Tagged: Jesus as the firstborn
Jesus as the Firstborn
This is another in a series of excerpts from The Book of Life: What the Bible Says about God’s Registry of the Redeemed from High Street Press and available at Amazon. This except comes from Chapter 15: Assembly of the Firstborn: Hebrews 12:23.
The writer of Hebrews points his readers to “the assembly of the firstborn” (12:23). The word “firstborn” (Greek: prototokos) is used in a variety of ways in Scripture. Usually, “firstborn” means the first male child born into a family, but the word can be used in other ways. It may denote rank, position, or prominence. King David, for example, who is the last in his family’s birth order, is called “firstborn, greatest of the kings of the earth” (Ps. 89:27).
The same is true for the nation of Israel. The Israelites are not the first people group to populate a region of the earth. Even so, the Lord commands Moses to tell Pharaoh that “Israel is my firstborn son” (Exod. 4:22). That is, God established the Israelites as a special people for whom the Promised Land is prepared.
When it comes to Jesus, the Greek word prototokos never is used to describe his origin, as if he’s a created being; after all, he’s the uncreated creator of all (John 1:1-3). Nor is “firstborn” used to depict Jesus in purely human terms, for he has no earthly father. In every case, the New Testament writers depict Jesus as first in rank, position, or prominence. We see this every time in Scripture he’s declared to be the firstborn.
Continue reading Assembly of the Firstborn: Hebrews 12:23
This is another in a series of excerpts from The Book of Life: What the Bible Says about God’s Registry of the Redeemed from High Street Press and available at Amazon. This except comes from Chapter 15: Assembly of the Firstborn: Hebrews 12:23.
Instead, you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God (the heavenly Jerusalem), to myriads of angels, a festive gathering, to the assembly of the firstborn whose names have been written in heaven, to a Judge, who is God of all, to the spirits of righteous people made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood, which says better things than the blood of Abel (Heb. 12:22-24).
On February 16, 1832, Joseph Smith, founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, claimed the Lord gave him a series of visions revealing that the “many mansions” to which Jesus refers in John 14:2 – “In my Father’s house are many mansions” (KJV) – are divided into three general categories: the celestial, terrestrial, and telestial kingdoms.
More than a decade later, Smith revealed additional detail: “In the celestial glory there are three heavens or degrees.” In other words, in the celestial, or highest, kingdom, faithful Mormons may aspire to one of three levels of glory.
From these visions, the LDS Church draws its doctrine of the “Church of the Firstborn.” The highest level of the celestial kingdom is reserved for those who “gain exaltation,” or godhood, by keeping all the commandments of the Lord. As Joseph Fielding Smith, sixth president of the church and nephew of its founder, wrote, “There will be many who are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who shall never become members of the Church of the Firstborn.”
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