Satan's Lies Exposed in the Incarnation and Sufferings of our Lord
William Diehl
To accept a Christ who is anything less than eternally Creator God is to accept a Gnostic perversion of the Gospel and one of the most Satanic perversions which will lead to the abominable belief that we are all little gods. This is the very heart of Satan's original lie. He refused to believe that Christ was eternal God and he refused to worship Him. The eternal divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ is absolutely the rock bottom heart of the entire issue involved in the great controversy between God and Satan.
Satan accused God of unfairly demanding unselfishness of all His creation. The essence of God's Law is unselfish love for God and one's neighbor. Satan accused God of being selfish in demanding this sort of love. Thus, Lucifer became the original Lawless One, the Man of Sin, who in the "mystery of iniquity", has rebelled against the rule of Law. But in the "mystery of God", God has unmasked the Deceiver and proven that even He is unselfish and even God obeys His own Law and that the Law is a revelation of God's own character. How did God prove to all the universe that He was indeed unselfish? He, Eternal God, in His great unselfish love for the fallen human family became a sin offering to pay the penalty for the broken Law for all the sons of Adam. Satan was cast out of Heaven at Calvary, because God proved to all the universe that even He is subject to His own Law of unselfish love. If God Himself did not die upon the cross of Calvary, then He proved nothing at the cross!! Thus if our Lord Jesus Christ is not fully Eternal, Co-equal, the Express Image of the Father, and of the same Glory as the Eternal Father, then His sacrifice is not that of Eternal God dying for our sins but rather a mere created being who is offering himself.
There can be no compromise on this point. If we deny the eternally equal divine nature of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, then we are no different than Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, Unitarians, Theistic Evolutionists, New Agers, and all the other cults who subjugate the divine nature of Christ to less than that of the Father. Only One who is equal to the Law of God and thus equal to the very righteousness God could make atonement for God's broken Law. A created being could never atone or reconcile God and Man. Atonement requires One who is fully God and yet fully Man to reconcile heaven and earth with the justice of the Law of God.
The union of the divine nature of the Son of God with the human nature of the Son of Man in the person of Jesus Christ was an infinite humiliation for the Son of God, but it was one which He willingly made to redeem mankind. By this mysterious union and by the sufferings and death of the Son of Man upon the cross of Calvary, divine justice has been reconciled with divine mercy and opened the gates of Paradise to the most degraded of the sons and daughters of Adam. There is no one who is too far down in the depths of sin who cannot be forgiven and covered by the imputed righteousness of Christ. All may be accounted sinless and begin to be transformed and reborn and begin to feed upon the righteousness of Christ. To the forgiven child of God is offered the marvelous gift of the Holy Spirit to be transformed by the renewing of ones mind and heart. Thus sinners are not only saved from the penalty of sin, but we are being saved from the power of sin as well as we grow up in sanctification. The righteousness of the Law begins to be fulfilled in all who seek to walk in the Spirit and not in the Flesh through faith in Jesus Christ. The fruits of the Holy Spirit will begin to be expressed in the life of all who are feeding upon daily communion with the Lord Jesus Christ.
Regarding those statements of our Lord Jesus Christ wherein He subjects Himself to the Father, our Lord is both the Son of God and the Son of Man and as such has become the second Adam and the new head and representative of the human family. When He speaks of being subject to the Father, He is speaking as the New Adam walking in humble subjection to His heavenly Father. Praise God from Whom all blessings flow! Praise Him all creatures here below! Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost! Amen!!!
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