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William Branham and the nature of God: Difference between revisions

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William Branham and the nature of God (view source)

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:''Now notice! And after then the wise men identifying Him what He would be, and we find through the Scripture that's exactly what He was: Deity in service for death. What for? Deity in service to God for death. Jesus was Deity in service for death, to redeem the world. But what did the world do to It? They refused It. They rejected It. Why? Some of them, a big part of them, did that because this: because He did die! They said, "He couldn't be Deity and die." '''The Man (the body) was not Deity, but Deity was in the body'''. This body has to perish. The very Christ that's in you is the only thing that can raise you up. That's Deity, God in you.<ref>GOD'S.GIFTS.ALWAYS.FIND.THEIR.PLACES_  JEFF.IN  V-6 N-13  SUNDAY_  63-1222</ref>
:''Now notice! And after then the wise men identifying Him what He would be, and we find through the Scripture that's exactly what He was: Deity in service for death. What for? Deity in service to God for death. Jesus was Deity in service for death, to redeem the world. But what did the world do to It? They refused It. They rejected It. Why? Some of them, a big part of them, did that because this: because He did die! They said, "He couldn't be Deity and die." '''The Man (the body) was not Deity, but Deity was in the body'''. This body has to perish. The very Christ that's in you is the only thing that can raise you up. That's Deity, God in you.<ref>GOD'S.GIFTS.ALWAYS.FIND.THEIR.PLACES_  JEFF.IN  V-6 N-13  SUNDAY_  63-1222</ref>


=The Tabernacle of the Body=
==Branhamism and Swedenborgianism==


When you distill everything down, it appears that William Branham taught a view of the Godhead that was most similar to that taught by '''Emmanual Swedenborg'''.
When you distill everything down, it appears that William Branham taught a view of the Godhead that was most similar to that taught by '''Emmanual Swedenborg'''. The '''New Church''' (as followers of Emmanual Swedenborg have branded themselves) make the following claim about the Godhead:


The Bible teaches that Christians are temples of the Holy Spirit.  William Branham compared the temple in the Bible to a person, linking your physical body to the temple court, your spirit to the Holy place, and your soul to the Most Holy place.  Each fully functioning human being has these three parts, but your soul is the temple of the Holy Spirit.  
:''There are not three gods, nor three persons in one God, but rather one God with three aspects to His being. Just as we all have a soul, a body and the actions of our lives (and are one person), so it is with God. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are names given for the soul, body and activity of the Lord God Jesus Christ.'' ~ http://www.newchurch.org/beliefs/god


{|style="background-color:#F0DCC8; border:1px #E8B399 solid; text-align:center;"
William Branham taught the same doctrine with regards to the Godhead:
|''Now, remember, you’re in a cycle of three, but you’re one person. Like Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, cycle of three, but one Person. …And you are: body, spirit, and soul. Now, the outside body has five inlets to it, to contact your earthly home: see, taste, feel, smell, and hear. The inside, which is a spirit, it has five senses: conscience, and love, and so forth. But the inside of that, the soul, has one thing. That’s where you live.'' ~ William Branham, Sermon: Works is Faith Expressed, November 26, 1965
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As support for his teaching, William Branham used the following scriptures:
:''Now, remember, you’re in a cycle of three, but you’re one person. Like Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, cycle of three, but one Person. …And you are: body, spirit, and soul. Now, the outside body has five inlets to it, to contact your earthly home: see, taste, feel, smell, and hear. The inside, which is a spirit, it has five senses: conscience, and love, and so forth. But the inside of that, the soul, has one thing. That’s where you live.'' ~ William Branham, Sermon: Works is Faith Expressed, November 26, 1965


*God created humanity in the image of God.(Genesis 1:26)
:''Jesus is the Name. And the Name was placed in a Man; not a church, not a denomination, not a creed, but a Man. He chose to place His Name in Jesus Christ. Now we find out that then He becomes the place of God’s worship, where you worship Him.''  ~ William Branham, Sermon: God’s Chosen Place of Worship, February 20, 1965
*Our bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit (I Cor. 6:19)
*God designed the body of Jesus Christ (Matthew 1:18)
*Jesus called his body a temple.  (John 2:21)
[[image:Tabernacle1-small.jpg|right]]
*Jesus came to find people to worship God (John 4:23)
*God designed the tabernacle (the first temple) in the wilderness. (Exodus 25:9)
*There was one tabernacle (Exodus 26:6)
**The tabernacle had three parts,
***The Court (Exodus 27:9)
***The Holy Place (Exodus 26:33)
***The Most Holy Place (Exodus 26:33)
*The tabernacle was a place where God could be worshipped (Psalms 138:2)
*The tabernacle (the tent) became the temple (the building) by the work of the son of David. (I Chron. 17:12)
*The temple was a pattern of Jesus Christ (Hebrews 8:5-6).
*Jesus perfectly fulfilled the three-fold instruction “thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all they soul, and with all thy mind” (Matthew 22:37).
*The temple on earth was a pattern of the things in heaven (Hebrews 9:23-24).
*Every person has a body, spirit, and soul (I Thessalonians 5:23)
*We should think of our own creation when we think about the Godhead (Acts 17:29)
*When our bodies die, we have a new body waiting in heaven (2 Corinthians 5:1-2).
*Jesus rose from the dead (I Thess. 4:14) and was seen by Paul in a heavenly body (Acts 22:6-8)
*The children of Israel worshiped God in his tabernacle from their own tents (Exodus 33:10)
*Thomas worshipped the LORD God in the tabernacle of Jesus Christ (John 20:28)


The problem with this reasoning is that none of these scriptures deal with the Godhead.  Using these as support for William Branham's view of the Godhead requires very oblique reasoning.
Swedenborg was also very against the teachings of the Trinity, as follows:


{|style="background-color:#F0DCC8; border:1px #E8B399 solid; text-align:center;"
:''"The Church is now in so ruinous a state, that there are scarce any traces left of its ancient glory. And this has come to pass, in consequence of their dividing the Divine Trinity into three persons, each of which is declared to be God and Lord. This is the true source of all Atheism in the world. ...The Nicene and Athanasian ...doctrine concerning the Trinity, have given birth to a faith which has entirely overturned the Christian Church. ...He that confirmith himself in a plurality of Gods, by a plurality of persons, becomes like a statue formed with movable joing, in the midst of which Satan stands and speaks through its mouth. ...A Trinity of Divine Persons existing before the creation of the world, is a Trinity of Gods. ...The Lord received his soul from Jehovah, and the divinity of the Father was the Lord’s soul. ...The passion of the cross was the final temptation which the Lord endured as the Grand Prophet; and it was the means of the glorification of his humanity; that is, of its union with the divinity of the Father. ...God is one, in essence and person, and Jesus Christ is He.” (Emmanuel Swedenborg)
|''Jesus is the Name. And the Name was placed in a Man; not a church, not a denomination, not a creed, but a Man. He chose to place His Name in Jesus Christ. Now we find out that then He becomes the place of God’s worship, where you worship Him.''
:(William Branham, Sermon: God’s Chosen Place of Worship, February 20, 1965)


|-
These statements are so similar to William Branham's tapes, that it makes you wonder whether the angel that appeared to William Branham was the same angel that appeared to Emmanuel Swedenborg.  Swedenborg's statements above were all presented to John Wesley. His conclusion on these doctrines is as follows:
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:''“The grand error which we learn from [this] whole work is, that there are not three persons in one God. …Notwithstanding all [these] new revelations, I believe, according to the old one, “There are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Spirit; and these three are one” For the term ‘person’ I contend not. I know no better: If any does, let him use it. …No there is not a word in all the Bible concerning any such union of the humanity of Christ with the divinity of the Father. He was then glorified, when he was received again into the glory which he had before the world began. …what heaps of absurdity are here! Only fit to have a place in Orlando Furioso. …Blasphemy, joined with consummate nonsense."'' ~ Thoughts on the writings of Baron Swedenborg, by John Wesley, Wakefield, May 8, 1782.


<div style="border-bottom:1px #B87333 solid; text-align:center; font-size:140%; padding:1px; margin:1px;">The order of the Tabernacle</div>
Lee Vayle, who edited William Branham's book "The Church Ages" held that the mystery of the seven seals was the restoration of the correct teaching of the Godhead.  If this doctrine of Lee Vayle's is correct, then the correct teaching on the Godhead was actually restored 300 years earlier by Emmanuel Swedenborg and had nothing to do with William Branham. 


Swedenborg and Branham argued that dividing God into three persons would be like dividing the tabernacle into three temples. Over-unifying God (denying his three-fold being, or saying God is one like your finger) is like having all of the pieces to the tabernacle in one big circle.  Both of these ideas are out of order with God’s original design.[[Image:Templeoutline.jpg|325px|right|thumb|Outline of the three parts of the temple]]
John Wesley also wrote:


God’s original design given to Moses was that the Court surrounded The Holy Place, through which the high priest could access the Most Holy Place.  In the same way, it is through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ (the Court) that we have access through his Spirit (the Holy Place) to the head of Christ, which is God (the Most Holy Place).
:''"O my brethren, let none of you that fear God recommend such a writer any more; much less labor to make the deadly poison palatable, by sweetening it with all care! All his folly and nonsense we may excuse; but not his making God a liar; not his contradicting, in so open and flagrant a manner, the whole oracles of God! True, his tales are often exceeding lively, and as entertaining as the tales of... the fairies! But I dare not give up my Bible for them; and I must give up one or the other. If the preceding extracts are from God, then the Bible is only a fable! But if all Scriptures are given by inspiration of God, then let these dreams sink into the pit from whence they came."  ~ Thoughts on the writings of Baron Swedenborg, by John Wesley, Wakefield, May 8, 1782.
 
Here is a more detailed description of the operation of the tabernacle and its parallel to Jesus Christ:
*'''The Court''' is where the sacrifice was washed and slain – which corresponds to the body of Jesus Christ, which was baptized and crucified.
*'''The Holy Place''' is where incense was burned, bread was offered, and the candlesticks were lit – which corresponds to the work of the Spirit of Christ in the Christian era through the prayers of the saints, communion, and the fire of the Holy Spirit that fell on the church in the book of Acts.
*'''The Holy of Holies''' held the Ark and the Judgement/Mercy Seat – which corresponds to the work that Jesus Christ will accomplish in the future, fulfilling the will of the Father at the judgment seat of Christ (Romans 14:10) as he stands as the judge of all(2 Timothy 4:1).


=Footnotes=
=Footnotes=
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