- “He Who died for the sins of the world was to remain in the tomb the allotted time. He was in that stony prison house as a prisoner of Divine justice. He was responsible to the Judge of the universe. He was bearing the sins of the world, and His FATHER ONLY could RELEASE Him.“ {Ellen White: 5BC 1114.1}
- “And to wait for His Son from heaven, Whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.“ {1 Thessalonians 1:10}
- “But if the Spirit of Him (the Father) that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you.” O how precious are these words to every bereaved soul! Christ is our Guide and Comforter, Who comforts us in all our tribulations.” {Ellen White, 6BC, p. 1076.9 1894}
- “Paul, an apostle, (not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him from the dead.“ {Galatians 1:1}
The Father raised Jesus from the dead and not Jesus Himself, as today’s false teaching claims! Christ died as a man and rose as a man. On the example of the prophet Jonah, who was in the belly of a big fish for three days and 3 nights, we see that he did not free himself but it was God who called him to come out. In this story we see a foreshadowing of Jesus being chained to the tomb, being set free only with the Father’s power from the outside! And that slavery in the grave was His complete death, like all others who have diet. This is well shown to us through the Biblical story of the Vineyard.
The owner first sent his servants to the unfaithful people of the vineyard, but after murdering the servants the owner decided to send his Son, who was also killed by the unfaithful people. Jesus died just like all other people. It was not just His “symbolic” garment of flesh that died! Immediately after His resurrection, Jesus did not allow Mary to touch him, but He first went to His Father, to receive acceptance for His sacrifice, and through that, to regain His original Divine life and nature. After that He went back to His disciples and allowed them to touch Him, and then He went to heaven forever. Even after His resurrection, Jesus said that He was going back to “His God”, making it clear that the Father is truly above Him.
- “Jesus saith unto her, touch Me not; for I am not yet ascended to My Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto My Father, and your Father; and to My God, and your God.“ {John 20:17}
- “Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, He appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of Whom he had cast seven devils.“ {Mark 16:9}
- “Then saith He to Thomas, reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing.“ {John 20:27}
- “…The Saviour came forth from the grave by the life that was in Himself. Now was proved the truth of His words, “I lay down My life, that I might TAKE IT AGAIN… I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.”-” {Ellen White: DA, p. 785.2}
If Jesus had to come back to that original and unborrowed life, which, according to the above statement, was BEFORE Him, that means that such life was not in Him then! If something is already there, then we don’t have to go back to it! Many advocates of this erroneous doctrine have begun to realise that if Jesus, had absolute immortality, He could not have really died, only His human body would have, and according to to their interpretation, His human body was “covered” by His Divine nature.
The real truth is that those bodily garments covered the Deity of His Person! Thus came the next false doctrine, that “only” Jesus’ human nature died on the cross as a “facade”, and that the “present” Divine nature only “slept” in the tomb, until the angel Gabriel was in the name of the Father as “the alarm clock” called to rise, and then Jesus resurrected “Himself”. As a “confirmation” of this is taken the verse that Jesus slept in the tomb and was awakened, together with the words of the Spirit of Prophecy of the same nature, taken out of context, “Divinity did not die”, which has already been dealt with in the last chapter.
- “Humanity died; Divinity did not die. In His Divinity, Christ possessed the power to break the bonds of death. He declares that He has life in Himself to quicken Whom He will.” {Ellen White: 1SM 301.1; FG1.317}
But if Jesus had not completely died for us, then His sacrifice would not have been a sacrifice, but only one spectacle in front of the whole Universe! This is a blasphemous attack on Jesus’ sacrifice! The Bible confirms quite clearly that Jesus, like us when we die, was completely dead, and that he was raised and resurrected in the same way as we are:
- “But if the Spirit of Him (the Father) That raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you,“ {Ellen White, 6BC, p. 1076.9 1894}
The Bible confirms that Jesus died the same kind of death as we do, because while He lived on Earth, He had the same nature that we have:
- “But He humbled Himself, and took mortality upon Him. As a member of the human family, He was mortal; but as a God, He was the fountain of life to the world. He could, in His Divine person, ever have withstood the advances of death, and refused to come under its dominion; but he voluntarily laid down his life.“ {Ellen White: RH, September 4, 1900, Part 5}
- “And God (the Father) hath both raised up the Lord (Jesus), and will also raise up us by His own power.“ {1 Corinthians 6:14}
- “For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.“ {1 Thessalonians 4:14}
- “Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God (the Father), Who hath raised Him from the dead.“ {Colossians 2:12}
- “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God (the Father!) hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.“ {Romans 10:9}
- “Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection.“ {Romans 6:4,5}
- “For they themselves shew of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God (the Father); And to wait for His Son from heaven, Whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.“ {1 Thessalonians 1:9,10}
Even in the creation of the Universe, Jesus did it with the power that came from His Father. That does not mean that He resurrected Himself though. We read clearly in the Bible that God the Father raised Jesus, and not that Jesus raised Himself, as many theologians claim today! Of course, being raised means being resurrected, because according to the Bible, the dead sleep in graves until the coming of Jesus. The term “raise” in the Bible has the same meaning as resurrection!
There is absolutely no place in the Bible where it says that someone has to be awakened first to be resurrected! Here we see that this false theology rejects the truth that Jesus literally died, rejecting Jesus’ sacrifice! Biblical resurrection exists only when a being is completely dead, and it does not have to do with the Divine nature at all, because Jesus left it with the Father before coming to Earth! That is why the interpretation that Jesus “only slept” and was “only” awakened by the Father, and then “symbolically resurrected Himself” is absolutely unbiblical! Jesus, on the other hand, says “it is written”:
- “Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ: Whom He raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not. For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised.“ {1 Corinthians 15:15,16}
- “(Only) Christ was invested with the right to give immortality. The life which He had laid down in humanity, he again TOOK UP and gave to humanity“ “Who so eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day“ {Ellen White: YI, August 4, 1898 par. 5}
We see in both of these cases that it is about eternal life, and that Jesus laid down His immortal life to give it to others as a reward of eternal life. Both sacrifice and eternal life could be given only through the death of Jesus as the Deity in human form! Jesus rose from the grave TO the life that WAS (before) in Him. Was that life in Him while He was dead?
No! The Spirit of Prophecy says that He gave that life in His human form. It does not say that he laid down a human life though. Here, in fact, it is stated that Jesus voluntarily laid down His Divine and not human life, which He received back after His sacrifice. The Divine life could not die, and i.e. why Jesus had to place it with the Father in heaven so that He could literally die on Earth and pay the penalty for our sins.
But in that humanity, not only the human body died, but also the Divine Person, Jesus Christ himself! The description, ‘laid down and received again’, in the context of the Divine life, wasn’t referring to either death on the cross nor resurrection. There was a similar misconception about when Jesus entered the sanctuary in 1843 and thought to be His second coming. Laid down means that Jesus left His Divine nature with the Father when He was born on this Earth. And receiving back means receiving His Divine Nature with Divine life.
- “Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: het hat believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.“ {John 11:25}
This statement of Jesus refers to our resurrection and not to His resurrection after dying on the cross. We can see it clearly in the second part of the verse as it represents the announcement of what is to come. The Spirit of Prophecy and the Bible show us in many places that Jesus Himself will resurrect us at His coming, and will give us the eternal life that He has made possible for us through His sacrifice.
- “Remember that Christ risked all; “tempted like as we are, He STAKED even HIS OWN ETERNAL EXISTENCE upon the issue of the conflict.” {Ellen White: GCB, December 1. 1895 ‘Seeking the Lost’}
Jesus also died the death that all the saved ones will never have to experience! Crucified on the cross, as the Bearer of our sins, He was completely separated from the Father’s power, enduring a terrible ordeal by faith, while in His human nature, with which He went to the grave. Likewise, God’s people, after the end of the time of probation, will have to endure the seven plagues, during the last moments of earth’s history, without the Mediator in the heavenly sanctuary. It is, therefore, not surprising that the bearers of the apostate teaching began to reject even the clear truths found in Revelation, claiming that the end of the time of probation is “only symbolic”, and that it in fact refers, “not” to the last people of God, but “only” to fallen Babylon.
Under the grace of the first death, those who accepted God’s plan of salvation die, even without theological knowledge, living according to good conscience. Grace is available and available to all without distinction, during their lifetime, as long as they have the opportunity to repent, or until they cross the line of mercy and find themselves in a state of blasphemy. Jesus died as a symbol of humanity, and thus took the blame on Himself and took on the mediation so that He could cleanse His children from sin. This is called Redemption.
Christ’s sacrifice was what the Old Testament sacrifice of the innocent lamb was pointing towards – the transfer of sin and guilt to other parts of the sanctuary, and the crowning act of purification of the sanctuary, the Day of Atonement. Jesus has the legal right to bring back to life those who have accepted His work, and who have been cleansed by His intercessory service. But those who have rejected His sacrifice and love await the decree of the law, which requires the death of sinners. God’s people, who have repented from their sins, have had their sins removed and do not experience eternal death. But those who follow Satan, and have sins for which they have not repented, will bear the penalty of the flames of destruction and of eternal death.
In the non-biblical teaching of the “triune” God, where there is no literal division in power or position, other than for the symbolic tasks of the plan of salvation, Jesus is credited with resurrecting “Himself”. By that analogy, we too would have to resurrect ourselves, because then we also would “have” the Divine nature under our human body “because of” the presence of the third person of the Deity in us. And i.e. exactly the small subtle but blasphemous difference.
- “But if the Spirit of Him (the Father) that raised up Jesus from the dead DWELL IN YOU, He (the Father) that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you. {Romans 8:11}
The Bible makes it very clear that we are sealed by the Spirit of God for salvation and resurrection. that God the Father will make His power, just as He did with our Saviour and Advocate, Jesus Christ. Through Christ Jesus, we gain back the right to be ADOPTED and restored to our original status as children of God, which was lost at the fall into sin when we became apostate sons of God, i.e. children of the devil under sin.
- “Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.“ {Revelation 7:3}
- “And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.“ {Ephesians 4:30}
This Text is part of the book First Commandment OR Trinity? – Encyclopedia of Evidences of the Old Trampled Truths of All Areas