Undiminished deity

I guess I should be happy and let it go. I got a call a half-hour ago from a journalist friend who told me I was on Page 4 of the front section of the Sunday “Chicago Tribune.” I looked at the piece online a few minutes ago and was dismayed to see I came off, in my opinion, as quite inadequate.

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The Spirit’s going to come; the New Covenant is going to be inaugurated and Christ says, in essence, "the Father’s going to be in you and you’re going to be in me and I’m going to be in you and we’re going to be one!"

Jordan explains it: “He’s completely identified with the Believing remnant. I John says, ‘As he is so are we in the world.’ You see right here in the heart of a passage (John 14) where He’s doing exactly what Isaiah does. The servant back there is Israel with her Messiah, who is the REAL servant! And Israel is sharing His status because in Him they have His identity. In 14:28, He’s magnifying the one whose will He’s come to do and His owning His place as the servant; ‘yea, the suffering servant of the Lord.’

“It’s the silliest thing in the world to think you’re denying the deity of Christ when you’re recognizing Him as the man Christ Jesus. Because it’s just as damning to deny to His full and authentic humanity as it is to deny His true and undiminished deity.

“You ask, ‘But how can true and undiminished deity live as real authentic humanity?’ Well, they can’t in the absolute. So God, the undiminished and true deity, willingly chooses not to make His reputation as God an issue but to submit Himself to the will of His Father and take on our limitations of humanity. 5:8. He never ceases to be a son. Somebody says, ‘Well, when Jesus became man, did He cease to be God?’ How could that happen?!’ How could you quit being God if you’re God? Can you quit being a human?

“Jesus didn’t quit being who He was; He just became somebody who He wasn’t previously. He didn’t quit being God. He became man. ‘And being made perfect he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them who obey him.’ Now that’s an interesting verse.

“He learned obedience. How can God learn obedience? God doesn’t. Who learns it? The man Christ Jesus. You see He was more than God; He took on your humanity, but because He was God He voluntarily limited the exercise of His status and capacity as God so that He could enter into the status and capacity of your human limitations. He demonstrated Himself in His earthly ministry to be God. He raised the dead. He forgave sin. Only God can do that but He didn’t do it independently on His own. He did it in response to the will of His Father.

“Christ submits His activity to the instructions and plan of His Father, and in so doing demonstrates how we can experience God living in us because when Paul says, ‘Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus,’ He wasn’t telling us to go back and follow the Jewish program Jesus is teaching back in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. He’s saying, ‘You see how He lived in His humanity; that’s how He wants to live in your humanity.’ You and I are to live in complete dependency on the will of our Father. Where right division comes in is to figure out what that will is, but the issue is the same.

“When He says, ‘My father is greater than I,’ He’s not talking in any way about the nature of the godhead. He’s talking about the role that He as the servant has come to play. And He said, ‘If you have been listening, I’m being submissive to the plan of the Father and that plan goes all the way back to Genesis 1.’

“John 14:29 . . . I love that! Jesus Christ didn’t stand around blowing His own horn, running around saying, ‘I’m God; woo, look at me!’ All He did to prove who He was was prophecy ahead of time about the things that are going to happen in the face of eye witnesses and let them see it happen. He demonstrated Himself over and over again, even here at the very last moment of His life with His apostles, to be that prophet like unto Moses; to be the one who has come to be God’s spokesman.

“John 13:19. He told them at the beginning of the conversation. What did He want them to believe? That He’s the Messiah. That He’s that divinely appointed, accredited, promised qualified Savior.

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“In the instructions given to the nation Israel, the tithe is an integral part of the life of that nation. And there are three basic tithes that an Israeli was to give. There were a few other taxes they had and then they gave voluntary gifts. A tithe is compulsory. You remember Malachi 3 he says, ‘Will a man rob God? And they said wherewith have we robbed thee?’ And he says, in tithes and offerings.

“The tithe belonged to the Lord and when they didn’t give it to Him they
were robbing Him. Well that comes out of Leviticus 27:30.

“In Numbers 18 he tells them to tithe of the seed of the land (the agriculture, the vegetable kingdom), of the oil (vegetable kingdom) and of the animal kingdom (their flocks) and then salt (the mineral kingdom). All of creation Israel was to tithe back to the Lord what they got out of it. And they were to give a tenth of their gross production. It was the first ten percent of the gross income they had from any source.

“Numbers 18:21. What happens is all 12 tribes of Israel, 10 percent of the gross income they have of each family is to be taken and given to the Levites to support the levitical tribe. Why? Reason is the Levites don’t get an inheritance in the land. Could they grow a crop or have a business? No. they were chosen out to work in the temple, to be the priests, to be God’s representatives. They are the priesthood in Israel.

“Israel was a theocracy with God as their king and He ran the nation
through His word and through the priests. That’s why you have this royal nation with a royal priesthood. That’s why Jesus is a priest on the throne. Those two offices were combined together and the government of the nation Israel worked itself out through the tribe of Levi. So the tithe was an income tax to support the government of the nation.

“By the way, remember in Leviticus 27 where he talks about that ‘fifth part added’? A fifth part is 20 percent. If the Levites got 10 percent of 12 tribes how much of the gross national product did they get? What’s ten times 12? They got 120 percent. That was their reward for the sacrifice they were making; the service they were rendering as the nation and the priesthood.

“By the way, when they would bring a sacrifice—produce, animals—some of it was dedicated to the Lord in the burnt offering. But the rest of it the priest got that too. So the storehouse is sort of like the temple treasury where they kept the goods.

“They were carrying on the same thing Abraham did back there. What did Abraham do with Melchizedek? He was paying a tribute to the king and royal priest. By the way, where was the temple and the tabernacle? In Jerusalem. He tells them over and over that you bring you offerings to the door of the tabernacle in the place that I’ll tell you. And after the wilderness wanderings He brought it over and He said, ‘I’ve chosen Jerusalem to be the place where I’m going to put my name.’ And so they would bring it there.

“Now, there were two other tithes. Deut. 14:22. Household. This is a tithe you’re going to keep for yourself and you’re going to eat. You’re going to consume it. Where are you going to eat it? In Jerusalem.”