Kingdom Ready Blog

I thought I would share with everyone a very interesting little pamphlet that I inherited from my parents that was a part of their theology study materials. I don’t know a date for this article, (there is none on the pamphlet), but I’m going to guess that it is from sometime between 1950-1970. I haven’t been able to find much on the author from internet searches and I haven’t seen the pamphlet anywhere else at all. I think though, it fits perfectly with everything else here on KingdomReady. Here it is with all bolding and quotes presented just as in the original. Enjoy!

CAN AN IMMORTAL BEING DIE?

by Milton C. Burtt

Many say, “yes, the immortal Christ died. He was part man and part God” part mortal and part immortal, yet he died.” So a pre-existent immortal Deity died and was buried and was non-existent three days and three nights!

We Adventists are very inconsistent theologians. We state a principle, then deny it. Christian Scientists maintain that man is immortal, therefore he cannot die. We maintain that man does die, therefore he cannot be immortal. They make the theory disprove the fact. We make the fact disprove the theory. Then we turn right around and say that a preexistent immortal Being died, making immortality subject to death! And then to extricate ourselves from the predicament we cry “Mystery, mystery, all is mystery!”

But this retreat is no escape. The Divine Sonship of Christ is a doctrine essential to salvation; and as such must be comprehensible to the human mind. If the state legislature of New York should make laws incomprehensible to the citizens of said state, not one person would be responsible to those laws, neither could any one be convicted by them. And if the living God has given us an incomprehensible mystery in Christ, not one person can be convicted for not believing it. The Gospel of Christ appeals to men’s intelligence; but if it violates their intelligence it loses its appeal.

We might as well face the issue: If Christ was a pre-existent immortal Deity, He did not die; and if He did die, He was not a pre-existent immortal Deity. Immortality cannot die. Jesus says of the future immortalized saints, “Neither can they die any more.”

It is very true that we are literalists, and that the Bible means what it says. Yet we have to compare Scripture with Scripture and precept with principle in order to get at the truth. For example, Jesus says, “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood ye have no life in you” (John 6:53). This text literally teaches the Romish doctrine of transubstantiation; and yet not one of us believes it. It is just so much pious nonsense. We get the truth by comparing Scripture with Scripture and by the facts of the case.

Very few who preach the Deity of Christ really understand what it means. For instance, it is thought that if any one denies the essential personal pre-existence of Christ, he denies the Deity of Christ. Such a judgment only betrays one’s misconception of the question. There is not one text from Genesis to Revelation that bases the Deity of Christ upon his pre-existence. And there is not one essential doctrine of the entire Christian system based upon the pre-existence of Christ. Jesus was the Son of God, because He was begotten of the Spirit of God in the womb of the virgin. “Being born of Mary did not make him the Son of God.” But being born of the virgin Mary did make Him the Son of God.

“Then said Mary unto the angel, ‘How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?’ And the angel answered her and said unto her, ‘The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore, also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God’.” (Luke 1:34,35).

“Therefore… He shall be called the Son of God.” The Father gave Jesus that title because He was begotten of God. His enemies called Him the bastard son of Joseph and Mary and spoke against the virgin sign. But God said, “This is my beloved Son.” He was not the Son of God in essence but in origin, being begotten of the Spirit of God. He was conceived and brought to birth without natural coition. Such a thing never occurred before, nor since. Therefore, He was the only begotten Son of God. And yet He was not God’s perfected Son, the express image of the Father, until he came forth from the dead immortal: “God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that He hath raised up Jesus again: as it is also written in the second Psalm, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee” (Acts 13:33).

Again, my brethren insist with much zeal that the miracles of Christ prove He was a pre-existent Deity. But Jesus could not do one miracle until he was anointed of the Spirit of God at Jordan when he was thirty years of age. He said, “I cast out devils by the Spirit of God” (Matt. 12:28). Peter says, “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power” (Acts 10:38). Jesus introduces Himself into his ministry by claiming the Divine anointing (Luke 4:18), and Isaiah foretold the same anointing (Isa. 42:1).

One more point: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). This does not necessarily mean that the Word, or Logos, was a personality associated with God before the world was. David says, “For with thee is the fountain of life” (Psa. 36:9); because Jehovah is the source of life – “All my springs are in Thee” (Psa. 87:7). Again Paul says, “For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.” But Paul does not mean that our lives are so many conscious entities with Christ in heaven. He simply means that Christ is the depository of our future life. The Word was with God, because, “by the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth…For He spake and it was done; He commanded and it stood fast” (Psa. 33:6, 9).

Why do we make so much of one passage on a certain theme and persistently ignore another of like nature? “I wisdom dwell with prudence, and find out witty inventions… By me kings reign and princes decree justice… The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His ways, before His works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was. When there was no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no fountains abounding with water… When He prepared the heavens, I was there… when He set a compass upon the face of the deep… Then I was by Him as one brought up with Him; and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him” (Prov. 8:12-30). Now wisdom is not a personality, though the personal pronoun is used. But God is wisdom personified. And the Word of God is God himself. He is the very essence of wisdom and truth – “His word is truth.” Of Lavater of Zurich, a noted Swiss preacher, Dr. Ker says: “His most characteristic book is Pontius Pilate, written on the question, What is truth? He poured all of his heart into it; indeed he said of it, “that book is myself; he that hates it, hates me; he that loves it, loves me’.” History of Preaching, p. 268. So also God has poured al of His heart into His Word and “magnified it above all His name” (Psa. 138:2). He that hates it, hates God; and he that loves it, loves God. So also Jesus Christ is the guarantee and embodiment of God’s word. Without Christ God’s word is false. “For all the promises of God in Him are yea, and in Him Amen, unto the glory of God by us” (2 Cor. 1:20).

“And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). What Word? I answer, the Word of life promised at the beginning, immediately after the fall. Let John explain himself. He says: “That which was from the beginning which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled of the Word of life. For the life was manifested,, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us. That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you” (1 John 1:1-3).

The “Word of life” is the Word that was made flesh. It pre-existed in the promise of life given in the beginning immediately after the fall – “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel” (Gen. 3:15). In due time the Seed of the woman was born. He suffered and died; and then rose from the grave immortal. The resurrected immortalized Christ of flesh and bones was a sample of that eternal life which was with the Father. It pre-existed in the plan and purpose of God. And God’s purpose is as veritable as the accomplished fact.

In Old Testament times God was a mystery. A veil was thrown around the Deity. “Canst thou by searching find out God” (Job. 11:7). But the New Testament unveils the mystery of Godliness. “It was manifest in the flesh” (1 Tim. 3:16). And the manifestation did not deepen the mystery, but unfolded it. “Manifest” is from the Greek word phaneroo and means “to make apparent, to manifest to disclose” – Green; “To make visible or manifest” – Liddell & Scott. Thus Christ is a revelation not a mystery.

“Nobody has ever seen God, but God has been unfolded by the divine One, the only Son, who lies upon the Father’s breast.” (John 1:18) – Moffatt.