21 December 2010 (Shleshi/Bikkurim)
Day #280, 5934 AM
Messiah as the God-Man
Yah'shua Lived in Two Parallel Worlds
I caused quite a stir the other day when I mentioned that Yah'shua, when He was living on earth as a man, was simultaneously living in Heaven too. For some reason my wife had never heard me speak about this subject so she was a bit taken aback. Remembering she was brought up on the good old King James Version of the Bible, I retired to my office and dusted off one of my copies and read from the discussion between Yah'shua and Nicodemus about being born again in the Gospel of John:
"If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things? And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which IS in heaven" (John 3:12-13, KJV).
She was amazed...as was I when I first noticed this verse about 25 years ago. Many liberalised versions, even supposedly brought forth by 'conservative' evangelicals, mutilate this passage so that Yah'shua is no longer seen to be inhabiting two dimensions simultaneously:
"No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven - the Son of Man" (John 3:13, NIV).
As you can see, the New International Version has truncated this verse by deleting the part which says that the Yah'shua (Jesus) speaking to Nicodemus was simultaneously in heaven. In short, the NIV is removing a segment of Scripture proving that the mortal Messiah was also Elohim (God). Even very 'conservative' versions like the NASB remove this segment as do Messianic versions like the ISRV. This is used by KJV-Only proponents to bolster their claim that the KJV is the only authentic version, a position I do not hold, since this version has its own share of translation errors. There are other versions that faithfully retain the original segment on the deity of Christ like the Messianic HRV and RSTNE and the evangelical New KJV:
"No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, [that is], the Son of Man who is in heaven" (John 3:13, NKJV).
even though these versions have errors in other passages. Finally, I showed my wife the Concordant Literal New Testament, which is probably the most accurate Greek-based New Testament version there is:
"And no one has ascended into heaven except He Who descends out of heaven, the Son of Mankind Who is in heaven" (John 3:13, CLNT).
Admittedly it is a little hard for our finite minds to wrap themselves around the idea that someone could be in more than one place at a time. However, given that Yah'shua is Elohim (God), this should not present any difficulties. And indeed I have no problem whatsoever with the notion that the resurrected Messiah can appear to hundreds or thousands of people at the same time in different places if He so chooses to. Little wonder that liberal Christians and those Messianics who deny the deity of Christ do not like this passage at all and prefer to turn to corrupted New Testament manuscripts which have suffered from the editing of unbelievers much as our Hebrew Old Testament Masoretic text has been mutilated by Talmudists wanting to obscure messianic passages pointing to Yah'shua.
There is no salvation for Christians or Messianics who deny the deity of Christ. For a mere mortal cannot make an infinite atonement for all of our sins - at most He could only have atoned for His own. Neither could one who is not simultaneously human identify or connect with our reality (which the RSTNE denies). Truly Yah'shua (Jesus) was, and is, the Elohim-Man or God-Man, fully Divine and fully Human. Anyone who claims otherwise is preaching a false and heretical doctrine.
So watch out for liberalised versions of the Bible from either Christian or Messianic camps! Proclaim the death, atonement and resurrection of the Elohim-Man!
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