Wednesday, December 23, 2015
A paradox can be a statement that sounds like one thing but many times it reveals the opposite and then leads to a conclusion that doesn't seem to make sense and is unacceptable and even sometimes contradictory.
Sometimes a paradox sounds like one thing but when explained it reveals just the opposite of what it says or seems to say.
Sometimes in a paradox you can also say two totally opposite things but there's some truth to both of them.
The paradox here is the fact that the phrase "the hour" refers to His death which would seem like a defeat but the result is for the same one who is dying would also be glorified.
The paradox here is that life comes out of death rather than death coming from life.
A paradox is a statement that is self contradictory because it often contains two statements that are both true, but in general, cannot both be true at the same time.
A Wise fool
Bittersweet
"I can resist anything but temptation."
Nobody goes to that restaurant because it is too crowded.
You shouldn't go in the water until you know how to swim.
If you didn't get this message, call me.
If you're not here, raise your hand.
The point of a paradox is to point out a truth, even if the statements contradict each other.
1. Exaltation Through Humility; JAM 4:10 Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.
What a contrast Satan and his children are from Christ who humbled himself but was exalted! (PHI 2:8-9).
2. Strength Through Weakness; 2CO 12:10 Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.
With all his God-given privileges and advantages; there was always the possibility of being proud and over confident.
3. Receiving Through Giving; ACT 20:35 Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, that He Himself said, 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.'"
The ultimate test of love for God and man is in giving something that we hold so dear.
The world’s philosophy is - It’s much better to work and work, save, earn all you can, get rich, keep and withhold!
4. Freedom Through Servitude Or Becoming A Slave; ROM 6:18 and having been freed from the old sin nature, you became slaves of righteousness.
5. Gaining Through Losing PHI 3:7 But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ.
6. Living Through Dying; Joh 23-25. Jesus was foretelling his death.
The corn of wheat that falls to the ground and dies also grows and becomes productive.
Death to the old self is the first step to Christian growth and this principle is found in all the NT (ROM 8:13).
ROM 8:13 for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
The more you die to SELF the more CHRIST is seen in you! John the Baptist said that Christ must increase and we must decrease!
7.Finally The Seventh Paradox Is Finding Through Losing - MAT 10:39 "He who has found his life shall lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake shall find it.
PHI 2:1 Since therefore there is encouragement in Christ, since there is comfort from virtue-love, [that is love for God; love for self; love for others] since there is fellowship of the Spirit, since there is tendernesses and compassions,
PHI 2:2 Bring to completion my inner happiness by thinking the same doctrines, maintaining the same virtue-love, with unity in your soul, concentrating on the same objective [which is the glorification of TLJC].
PHI 2:3 Doing nothing motivated by contentiousness or ambitious pride, but with humility of mind [by means of grace orientation] let each of you keep on considering one another as more important than himself;
PHI 2:4 do not merely be regarding your own personal interests, but also regard or consider the personal interests of others.
PHI 2:5 "Keep on thinking this [doctrine] within yourselves which was also resident in Christ Jesus,"
PHI 2:6 who, although He existed in the form of God, [He was the exact nature of God Himself] did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,
Our Lord did not cling to the fact that He was God and He did not claim His privileges of being God to be something to be grasped or something to hold onto.
PHI 2:7 He denied Himself of the proper functions of His deity or His being equal to God. In fact, although having being discovered in outward appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of spiritual death, that is the death of the cross.
PHI 2:9 Therefore also the God has highly exalted Him to the maximum, and bestowed on Him the name or rank which is above every name,
PHI 2:10 By means of His [onoma- name] the office, rank and dignity belonging to Jesus, every knee should bow, in heaven, on earth and under the earth.
PHI 2:11 and that every tongue should confess or acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
1. We homologeo [confess or acknowledge] Christ as our Savior for salvation - ROM 10:9 If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved;
2. We homologeo [confess or acknowledge] our sins for experiential forgiveness and fellowship with God in time; 1JO 1:9.
3. We homologeo [confess or acknowledge] His office, rank and dignity in heaven and on that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father; PHI 2:11.
4. He homologeo [confesses or acknowledges] winner believers and their rewards before His Father and before His angels;REV 3:5 To the winner -- I will confess [homologeo] his name [onoma-office, rank and dignity] before My Father and before His angels.]
He was and still is the exact representation of God - equal to God the Father and equal to God the Holy Spirit which is whyHEB 1:3 says He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power.
He is totally the same exact essence of God which is why our Lord said in JOH 5:23 All judgment has been given to the Son in order that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.
If you do not honor, respect and worship Jesus Christ then you do not honor and respect God the Father and God the Holy Spirit.
Our Lord did not cling to the fact that he was God and He did not claim His privileges of being God.....a thing to be grasped or something to hold onto.
PHI 2:7, He did not empty Himself of His deity but it says He denied Himself of the proper functions of His deity or His being equal to God.
PHI 2:7 By taking the form of a bond‑servant, [becoming a slave] and being made in the likeness of men. -- in the exact nature of man minus man's OSN.
"The Theology behind Christmas."
If we just squeeze all these verses together, it's pretty clear that we're talking about one who is God, that's how it starts, and He is also Lord, and that's how it ends.
What this section explains to us is the condescension of the Son of God to come to earth to die and then to return in exaltation to glory.
The Five A' s:
1. Abandonment
2. Acceptance
3. Association
4. Adoption
5. Ascension.
1. He ABANDONED a sovereign position ; (PHI 2:6.)
Though He was God and preexisted with the exact essence of God, He did not think claiming His equality with God something that He wanted or needed or desired to claim or to profess.
2CO 8:9 "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich."
2CO 5:21 He [God the Father] made Him who knew no sin to be a sin offering on our behalf, so that we might become the very perfect righteousness of God by being in Him.
1PE 3:18 For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, in order that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh [His humanity suffering a spiritual death], but made alive spiritually.
1. He ABANDONED a sovereign position;
(PHI 2:6.)
2. He ACCEPTED a slave's place in PHI 2:7-8.
PHI 2:7-8; He denied Himself of the proper functions of His deity or of His being equal to God by taking the form of a bond‑servant, [becoming a slave] and being made in the likeness of men. -- in the exact nature of man minus man's OSN.
3. He ASSOCIATED with sinful people which means that we begin to see the depth of His slavery in PHI 2:7 when it says, "He was made in the likeness of men."
HEB 2:14 Since then the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same nature as theirs [minus, of course, the OSN],
that through His spiritual death [His spiritual death or His being separated from God] He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil;
If TLJC died a physical death "FOR US" or in "IN PLACE OF US" then why would we die physically if He died "FOR US" or "IN PLACE OF US."
He paid a debt He did not owe;
I owed a debt I could not pay;
I needed someone to wash my sins away.
And, now, I sing a brand new song,
"Amazing Grace."
He was called a friend of tax‑gatherers and sinners! (LUK 7:34).
4. He APOPTED or assumed a self-less posture.
5. He ASCENDED to a supreme prince.
Verses 9 to 11 says, "He ascended, a supreme prince," and then it says, "for this reason also."
The reason of His submission, the reason of his humiliation, the reason of his obedience to death, even to death on the cross. "
"God raised him from the dead as a sign of God's satisfaction over His death and then God exalted him to his own right hand and bestowed on him the name or the title which is above every name or title."
He abandoned a sovereign position.
PHI 2:6 identifies His person, His nature, His character, His attributes in eternity before He came.
Literally, it reads this way, "He being in the form of God,
Being denotes the person's essential nature, His essence, who "He really is." It refers to that which is unchangeably true about Him, that He possesses this nature as God.
This refers to his innate, unchangeable, unalterable essence.
He not only reveals Himself as God but He reveals the entire Trinity within Himself as God!
COL 2:9 For in Him all the fulness of Deity dwells in bodily form,
Does it say who or what is Jesus that thou rememberest Him or the son of God that thou art concerned about him ? --- No, it does not.
GEN 1:28 And God blessed them; and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth."
What the first Adam lost as ruler of the world, the last Adam gained back and gave it back to the rulership of man. (Merry Christmas)!
harpagmos = to seize something, to snatch something, to take hold of it and pull it away or it can mean to hang onto something, to cling to something, to clutch something so let's look at it both ways.
It means to seize something in the sense of gaining something.
It is a hapax legomena.
1. TLJC did not see equality with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit as something that He had to seize or steal.
2. The pre-incarnate Christ already possessed equality with the Father but resolved not to cling to it.
3. TLJC did not reach for His crown prematurely, as Adam had, but was willing to wait after His sufferings.
The aor-mid-ind of hegeomai which is the verb hegesato which means to think, to regard, to consider, to esteem, to think graciously or grace-thinking.
Our Lord and Savior did not think that He couldn't leave Heaven because He might have lost something if He became a member of the human race.
He didn't think that if He became true humanity that He somehow would have been inferior or that something would have been stolen from Him.
He wanted equality with God so Lucifer being equal to God was something to be seized.
He was willing to give it up, so willing that verse 7 says, "He emptied
himself" or "He denied Himself of the proper function of His deity."
HEB 13:8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today, yes and forever.
JOH 19:32 The soldiers therefore came, and broke the legs of the first man, and of the other man who was crucified with Him;
JOH 19:33-34, but coming to Jesus, when they saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs; but one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately there came out blood and water.
Christ Jesus paid a debt that I could never pay.