The Daily Word of Righteousness

The Second Goat, #15

Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. (Hebrews 1:9)

Perfect righteousness and perfect obedience had been found. What would have taken place if the Son had refused to do His Father's will? Only God knows, but it would have been a horror of horrors.

Some teach that it was impossible for Christ to sin, and it will be impossible for the saints to sin "once they get to Heaven." We cannot agree with this. It always has been possible for Christ, for people, and for angels to sin and it always will be possible for Christ, for people, and for angels to sin. This is why there is a wall around the new Jerusalem and why the saints will govern the works of God's hands forever.

If it were impossible for Christ to sin He would not have been tempted in all points like as we. It simply would have been impossible for Him to be tempted.

Making the Lord Jesus a third person coequal with the Father, or making Him the Father or the Father with a different name, or claiming that it is impossible for Him to sin, has about it a sense of reverence. In our desire to ascribe to Jesus the majesty due Him we go beyond the Scriptures.

Is the Father greater than Jesus? Yes, He is.

Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you. If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I. (John 14:28)

Jesus is the Son and Servant of God and would be the first Person to tell us that His Father is greater than He. However, this is to say that a million to the millionth to the millionth to the millionth power is larger than a million to the millionth to the millionth power. Both numbers are so large as to be incomprehensible. It has been said, in fact, that nine to the ninth to the ninth power is a greater number than all the snowflakes that have fallen from the beginning of time.

To say one eternity and infinity is greater than another eternity and infinity may be permissible in theory but ordinarily it has no practical value. However, in the case of the Father and the Lord Jesus it does help us very much that our Lord, Christ, although having been with the Father from a period incomprehensible to us and being our Creator, has nevertheless become our elder Brother. "Go and tell My brothers that I ascend to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God, He joyfully announced to Mary." (John 20:17).

It adds no glory to Christ to make Him out to be another God coequal with the Father, and such a concept does render many passages of the Scriptures void of meaning.

Also, the Jews will have nothing to do with such an idea. The basis of their theology is that their Lord is one Lord. They are monotheists and will have nothing to do with polytheism.

We can never become another God. But we can become another son of God. We can never be another Firstbegotten from the dead. But we can become another person begotten from the dead.

The most acceptable manner in which we can show our love and reverence for Christ is to do what He says.

Will Christ sin? No, He will not; not because He cannot sin but because He chooses not to sin. Otherwise the cry in Gethsemane, "Not My will but Yours be done," is a farce.

Will we sin when we are in the new world of righteousness? Not if we have had Christ formed in us. We always shall be capable of sinning but we shall choose not to sin because we like Christ have now been born of God.

Our task will be to govern the creation so that sin never arises again.

All sin and rebellion have one proper home—the Lake of Fire. They do not belong in the creation of God—not now, not ever!

To be continued.