A FEW ANNOUNCEMENTS

[Michael Bennett]

* A FEW ANNOUNCEMENTS

A) Recently I was accused of possibly being a Docetist. Rather than even acknowledge this lie with a blog entry addressing the entire thing, just know that I am not even close to a Docetist. It is a total misrepresentation. Basically if you want more answers, feel free to ask me. Or better yet, just look up pretty much any James White article / blog - on the Trinity / God / Jesus' nature - (basically I agree with just about everything he would say).

B) Things are looking really good for Preterism. We now have a Book Publisher and School that is accepting the Full Preterist view as a viable view.

C) We are seeing major break-throughs at Partial Preterist sites that are now accepting various types of Full Preterists. These people are still saying that the 2nd coming of Christ has already happened and they are writing blogs and are accepted as members on some of these Partial Preterist sites. We all know that as Partial Preterism grows, and now with this above also, that Full Preterism is just going to get bigger and bigger.

D) On a personal note - I ran into a by a Pastor I had known for years - and the Pastor had told me he recently did a sermon from a Partial Preterist perspective - and basically said "I see what you were saying years ago to me" and "let's catch up soon" (regarding Full Preterism) - so that sounds very promising.

E) For the last announcement - TBA later. Coming soon - (Preterist soon). It will be an exciting announcement for the Preterist Community. STAY TUNED. It will be announced in a week or 2. Thanks for all that are involved with that project.

[Curtis Sibbit]

Tanya,

A modern Docetist would look at touching Christ in a way kinda like Roman Catholics would look at transubstantiation. Is that confusing enough for ya!!?

In (RC) communion the bread and wine look and taste like umm..oh yes...bread and wine. But its not really bread and wine, its really body and blood. Yes He appeared to be human and felt human, sounded, and smelled human I even suppose if you ate Him he would taste human. But that would be the transubstantiation. He wasn't really human in substance. I guess this would make it easy for a Roman Catholic to be docetic.

[sam]

Tanya

I am not a Docetist, so I don't know! lol.....Doceticism was more or less Gnostic in origin, so they probably would have written off verses like this as "added". They regarded the "flesh" as evil in substance, so Christ could not have had a flesh body. When I hear things like we are compared to Gnostics, I know that our opponents do not understand what Gnosticism is (was).

[Tanya]

How does a Docetist get around the verse where Jesus states: "Touch Me & see; a ghost does not have flesh & bones, as you see I have." Luke 24:39 ???

[sam]

Mike,

They are grasping at straws, brother. Sifting sand. We are winning the battle.

[Michael Bennett]

Sherrie can you email me at [e-mail] - at home I can not maneuver ning sites for smoe reason. Cant send you a mail - not sure why. I will send you that info in n email. MB

[Michael Bennett]

Keith - I only had briefly - its a form of Gnosticism that has to do with the nature of Jesus mainly.

In Christianity, Docetism (from the Greek δοκέω [dokeō], "to seem") is the belief that Jesus' physical body was an illusion, as was his crucifixion; that is, Jesus only seemed to have a physical body and to physically die, but in reality he was incorporeal, a pure spirit, and hence could not physically die.

[Keith]

I hope I'm not the only one who has never heard of a Docetist.

[Sherrie]

Can I also know about the school and publisher? Thanks.

[Michael Bennett]

Ricky hope you got my email. Tanya - yes soon - patience is a virtue !!! =)

[Michael Bennett]

Apparently Paul still does not get what I am saying (I am posting here since he reads these). I am saying nothing about DE-incarnation anywhere - no where did I say that Jesus got rid of his body at ascension - never even entertained it before. Only point I am making is that Jesus shared the glory with the Father before incarnation. At ascention He receives that glory back (don't know if that is proper language - but I am not all that articulate). Point being that he had GLORY before the Incarnation - so I don't really see why we think that at Ascention it is about getting a glorified body. Thats all.

Forerunner Commentary JOHN 17:5
Whatever this glory is that He asks to be restored, it is something He did not have as a human, but He did have when He truly was fully God. He had it before He was born of Mary, did not have it during His physical life, and had it returned to Him upon His resurrection and ascension.

Barnes' Notes on the New Testament
Before the world was. There could not be a more distinct and clear declaration of the pre-existence of Christ than this. It means before the creation of the world; before there was any world. Of course, the speaker here must have existed then, and this is equivalent to saying that he existed from eternity. See John 1:1,2; 6:62; 3:13 John 16:28. The glory which he had then was that which was proper to the Son of God, represented by the expression being in the bosom of the Father (John 1:18), denoting intimacy, friendship, united felicity. The Son of God, by becoming incarnate, is represented as humbling himself (Greek, he "emptied himself"), Philippians 2:8. He laid aside for a time the external aspect of honour, and consented to become despised, and to assume the form of a servant. He now prays that God would raise him up to the dignity and honour which he had before his incarnation.

John Gill:
This is not to be understood of the glory of the human nature of Christ, abstractly considered; for that is no person of itself, but what is taken up into personal union with the Son of God; and therefore cannot be intended by this personal character I; nor did it exist from eternity; it was indeed written in God's book of predestination, even all its members, when as yet there were none of them in actual being; it was set up in God's thoughts and counsel, as the pattern and exemplar of human nature; it had a federal union with the Son of God, or a covenant subsistence with him; and in the Old Testament Christ was often spoken of as man, because of his frequent appearances in an human form, and because of the certainty of his incarnation; but he did not really and actually exist as man, until he took flesh of the virgin; for Christ, as man, is the seed of the woman, the son of David, Abraham, and Adam; he is called the last and second Adam, and was not as man before the first: the Old Testament speaks of his incarnation as future, nor is it possible that a creature can exist before time; for as soon as a creature exists, time begins, which is nothing else than the measure of a creature's duration; nor was the human nature of Christ with the Father from eternity; nor had it a glory before the world began, neither in whole, nor in part: nor is the glory of the divine nature abstractly considered here meant; this glory indeed Christ had from everlasting;

Anyways - I have more commentaries I could post but that should be enough. Paul - if you misunderstood me before - I would appreciate that you correct it in a comment on your site. Thanks.

As for saying "Jesus" existed prior to incarnation rather than saying "the Son" - I am not certainly not the first to do this. Example.

James White:
"This discussion will be limited to the focal passages found in the New Testament that deal with the pre-existence of the Lord Jesus. For our purposes these are as follows: John 1:1-3, Colossians 1:15-17, and Philippians 2:5-7. Each of these passages have much in common, as we shall see in our examination of them, both in an exegetical understanding, as well as in patristic interpretation"