Thursday, November 9, 2023

Hebrews 1:3 as a Proof-Text for Divine Embodiment in "Suggested For Teaching the Gospel to the Jewish People"

  

Christ in image of God.

 

Missionary: Wonderful. Now I want you to read what Christ did when he got to heaven. This is the Apostle Paul talking, and he is speaking of his own time.

 

(Mrs. Rosen reads Hebrews 1:1-3)

 

Missionary: Let’s go over it. “GOD,” . . . which means God the Father, doesn’t it?

 

Mrs. Rosen: Yes.

 

Missionary: “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in times past unto the fathers” . . . who are the fathers

 

Mrs. Rosen: Our ancestors?

 

Missionary: Right. “God . . . spoke to our fathers by the prophets” . . . who are they? (Indicate the Old Testament.)

 

Mrs. Rosen: The Old Testament prophets.

 

Missionary: yes.

 

“Hath in these last days, (Paul's days) spoke unto US by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, BY WHOM ALSO HE MADE THE WORLDS.” . . . . Remember reading how God had help? “Who, being in the brightness of his glory and” . . . read it . . .

 

Mrs. Rosen: . . . “the express image of his person.” . .

 

Missionary: Just a minute. When an actor appears in person at the theatre where his movie is showing, is only the movie there, or is he there physically?

 

Mrs. Rosen: He is there physically.

 

Missionary: So when we speak of someone’s person, we mean his body, don’t we?

 

Mrs. Rosen: Yes.

 

Missionary: So Christ was in the express image of God’s person. So God has a body of what?

 

Mrs. Rosen: Flesh and bones.

 

. . .

 

Missionary: Right.

 

“Upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins,” then what did Christ do

 

Mrs. Rosen: “Sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.”

 

Missionary: Does that mean that when Christ ascended He got into God’s body?

 

Mrs. Rosen: Hardly.

 

Missionary: So God and Christ have bodies of what in heaven?

 

Mrs. Rosen: Flesh and bones. (Rose Marie Reid, Suggested For Teaching the Gospel to the Jewish People [Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, n.d.], 120-21)

 

Further Reading:

 

Lynn Wilder vs. Latter-day Saint (and Biblical) Theology on Divine Embodiment