cd: Respectfully David -Judy has stated dozens of times that she believes Christ came in the flesh. Yet the group keeps denying she denying she said this.Why can't people hear her?
It is not a question of whether she believes in some form of flesh-like substance, Dean. It is a question of whether she believes Jesus came in the flesh identified in Scripture. When John states that Christ came in the flesh, he is speaking of the very same flesh that Peter speaks of in his Pentecost sermon: flesh which came from the fruit of David's loins according to the flesh. Hence when John writes that it is a spirit of anti-Christ which claims that Christ did not "come in the flesh," he is speaking of a denial of this exact same flesh -- the very flesh which he later identifies as the "'Genos' of David" (see Rev 22.16). What is this genos? Our English versions of the Bible follow the KJV when translating this Greek word. They call it "offspring," as in, Christ is the "Offspring of David," which is fine, as long as we are aware that genos is also the root for our English word "genome," whic
h is defined as "the ordering of genes in a haploid set of chromosomes of a particular organism; the full DNA sequence of an organism; 'the human genome contains approximately three billion chemical base pairs'" (WordNet ® 2.0, © 2003 Princeton University). Am I arguing that John understood the intricacies of the human genome when using this word to speak of Christ's humanity? No, I am not -- and neither did the translators of the KJV, nor even most of the translators of our newer versions. But Jesus did, and it was he whom John was quoting in this passage (and this under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit!). Yes, it is possible that John wrote knowing only that Jesus was a direct descendant of David, but Jesus spoke knowing full well that it would be two thousand years before the full impact of his utterance could even begin to be felt!
And so, Dean, I ask you: What exactly is being denied when John speaks of the denial of Christ come in the flesh? It is the entire human substance of the Christ of Scripture: his complete human genome, nearly three billion pairs! What "flesh" is there left to affirm once one has denied its entire DNA sequence? My goodness, Dean, it is time to recognize that it is not just the Gnostics who deny a human Jesus. It is anyone who denies that Jesus Christ is the "Genetic Descendant of David"!
Dean, it is one thing not to know what we do about genes and genetics and the human genome (all words which find their source in genos), and to then assume that Christ's flesh was made of some sort of substance similar to but unlike that of fallen humanity; but it borders on blasphemy to know what we do about the human genos and then claim that the flesh which John identifies as "Offspring" is not both explicitly and genetically linked to that of fallen David and Abraham -- and Adam.
Bill
cd: Bill I hesitate to answer this as I am not sure where you stand on the issue of: Did Christ appear in the Heathen state or in the state we are now as Christians. As a Christian I have all the human genes that you mentioned yet I am different from Hitler. I have flesh and Blood but am a new creature in Christ conformed to His image. If I state that I agree with you then what am I agreeing to?Enlighten me?
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