Melchisedec was God the Word
November 24th,
2001
WHO IS THIS
MELCHISEDEC 65-0221E 95 Now, the true revelation of Melchisedec comes into view
was, that He was God, the Word, before He became flesh, God the Word.
'Cause He had to be; no one else could be immortal like Him. See, I had father
and mother; you did too. Jesus had father and mother. But this Man had
no father or had no mother. Jesus had a time He started; this Man
didn't. Jesus gave His life; this Man couldn't, because He was Life. And
it's the self same Man all the time. I hope God reveals it to you, the self
same Person all the time. Notice His title, King of righteousness.
Now, Hebrews 7:2: King of righteousness and King
of peace, He's two Kings. Now, watch, Hebrews 7:2, King of
righteousness, also the King of peace. He's two Kings there. Now, since
He has come in the flesh and received His body up, in Revelations 21:16 He's
called the King of Kings. He's all three of them together. See? King
God, King Theophany, King Jesus; He's the King of Kings. It's all
met, just like soul, body, and spirit. All comes to make one. Also He is the
Father, which was the first, Son, and Holy Ghost, the
Spirit. King of righteousness, the Spirit attribute; theophany, King
of--of peace, theophany; and in flesh He was King of Kings: same Person.
Now this evening I would
like to examine these statements because if you are Oneness in your thinking,
these thoughts that Brother Branham laid out here are going to take you into a
mental spin. Brother Branham begins saying that He is going to talk about the
True Revelation of Who Melchisedec is. Then he says He was God the Word.
Now, most Oneness believers
in this Message believe that Jesus the Son of God is The Word of John 1:1, but that is in error. John 1:1 plainly
teaches that God is the Word period. Let's read it. JOHN 1:1 ¶ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God. Notice the Scripture plainly tells us that God
is the Word. Now, the Trinitarian will say,
wait a minute, it says that the Word was with God, implying that it was
separate from Him but dwelling in his Presence together with God, like
another being that is there beside God.
The Jehovah Witnesses try to
explain John 1:1 in the following way, using the Diaglott translation. The
Diaglott has a very poor translation of this Scripture. Remember the Diaglott
is from the Latin, not from the Greek.
And since there is already a translation made from the Aramaic to the
Greek, and then to the Latin, you have two separate translations before you can
even read it, and thus the Jehovah witnesses look to this double translated
book the Diaglott as a sort of Absolute in which they base their theology upon.
The Diaglott translation reads as thus. "In the
beginning was the Word and the Word was with The God, and a God was
the Word." And if you
have One who is The God and another Who is a God, then you have
two Gods.
Brother Branham said in the
message, CHRIST REVEALED IN HIS OWN WORD 65-0822M
74 Notice. To misinterpret Jesus in the form of God in a man you would
make Him, One God out of three. To misinterpret
Jesus Christ being the Word, you'd make Him One God out of three, or you'd
make Him the second person in a Godhead. And to do that, you'd mess the
whole Scripture up. You'd never get nowhere. So It must not be misinterpreted. And
if you say that a certain thing, you put an interpretation on It, and you apply
It to another time or It's been applied to another time, you also make an
incorrect interpreting.
He continued in paragraph 76
saying, 76 If anybody misinterpret
Jesus Christ in the Bible of not being God Himself, make Him the second person, or,
one God out of three, this would upset every Word in the entire Bible. It would
break the first commandment, "Thou shalt not have any other God before
Me." All right. It would make the whole Christian race a bunch of
pagan worshippers worshipping three different gods. See what kind of a Bible
you'd have? Then it'd make us what the Jews say we are: said, "Which
one of them Gods is your God?" See? So you see, you can't--you mustn't
misinterpret the Bible, for Jesus Himself is the
Interpretation of the Bible when He's made manifest in the age that the
part of His Body is being made manifest.
Now, what brother Branham is
telling us here is very, very important. And I want you to notice that it is
this very thing that the Jews did that they are doing to day. They could not understand that Jesus was not God, for He was the Son of God, in Whom God
Himself was pleased to dwell in. But just because God indwelled Jesus, the Son
of God, it did not make him God, nor did it make His body, God.
Let's read from JOHN 10:32. Jesus answered them, Many good works have I shewed you from
my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me? 33 The Jews answered him,
saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because
that thou, being a man, makest thyself God. 34 Jesus answered them, Is it
not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? 35 If he called them gods, unto
whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken; 36 Say ye of
him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou
blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God? 37 If I do not the
works of my Father, believe me not. 38 But if I do, though ye believe not
me, believe the works (Believe the vindication) that ye may know, and believe, that the Father [is] in
me, and I in him.
Notice, Jesus did not tell
them he was God, but He said I am the Son of God,
and they did not understand it then, just as they don't seem to understand it
today. If you preach that "Jesus was not His own Father", and that
"there is One Who is the Father, and another
Who is the Son of the Father", they will say you are preaching
two Gods, just like the Jews accused Jesus of doing. They just couldn't get it,
and so they said he was claiming to be God Himself, because he claimed God was
his Father. Therefore they could not understand the concept Jesus was teaching
them, the concept of "God-Hood or God-Life."
That just because God was in the Son, does not make the Son of God, God.
Now, Brother Branham said
you must not misinterpret the
Word, and that means you must not interpret wrongly, or understand wrongly, or
be off in your understanding. Therefore,
I wish tonight to look closer at what brother Branham is saying because it
appears at first to be quite confusing.
Now, let's take his
statements one at a time and look closer at what he is saying. He said, If anybody misinterpret
Jesus Christ in the Bible of not being God Himself, make Him the second person
Now, I want you to notice
there are two negatives in this sentence. We all know that two negatives make a
positive in math, but this is not math. However, in understanding language
usage, if two negative prepositions are used in a sentence, it becomes a double
negative which is not proper language, and actually the two negatives cancel
out each other. And we know that brother Branham told us to say what the tapes
say, and only what they say.
Therefore, I wish to point
out that what people think he is saying is not what he actually said. In reading this statement of Brother
Branham's we can actually leave out both of these negative prepositions and the
sentence should read the same according to the laws of the English language.
Therefore, let's read brother Branham's statement again with and without the
double negative. Now he said, If anybody misinterpret Jesus Christ in the Bible of not being God
Himself, make Him the second person. If you read the text
without the blinking letters which are both negative words, you should be able
to see the influence they have in this sentence. By the rules of the English
Language it is proper grammar to eliminate them and thus read this sentence
correctly as following. "If anybody interpret
Jesus Christ in the Bible of being God Himself, make Him the second
person"…. And he is speaking of the Godhead.
You see, he is speaking of misinterpreting the Word of God. And the word,
"misinterpret" means to interpret wrongly, to misunderstand,
to get the wrong impression, to misread, or misconstrue.
Therefore, to misinterpret means you have it all wrong. So let's add these
thoughts to the statement brother Branham said to get a fuller understanding of
just what he did say.
Notice. To misinterpret Jesus in the form of God in a man you
would make Him, one god out of three. To misinterpret Jesus Christ being the Word, you'd make
Him one God out of three, or you'd make Him the second person in a Godhead.
And to do that, you'd mess the whole Scripture up. You'd never get nowhere. So
It must not be misinterpreted
Again let's read it with the
other words inserted.
Notice. To misinterpret Jesus in the form of God in a man you
would make Him, one god out of three. To misinterpret Jesus Christ being the Word, you'd make
Him one God out of three, or you'd make Him the second person in a Godhead.
Notice. To misconstrue Jesus in the form of God in a man you
would make Him, one god out of three. To misconstrue Jesus Christ being the Word, you'd make
Him one God out of three, or you'd make Him the second person in a Godhead.
Notice. To misread Jesus in the form of God in a man you
would make Him, one god out of three. To misread Jesus Christ being the Word, you'd make
Him one God out of three, or you'd make Him the second person in a Godhead.
Notice. To misunderstand Jesus in the form of God in a man you
would make Him, one god out of three. To misunderstand Jesus Christ being the Word, you'd make
Him one God out of three, or you'd make Him the second person in a Godhead.
Notice. To interpret wrongly Jesus in the form of God in a man you
would make Him, one god out of three. To interpret wrongly Jesus Christ being the Word, you'd make
Him one God out of three, or you'd make Him the second person in a Godhead.
Notice. To get the wong
impression of Jesus in the form of God in a man you would make
Him, one god out of three. To to get the wrong impression of Jesus Christ being the Word, you'd make
Him one God out of three, or you'd make Him the second person in a Godhead.
Therefore he is saying here
that if you wrongly interpret Jesus as the Word you make two in the Godhead.
And that is what some are doing. And yet we who Preach that there is One God
and he had a Son are being accused of preaching two Gods even though we do not
preach such.
The Oneness among us in this Message are those who have
infiltrated the Message, as Peter
warned us in 2 Peter 2: 1-3. Here he said
that false teachers would come in among us and bring into the Message, doctrine
that is contrary to the Message, even such doctrine that would deny the One who
bought them, which is to deny the Son of God. These men do not seem to be able
to read what the prophet said, nor discern the way he said it. They say, "Only say what the tapes say," and then they
go ahead and do not say it the way Brother Branham said it. What he did say is
this, "to wrongly interpret Jesus as the Word you would mess up the whole
understanding of the Godhead and you would end up with two of them being God
which is impossible since there is but one God according to Deuteronomy 6:4 ¶ Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God [is] one
LORD:
Now, we know that there is
One God, and we know that this One God had a Son. We must then, never forget
the 8 statements Brother Branham makes concerning the difference between God
and His Son.
#1) Br. Branham said, "I
am not a Oneness".
#2) Brother Branham said, "God is not one like your finger is
one".
#3) Brother Branham said,
"Jesus could not be His Own Father."
#4) Brother
Branham said, "the only difference between the Father and the Son is
that Sons have beginnings."
#5) Brother
Branham said "God did not enter into Jesus until He was baptized in the
Jordan river. And then God left Him in Gethsemane to die as a mortal".
#6) Brother Branham said,
"the Body was not deity
but Deity dwelt in the Body."
#7) Brother
Branham said, "when God birthed forth Jesus, there were two beings
involved. One who is God and One who is the Son of God."
#8) Brother
Branham said, "Jesus was a dual being."
There are those following
the Message who believe in the presence of Christ or the Parousia, but seem to
believe differently concerning the true understanding of the Father and the
Son. And if you do not understand the Godhead, how are you going to really know
Who came down?
In reality, what it comes
down to what Peter warned us about in 2 Peter 2: 1-3. men would enter
the message as teachers, but they would bring into the message destructive
heresies that would deny the Son of God. The Oneness mindset has come into the
Message and has taken it over, and yet they do not agree with each other, and
are very confused. Some believe in the pre-incarnate Son, but also believe that
pre-incarnate Son became another God when God indwelled Him in His
pre-incarnation. They seems to be preaching a Jehovah Witness understanding of the God and a God
as the Diaglott seems to declare. Meanwhile, others do not believe in a
pre-existent Son of God at all. They teach that Jesus was not a Son until He
was born in the stable. If this were correct, then why would Brother Branham
tell us that we bypassed our theophany but Jesus did not bypass His theophany?
In that case, then if they believe that the Theophany was God, then who is it
that God was speaking to in the beginning when he said, (Genesis 1:27) "Let
US make man in our Image?" was He speaking to Himself? On the
other hand, they teach, the Theophany of God is the Logos, or that Body that
God Himself dwelt in, in a Theophanic state.
They also believe that He
(that theophanic body) later came into Jesus (The Son of God) in the
flesh. And if they also believe that
the Son did not exist until He came into the Flesh, then what do they do with
the theophany itself that was created by God, for a housing to express himself
in, but that Housing, (that Theophanic Body, was the Body of God and not the
Son of God.)
And so the confusion goes
on, and on until they would use illustrations such as typing Jesus the son as a
Light bulb and God the Father as electricity, and then claim that neither one is any good without the other,
and that is simply hogwash, and actually blasphemous. It is true that the Son
can do nothing but what the Father shows him first, because Jesus said so. But to imply that God can do nothing without
the Son, is like saying that electricity is no good without a light bulb. And
if that is the case, then what about my refrigerator, and my freezer, and my
heat pump, and my radio, and my computer, and all the other devises that
electricity is used in. These are not dependent upon a light bulb to manifest
the electricity? And what are you going
to do with the fact that God dwelled alone in solitariness for an eternity in
the past without the Son of God?
And so confusion seems to
continue as it always has, even in the light of this glorious revelation of
God.
Back in paragraph 67-70 of
Who is this Melchisedec, brother Branham said, WHO
IS THIS MELCHISEDEC 65-0221E 67 Now, the different between Him and you as a son... See, He
was at the beginning the Word, an "En morphe" body. He came in and
lived in that in the Person of Melchisedec. Then later... We never heard no
more of Melchisedec, because He became Jesus Christ. Melchisedec was the
Priest, but He became Jesus Christ. Now, you bypassed that, because in that
form He knowed all things. And you have never been able to know that yet.
You come like Adam, like me. You became from the attribute to the flesh to be
tempted. But when this life is finished here... "If this earthly
tabernacle be dissolved, we have one already waiting." That's where we go;
that is the Word. Then we can look back and see what we done. Now, we don't
understand it. We have never become the Word; we've just become the flesh-man,
not the Word. But... And look clearly, makes it clear you will never be the
Word unless you was a thought at the beginning. That proves the
predestination of God. See? You can't be the Word 'less you're a thought. You
had to be in the thinking first. But you see, in order to stand temptation you
had to bypass the theophany; you had to come down here in flesh to be
tempted by sin. And then if you sin... "All the Father hath given Me will
come to Me, and I'll raise him up at the last days." See, you had to be
first. And then you see, He come right down the regular line, from attribute
to... 70 Before the foundation of the
world his Name's put on the Lamb's Book of Life. Then from that He become
the Word, the theophany, that could appear, disappear; and then He become flesh
and returned back again, resurrected that same body in a glorified condition.
But you bypassed the theophany and become flesh-man to be tempted by
sin. And then "if this earthly tabernacle is dissolved, we have one
already waiting." We have not yet the bodies. But look, when this body
receives the Spirit of God, the Immortal Life inside of you, it throws this
body in subjection to God. Hallelujah.
Tomorrow morning we will
explore a little closer this misunderstanding concerning God the Word.