Why is “Fully God and Fully Man” so important?

             The first Adam was created by God in perfection. However; Adam failed from the beginning and sin came to us and the land that brought us a heritage of sinful nature.

21 For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. 22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. (1Cor 15:21-22)

17 For if by the one man’s offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.) (Roms 5:17,19)  Since sin was brought into the world by man then it should be removed by man.  If Christ came in spiritual form, then He could not shed His blood as sacrifice for us since all things are cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. (Heb 9:22)  Just as Adam and Eve needed a living sacrifice with shedding of blood to cover their sin, we need it too.  Jesus came from God as our living sacrifice (the perfect one) and shed His blood to cover our sins. (Heb 10:4-7)

Christ came for our redemption and He will be the only mediator for us

      

       The tabernacle on earth in Old Testament is the shadow of the sanctuary in heaven.  In the old Testament time, the high priest came to the inner room (the Most Holy Place) once a year, and always with shed blood which is the offering for himself and for the sins the people committed.  When Christ came as the high priest, He enters the Most Holy Place with His own blood (Himself as a perfect sacrifice) to cover the sins for all people. As a result our sins are cleansed when we accept His and we escape eternal death.  In order to intercede for us before God, this high priest needs to have the same characters as God that we would associate to God: holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above all heavens. ²⁶  Such a high priest truly meets our need—one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens. (Heb 7:26)  Christ is the mediator of the new covenant.  When Jesus Christ comes to the Father’s throne, he has to be fully God to face God and represent us as fully man.  “5 For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus,” (1Tim 2:5).  Jesus became the only mediator for us between God and humanity.  As He is fully man, he can understand humanity in areas of suffering and weakness. ¹⁷  For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. ¹⁸  Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. (Heb 2:17-18).  And as He is fully God in holiness, he can intercede for us.

         

Do you agree with Determinist or Free Will Theology? Why?

When we talk about Determinist or Free Will, we are also talking about the attribute of God – His all knowing and sovereign. And normally, it addresses the topic of salvation: Does God chose this person to be saved? Or this person decides to be saved? Some of us spend a lot of time in deciding between steak or salad for my dinner but this is not what I am addressing here. Rather, I am addressing who really is in control of our eternal destiny.

To talk about this issue, I think we need to understanding of nature of men because all men are bound by the nature law. A prisoner has free will to pace around, jump or do whatever he wants in the cell. However; his free will not enable him to go beyond the walls no matter how much desire of his free will. He is limited around the walls but he has free will within the cell. So it is with man. Because of sin, human is imprisoned in the cell of wickedness and corruption which pervades the core of our being. Every part of a human is bounded by sin – our bodies, minds and wills. “ The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” Jer 17:9. In our nature, our heart is carnally minded and not spiritual minded. We do things by our flesh; we sin against God all the time! We are His enemy! Even though we totally disconnect with Him and against Him all the time, He knows us. “For He knows deceitful men; He sees wickedness also. Will He not then consider [it]?” (Job 11:11) He loves us and His love conquered everything. “ Many waters cannot quench love, all the wealth of his house for love, it would be utterly scorned.” ( Song of songs 8:7)

The Cross is God expression of His love to us. Jesus Christ, the second person of the trinity, came to the world and died on the cross which is salvation that tears down the walls for all the sinners who like to follow Him and love Him in return. Through salvation, we are able to reconnect to God with our spirit; through salvation, we are no longer bound by our sins and are able to conquer them by the power of Holy Spirit; through salvation, we are no longer in prison. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (Jn 3:16) His salvation as a gift is for every body in the world and every body who is in the prison has free will to choose to accept it or not. His heart towards us is like the father waiting for his lost son to return. Interestingly, human is able to choose. When we say “free will”, it normally points to the freely choosing of the opposed way because of sin. Did God decide for us who is going to accept His salvation? Absolutely not! As we start following Jesus, our spirit is awake and we start having peace and power to conquer our sin. Salvation is God’s job and it was finished at the cross! Our job is to believe and be faithful to the end.  

What is the Gospel?

        Do you still remember the very first encounter with the Gospel? To me, it was about an almighty God who loves me.  Yes. It is love when I heard about the Gospel. Be more specific about the message, I would say it was the feeling of being loved and I think it’s the Gospel(good news).

Of course later on, I studied the Bible and learned about how God loves us, I am a sinner, He wants to save me from sin through Jesus Christ dying on the cross and so on.  However; I won’t forget His first touch: love.  It is His love that I knew He cares about me.  An almighty God, all knowing God cares about me?! What a news to me!

Most of the disciples from the first century had commandments from Jesus Christ and went to preach the Gospel addressing mostly Jews who already knew about God (basically, their society, culture, moral standards, laws/constitution, calendars are all related with God. God’s history is deeply related with this nation.) and knowing their identity (They understand the covenant of God from Abraham till now and to the end. They know the promises of God and they also experience His faithful, might, power and love.)  For us as a raw gentiles who never have relationship with this God, it won’t be easy for us to start the Gospel from justification to unbelievers as same as disciples addressed to either Jews or gentiles who were around Jews.  However, I believe the all knowing God, Jesus Christ, know all the time that the Gospel will go all over the world and from His preaching still can see the glue of full Gospel to the raw gentiles.

        

       What did Jesus preach at that time? Most of time, Jesus addressed to the kingdom a lot for the kingdom is near through His present. ( “Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel.  As you go, preach this message: The kingdom of heaven is near.” Mt 8:6-7)  Even though He addressed particularly the Jews, the kingdom concept is announced through the disciples.  In other word, Gospel is the good news about the kingdom of God but nothing else like as heaven, eternal life…. .  but Him alone.  The kingdom concept is about God. The Gospel is God’s story only.  So, spreading Gospel is how do we tell people about God’s story and this story is all about His love. (“ For God so loved the world that he gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Jn 3:16)

        

        When we try to read the bible story to our children, what does it look like? What is God’s story? I would like the assumption of this story divided into a few parts. 

1)      God – There is an Almighty God who exists all the time and takes care of all things that we noticed or unnoticed.  He is the beginning and the end.  He hold the whole universe. He is uncreated and He has no end.

2)      God’s creation – He is the creator who created the heaven and the earth.  He created all the living things on earth and He created humans according to His image to manage the rest of the creation.

3)      Human’s falling – Man’s disobedience in the Garden of Eden separated the whole creation on earth from God. 

4)      God’s plan to redeem the whole creation through the seed of fallen human family – God shows His perfect love to us through the redemption of Jesus Christ.  He started from the beginning of sin from human and chose the root of that family to fulfill His promise to us. 

5)      Through the dwelling of His Spirit, He is with us in the dark age. – After Jesus ascension,  He promised us to send His Spirit to dwell in us so that we can overcome our sinful nature and pass our trials.  He shows His perfect love to us and expressed how much He wants to be with us and He never changes His thought and heart. 

6)      He wants to remove anything which could hinder His love to us. – It is all about Jesus' second coming to us.  Through the whole salvation process, He is our coming King, bridegroom and judge.  He is passionate to us is nothing can stop that.

7)      God want to be with us and He is with us.  --- He never change His heart. His love does not change from the beginning to the end.  His plan does not change – He loves us so much that He wants to love us and expects us to love Him back.

         

Susan Boyle - Singer - Britains Got Talent 2009 (With Lyrics)

永遠不要從一本書的鋒面來判斷一本書的價值
I dreamed a dream in time gone by
When hope was high,
And life worth living
I dreamed that love would never die
I dreamed that God would be forgiving.

Then I was young and unafraid
When dreams were made and used,
And wasted
There was no ransom to be paid
No song unsung,
No wine untasted.

But the tigers come at night
With their voices soft as thunder
As they tear your hopes apart
As they turn your dreams to shame.

And still I dream he'll come to me
And we will live our lives together
But there are dreams that cannot be
And there are storms
We cannot weather...

I had a dream my life would be
So different from this hell I'm living
So different now from what it seems
Now life has killed
The dream I dreamed.

我需要有祢在我生命中

因為心是如此的軟弱 所以 你是那在我周圍環繞保護我的神 只要我一直把我的心交在你的手掌中

Evan Earwicker - Dance with me

MISTY EDWARDS SINGING AWAKEN ME AT IHOP PRAYER ROOM