Topical Studies
Word, The
(From Forerunner Commentary)
|
We find regarding the beginning of The Word's existence, something further described in Hebrews chapter 7. Speaking of Melchisedec, who was king of Jerusalem in the days of Abraham, it says also that he was the Priest of God Most High. This Melchisedec had existed from eternity—"without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life; but made like unto the Son of God; abideth a priest continually" (Hebrews 7:3). Since Melchisedec was "like unto the Son of God," and abides as High Priest forever continually, and Jesus Christ is now High Priest, Melchisedec and Jesus Christ are one and the same Person. Therefore Christ was "without father, without mother, without descent [in Abraham's time], having neither beginning of days, nor end of life." God also had existed eternally with the Word. Jesus, when he was "the Word," was an immortal being who had existed always—there never was a time when he did not exist—without beginning of days. He was, then, "like" the Son of God—but he was not yet the Son of God. He also was God, along with God. These passages show that the Word, in the beginning—before anything had been created—was with God, and he, also, was God. Now how could that be? There might be a man named John. And John might be with the man named Smith, and John might also be Smith because John is the son of Smith, and Smith is the family name. Yet they are two separate persons. The only point of difference in that analogy is that the Word, at the time of John 1:1, was not, yet, the Son of God. But he was with God, and he also was God. They were not yet Father and Son—but they were the God Kingdom!
Herbert W. Armstrong (1892-1986)
Fully Man and Fully God? (2001)
|
|
Proverbs 30:5 (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up)
The word translated as "pure" is actually more closely related to the word "refined." "Pure" is not wrong, but refined means "reduced to a pure state." Every word of God has been reduced to a pure state.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Revelation 2-3 and Works
|
|
Proverbs 30:5-6 (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up)
The word "pure" might be better translated "refined." Its background is putting something to the test and it works. The advice has been refined; it is as pure as it can be. Then he adds, "Don't add to it, and it will be a shield to you." Why will it protect us? As for God, His way is perfect; the word of the LORD is proven [similar to refined, tested, pure]; He is a shield to all who trust in Him. (Psalm 18:30) Protection from what? We need protection from all of the things that bondage and sin imply. If we lack the refined, pure, unadulterated Word of God, the only alternative is the word of men! Nowhere in God's Word does He says the word of men is pure, true, or refined. The word of men is limited to the experiences of men and by their prejudices. Even though a man may try, with all sincerity, to report something as honestly and accurately as he can, he does not have the breadth of experience or the unprejudiced mind of God. If we trust the words of men in place of the words of God, we will not be protected from bondage. We will slide back into it.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Freedom and Unleavened Bread
|
|
Matthew 25:1-4 (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up)
Matthew 25:1-4 shows all the virgins have the same beliefs, represented by the lamps they carry with them. The lamps represent the Word, the laws, and the statutes of God. Five of the virgins are foolish and five are wise, showing that the end-time church is composed of two types of members. The foolish have the Word of God but lack a sufficient level of His Holy Spirit, which opens the converted mind to understand and live God's way of life. The wise are actively using God's Spirit to enhance their understanding and have sufficient amounts of it to last them.
Staff
Y2K: You-2-the-Kingdom
|
|
John 1:1-4 (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up)
"The Word" in this passage is translated from the Greek logos, which means "spokesman," "word," or "revelatory thought." It is a name there used for an individual Personage. But who or what is this Logos? Notice the explanation in verse 14: "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth." When he was born as Jesus Christ, he was flesh and blood, materialistic, and could be seen, touched, and felt. But what was he? As God—as the Logos? That is answered in John 4:24, "God is a Spirit," and spirit is invisible. We know what was his form and shape as the human Jesus. But of what form and shape was He as the Word? The Word, then, is a Personage who was made flesh—begotten by God, who through this later begettal became his Father. Yet at that prehistoric time of the first verse of John 1, the Word was not (yet) the Son of God. He divested himself of his glory as a Spirit divinity to be begotten as a human person. He was made God's Son, through being begotten or sired by God and born of the virgin Mary. So here we find revealed originally two Personages. One is God. And with God in that prehistoric time was another Personage who also was God—one who later was begotten and born as Jesus Christ. But these two Personages were spirit, which is invisible to human eyes unless supernaturally manifested. Yet, at the time described in verse one, Jesus was not the Son of God, and God was not His Father.
Herbert W. Armstrong (1892-1986)
Fully Man and Fully God? (2001)
|
|
John 1:1-4 (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up)
In the very beginning, before all else, there existed two living Beings composed of Spirit, possessing supreme mind, intelligence, and power, and of perfect, righteous character. They are revealed in the biblical book of John, chapter one. One was named the Word (the Spokesman—the revelatory thought). The other was named God. The Word ultimately—almost 2,000 years ago—was born as Jesus. The Word also was God—the second personage of the God Family. As a human, Jesus was "God with us"—or God in human flesh, born of a virgin woman, but sired by God. "All things" were made by Him. In Ephesians 3:9, it is revealed that God created all things by Jesus Christ. The Word and God lived. What did they do? They created. How did they live—what was their "lifestyle"? They lived the way of their perfect character—the way of outflowing love. When Christ was baptized, God the Father said, "You are my beloved Son." God loved the Word. And the Word loved God—obeyed Him completely. Two cannot walk together except they be agreed (Amos 3:3). They were in total agreement and cooperation. Also two cannot walk together in continuous peace except one be the head, or leader, in control. God was leader. Their way of life produced perfect peace, cooperation, happiness, accomplishment. This way of life became a law. Law is a code of conduct, or relationship, between two or more. One might call the rules of a sports contest the "law" of the game. The presence of law requires a penalty for infraction. There can be no law without a penalty for its violation. The very fact of law presupposes government. Government is the administration and enforcement of law by one in authority over the law. This necessitates authoritative leadership—one in command. When the only conscious life-Beings existed, God was leader—in authoritative command. Thus, even when the only conscious life-Beings were God and the Word, there was government, with God in supreme command. Since they created other conscious thinking life-beings, this very fact of necessity put the government of God over all creation, with God supreme Ruler. Bear in mind the government of God is based on the law of God, which is the way of life of outflowing love, cooperation, concern for the good of the governed. And this law of God produces peace, happiness, cooperation through obedience.
Herbert W. Armstrong (1892-1986)
A World Held Captive
|
|
John 17:5 (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up)
The first thing Christ does in this prayer is establish that He was with the Father. In this case, the word with means "beside" or "alongside of." This agrees with John 1:1, "In the beginning was the Word [Christ], and the Word was with [along side of] God, and the Word was God."
John W. Ritenbaugh
The Nature of God: Elohim
|
|
John 17:17 (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up)
The extent to which we grasp and believe the truth of the doctrines determines our desire to be holy. By this holiness created within us we become sanctified. The gospel is "the power of God unto salvation" (Romans 1:16). The gospel's power lies or resides in its words produce in our minds. That is all the gospel is'words: "The words that I speak unto you are Spirit, and they are life" (John 6:63). Those words lead us to the faith of Christ, and there is nothing mysterious about this. When we believe what Christ believes, we have His faith. It may not be to the same intensity, but we have His faith. Jude told the later first-century church, "Return to the faith once delivered," because that was the faith of Christ. It came through His apostles, who gave it to the church. The power resides in the words, if we will only use them to live. Putting those words into practice sanctifies us because they comprise the truth. We become sanctified by applying them. Because we apply them by faith, God will empower us by His Spirit so that the strength to do what He says in the gospel comes from Him. If we just make the choice and begin to do it, He pushes us over the hill. That is what grace is, the gift to overcome. We all had "our conduct in times past, in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others" (Ephesians 2:3). If we really believe that God quickened us'that He not only rescued us from death, but gave us the seed of His Kind, the God-kind, and with that, the quality of life that is eternal life, the way that God lives'and if we believe what He is offering us and the instruction for attaining it, the sheer awesomeness of it all, combined with logic, drives us to submit to becoming holy'sanctified.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Unity (Part 5): Ephesians 4 (B)
|
|
Romans 10:17 (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up)
First, in the spiritual sense, "eating" occurs primarily when one hears and reads. A person ingests messages and concepts into the mind through words, which establish and nourish his pattern of life. Those words, if one permits it, create a faith upon which one bases the way he lives. This faith is almost entirely dependent upon the quality of what is heard and whether a person believes it enough to follow it. These verses reveal only the words of God or Christ, His gospel, His truths, will form the faith that leads to salvation because they will form the correct beliefs and thus the correct way of life. This is the faith of Christ; the person who has it believes what Christ believes. This is a simple, understandable, true formula. Zephaniah 3:1-2 shows what happens when a person rejects or disbelieves His words: "Woe to her who is rebellious and polluted, to the oppressing city! She has not obeyed His voice, she has not received correction; she has not trusted in the LORD; she has not drawn near to her God." That person comes to great dismay. This does not mean we cannot have words other than God's in our mind, but the children of God must filter everything through God's words to test their validity before they allow themselves to believe them firmly enough to make them part of their belief system. Put another way, there is faith and then there is the faith, the faith that brings salvation. This faith arises from believing God's words. What we believe will determine our conduct and attitudes whether or not we stop to think about those beliefs because what is contained in the heart will come out (Matthew 12:34-35). Only God's words truly produce spiritual strength. In our recent past, "eating" and believing the wrong words set the church up for the scattering that has occurred. For quite a while, worldly things gradually corrupted the spiritual health of God's children, weakening them through spiritual malnourishment and changing their faith. I Corinthians 1:10 provides a first-century account of a congregation suffering from this process of ingesting the wrong words: "Now I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment." Division troubled this congregation because the members held dissimilar views on beliefs that are basic to spiritual unity. I Corinthians shows disorder, confusion, argument, and offense as symptoms of spiritual weakness.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Eating: How Good It Is! (Part Seven)
|
|
1 Corinthians 2:10-12 (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up)
God had the gospel preached to us through the medium of words. We believed them, and having been freed from enslavement to deception and spiritual ignorance by God's calling and forgiveness through Christ's blood, we now have access to a new and infinitely larger dimension of life. Beyond that, we now possess the raw material for our minds to produce the fruit of Spirit of God.
John W. Ritenbaugh
The Fruit of the Spirit
|
|
2 Corinthians 5:21 (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up)
The living Word of God, Jesus Christ, never sinned; there was never a life so completely unleavened as His. Jesus Himself says, "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks (Matthew 12:34). What came out of Christ's mouth were words that were uncorrupted, untainted by a carnal heart in any way. They were totally and completely spiritual and eternally pure. The Word of God, in terms of His words and His example, has been given to us to be the basis of our thinking.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Freedom and Unleavened Bread
|
|
James 5:12 (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up)
How James addresses this to his audience tells us he considers it an extremely serious matter. His use of "above all" suggests that we should be especially careful on this point. It is as if he is saying, "Make sure you catch this point because it may be the most important one." Swearing oaths is not a trivial matter! In the Old Testament, taking oaths by God's name was more prevalent—even commanded (see Deuteronomy 6:13)—but God holds those He has called out of this present, evil world to a higher standard. The ancient Israelites were carnal human beings whose behaviors had to be constrained by statute. Knowing they would swear oaths, God directed them to take them honestly and only in His name, thus regulating and elevating the practice. Christians, though, are to follow God's law, not just in the letter, but also in the spirit, a more in-depth and encompassing charge. The standard that has been set for us is that our word should always be true. Paul writes, "Therefore, putting away lying, 'Let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor,' for we are members of one another" (Ephesians 4:25; see Zechariah 8:16). Our Savior puts it even more strongly in the form of an admonition: "But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned" (Matthew 12:36). Because God is with us, every word that we speak is spoken in God's presence and thus should be true, making oaths unnecessary. As God's people, we are to represent Him in honesty and obedience and reflect Him in our conduct in every way. Because of this, we do not need God's name in an oath to back up our word. Therefore, a Christian should simply say "yes" or "no" according to what he honestly believes to be true, even in legal matters. As Jesus says, anything we try to add to the unvarnished truth is Satan's handiwork (see John 8:44). In short, a Christian's word should be his bond.
John O. Reid
Swear Not!
|
|
Revelation 2:17 (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up)
The manna that fed Israel was spread on the ground for all to see and gather (Exodus 16:4, 35). Hidden manna, symbolizing God's Word, is concealed from the rest of the world; it is special insight from God that feeds the soul and sustains spiritual life. In the ancient world, a white stone was given to one under judgment as an absolution from guilt, a black stone to the condemned. A white stone signifies innocence through forgiveness and grace to enter the Kingdom of God. The new name reflects the holy character built by the repentant overcomer. These gifts, though certainly special and wonderful, are available to every true child of God.
Staff
The Seven Churches: Pergamos
|
|
Revelation 14:1-2 (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up)
Although it does not specifically say so, the wording strongly indicates that the voice mentioned here is that of the Father speaking at another pivotal time in world history: the day His Firstborn stands upon Mount Zion to meet His newly changed brothers and sisters. At the time this voice from heaven is heard, Jesus Christ—the Word of God and the Lord or Yahweh of the Old Testament—is on earth on Mount Zion. Other biblical passages describe the voice of God in remarkably similar language to verse 2. Notice this verse in comparison to Ezekiel 43:2 and Revelation 1:15: » And behold, the glory of the God of Israel came from the way of the east. His voice was like the sound of many waters. . . .
» His feet were like fine brass, as if refined in a furnace, and His voice as the sound of many waters. . . . Now consider Job 40:9; Psalm 29:3; 77:18; and 104:7: » Have you an arm like God? Or can you thunder with a voice like His?
» The voice of the LORD is over the waters; the God of glory thunders. . . .
» The voice of Your thunder was in the whirlwind. . . .
» At Your rebuke they fled; at the voice of Your thunder they hastened away. Finally, note Isaiah 30:31-32: » For through the voice of the LORD Assyria will be beaten down. . . . It will be with tambourines and harps. . . . These proofs seem fairly conclusive that it is the Father's voice described in Revelation 14:2.
John Plunkett
The Voice of God
|
XML RSS
feeds available
|
 |
The Berean: Daily Verse and Comment
Sign up for the Berean: Daily Verse and Comment, and have Biblical truth delivered to your inbox. This daily newsletter provides a starting point for personal study, and gives valuable insight into the verses that make up the Word of God. See what over 50,000 subscribers are already receiving each day.
Email Address:
|
We respect your privacy. Your email address will not be sold, distributed, rented, or in any way given out to a third party. We have nothing to sell. You may easily unsubscribe at any time. |
|
|
Printer-Friendly
E-mail this page
