Shalom! My name is Adam Pastor

Welcome to ADONI MESSIAH which means
"My Lord Messiah" -
a fitting epithet to who Jesus (or Yeshua) is!

Here, I attempt to present the Apostolic Truths according to the Scriptures, that there is
One GOD, the Father, namely, YAHWEH,
and One Lord, GOD's only begotten Son,
Yeshua the Messiah.

And that one day YAHWEH will send His Son back to Earth to inaugurate the Everlasting Kingdom of GOD



Enjoy!


Thursday, November 08, 2007

Wise Words from Hans Hinrich Wendt

The following paragraphs are taken from John Wilson’s translation of Hans Hinrich Wendt’s book:
The Teaching of Jesus In Two Volumes, T & T CLARK, 1901.

 

Here Wendt explains ideal or notional pre-existence

i.e. how things such as glory, etc; can be spoken of as
pre-existing in the sense
that they are foreordained/foreknown in the counsels of the One, Eternal GOD.


Thus, this concept would explain some of Jesus the Messiah’s sayings whereby he speaks
as if somehow he pre-existed his own conception
e.g. John 17.5 & 8.58.

Volume 2, Pages 168-177:

 

“… Two passages in which Jesus appears most plainly to make reference to his heavenly pre-existence:
[John] 8. 58 and 17. 5.


The one passage, 17. 5, stands in the following connection: Jesus having, at the beginning of his farewell prayer (verse 1 ff.), referred to the authority over all flesh whom God has delivered to him for the purpose of granting them eternal life, and to his own accomplishment through his work on earth of this charge received from God, now prays for such glorification from God as corresponds to the perfect glorifying of God by him: “I have glorified Thee on the earth; I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to accomplish. And now glorify Thou me with Thyself with the glory I had with Thee before the world was” (verse 4 and 5). …


But yet it rests on a misconception of the New Testament mode of speech and conception if we straightway infer that the declaration of Jesus, that he had a glory with the Father before the world was created, is simply and necessarily identical in meaning with the thought, that he himself pre-existed in possession of this glory with God before the creation of the world. …

 

We therefore deem that a heavenly glory can only, in the case of a person not yet existing, belong to him ideally in God, inasmuch as he is foreknown and predestinated by God. But, according to the mode of speech and conception prevalent in the New Testament, a heavenly good, and so also a heavenly glory, can be conceived and spoken of as existing with God and belonging to a person, not because this person already exists and is invested with glory, but because the glory of God is in some way deposited and preserved for this person in heaven. We remember how, according to the synoptical reports, Jesus also speaks of the treasure (Matt. 6.20 f.; Mark 10. 21) or the reward (Matt. 5. 12, 46; 6. 1) which his disciples have in heaven with God …

Therefore it is wholly unneces­sary to find in our passage, John 17. 5, the thought that Jesus himself had a pre-existence in the possession of the heavenly glory with God; but the meaning is also possible, that the heavenly glory which Jesus, as the Messiah, shall attain at the close of his earthly ministry has been laid up for him with God in heaven as a reward destined for him from eternity; and this possible sense we must recognise as the only true one, because it just as strikingly accords with the connection of this passage, as with the self-judgment of Jesus recorded for us elsewhere in the Johannine discourses. Jesus wishes to set forth the glory, which he now prays for from the Father, … as one undoubtedly certain for him in the present, because standing in necessary relation to his Messianic calling and work. All the previous utterances, in the prayer, in regard to the accomplishment of the work committed to him upon earth by God, serve as the foundation of petition …

 

This foundation would not be strengthened, but weakened, by the indication that he had already, as pre-existent from eternity, been invested with the heavenly glory; for then his earthly mission would appear as an episode in his heavenly life of glory, after which, but not on account of which, he again obtained the heavenly glory. But it serves emphatically to strengthen that founda­tion when Jesus designates the reward, which he prays for, as one which has been destined by God and kept in heaven for him as the Messiah, so he asks for himself not something arbitrary, but what was to be given him according to God's decree, and what had always ideally belonged to him. It is also directly expressed in these words that the heavenly glory which God has decreed for the Messiah as his possession existed from the beginning; the presupposition for this declaration, however, is certainly the thought, which finds decided expression at the close of the prayer in verse 24, that Jesus himself, as the Messiah, did not indeed really exist from the begin­ning with God, but was the object of the love of God, of His loving thoughts, plans, and purposes.

 

 

We are led also to this latter thought by another saying of Jesus, 8. 58, if we explain it according to its connection. …

 

He was indeed greater than Abraham: “Abraham, your father, rejoiced to see my day; and he saw it, and was glad”(verse 56). And to the question of the Jews, which was meant to bring out the absurdity of his declaration, when they asked if he, who was not yet fifty years old, had seen Abraham (verse 57), he replied, still further heightening his paradoxical claim:
“Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am” (verse 58).

 

For the purpose of explaining this latter saying, we must proceed from the fact that, in any case, at the commencement of the discussion, the question is in regard to Jesus’ relation to Abraham, as to the signi­ficance of his present earthly existence and activity, with reference to which he himself makes the claim of being the mediator of eternal life, and with reference to which the Jews said he was nevertheless no greater than Abraham. Also his saying that Abra­ham rejoiced to see “his day,” has still reference to his present earthly existence; for by “his day” we can only understand the day of his appearance on earth. Also the sayings which then follow point directly to the sense that Jesus declared of his present earthly life, that it reached back to the time of Abraham, and still farther. His declaration that Abraham had seen his day, and was glad, at first must be understood in the sense directly intelligible to the Jews, that Abraham during his lifetime had seen and hailed the advent of the earthly life of Jesus. And so also the further saying, “Before Abraham was, I am,” directly expresses the meaning that his present earthly life had existence before Abraham had been. But this sense, directly given according to the tenor of the words, is in the highest degree paradoxical.   

 

For the saying that Abraham saw and rejoiced in the day, that is, the earthly appearance of Jesus, the readiest explanation … is this, that Abraham during his earthly life saw and rejoiced in a spiritual pre-vision of the appearance of Jesus as the Messiah. The objection cannot be urged that still the joy of Abraham at the sight of Jesus' day, given him in future prospect, is expressly distinct from his joy over this view itself, and over the realisa­tion of that promise. For, according to the Old Testament narrative, which without doubt forms the foundation of these utterances of Jesus, the sight of the day of the Messiah was not directly promised, but only indirectly, in so far as a son was promised to him, and, through that son, a posterity in which all nations would be blessed. In the same way, there­fore, also the joy of Abraham at the fulfilment of this promise of a son might be regarded as the joy of Abraham at the realisation of the Messianic pro­mise thus indirectly given him. It would not be right to say that Jesus understood by “his day” the day of the birth of Isaac; but certainly we may say that Isaac was regarded by Jesus, and, according to Jesus’ view, by Abraham, not as a simple descendant, but as the beginning of the posterity leading forward to the Messiah. As Jesus therefore makes the joy of Abraham—expressed in laughter, to which, according to Old Testament tradition, Isaac owed his name— refer, not merely to Isaac in himself, but to Isaac as the representative of the Messianic promise; so he also judged that Abraham, when he saw the promised birth of Isaac realised, saw in spirit the fulfilment of the Messianic promise, and so far, therefore, “the day of Jesus.” But from this understanding of the declaration of Jesus, that Abraham had seen his day, follows our understanding of his further declaration that he existed before Abraham was. For this existence before Abraham's time must be regarded in the same way as the existence “of his day” at the time of Abraham. The present earthly existence of Jesus, in which he is the Messiah, was not a real thing before Abraham's time; but yet it could truly be spoken of, in so far as it held good in the Spirit of God, in the thoughts, purposes, and promises of God. So far as Jesus felt himself to be the Messiah, he knew that his earthly life was not a fortuitous event but from the beginning—not by any means only from the date of the promise and fulfilment given to Abraham, but already before the time of Abraham—it was predetermined and foreseen by God. Con­scious of having had in this sense pre-existence for God, and, by means of the promises of God, also for the Old Testament saints, Jesus made the claim of assuredly being greater than Abraham. …

 

It is certainly a highly idealistic mode of view and of speech when Jesus designates his ideal existence for God—which he knew that he had always had as the Messiah, and therefore as the object of Divine predestination and of the love of God …

 

An ideal existence is intended, and we must plainly exhibit on our part that distinction of ideas.”

 

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