We continue with our comparisons of the Seventh Day Adventist beliefs and the Bible Students.

In our last post we were considering a few points which our Catholic friends had to say in regards to incarnation (a pivotal doctrine of theirs), as well as our Lord’s nature while on earth and etc.

It was stated:

4) Jesus had two natures (human and divine) but he was only one “person.” He is a divine person (not a human person). He is God who has taken on human nature and therefore he is God and a man.

This is double speaking, in one breath we are told he is a divine person, but not a human person, and in the next he is God who has taken on a human nature. The dictionary describes a person as a human being, whether an adult or child, and yes, it’s true that the word person can also be used to describe the characteristics which make up an individual’s personality, but it was not our Lord’s personality that was required under the law to be the ransom sacrifice, but rather his being made like us, becoming an actual human being, howbeit perfect. This last being necessary as it was a perfect man who had sinned.

At the Council of Chalcedon (451 A.D.) the council affirmed that the incarnation of Christ was one person with two natures – fully human and fully divine.

The idea of a dual nature is preposterous especially as it presupposes that the individual is 100% of both natures at the same time, 100% a divine being and 100% a human, this is an impossibility. 100% represents the totality of any item, the whole of something. 100% means 100 out of 100.

One can be 50% divine and 50% human, or 40% divine and 60% human, 10% divine and 90% human and etc., but not 100% of both. If one is 100% a divine individual and 100% a human individual then they are not one individual but two individuals.

This would imply that during Christ’ stent on earth as an individual composed of two natures the Trinity of three became a “quaternity” or Greek “tetrad”, as there were now four individuals in the godhead, how foolish.  

The very idea of a dual natured being goes against God’s law, this was one of the sins committed by the falling angels who took for themselves human wives and produced the Nephilim an unauthorized race of beings. The Nephilim were composed of two natures a mixture of both angelic and human.

Now one might say, ‘Well aren’t those begotten of God’s spirit possessed of dual natures, a new “spirit nature” and the “human nature”? This is true in a since accept that God only recognizes the “new creature” the old man, the human nature is counted as dead, sacrificed upon the altar. The new creature merely tabernacles in the earthen vessel until the sacrifice is completed as in accordance with their covenant (Rom 12:1; Psa 50:5).

5) Just like you, when this divine person of Jesus died on the cross it was a real death. But he was not annihilated or altogether dead. His body was buried in the tomb but he was soul and person was alive just like you will be alive in your soul when you die.”

More double speak, “Jesus died…it was a real death…but he was not altogether dead.”

It is evident that this individual has failed to understand exactly what it means to be divine, possessed of inherent life, immortality, and therefore DEATH PROOF. It doesn’t matter whether it was a spirit being or a human being if they possessed this quality of life, they could not die, period.

Saying that it was his human body that died, but that his soul was still alive not only contradicts the Scriptural testimony, but makes void the ransom sacrifice.

The divine testimony is that “the soul that sins it shall die”, IT shall incur the divine penalty, not merely the body, the organism. This is what happens when one does not fully comprehend what a soul consists of. As was previously stated, a soul is not a separate entity apart from the body, it is the combination of the body (the organism) and the breath of life breathed into it that makes it a living soul. As it is written:

“And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man BECAME a living being (soul).” Gen 2:7

The divine law is implicit, life for life, a perfect man (a living soul) sinned and was condemned before the court of justice, as such under the divine law the only way in which this soul could be redeemed is if another perfect man (another living soul) were given in ransom, sacrifice in his stead.

Our Lord did not give merely his flesh, his human body as a sacrifice, he gave up his very life, he poured out HIS SOUL (his being) unto death (Isa.53:12).

Jesus could not have given a part of his being and retained part, for he himself states that he gave ALL THAT HE HAD (Matt 13:44).

“On the contrary how simple the argument and how logical and scriptural, that He who was in the form of God (spiritual) became or was “made flesh” [human] in order that he might give “a corresponding price,” substitute or ransom for the condemned fleshly race. Yes, the man Christ Jesus gave himself–all that he had, a ransom for all, for “as by man came death by man also came the resurrection of the dead.” (1 Cor. 15:21.) And to this definition the facts all agree, for he never took back the “flesh and blood,” he

never will take back our ransom price. Though put to death in the flesh, he was quickened in the Spirit. 1 Pet. 3:18.” (R720)

“The word incarnation is not found in the Bible! From Genesis to Revelation, not one single text is found to discuss the incarnation of God in any person, in any being or even in Christ. The word incarnation is a theological term and concept that originated in Christianity long after Jesus and the Apostles were gone from the scene. Incarnation, even as an abstraction, is not in the Bible.”

In our next post we finish up with our Seventh Day Adventist beliefs in regards to the Church.