So, at the risk of being "heterodox" (i.e. not "orthodox") I am going to ask some questions, based solely on the Scriptural revelations concerning the Person of the God of the Bible, and concerning the nature of man. These are questions that many outstanding minds who also profess faith in the Living God have posed in every generation since Chalcedon in 451, so I am in no way a lone ranger in my quest for sanity and sound Bible reading.

Before proceeding, let us be absolutely clear as to the orthodox belief. For orthodox Christianity, the Messiah cannot possess only some human qualities; he must possess all, so as to qualify as fully human. At the same time, he cannot possess only some divine qualities; he must have all to qualify as fully Divine. The Messiah must be 100% God and 100% man at the same time.

A moment's reflection will show this proposition is impossible by both Biblical and logical standards. Let us take one simple example from the lips of the Messiah himself: "But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone" (Matthew 24:36).

The usual desperate wriggle-out from this dilemma runs something like this: What the Messiah predicates of himself, namely ignorance, is true of him as a human, though it is not true of him as Divine. As the God-Man, the Messiah is simultaneously omniscient as God (in company with the other Persons in the Godhead) and ignorant of some things as a man (in company with other persons of the human race).

Ah, I get it! The Messiah is simultaneously aware and ignorant of this fact. So he knows the truth (because he is all-knowing as God) but then informs himself that he does not know this fact because he is simultaneously human? So the Messiah knows that he doesn't know what he knows, and this is the absolute truth of the matter, right?

Do we really suppose the disciples who heard the Messiah utter this "truth" thought to themselves, "Oh, that means he doesn't know as a human, but of course, he knows as God"? Forgive the irony in my typing finger, but no wonder it took the Gentile Church 300 years to come up with this so-called answer! The stubborn exegetical fact of Scripture is that the Messiah wasn't talking about his own divine nature versus his human nature. The Messiah specifically says "only the Father knows" -- which means that neither of the Messiah's "two natures" knows either!

No, the problem, of course, is not in what the text says. The problem is reading the text according to the paradigm of the so-called "hypostatic union." Biblical exegesis must be made to fit with our traditions at all costs, no matter how awkward. But that is dangerously backwards!

Let's face the truth the Messiah tells here. There are some things that he as the Son of YEHOVAH God does not know. What causes the angst is the doctrine that Yeshua is 100% God and 100% man at the same time. Which is to make the nonsensical assertion that the Messiah knows all things and does not know all things simultaneously!

So, how would you like your theological fruitcake cooked? Plain, according to what the text says, or with plenty of added man-invented concoctions according to what the Church has dictated for centuries one must believe under pain of persecution, excommunication or threat?

To be human means one is prone to limitations in knowledge. To be God means One has no limitations and is perfect and complete in all knowledge. You can't have it both ways at the same time. This is to make the orthodox Messiah schizophrenic, surely?

By definition a thing cannot be the opposite of itself. A thing cannot be perfect and imperfect at the same time. The presence of one of these qualities implies the absence of the other. The Messiah was either one or the other. He cannot logically be both. To believe he can be both unlimited and limited at the same time makes no more sense than if I were to tell you I just saw a square circle! Would I be telling you the circle was not round, in which case it would not be a circle? Or would I be saying the square was circular? This is to speak meaningless nonsense. It's a sheer impossibility, unless we start playing fast and loose with the definition of what a circle is and what a square is. Or what would you think of my sanity if I spoke of hot ice cubes? Imaginative it might be, but sensible and factual it is not.

Thus, to say that someone is all-knowing and yet does not know all things at the same time is to say that "X" and "not X" can both be true. This is either to abandon the meaning of words or else to abandon logic, and in either case it means we are speaking nonsense that can have no meaning for us.

But can't God do anything He chooses to do? Of course He can -- except those things that are inconsistent with being God. Can He choose to be evil or ignorant? Could He be the Devil or nothing at all? May it never be! The Christian God is the Eternal God of Israel, the God of the Universe and will never nor can ever be anything other than that God. He is the God of Truth who cannot lie.

So, if we want to say, "God did and did not" or "God is and is not" simultaneously our statements are meaningless. Is YEHOVAH God pleased with nonsense? When we say the Messiah is perfect God and perfect man at the same time we are saying two opposite things which cannot be possible, even for the Almighty! Let's face it -- there are some things even YEHOVAH God cannot do, or He ceases to be God.

Let's take another Bible example to illustrate the dilemma of the "orthodox" God-Man theory. The Messiah tells us in John 4:24 that "God is Spirit." The Messiah means that YEHOVAH God (Who in the previous verse he calls "the Father") operates through His spirit. This ought to be obvious because He existed before the universe of matter. YEHOVAH God created matter and does not consist of that which He created. It is therefore axiomatic that YEHOVAH God Who is Spirit is not composed of anything that can decompose or change. As Spirit He exists outside of creation and unlike matter cannot be divided. This is also why YEHOVAH is able to say, "I the LORD change not" (Malachi 3:6). Fundamental to the God of the Bible is His transcendence and what the theologians call His immutability, that is, His unchangeable nature.

The absence of change in His wholeness is the basis for the absence of any divisibility in God. As Spirit, YEHOVAH God fills space and time in the physical universe, but nothing in the physical universe becomes God as a result of being filled by Him. The universe cannot contain Him. YEHOVAH God is Spirit, not changeable material, which is why He is an indivisible One.

YEHOVAH Himself draws a clear line of distinction between Himself as Spirit and men as "flesh." When Israel was running off to Egypt for help in time of trouble, they were charged with making a foolish swap. YEHOVAH wryly points out, "Now the Egyptians are men, and not God, and their horses are flesh and not spirit" (Isaiah 31:3). The categories of flesh and spirit are not to be confused or mixed. Note that YEHOVAH God puts men and horses in the one and same category of physical "flesh" and puts Himself in another category as Spirit. It is the pagan nations, the Gentiles, who always mix Spirit and matter and the Bible calls this the sin of idolatry!

The Messiah himself knew this. Contrast Yeshua's definition of God who is spirit with his own description of himself. After his resurrection from the dead the Messiah challenged his disciples, "See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; touch me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have" (Luke 24:39). The Messiah puts himself, even in his resurrected state, as completely physical. The Messiah thus puts himself in a different category altogether from "the Father" whom he has defined for us as spirit.

This is why the God of the Bible is defined as inherently "immortal." Twice in one little letter the apostle Paul describes YEHOVAH God as immortal. He writes that "the only God" is "eternal, immortal, invisible" (1 Timothy 1:17). The particular Greek word here for "immortal" means "incorruptible." YEHOVAH God is spirit and as such His essential nature can never decay. By definition YEHOVAH is eternally incorruptible!

Now, again in the same letter Paul writes that this God "alone possesses immortality" (1 Timothy 6:16). Here Paul uses a different word to convey immortality. It is the word that means "never dying," "incapable of death." By definition YEHOVAH God "alone" and all by Himself possesses the quality of never being able to die. It is impossible for YEHOVAH to die! When we put these two verses together we are meant to understand that YEHOVAH God "alone" is "the only God" who possesses immortality and by definition cannot die, and therefore cannot decay.

Contrast this with the Messiah. The Scripture tells us that when the Messiah was buried he was in a state of "decay" (Acts 2:27). Yeshua was dead and corruptible. He was a man. And were it not for the faithfulness and the power of YEHOVAH God his Father who alone possesses immortality, the Messiah would have rotted in the grave. (It is not without accident that every single verse in the New Testament that declares the Messiah's resurrection tells us it was YEHOVAH God who brought him up from the grave from among the dead. Every verse! There is not a verse anywhere that tells us, as many of our hymns and choruses do, that the Messiah raised himself up from the dead.

YEHOVAH God honored the Messiah's faithful obedience with the gift of his immortality. Death can never again touch the Messiah. And this is the hope of every believer in the Messiah who is the "first-fruits of those who sleep (i.e. are dead)" (1 Corinthians 15:20). Because he lives we live and will forever via resurrection. Yeshua the Messiah is the first MAN whom YEHOVAH God has granted to have immortality. But it was not always so. He was a corruptible man for he died. The Messiah is now called "the living one" but he says he was dead but behold, he is alive now forevermore (Revelation 1:18). This cannot be said of YEHOVAH God!

I know I will be challenged that if the Messiah was not God, then how can I be saved? I am often assured that only God was big enough to pay the infinite price of all the world's sin. This is why the Messiah had to be the God-Man for a so-called "mere man" could not be a big enough Savior for all men.

Now stop and think about this proposition. If the Messiah is the pre-existent, pre-human Divine Son he is purported to be, then this person must by reason of his Divinity be immortal and so could not have died on the tree for my sins. And it will not do to appeal to the fact that the Messiah had "two natures" and that it was only his human nature that died on the tree. If it was only his human nature that died, how on this theory does the Trinitarian still maintain that the Messiah had to be God otherwise I have no Savior? On this theory it was the God part or nature that did not die anyway! On this theory it was only the "mere human" nature of the Messiah that died. And don't forget the "hypostatic union" teaches the two natures are indivisible anyway!

So I am still left with no Savior according to the popular theory. I am left with a God-Man who could not by definition die, but died anyway! And there is not a single theologian yet who has been able to explain this, which is a sure sign it is a man-made "God-man" the Church has constructed.

So the important question is: How does the death of Yeshua the Messiah save us? He tells us that, "as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life" (John 3:14-15). This refers to the incident recorded in Numbers 21:7-9 in which the people were dying from the bites of the poisonous snakes. Moses was instructed by YEHOVAH God to make a serpent of brass and set it on a pole for all to see; those who believed as they looked were saved from the poison of the snakes.

We should not overlook the fact that as the sinless and perfectly obedient Son who was always well-pleasing to Father God, the Messiah was perfectly qualified to be the one to offer a perfect offering for every man of Israel (see 1 Timothy 2:6). He was the lamb without blemish.

Let's draw this to a close. Can one person be infinite and finite at the same time? Can one Person, even God, be unlimited yet limited at the same time? Can one person know all things but not know some things at the same time? Can one person be incorruptible and immortal spirit and at the same time be decomposable and death-bound physicality? Sufficient has been raised to seriously challenge the theory of the "hypostatic union" of two completely opposite natures in the one God-Man of Church "orthodoxy." Indeed, it may be sensibly stated that the Messiah who is "fully God" and "fully man" at the same time is, in reality, neither God, nor man. And we will be judged by how well we respond with intelligence to revealed truth. Believing what is false is called wickedness (2 Thessalonians 2:11-12).

-- Edited by John D. Keyser.

Hope of Israel Ministries -- Preparing the Way for the Return of YEHOVAH God and His Messiah!

Hope of Israel Ministries P.O. Box 853 Azusa, CA 91702, U.S.A. www.hope-of-israel.org

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