The Angelic Conflict - Part 33 -
Point 9. - The Importance of the Hypostatic Union -

Satan did everything in his power to try to destroy the humanity of Christ through temptation, attempted assassination, and to keep him from reaching the cross.

The first one is the temptation to rely on self rather than the ministry of Holy Spirit, Mat 4:1-4, Luk 4:1-4.

When a believer reaches spiritual maturity, Satan is permitted by God to cross examine every witness that God enters into the historical phase of the angelic conflict!

“tempted” = peirazo = to make proof of, test, scrutinize, examine, try to test one’s faith, virtue, or character by enticement to sin or to act independently of God.

If a conflict does not exist, why was an inferior creature, Satan, allowed to put our Lord through a test?

2CO 2:11 Make sure no advantage be taken of us by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his schemes.

If the humanity of Christ even sins once during this test then He cannot go to the cross and die for the sins of the whole world, so He will be tempted far beyond anyone of us!

HEB 4:15 For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things, yet without sin.

In evidence testing and the angelic conflict, God the Holy Spirit is not the one who puts us to the test, He is the one who leads us to the test!

JAM 1:13 Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone.

The devil is the agent who does the cross-examination in evidence testing!

This is Satan’s attempt through cross-examination to discredit those believers who reach spiritual maturity!

“Ei huios ei tou Theou” = “If you are the Son of God, and you are”

“you are” = pres-act-ind - eimi = Satan recognized that Jesus was the Son of God!

Will TLJC use His power and operate independently of the power of the Holy Spirit, or rely on God to meet His needs?

If Jesus Christ used His deity and His own power to satisfy His hunger, then He has stepped outside of the PPOG, the power system provided by God the Holy Spirit!

It is committing the same sin that Satan did originally - choosing self-will over God’s will.

By persuading the deity of Christ to act independently of the indwelling Holy Spirit and the PPOG, our Lord in hypostatic union would be acting independently of the plan of God the Father.

Kenosis = during the dispensation of the Hypostatic Union, our Lord Jesus Christ voluntarily restricted the independent use of His divine attributes in compliance with the Father’s plan.

During the First Advent, TLJC depended on the power of the Holy Spirit, Bible doctrine, and PSD’s, and gave up any independent exercise of certain divine attributes while living among men with their human limitations.

Being full of grace and doctrine (Joh 1:14), the humanity of Christ extrapolated from His own soul, problem-solving devices.

He concentrated on the problem-solving devices to prevent the conversion of the outside pressure of adversity into the inside pressure of stress in the soul.

The filling of the Spirit, the faith rest drill, grace orientation, doctrinal orientation, a personal sense of destiny, personal love for God the Father, impersonal love for all mankind, and sharing the happiness of God.

Our Lord did not depend on His deity to execute the Father’s plan, He depended on the One who provided the plan, on what the Father provided.

He refused to function independently of the Father’s plan.

The temptation to solve the problem of hunger by a miracle, rather than function under the doctrinal principle that the Holy Spirit led Him here and God the Father will provide for Him.

As long as God the Father has not removed the suffering, He intends for the humanity of Christ to bear it!

If God doesn’t remove it, He intends for you to bear it!

Would the humanity of Christ pass this test by refusing to use His own power independently of the plan of God?

You can leave the plan of God for your home, the details of life, marriage, business, social distraction, friends, pleasure, personal goals and ambitions, etc.

2TI 2:4 “entangled in the affairs of everyday life” LUK 8:14 “choked with worries and riches and pleasures of this life and you bring no fruit to maturity.”

Spiritual maturity + passing evidence testing = glorification of God to the maximum in the historic extension of the angelic conflict.

Instead of performing miracles under His own power, our Lord used the greatest power ever known; He used Bible doctrine in all three parts of his testing.

When God performs a miracle, it requires only His sovereignty [will].

To apply Bible doctrine and advance in the plan of God through the use of that doctrine is the greatest power and the highest function that any member of the human race can attain.

Bible doctrine is the very thinking of Jesus Christ, 1Co 2:16, and it is the word of God, a reference to God Himself, Joh 1:1.

Robert R. McLaughlin Bible Ministries

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Robert R. McLaughlin 2001