Hi Mr. Simon,
1) God came to earth and became man, a servant who would spend His ministry as a pauper, knowing that He would go to an excruciating torture and death on the cross...voluntarily! He gave up His human life and took it up again within three days.
Phil.2 5. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: 6. Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7. but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death-- even death on a cross! 9. Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10. that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11. and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
2) He is forever both
God and man. His physical body was raised spiritual complete with the pierced side and nail holes.
John 20: 25. So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord!" But he said to them, "Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it." 26. A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!" 27. Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe." 28. Thomas said to him, "My Lord and my God!" 29. Then Jesus told him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."
Acts 1. 8. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." 9. After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight. 10. They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. 11. "Men of Galilee," they said, "why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven."
3) He is the "lamb slain from the foundation of the world" which is one scripture that proves Satan did not pull any surprise on God. In fact, when one looks at the book of Job you can see that he is a 'leashed dog.' He can only go as far as he is permitted in his perpetration of evil. But I digress.
4) God Himself has taken the fall for our own fall and all who believe on His name will receive salvation, all who do not will choose damnation.
John 8. 21. Once more Jesus said to them, "I am going away, and you will look for me, and you will die in your sin. Where I go, you cannot come." 22. This made the Jews ask, "Will he kill himself? Is that why he says, `Where I go, you cannot come'?"
23. But he continued, "You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. 24. I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am [the one I claim to be], you will indeed die in your sins." 25. "Who are you?" they asked. "Just what I have been claiming all along," Jesus replied. 26. "I have much to say in judgment of you. But he who sent me is reliable, and what I have heard from him I tell the world." 27. They did not understand that he was telling them about his Father. 28. So Jesus said, "When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am [the one I claim to be] and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me.
If you notice the "I am" statements, this is the same wording used in Exodus 6.2,3 for YHWH. 'Death and Die' are used in the New Testament with the consistent meaning of eternal damnation and not just a physical death (see Romans 3.23; 6.23). Christianity is, by it's very nature exclusive and leaves no room for other faiths. Jesus was either God incarnate, a liar or a lunatic. The namby-pamby, watered down gospel that claims to be 'Chrisitanity' ala 'liberal is nothing but HOGWASH.
The Preacher (Who used to be WW)
