It is written in the letter to the Hebrews: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Heb. 13:8).

Jesus Christ declares that he does not change, because (being? não será “he was”?) predestined by Jehovah to be the Messiah who would sit on the throne of David forever, as the angel Gabriel declared to Mary, saying: “Behold, you will conceive in your womb, and bring forth a son, and will call his name ‘Jesus.’ He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father, David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever. There will be no end to his Kingdom” (Luke 1:31-33).

Paul declares that Christ according to the flesh belongs to Israel (Rom. 9:5). In verse three Paul also declares that, in order to be united to his brothers according to the flesh, he would be separated from Christ. Therefore, the Christ according to the flesh is not united to the Church, for the flesh is an enemy of God the Father, as we read in Rom. 8:5-8. Following the same reasoning, the Messiah in the flesh and king of Israel, which is the house of Jacob, is not connected to God the Father, but solely to Jehovah, who predestined him to have dominium over all the kingdoms of this world. Let us read the previsions of Jehovah concerning Christ: “He who sits in the heavens will laugh. The Lord will have them in derision. Then he will speak to them in his anger, and terrify them in his wrath: Yet I have set my King on my holy hill of Zion. I will tell of the decree. Jehovah said to me, ‘You are my son. Today I have become your father. Ask of me, and I will give the nations for your inheritance, the uttermost parts of the earth for your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron. You shall dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel’” (Ps. 2:4-9). Jehovah declared this when Jesus was born on the flesh, of Mary.

As the angel Gabriel declared that Jesus was going to sit on the throne of David, and Jesus, at 30 years of age, enters history through the baptism of John and does not ask of Jehovah the kingdoms of this world, Satan comes to him and declares that the kingdoms of this world are not in the hands of Jehovah any longer, but in his hands, and offers to Jesus all these kingdoms and their glory (Luke 4:5-8). Jesus did not deny Satan’s declaration, and Paul reveals that the entire creation of God is subordinate to an evil power, awaiting the deliverance from corruption unto the freedom of the glory of the children of God (Rom. 8:19-23). And Paul reveals more, declaring that he received from Jesus the task of opening the eyes of the blind, and turning them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may be saved (Acts 26:18).  It is thus established that Christ came into play in history, doing the will of God. Jesus, though, did not assume control of the throne of David according the prediction that Jehovah made in Ps. 2. The issue was further complicated when Jesus said to Pilate: “My Kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36). If the kingdom of Jesus is not of this world, it is obvious that he would not accept the offer of Satan, which was in reality also the offer of Jehovah (Ps. 2:8).

Now, the angel Gabriel said that Jehovah would give to Jesus the throne of David, his father. But the throne of David is earthly and carnal, and Christ declared that his kingdom is not of this world, and the promise of Jehovah is in this world. Ezekiel reveals this (Ezek. 37:21-28). David, filled of the spirit of Jehovah, declares the same (Ps. 89:34-36).

Jesus never said that he would sit on the throne of David. Jehovah said it, and also the angel Gabriel, to Mary. Jesus said differently. Let us look at it: “He took the twelve aside, and said to them, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all the things that are written through the prophets concerning the Son of Man will be completed. For he will be delivered up to the Gentiles, will be mocked, treated shamefully, and spit on. They will scourge and kill him. On the third day, he will rise again. They understood none of these things. This saying was hidden from them, and they didn’t understand the things that were said” (Luke 18:31-34). Why they did not understand? Because they were steeped in the promise of the human Messiah who would sit on the throne of David, restore the kingdom of Israel, submit all the nations under his feet (Ps. 47:3), and dominate tyrannically with an iron rod in a system of slavery. Peter, when he heard from Jesus the same declaration about his death, was opposed to his word; and Jesus called him Satan (Matt. 16:20-23). We learn by this text that Satan was favorable to the carnal kingdom of the Messiah, which was also the project of Jehovah. Incidentally, it is not the first time that Jehovah and Satan work together. They worked together in the story of Job (Job 1:6-12; 2:1-7). They also worked together when the people of Israel was numbered (2 Sam. 24:1; 1 Chr. 21:1). Also when Israel hid from the presence of Jehovah (Amos 9:3). When the Israelites murmured in the desert, too (Num. 21:4-9). Why not remember the fall of Adam and Eve, which ended up in the fall of humanity? (Gen. 3:1-6).

Now, Paul declared: “Therefore we know no one after the flesh from now on. Even though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now we know him so no more” (2 Cor. 5:16). Paul is saying that he got to know Christ according to the flesh, but after knowing him according to the Spirit he did not know him according to the flesh any longer. The Christ according to the flesh was the Messiah and king of Israel (Rom. 9:5). The Christ of the Church, the Christ of the Spirit, the Christ Son of God, the Father, was begotten in a different way from the Christ begotten in the womb of Mary. Paul explains that: “concerning his Son, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, who was declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 1:3-4). What is Paul revealing? He is revealing that Jesus was born twice. The first time was in the womb of Mary, descendant of David (Luke 3:23-38). The genealogy described in Matt. 1:1-16 is of Joseph, and Luke describes the genealogy of Mary. Luke mentions the name of Joseph because women were not counted (Matt. 14:21; 15:38).

As it was Jehovah who fertilized Mary by his spirit, since God, the Father, does not beget children in the flesh (John 1:12-13), Jesus, after being born in the flesh, was begotten Son of God the Father in sanctification of the Holy Spirit and by the resurrection, as it is written in the book of Acts of the Apostles: “We bring you good news of the promise made to the fathers, that God has fulfilled the same to us, their children, in that he raised up Jesus. As it is also written in the second psalm, ‘You are my Son. Today I have become your father’” (Acts 13:32-33). Therefore, when Mary gave birth to Jesus in the flesh, Jehovah said: You are my Son; today I have begotten you. But Jehovah was begetting the Messiah that he described in the Old Testament, that is, the dominant Messiah, earthly, who was going to submit the nations under his feet, and also under Israel (Ps. 2:5-9; 47:2-3). (This promise was made with anger and fury, contrary to the Father, who sent his Son in love, according to John 3:16.)

Jesus was crucified as an impostor, for he blasphemed when he declared to be the So of God (Matt. 26:63-67). When he was hanging on the cross, those who passed by blasphemed, saying: “You who destroy the temple, and build it in three days, save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross! Likewise the chief priests also mocking, with the scribes, the Pharisees, and the elders, said, He saved others, but He can’t save himself. If he is the King of Israel, let him come down from the cross now, and we will believe in him” (Matt. 27:40-42). But Jesus did not come down from the cross, for he was not the Messiah who Jehovah had described, but the Savior of all men, whose kingdom is not on the earth, for it is a kingdom of love (Col. 1:12-13; 2 Tim. 4:18; 1 Pet. 1:3-4).

So Christ did not change, but Jehovah described a different Christ, whose picture, adequate to this world, blinded the priests, the scribes, and the Pharisees, and even the apostles, as we have shown above; therefore we declare that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forevermore (Heb. 13:8).

By Pastor Olavo Silveira Pereira