Kingdom Ready

by Mike Hicks

The Full-Orbed Deity of Jesus Christ by Gordon Magee

Jesus Is the Father

Plain Statements
“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called . . . The everlasting Father” (Isaiah 9:6).
“He that hath seen me hath seen the Father” (John 14:9). “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30).

Verses to Compare

by Mike Hicks

“Even in your law it has been written that the testimony of two men is true. I am He who testifies about Myself, and the Father who sent Me testifies about Me.” – John 8:17-18 (All Scripture references are from the NASB)

Have you ever seen a really good magician do card tricks? If he is practiced enough, he can fool even the most attentive audience. One technique that is often used in card tricks is called “sleight of hand”. Cambridge Online Dictionary has, as one of it’s definitions for sleight of hand, “skilful hiding of the truth in order to win an advantage”. Using a sleight of hand move called the “double lift” a magician can make you believe that he has turned over the top card of a deck, when in fact he has turned over two. Through “palming” he can hide a card in the palm of his hand without you ever noticing.

A Plea for Oneness Believers to Reconsider
by Mike Hicks

by Mike Hicks

My wife and I recently attended a baby dedication in our old church. During the message, my former Pastor noted, while condemning abortion, that Biblically a baby in the womb is a baby, not a “fetus”. He continued, “The word fetus isn’t in the Bible, so I don’t use it!” That is excellent advice, and in fact it is that very idea which began my departure out of Oneness Pentecostalism into the glorious truth of God the Father and His precious Son, Jesus Christ. Because my old Pastor believes that Jesus was God the Father in flesh (literally), he had a natural aversion to calling Jesus the Son of God. Instead, he would consistently “clarify” every scripture that he read which called Him the Son of God by saying “that word Son means flesh; the flesh of God”. Finally, after letting this bother me slightly for years, it began to bother me a lot. I realized that if I ever mimicked the prayer in Acts 4:24-30 (by the name of thy holy child Jesus) I would likely raise eyebrows, and possibly be rebuked. Why is it that we have to constantly “clarify” Biblical words in order understand what they mean?

Installment #5 in my “Common Sense” series.

Biblical Common Sense – Jesus – The Messiah is suppose to be…

Then there’s the Biblical expectations regarding the Messiah. The Hebrew people have historically viewed (as Judaism still does to this day) the Messiah as someone that would be a real human being directly descended from the lineage of King David. And they have this view point because that is just what Scripture clearly describes – a real human man was promised, not God acting as a man.

The “Original” Testament starts such a path almost from the beginning with God giving a prophecy that one day a literal descendant of Eve would defeat the Serpent (Satan) in Genesis 3:15.

By popular demand (2 requests!), here is the article from my website.

Introduction

One of the most hotly contested passages of Scripture is so well known that it has a name – the Comma Johanneum, or Johannine Comma. In this case, “comma” refers not to punctuation but to a clause. In the KJV, I John 5:7-8 reads as follows:

I John 5:
7 For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.
8 And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.

This is from the 21st Century Reformation website:

Anthony Buzzard gives an extraordinary presentation to a conference of Bible students in Tennessee. Professor Buzzard gives a succinct evaluation of five prevailing views regarding Jesus Christ. He leads us through a consideration of the: (1) Trinitarian view; (2) the Arian view; (3) Binitarianism; (4) Oneness and (5) the “One God” view. In the end, Anthony makes a persuasive case for “View No. 5”:  that Jesus is the Christ of God, God’s literally begotten human Son. Anthony Buzzard’s “Five Options in Christology” has been one of the most popular features presented on 21stcr.org. It is too good to miss.

Easter Sunday is tomorrow. And as such we must clearly focus on “the reason for the season” (to borrow a line from Christmas time) – that it is really all about the resurrection of Jesus.  This was THE proof that he was indeed God’s Messiah.  This was the proof that he was who he said he was. The sign of Jonah was fullfilled.  After three days and three nights in the belly of the earth, God would not allow his holy one to see corruption and raised Jesus back to life.  And not just mortal life, but to eternal life. Just as those of us who follow Jesus will also be elgible for at Jesus’ return in power one future day (I Corinthians 6:14).

A few weeks ago I posted an article (“From Trinitarian to Unitarian“) that was a faith story of a woman that had been a long-term main-stream trinitarian Christian who came to take a long hard look at her beliefs versus the truth of Scripture.  After doing so, she changed her beliefs to align with what she actually found in Scripture.

Back in 2004 when Victor and I were at the Atlanta Bible College we developed the tract Did Jesus Think He Was God?. Hundreds of this tract have been printed and handed out over the last five years. Recently, Matt Elton, a fellow Christian brother who is on his way to attend Messiah College to study videography in the fall, emailed me to let me know that a friend of his recently published a critique of our tract on Scribd.com. Though I do not respond to every challenge that comes through email, I thought it would be helpful to respond to Matt’s friend. This is because his friend is a “Jesus Only” or “Oneness” believer and we have not interacted much with this viewpoint on KingdomReady.