Entries by Rev. Milton Villanueva (3)
Was it possible that Jesus was sinning?
This question cannot be answered by a direct declaration of the Writing. We have to deduce it of the Bible using the interpretive beginning “for good and necessary consequences”.
On the one hand, nobody would affirm that being Jesus hundred per cent God (Juan 1:1) could sin. God cannot sin. At the same time, nevertheless, the Bible says that Jesus took for himself the real human nature. He was in the same condition and Adam's situation before sinning. But different from Adam, he also was possessing a Divine nature unable to sin. Christ was done in every fellow man to us but without sin (Hebrews 4:15). That does not mean that could not be touched by the devil, but it could not sin. The reasons are:
1. It was the God's plan from the eternity that Jesus was never sinning.
2. Jesus knew the terrible calamity that Adam's sin had caused to the world, and he came to revertir this reality.
3. The human nature in Christ is different from the Divine one, but it is not separates of her in his person like God's Son.
4. He knew that was the will of the Father who was resisting and conquering the temptation.
5. Jesus only chose from the eternity to do the God's will, and only in doing it was his pleasure.
Now then, by no means let's fall down in the error of minimizing Jesus's temptation. True it is that he did not take a sinful nature as we that was attracting it towards the sin, but that does not mean that Satan in person was not putting any more pressure in the temptation than to us. He, as the first Adam before the fall, did not have a sinful nature, but that does not mean that was not touched by the same devil any more than he was Adam. To major resistance, major should have been the force and intensity of the temptation.
Finally, let's not forget that Christ did not pass for the first Adam for a trial period to choose between the obedience and the disobedience. Christ came to obey the Father conquering the sin and the temptation. To guarantee for his people the victory on the sin and Satan. In the last analysis, Christ did not have the skill of sinning, but the skill of not sinning for having in his person a human nature inseparably joined the Divine one.
Faith in the Power Sanador
He asks: Does he believe the OPC that the faith in the power sanador of God in all the areas of the life in this world is an applicable today to those whom we believe that one has given us authority by means of Jesus to do it?
Answer: The answer is "Yes". But we must clarify that there is many confusion with regard to the way of understanding this with regard to the prayer and the health, for which we need to clarify it. Pablo the big Apostle still did not receive health although it was requested God in three occasions (2 Corinthian ones 12:8). This nothing had to do with that did not have enough faith, which not even believed in the God power to recover. Let's not lose of sight that not always the Gentleman answers that "yes" to our prayers. In this case the answer to Pablo was in the denial. Pablo had to learn that in the middle of the illness or the diabolical attacks, the God's grace is still sufficient.
Another error is to think that we today can hope to do everything what the apostles of Jesus did, as it is registered in the New Testament. In two occasions, at least, Pedro and Pablo resuscitated dead persons (Facts 9:36-42 and 20:9-10). We do not have believable resurrections records how are you apart from the registered ones in the Bible. The New Testament refers to these facts like “signs of the apostles” (2 Corinthian ones 12:12). There were miracles and supernatural signs that were done in this context “by the hand of the apostles” (Facts 5:12). To wait for the repetition of these things is like hoping that another virgin should conceive and of to light how Maria did it.
This does not mean, nevertheless, that God does not recover. He does it. The church has clear instructions: “Is patient some between you? Call the elders of the church, and pray for him, ungiéndole with oil in the name of the Gentleman.” (Santiago 5:14). Let's notice that there is an action corporately “the elders”, not necessary none in particular. The problem that we have today is that we have "sanadores" free and independent, that they submit neither to anything nor to anybody, and that they use his supposed Ministries of Health and miracles (that were corresponding exclusively to the apostles) to derive reputation, authority and fortune. As someone said: "God keeps on being sovereign, and can speak to us even by means of a mule, but no church invites to a mule to preach every Sunday.”
Taken and adapted of the Magazine New Horizons OPC
He asks: Might he explain the Presbyterian / reformed distinctive point of view of the “Real Presence” in the Dinner of the Gentleman, and what that implies?
Answer: Calvino, Lutero and Zuinglio, assumed different positions on this matter in answer to the abuses that were being taught by the Catholic church. The point of view of the Catholic church served as background, according to which when the priest pronounces the blessing on the elements, the bread and the wine, there is a mysterious transformation of these in the body and Christ's blood. There is called he to this transubstanciación. They consider present Christ in the communion to be sacrificed once after other one in the office of the mass.
Nevertheless, the God's Word teaches that Christ “offered once forever”, and that was in the cross. (to see Hebrews 9 and 10, especially 9; 24-28).