(412) – IF… 3

Jesus Christ came down to this world to carry out a great mission. Let us bring into focus a few important aspects that reveal this divine mission:

John says: “He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. To this end the Son of God was revealed, that He might destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8). If Christ was manifested to put an end to the works of the devil, why does not Jehovah destroy the works of the devil, if Jehovah and Christ are the same person? In Gen. 3:1 we read that the serpent was created by Jehovah; and the serpent is Satan, as we read in Rev. 12:9. Why did Jehovah allow the serpent to deceive and seduce Adam and Eve? He did it because this was his project, and because he did not come to this world to destroy the works of the devil.

If Christ, when he was temped three times by Satan, rebuked him, for his mission was to destroy the satanic works, why did Jehovah use Satan in his works? Jehovah, through Amos, says to Israel: “Though they hide themselves in the top of Carmel, I will search and take them out there; and though they be hidden from my sight in the bottom of the sea, there I will command the serpent, and it will bite them” (Amos 9:3). If Jesus and Jehovah are the same person, how can we understand that in the Old Testament Jehovah and Satan used to work together, and in the New Testament they are adversaries, and Christ came down to destroy the works of the serpent?

When he commanded the law, Jehovah commanded the curses of the law, for the only way to force the people to keep the law — and what terrible curses! “For as many as are of the works of the law are under a curse. For it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who doesn’t continue in all things that are written in the book of the law, to do them’” (Gal. 3:10). (The curses are listed in Deut. 28:15-68). How does the apostle John say that those who do not know the law are cursed? There are two groups of cursed: Those who do not know the law (John 7:49), and those who are under the law and do not keep it. But Jesus delivered both groups from the law (Gal. 3:13). If Jesus is Jehovah, he makes distinction between them. He forced Israel to keep the law under the threat of curses. As to the Church, he established grace that delivers from the law, and delivers from himself those who were under the law. This looked more like a hopeless knot, typical of theologians!

If Jesus Christ is the life, for John says: “In him was life, and the life was the light of men” (John 1:4). And the very Christ declares: “I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly” (John 10:10). And he declared more: “For the Son of Man didn’t come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them” (Luke 9:56). If Jehovah and Jesus are the same person, why did Jehovah kill? Jehovah killed 70,000 Assyrians in the war against Israel (2 Kings 19:35). In the New Testament we read that God is the Father (Matt. 6:9). And God the Father is God of all men (Eph. 4:6). And God the Father wants all men to be saved (1 Tim. 2:3-4). The Father would never kill like Jehovah killed, for he killed all his people in the desert, more than one million people. There were 603,550 men armed for war, all of them twenty years old and upward, except the elderly, women and children (Num. 1:45-46; 14:28-35).

The wife of Jehovah is Israel. We read this in Ezek. 16:8-14. The wife of Jesus Christ is the Church, for Paul said: “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the assembly, and gave himself up for it; that he might sanctify it, having cleansed it by the washing of water with the word” (Eph. 5:25-26). Jesus married a church needing sanctification and gave his life for it. Why did Jehovah divorce from the wife who also needed sanctification? “Thus says Jehovah, ‘Where is the bill of your mother’s divorce, with which I have put her away? or which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you? Behold, for your iniquities were you sold, and for your transgressions was your mother put away” (Is. 50:1). If Jesus and Jehovah are the same person, why did Jehovah divorce from a woman who was a sinner and gave his life for another who was also a sinner? Luckily Jesus and Jehovah are not the same person, for Jesus does not discriminate between the two of them.

Satan asked permission to sift the apostles, but Jesus did not allow it (Luke 22:31-32). Similarly, Satan asked to sift Job, but Jehovah allowed it (Job 1:6-12). If Satan had asked Jesus to sift Job, Jesus would not have allowed it, for if he did not allow Peter to be sifted, when he was a sinner (Luke 5:8), he would never allow a holy man, faithful, who ran from evil, to be sifted, either.

Jesus never sought his glory. He declared it: “But I don’t seek my own glory. There is one who seeks and judges” (John 8:50). But Jehovah sought his own glory, for he said: “Everyone who is called by my name, and whom I have created for my glory, whom I have formed, yes, whom I have made” (Is. 43:7). And he said more: “I am Jehovah. That is my name. I will not give my glory to another, nor my praise to engraved images” (Is. 42:8). It is evident that Jesus, who was humble, did not seek greatness, fame, and glory; but Jehovah, in the likeness of vain men, sought glory, for he always valued the glory of the magic signs he used to perform (Num. 14:22-23). The difference between them is as the difference between oil and water. They do not mix.

Definitely, forcing the exegesis to prove that Jesus and Jehovah are one and the same person is to disfigure Christ; it is to turn light into darkness.

By Pastor Olavo Silveira Pereira

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