risen) is my
Father and your Father, my God and your God!” ‘I have availed; I have created the New Brotherhood; my work is
finished. This is your message to tell them; go now! I have obtained entrance
into the innermost sanctity of the Presence of the Father – where I was raised
by the Glory of the Father and obtained
your sonship and Mine own, and from Him got his official sanctioned
approval that the Law is fully satisfied.
“Stop
clinging to Me” is therefore a figurative
command that should not be understood for literal nor by the nature of its case
could be misunderstood for literal, but is a command that should be understood
for its implying and requiring the accomplishment and completion of God’s ultimate Purpose in Christ in having raised Him from the dead (“The exceeding greatness of His Power which He worked when God
raised Christ from the dead”). Christ had to “go before the Father and make that official
presentation - to get the official sanctioned approval from the Father that the
law is fully satisfied” – humanly speaking – before the Father would have quickened
Him from the dead in the first place!
That approval Jesus had had obtained, the
moment he died,
“After this,
Jesus knowing that all things now were
accomplished, that the Scriptures
might be fulfilled (and the
Law (be) fully satisfied and vindicated), saith, I thirst.” The ‘separation’
here, was complete, completed
and, therein and therewith, was ended!
“When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar” of the ‘second death’ in all its
bitterness, and have emptied the cup He had to drain to the dregs, “He said, Finished!:
and He bowed his head, and gave up
the ghost.”
Jn19:28-30. Now this was how
Jesus “gave up the ghost” with His very
last Word of Life, spoken, there and then: “When Jesus
cried with a
loud voice, He spoke: Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, He
gave up the ghost” to Him his
Father. Lk23:46. Now is His
Life hidden in God; until “The God of Peace” the Father “through the blood of the Everlasting Covenant” of Peace, “brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus” and “Prince of Peace”, “For He hath
said, I will never leave Thee”, and Christ believed Him, and said, “I will not fear what man shall do unto Me”. Hb13:20, 5-6.
Instead of the *separation* the Seventh Day Adventists contend for,
the Word presents Divine Union and Re-Union even in the dying moment of Jesus on the cross. This Re-Union all
through the death of Christ in the grave worked
from and worked towards, springs into vibrant Life like a
buried seed bursting into daylight, “When suddenly in Sabbath’s fullness midst of
daylight ... there was a great earthquake for the angel of the Lord descended
from heaven and came and rolled back the stone from the door”. That was the
angel from heaven’s part. It needs not be said when suddenly in Sabbath’s
fullness midst of daylight ... the Father,
descended, from heaven, and came,
and “awakened” and “quickened” His Son “from the dead”, and “resurrected” Him “Christ and Lord”, “in the Glory of the Father”. It needs be believed! The Father, “from heaven”; his Son, “from the dead”. It needs be believed!
But, here is the Abomination of Desolation
standing in The-Holy-Temple-of-God’s-Immediate-Presence-in-and-of-the-resurrection-of-Jesus-Christ-from-the-dead:
one concept!— here is it: “His argument at the moment of resurrection is that he does need
to go before the Father and make that official presentation - to get the
official sanctioned approval from the Father that the law is fully satisfied. And as you note - this must have been done by
the time He meets with Thomas but had not been done when Mary met him.”
Jesus had no “argument at the moment of
resurrection ... that he does need to go before the Father and make that
official presentation - to get the official sanctioned approval from the Father
that the law is fully satisfied.” Besides
it not now was “the moment of resurrection”, besides it now for all purposes or needs
being too late ‘to
go before the Father to get the official sanctioned approval’,
Jesus ‘at the moment of His resurrection’,
“In the Sabbath’s fullness”,
already had had gone before the Father and
already had had made that official presentation
whereby He
already had had got “the official sanctioned
approval
from the Father that the law is fully satisfied”.
That ‘official sanctioned approval from the Father that
the law is fully satisfied’ was, yea,
already had had been, Jesus’ very resurrection from the dead.
To deny this absoluteness is to deny and
blaspheme against Jesus’ resurrection from the dead and instead place the
abomination of desolation standing in the
The
‘ascending’ (‘anabainoh’) of Jesus is
not his
1) ‘Exaltation’: ‘epairoh / hyperairomai’; ‘hypsos / hypso-oh
/ hyperypso-oh’; or, his
2) ‘Seating’: ‘kathisas < ‘kathehmai / ‘kathidzoh’’:
Rv4:2; Eph1:20b; Hb1:3, 8:1, 10:12, 12:2; or,
his
3) ‘Glorification’,
‘docsa / docsadzoh / endocsas / endocsadzomai / kauchehma / kauchaomai /
katakauchaomai / kleos /’.
‘Seating
of Him’: to the right hand of the throne of God “in
heavenly places” of glory, already
attained “When God raised Christ from the dead and set Him at His Own Right Hand”, Eph1:20.
The SDAs confuse these different things for
one and the same, Jesus’ ‘ascending’-‘anabainoh’.
Had Jesus not already through resurrection
from the dead been glorified “far above every name
that is named”
(21), He would not have been able or
allowed after, to ascend, to his Father. “For if He
were on earth, He should not be Priest at all!” Hb8:4a. “Even as-I-overcame-and-am-set-down
with my Father in his throne”, Rv3:21b. Read 1Jn5:20-21.
“He would
raise up Christ to sit on his throne”, being an Infinitive of Noun force, says,
Christ’s resurrection was that of
His ‘sitting down’ or ‘being set’ upon God’s throne at once, Acts 2:30; “He (David) seeing this before,
spake of the
resurrection of Christ”, 31a. Jesus assures
the vain disciples when they asked to “sit on thy
right hand”
“in thy glory”, that they by the baptism or
death He would die and be raised from again, in fact would, Mk10:37-39. Paul
says, “Buried with Him in his baptism wherein ye
are also co-raised with Him through the faith of the operation of God who hath raised Him from the dead.” Col2:12.
“But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great
love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened
us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) and hath raised us up
together with Him, and made
us sit together in Christ Jesus
in heavenly places.” Eph2:4-6.
His resurrection
was where and when Christ “sat” down
in His Glory. Christ “sat”
down in His Glory where and “when God raised (Him) from
the dead ... by / in the Glory of
the Father”, Eph1:20, Ro.6:4. “In
that He liveth, He liveth unto /
equal with God ... death hath no more dominion over Him”; “Christ being raised
from the dead dieth no more”— and no more maketh atonement— He hath dominion over death, Ro.6:9-10. Therefore before
He ascended to the Father, Jesus confirmed that already, “All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth”. Mt28:18b— “is given” since the
moment of his having been resurrected.
“Christ who
dying, rather who rising— rather
who is at the right hand of God,
(is Christ) who indeed maketh intercession for us.” Ro.6:8:34. Christ’s ‘making
intercession’
became possible by virtue of and followed upon his having been exalted “at
the right hand of God ... having died –
rather, in having been raised”— not a few hours or forty days after having
died and having been raised, but once and for all, simultaneously “when God raised
(Him) from the dead ... by / in the Glory of the Father”. “For as the
Father has life in Himself, so hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself, and hath given Him all authority to execute
judgment also, because He is the Son of Man”. Glorious Being since through
resurrection having triumphed over death and grave (Jn5:26-27), this is the exaltation of Jesus Christ His ‘gift’, awarded in Victory by Victory; not later or afterwards. “The hour is now!”— the moment of Christ’s resurrection from the dead (25a).
Putting it one twinkling of an eye after,
puts Christ’s exaltation, perfection and anointment outside of Christ’s
resurrection, and “after the Sabbath on
the First Day of the week” according to the antichrist corruption of the
Times and Laws of God— Seventh Day Adventist-style and Seventh Day Adventists
eagerly under bondage
in collaboration with antichrist,
illustrated amply by Bob Ryan’s affirmations of vanity.
The lame man healed of Acts 3 is a figure
of Christ in his exaltation. God
took Christ by the right hand and lifted Him up: “and immediately” He entered into the
Only for his disciples’ sake and so that
the Scriptures should be fulfilled did Jesus after his exaltation at and in and because of his resurrection from the dead, remain
on earth another forty days. It never meant that Jesus first had to ‘ascend’ in
order to be ‘exalted’, honoured and glorified, or that His ‘ascension’ was his ‘exaltation’. It never meant “... that he does need to go before
the Father and make that official presentation - to get the official sanctioned
approval from the Father that the law is fully satisfied”! That ‘presentation / offering’, Christ had had
made while having been raised from the dead “First
Sheaf Wave Offering before the LORD”, and that dignity He had already earned and received, in recompense for having finished
atonement for sin in dying, through
and in and by and with, resurrection
from the dead, from death, and from the grave. Postponing Jesus’ ‘presentation’ or exaltation one minute or eighteen hundred and fourteen
years, cannot better the lie in itself; it keeps on robbing Christ of His glory
and ‘official
sanctioned approval from the Father’ that He received through and in
resurrection from the dead and nowhere and no how else. “But we see
Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour;
that He by the grace of God should (have) taste(d) death for every man. For it became Him (God), for whom
are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory,
to make (have made) the Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.”
“It became Him”— it was God’s Glory— “in bringing unto
glory” of ‘perfection’ “many sons”, in “Jesus (whom) we see … crowned with glory and honour”. We see Jesus
here in the rising of His from the death of His partaking in— not in his
ascension to his Father forty days later or whenever after. We see Jesus here in the rising of His from the death
of His partaking in— not in his ascension to his Father forty days later or
whenever after— ‘now
enter(ing) into the presence of the Father ... receiving the coronet of glory
and the royal robe.” Herein is Christ’s and the Glory of God: “But now Christ become the Firstfruits of them that slept is
risen from the dead.” 1Cor15:20. The
risen Christ and He “in bringing many sons unto glory” in and with
Himself is all the Glory and the whole Glory of the Father, in whose Glory
Christ was raised from the dead. “So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in
corruption (sufferings); it is raised in incorruption (glory).” 1Cor15:42.
There is no division, no separation, of resurrection and glorification and
exaltation of Jesus Christ at God’s “own right
hand in heavenly places”. If, no matter how fractionally divorced from or postponed to
after Jesus’ resurrection, God’s works are not perfected or finished; atonement
for sins, is not wrought; denial of the resurrection of Christ in fact follows.
It is blasphemy against God to
maintain. “If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your
sins”
(1Cor15:17). It is blasphemy against God if Christ be raised, to maintain ye
are in your sins yet because Christ’s “argument at the moment of resurrection is that he
does need to go before the Father and make that official presentation - to get
the official sanctioned approval from the Father that the law is fully
satisfied.” All
that Faith receive from Christ through resurrection from the dead— all
abundance of Grace— forfeited unless afterwards and later – maybe even hundreds
of years after and later – to officially get sanctioned approval from the Father! Blasphemy! because, “If Jesus had given them rest, God would not after these things
speak of another day”, Hb4:7-8, of mercy or obtainment of forgiveness of sins. Blasphemy
against God, “seeing they crucify to themselves the Son
of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame”, Hb6:6.
The Glory of God is the Rest of God, even
Christ having made reconciliation for sins through resurrection from the dead.
“God thus concerning the Seventh Day spake:
And God the Seventh Day from all His Works, rested.” In that Christ
was raised “In Sabbath’s fullness”, God in having
ended making atonement, rested in the Son. God
postponed not his rest or glory a single
day or forty days or eighteen hundred and fourteen years. Mary touching Jesus on the First Day of the
week, could have had no influence; was not able to deter; the works of God were
perfected in Christ, through Christ, and His glorification and exaltation and ‘official sanctioned approval’ gained and granted, in the resurrection
of Him from the dead and the grave.
The Father had had been present and working in all His Glory in Christ and through Christ the
while He finished all the works of his Father in Victory over death and sin
through the resurrection of Him from
the dead. “But now Christ risen from the dead become the Firstfruits of
them that slept”, is Christ in Glory
of Exaltation the Glory of the Father. “Yea, and we
are found false witnesses (of the Glory) of God because we have testified (of the Glory) of God that he raised up
Christ whom He raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not” with Him and
in Him where and when and as He rose from the dead. (1Cor15:15) The glory of the Father by which He raised up
Christ from the dead is Christ who rose from the dead, incorruptible, exalted
and glorified with and in and as that
official presentation and official sanctioned approval from the Father
at the right hand of the Almighty in His Holy Temple in its utter Holiest, “immediately”— that is, in being
raised up from the dead: in the acme of His Power and glory whereby God
raised up Christ from the dead— no one moment in time or of time later or
after, but for eternity after, once and for all.
Thus
“Christ came
in the flesh”. He who deny,
denies that Jesus is the Christ; he who deny, is, antichrist. The Church that
deny, is antichrist. Not even the Roman Catholics deny! Who that deny remain, but
the
Here to be continued the determination of
the time and circumstance of Jesus’ being come in His Glory, to the above
key-words. . . . .
Bob
Ryan
“Christ does not focus on “The work he was doing
while dead”.”
... But you SDAs are! You say He ‘rested in the tomb’. You say, Jesus by ‘resting in the tomb’, “obeyed the Commandment”; you say Jesus
by ‘resting in the tomb’, sanctified
the Sabbath. Now are these the works
of God, yes or no?! Is God’s rest, an act of His, or are these acts of Jesus,
God ‘doing nothing’? God ‘doing nothing’ not even is a logically possible
concept; what being the thing God in Christ was resting in the grave thereby sanctifying the Sabbath!
Bob Ryan’s words, “Christ does not focus on “The
work he was doing while dead”” ... are the words never of GE: but the
precise words of the very Bob Ryan himself: “The work he was doing while dead”. Ja, indeed the precise act and responsibility
of the very Bob Ryan, who put these words and this FALSITY between the teeth of
GE. But, as sometimes – almost always truth can be found in and from the mouth of
satan himself – the precise words, “The work he was doing while dead” do in fact contain truth! For again, Christ, even in the tomb and interred
and “while dead”, like His
Father no moment is found indulgent, passive, doing nothing! “Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt Thou suffer
thine Holy One to see corruption”, Acts 2:27— that was, ‘while dead’! Even while, in and through being dead and
interred, the Christ with the Father, work
victory over grave, death and destruction. He – They – work on still, not having reached the utmost height yet; ‘They’
– Father, Son and Holy Spirit – ‘energise’
still in Almighty Achievement ... until
from the dead, until from death, and until from the grave, God raised
Christ, Triumphator and Victor, until
Christ– “as God” Hb4:10c – “enter
into His Own Rest”, ‘incorruptible’, because not only is God’s
Victory over death, grave and sin ‘spiritual’, it also is bodily and temporary—
in space and time, ‘three-dimensional’: reality
that also includes time, and
therefore, is Christ’s “resurrection from the dead”, “according to the Scriptures”. So
did the Son of God, “finish the works of (His) Father”— not “The work he was doing while
dead”,
but while and in being resurrected from the dead and from
death and from grave; to put what
I have said in proper perspective, and rescue it from Seventh Day Adventist distortion.
Further
absurdities and blasphemies of the SDA position
Bob Ryan SDA
You have exactly nailed the reason that Christ does
not focus on “The work he was doing while dead” [insinuating GE] -- His argument at the
moment of resurrection is that he does need to go before the Father and make
that official presentation - to get the official sanctioned approval from the
Father that the law is fully satisfied.
And as you note - this must have been done by the time He meets with Thomas but
had not been done when Mary met him. The
point is not that “Christ is not God or does not know something” the point is
that God the Father and God the Son have conducted the execution of the plan of
salvation in a way that is public and formal.
GE
Bob Ryan is insinuating that I claim Jesus’
resurrection as such was “The work he was doing while dead”. This is Bob Ryan’s words and method
of avoiding the issue, which in this case was, and still is, that I said God raised Christ from the dead, and
that Christ, in rising from the dead
“by the glory of the Father”, ‘entered into the full fellowship of the
Trinity’ (the words of Klaas Schilder). This is what Bob Ryan says I say, is
“The work he (Christ) was doing while dead”. Fine; I said
it and I maintain.
Instead ... if that, would not be ‘the work He was doing while dead’? ... then instead, Bob Ryan has Jesus’ ‘argument’ – “His argument at the moment of
resurrection...”.
Now consider Jesus’ ‘argument’ (according to
Bob Ryan the Seventh Day Adventist) “at the moment of resurrection”
— consider and ask, Was this the ‘moment-of-resurrection’?
No, it was after it.
But for argument’s sake, say, it was “his argument at the moment of resurrection”, then, Jesus’ “argument at the moment of resurrection is ...”, the following: “... that he does need to go
before the Father and make that official presentation - to get the official
sanctioned approval from the Father that the law is fully satisfied”! Then
this “need to
go”
and this “mak(ing) that official presentation” and this “to get the official
sanctioned approval”, belong to “the moment of resurrection” as
much as Jesus’ “argument
is ... at the moment of resurrection”
— so
that everything ‘is
at the moment of resurrection’, and nothing of it is after ‘the moment of resurrection’, so that Bob Ryan is plainly contradicting
and destroying his own ‘argument’. So that Bob Ryan unwittingly and
unwillingly is saying just what I am saying, that Jesus, in rising from the dead, entered
into the full fellowship of the Trinity. Because it would be only in the full fellowship of the Trinity that Christ could go before the Father and
make that official presentation - to get the official sanctioned approval from
the Father that the law is fully satisfied! Exactly what
actually happened and exactly when
actually it happened when, and as, and in that, Jesus was ‘resurrected’ and by the Father and in the Glory of the Father, was ‘resurrected’!
But my aim is not to expose Bob Ryan’s
fallacy which might seem callow, but if one knew him and the Adventists, will know is callous as hard as rock.
Because his ‘argument’ comes from, and goes to ‘proving’ the Father’s absence
at the resurrection of Christ. If there had been one period of time God was God
without the Second Person of the Godhead, it would be from Jesus died until He
rose from the dead and grave again. In
fact, this is exactly what they teach!
(Questioner) “If divinity cannot die, does this suggest that Jesus’ nature at death split, and that his humanity died but not His divinity?
(Bille
Burdick) “Yes... essentially this
is exactly what it says. … If we apply that to one member of the Godhead, then
it becomes clear that the only thing that can happen to one of the Trinity … is
that there would be a *separation* between the members.... such that they are no longer ONE in their being.” (Emphasis by bold GE)
The Adventists teach, very authoritatively
(Ellen G. White), that Jesus died “as man” – not as God, “for that cannot be”. Despite, one
of their opinion makers, Bille Burdick of above, desperately tried this one,
God’s, for them, ‘only option’,
“But by becoming a human... God
could, by the dual nature of His incarnation, die as a man, but survive
as God... and give life back to the man
he was... finally demonstrate in a way all the watching universe could
understand, the very basic difference between the created order and the Creator”! SDANet 19 May
2008. (Bold and underline, GE) Notice “all the watching universe”-stuff, just
like Bob Ryan’s ‘Lucifer’-stuff.
When faced with the same dilemma, another
of their great thinkers, Leroy Moore, reminded the questioner who asked, “Who resurrected Jesus?”, that Mrs E.
G. White said He was called from the grave by ‘the angel’, but was careful
enough to add: ‘After
all Jesus was God’ (– from which the questioner should draw his own conclusion –
only Leroy Moore won’t say it out loud or he might be heard). Now if
not Jesus died being God, how could
He take up his life again, while being not God? So their – theirs, I say – ‘only alternative’ would be that God the
Father ‘resurrected
Jesus’.
But ask them, Was Jesus resurrected by
the Father? And they evade the answer and innovate thousands of reason why the
Father could not have resurrected Jesus.
Because “there would be a
*separation* between the members”, the Father could not be present to raise Jesus up again. See,
When He died, the Father left Jesus in
the state of ‘the second death’ of complete separation from God. The
Seventh Day Adventists place that *separation* after
Jesus’ ‘physical’ death. They place
it in the state and within the confines of Jesus’ ‘physical’ death, so that at the end of ‘physical’ death, they’re stuck with their dilemma of Who raised
Christ from the dead? I must have asked
them that question at least a thousand times; to this day they could not give
answer. Because they will not succumb to
truth, that the Father raised the Son in His very immediate and intimate
Glory! Because if they did consent, it’s
tickets with their ‘investigative judgment’ phantasm and they stand ashamed in
the eyes of all religious hoi polloi.
That
is why Bob Ryan’s pathetic explanations hide much more than they admit.
It
is not simply a matter of an hour or so taken opportunity of for Jesus to
quickly “go
before the Father and make that official presentation - to get the official
sanctioned approval from the Father that the law is fully satisfied. And (that) this must have been done by
the time He meets with Thomas but had not been done when Mary met him.” It is Bob
Ryan’s deceitful foolery to make his questioners fail to see the deeper and
greater scope of Seventh Day Adventist error in it. It is Seventh Day
Adventism’s deceitful foolery to make honest seekers for truth fail to see ‘His work was of a greater
scope and Jesus was telling her this’, Ed Sutton.
Even
casually glanced at, Bob Ryan’s presentation here shows reckless negligence. “...this must have been done
by
the time He meets with Thomas but had not been done
when Mary met him” ... What about the other women to whom Jesus before He met
with Thomas, appeared? Mt28:9, by whom actually He was “held by the feet”? that
created the shorter space of time within which Mrs White squeezes her ‘gift-reception’ session ‘in heaven’
into? Bob Ryan knew better than ‘the
servant of the Lord’ to give Jesus a little more elbow room in time; he
extended his ‘gift’-interval to the appearance to Thomas.
Then
again a little more time is gracefully granted the Lord, and He is allowed by
the Seventh Day Adventists under auspices of Mrs White a full thirty nine days
more before He could “go
before the Father and make that official presentation - to get the official
sanctioned approval from the Father that the law is fully satisfied”, Acts 1:9-12.
This
eidolon contradicts and vanquishes itself in that Jesus thus entered twice into the presence of the Father:
Why a second time if not the first availed; and why if successful and ‘gifted’ (DA chpt.9,§10,14) the first time, a next? Where
do we find in Prophecy the Christ had to enter in, twice? Mrs White has this wonderful explanation ready:
After He appeared to Mary and “After He had ascended to the Father”, and before “Jesus appeared to the other women”, she says, “While the Saviour was in God’s presence receiving gifts
for His Church”. Jesus with his
first attendance in the Father’s presence, “receiv(ed) gifts for His Church”— not for Himself! “The same Jesus had now – “based on Luke 24:50-53; Acts 1:9-12” – gone to share His Father’s throne... There is the
throne... cherubim and seraphim... are eager to... glorify their King. But He
waves them back. Not yet; He cannot now receive the coronet of glory and
the royal robe. He enters into the presence of the Father ...” (DA chpt.13,§8) Only here and only now Christ
received ‘gifts’, “the coronet of glory and the royal robe”, for Himself.
Clever! Too clever! Too blasphemously clever!
So
no sooner had the Seventh Day Adventists decided, Halt! He is not even High
Priest yet, and only serves as Divine though ordinary Priest in the ‘First
Room’; He must wait until such time as we shall have determined for Him, 1844, to
enter into the Holiest, and only then can He begin office of High Priest “to go before the Father and
make that official presentation - to
get the official sanctioned approval from the
Father that the law is fully satisfied.”
Wait!
Wait! We have forgotten! He had to have come again first, before we give Him
thousand literal earthly years in heaven to show the universe God after all is just – for Him to “go before the Father and
make that official presentation - to get the official sanctioned approval from
the Father that the law is fully satisfied”.
The point is this must be done after the
thousand years, but had not been done when He was
resurrected.
These
are not my blasphemies; if they are blasphemy they are the blasphemies of their
creators, who are not I, but the Seventh Day Adventists. And blasphemies they
are of the coarsest kind.
What have I, benefited from this dialectic?
That Christ cannot to his Church give of which He, not from His Father received— His Father— who now through Christ
Jesus whom He resurrected from the dead— is become our Farther too;
That Christ first had to have entered in into his own rest as God in his own— that
He first had to have entered in into the presence and glory of the Father, and
to have received from Him for Himself
“the coronet of
glory and the royal robe”;
That then
Christ could give to his ‘Church’ as well, ‘gifts’ of which of all are supreme and comprehensive, the forgiveness
of sins and everlasting life;
That Christ through the offering of his Life won and exhibited the
redemption towards which the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit in Oneness
in the Temple of the Father’s Glory worked—
the Holiest of God resurrected in the flesh of the body of Jesus Christ from
the dead incorruptible and glorious.
Where do I find that which I have so
benefited, in the Scriptures?
Where John
20:17 is become the fulfilment of Jesus’ Prayer of Consecration to the
Father, John 17, and the fulfilment
of His prophetic Baptism, “Upon Whom thou shalt see
the Spirit descending, and remaining on Him, the Same, is He Who baptises with
the Holy Spirit!” Father, Son and Holy
Spirit, the faith in Whom through Jesus Christ, is what, from this
conversation, I have benefited.
I thank you both, Ed Sutton, and Bob Ryan.
The peace of God be with you, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Gerhard Ebersöhn
Sunninghill 2157,
biblestudents@imaginet.co.za, http://www.biblestudents.co.za 30 June 2008