Recently a former Adventist sent me a link to a recent article from the Adventist Review written by Angel Manuel Rodriguez entitled “Forever Human, Forever Divine”. Rodriguez wrote an answer to this question: “I understand why Jesus became human, but why will He remain human forever?”
Rodriguez’s answer is speculative and misses the point of Jesus’ shed blood being the propitiation for sin. He has divided his answer into three sections: “the perpetuity of the incarnation”, “one incarnated Savior,” and “end of sin and perpetuity of the incarnation”. In these three sections, Rodriguez defines Jesus’ role as Savior not by the fact that He became sin for us so we might become the righteousness of God in Him (2 Cool 5:21) nor by the fact that He shed His blood for the payment God demanded for human sin. Instead, he credited Jesus’ role as Savior with His possessing human nature.
“The perpetuity of the incarnation”
In this first section, Rodriguez cites evidence of Jesus’ physical characteristics which confirm he was truly human: born of a woman, human throughout his ministry, “human blood came out of [His] hands and forehead;” He was thirsty and felt abandoned before finally dying as do all human beings. He ends this first section with these words:
John affirms what false prophets deny, namely that “Jesus Christ [is] coming in the flesh” (2 John 7). Paul adds that once the cosmic conflict is over, all things will again be subject to the Father, and “the Son Himself also will be subjected to the One who subjected all things to Him, so that God be all in all” ( 1 Cor. 15:28, NASB). The Incarnation will never be suspended. Christ became human forever. His sacrifice is an eternal one.
Rodriguez betrays his underlying Adventist worldview which assumes a different gospel from the biblical one in that last paragraph. First, he credits Paul with saying “once the cosmic conflict is over, all things will again be subject to the Father,” and then he quotes the last part of 1 Corinthians 15:28. If we look at this passage in context, though, Rodriguez has put words into Paul’s mouth that he did not say.
Paul does not even refer to a “cosmic conflict”. That idea is the Adventist great controversy—an idea Rodriguez knows his readers would understand and never question. In fact, however, this notion is not even hinted in the words of this passage. Here are verses 27, 28 from the NASB:
For He has put all things in subjection under His feet. But when He says, “All things are put in subjection,” it is evident that He is excepted who put all things in subjection to Him. When all things are subjected to Him, then then Son Himself also will be subjected to the One who subjected all things to Him, so that God may be all in all.
The context of this passage is the order of resurrection. Jesus is the first fruits of the resurrection; after that “those who are Christ’s at His coming” (v. 23), “and then comes the end”. Paul continues by saying that Jesus “must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet,” (v. 25), and “the last enemy that will be abolished is death” (v. 26).
There is no hint of any “cosmic conflict” or controversy in this passage. This entire section of Scripture is explaining how Jesus will triumph over His enemies, even death. Furthermore, the great controversy is utterly unbiblical. Satan is not engaged in an ongoing battle with Jesus while Jesus hopes humans will choose Him and thus help Him defeat Satan.
Again, this idea is not merely unbiblical, but it is not even suggested in the passage to which Rodriguez attributes it.
Rodriguez almost ended his paragraph innocuously, but he tipped his Adventist hand again with his last sentence: “The Incarnation will never be suspended. Christ became human forever. His sacrifice is an eternal one.”
Jesus’ incarnation is never described as “His sacrifice” in Scripture. Jesus’ becoming sin for us and dying, shedding His blood as the propitiation for human sin—that is Jesus’ sacrifice!
Adventists use Paul’s description of Jesus’ emptying Himself (Phil. 2:5–7) to diminish His complete deity after taking human flesh. Here is what Paul says in context:
Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Phil. 2:5–8).
Adventism teaches that Jesus’ emptying Himself and taking the form of a bond-servant means that He surrendered some of the attributes of God. In fact, they use this idea to justify their insistence that He gave up His attribute of omnipresence when He took a body. They will even argue that He permanently gave up His equality with God.
Paul is not saying what Adventists claim, however; Paul is describing Jesus’ emptying Himself of His glory and taking the form of a human in a sinful world. He emptied Himself of His rightful honor and lived among sinners. It’s important to understand, though, that Paul is NOT saying that Jesus gave up any of His attributes of God.
Adventists say that Jesus gave up His omnipresence by becoming incarnate. Because He now has a body, they say, He cannot be omnipresent. This idea is false. Jesus never stopped being omnipresent; Colossians 1:17, for example, states that all things hold together in Him. His role in the Trinity includes Creator of all (Col 1:16) and also sustainer of all (v. 17). He never stopped holding all things together—not in the womb nor in the tomb. He has ALWAYS been fully God with all the attributes of God.
If Jesus ceased to be omnipresent, He would have ceased being God. By definition, “God” always has all the attributes of deity, including all the incommunicable attributes of omnipresent, omniscience, omnipotence, and eternality. Jesus’ sacrifice was never His incarnation; rather, His sacrifice was His becoming sin and dying the death we deserve for sin. His being a resurrected, glorified human as well as God the Son, seated at the right hand of the Father, is not His sacrifice!
“One incarnated savior”
This section attempts to make sense of the incarnation of Jesus without holding to a biblical view of Him. It is confusing and assumes that the “divine saving act” is the incarnation.
It is true that the “divine saving act” was not possible without the incarnation, but the embodying of God the Son was not the “divine saving act”.
Rodriguez says,
The perpetuity of the Incarnation reflects the very nature of the Incarnation. If it were not eternal, we would not have an Incarnation but only a temporary indwelling of God in a human being. The Incarnation is in fact two natures in one person, not two persons dwelling together who could easily separate from each other whenever they wished.…In Him the human and the divine coexist in an unbreakable union, making it possible for us to be united with God once again.
This divine saving act will always be a reality in the universe. The end of the Incarnation would be the end of our divine-human Saviour. It is simply impossible for this to happen…What happened in the Incarnation was not something that could be undone once it accomplished its purpose.
Rodriguez is correct that Jesus will always be incarnated. Again, however, I have to say that the incarnation itself was not the “divine saving act”. Jesus’ eternally being God the Son and Son of Man is not the “thing” that reunites us with God. On the contrary, Colossians 1:21–23 say,
And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach—if indeed you continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel that you have heard…
Jesus’ death is the reconciling act. Paul also says in Ephesians 2 that gentiles were separated from Christ, excluded from the “commonwealth of Israel, strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world” (Eph. 2:12).
But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall, by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is the Law of commandments contained in ordinances, so that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace, and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity (Eph. 2:14–16).
Colossians 1:19, 20 further emphasizes not only that it was Jesus’ death and shed blood on the cross that reconciled man to God but also that “all the fullness” of deity was in Jesus even as He was (and is) in a body. The incarnation was in no sense Jesus’ sacrifice, nor does the incarnation itself reconcile us. Rather, the incarnation was Jesus’ identifying with us and taking our curse in order to release us from the law’s death sentence that condemned us all to eternal death. Here is Colossians 1:19, 20:
For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven.
“End of sin and perpetuity of the incarnation”
In this last section Rodriguez connects Jesus’ incarnation with dying for sin, yet he still identifies Jesus’ eternal incarnation as the guarantee of our eternal redemption and as the assurance that “sin will not rise again”. He says,
In exploring the permanent nature of the Incarnation we should also consider the fact that sin is both a cosmic and temporal phenomenon, and that its resolution is also cosmic and temporal. Through the work of Christ, sin will be eliminated from the universe (cosmos) forever (the time element) and will never rise again. The solution to the sin problem is cosmic and permanent. It is not only a historical event that happened at a particular time in the past—God’s saving act is an ever-present and eternally effective event.
The humiliation of God in becoming human in order to die for a sinful race is eternally preserved to ensure that sin will not rise again. The Incarnation is part of Christ’s sacrifice for us.
Rodriguez is right that Jesus is eternally incarnated, and His work is the eternal solution for sin. What he does not say, however, is that Jesus’ death was the propitiation for our sin. Propitiation is an “atoning sacrifice”, an offering that makes sufficient payment to the One demanding that payment.
God demanded death for sin, and Jesus’ death fully paid the price which God (including God the Son) demanded of sinful humanity.
Galatians 3:13 states:
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a cruse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”—in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we would receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.
In other words, Jesus’ sacrifice was sufficient to pay for the sin of every human who ever lived—and that sacrifice was His death on the cross. The blessing of being reconciled and receiving the Holy Spirit comes to everyone who believes in the Lord Jesus.
Jesus’ incarnation is eternal—but it is not an eternal sacrifice. In fact, Rodriguez has this idea inside-out. Jesus’ incarnation exalts those who believe. Because Jesus became a man while always remaining fully God, we who believe have been made God’s adopted heirs with Christ. Paul says this:
For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him” (Rom. 8:15–17).
Who we are in Christ
As the One who carried out the will of God in becoming the sacrifice for sin, Jesus was exalted by the Father “far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age bu also in the one to come” (Eph. 1:21). Furthermore, we who believe have become His body:
And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all (Eph. 1:22, 23).
Paul also says this about our position in relation to Jesus when we believe:
For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body…Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing: but that she would be holy and blameless” (Eph. 5:23, 25–27).
Here is the amazing thing: when we believe, we are born of God (Jn. 1:12) and sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise (Eph. 1:13, 14). This new life we receive changes our identities. We become identified with Jesus, with God the Son as our Head who cares for us, sets us apart for holiness, and washes us with His eternal word.
This exalted, resurrected, glorified Jesus—God the Son who is eternally Son of Man—claims us. We are His, and our identities and righteousness are HIS, never ours—but He credits us with His own perfection and eternal riches. Paul says this in Philippians 3:8, 9:
I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith…
Rodriguez understands that the incarnation is an eternal reality, but he misses the reason why. Jesus has forever identified Himself with humanity not because He must stay incarnated in order for sin not to rise again, but in order to take us with Him and to make us His joint heirs and adopted brothers and sisters.
His incarnation makes Him the one Mediator between God and man (1 Timothy 2:5,6), and His permanent priesthood ensures that we are saved forever since He lives forever to make intercession for us (Heb. 7:24, 25).
When we are in Jesus, we are far MORE than we would have been. Jesus’ incarnation is not an eternal sacrifice but the reason for His exaltation and our redemption. We are not merely returned to the sinless state of Adam and Eve; we are literally born of God and made heirs of God who will reign with Christ (Rev. 20: 4, 6).
Rodriguez misses the centrality of Jesus’ death on the cross. In fact, Adventism tends to downplay Jesus’ death on the cross which fulfilled the law’s curse on humanity for all who believe. Jesus isn’t simply our “asset” who humbly accepted an eternal demotion so we, His great “trophy”, will be assured sin will not rise again. No!
We are submitted to our Creator, our Savior, our eternal God who gave Himself for us so we can be counted holy in Him. His incarnation is an honor for us, and we are redeemed in Him eternally when we trust in His death, burial and resurrection for our sin!
Jesus is almighty God the Son who never gave up any of His attributes of deity. He reigns in the highest place, and when we trust Him we are seated with Him in heavenly places. He is our exalted Head who has broken the curse of death and redeemed our souls for God! Because of His victory, every knee will bow before Him, and every tongue will confess “that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:11)! †
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