The Inigo Montoya Series: Hebrews 13:8 Jesus Is the Same Yesterday Today and Forever

Justin Peters

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Hebrews 13 .8, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

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Well, Jesus healed the sick in his earthly ministry. He gave his disciples the power to heal the sick, and because he is the same yesterday, today, and forever, we should be healing the sick today just like Jesus did, just like his disciples did, right?

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That's a very good answer. He didn't fall? Inconceivable.

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You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means. You keep using that verse.

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I do not think it means what you think it means. Hello, ladies and gentlemen, my name is Justin Peters.

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I hope that this finds you and your family doing well today. I wanna thank you so much for joining me for this podcast.

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This is the next installment of my ongoing Inigo Montoya series,

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Commonly Misinterpreted Verses, and Hebrews 13 .8 is truly one of the favorites of the

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Charismatics, using that verse, employing that verse to substantiate their teaching that it is always

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God's will to be healed and that we should have the same power to heal people as did

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Jesus, as did his disciples. The authority that he gave to them should remain today because Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

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Well, let me give you a couple of examples of this. This is a very recent, actually, post from Kenneth Copeland on his blog,

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January 20th, 2023. He says, if healing was God's will in the past, it is still

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God's will now, and it will continue to be God's will in the future. Remember, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

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God's will is to heal. He loves you, and through his amazing love, he is forever willing to heal every sickness, every disease, and every problem you may be facing.

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Here's a screenshot posted by Brian on his channel, Faith on Fire. You can see at the top there,

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Malachi 3 .6, for I am the Lord, I change not, and then down at the bottom, Hebrews 13 .8,

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Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. So, okay, so he employs these two verses.

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Look at the picture there. On the left side of the cross, you've got the Christian continuationist, which, by the way, is just another way of saying charismatic.

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So, if you are a continuationist, that means that you believe that all of the spiritual gifts, all of them, including the apostolic gifts, the sign gifts, continue to be in operation in the church today, and the easy way to say that is you are a charismatic.

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Even if you do not speak in tongues personally, if that is your theological position, that is, by definition, the charismatic position.

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Okay, so he says, so a Christian continuationist believes God is the great

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I am. However, if you are a cessationist, you believe that God is the great

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I was. I mean, sometimes you just have to laugh at the logic employed.

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I mean, it's just cartoonishly bad. Nonetheless, this is a frequent argument coming from the charismatics.

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In fact, Dr. Michael Brown wrote a book that he wrote in response to the

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Strange Fire Conference that was held back in 2013 at John MacArthur's church.

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Hard to believe that's been 10 years ago, but I was a part of that conference, and he wrote a book responding to that conference entitled

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Authentic Fire, and he also employs Hebrews 13, 8 to refute the

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Strange Fire Conference and defend the charismatic position. Dr. Brown writes in his book

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Authentic Fire on page 182, he says, the problem with these positions is that they fail to appreciate that who

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Jesus was remains who he is. Well, sounds like pretty compelling logic, doesn't it?

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I mean, Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and so Jesus healed the sick when he was on earth.

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He gave that authority and power to his disciples, to the apostles, and they healed the sick, and Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and so we should be doing the same things that the disciples did, that the apostles did.

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Sounds pretty compelling. Until you actually think just a little bit, and let me show you how quickly this logic breaks down.

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Okay, so Jesus did not come into existence in Bethlehem, right,

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I hope we would all agree with that. If you do not believe that, then you are a theological heretic, and you need to get saved because you've trusted a different Jesus.

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Jesus has always existed from before the foundation of the world, from eternity past, he is co -eternal with the

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Father. In fact, he is the creator. Well, Jesus wasn't healing anyone in eternity past, right, because there was no one there yet to heal.

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He had not created people, but now there are people, and when Jesus was on earth, he healed people.

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Did he change? No, he didn't change. His character did not change, his nature did not change, but the way in which he interacts with his own creation certainly has changed over the centuries.

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It has progressed as history has progressed. There was no gift of tongues while Jesus was on earth.

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In his earthly ministry, right, there was no spiritual gift of tongues, and yet there was the gift of tongues given at the day of Pentecost, and it remained in operation through the early church, and at least through the apostolic age.

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So what changed? Did Jesus change? There was no gift of tongues while he was on earth, but then there was.

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Did he change? No, of course not. His character did not change, his nature did not change, the way in which he interacts with his own creation changed as history progressed.

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Go to the Old Testament. Jesus was certainly there in the Old Testament, was he not? Of course he was.

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In fact, there's several Christophanies in the Old Testament when Jesus made an appearance, so the word that we get to give to denote the

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Old Testament appearances of Christ. So there are several Christophanies, but in the

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Old Testament, Jesus didn't have disciples, he didn't have apostles. In fact, there was no church, right, in the

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Old Testament. Well, there's obviously a church today, so did he change? No, his character did not change, his nature did not change, but the way in which he has interacted with his own creation, of course, certainly has.

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There are a lot of things that happened in the Old Testament that are not happening today. Seas parted in the

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Old Testament, there's no parting seas today. Axe heads floated in the Old Testament, there are no floating axe heads today.

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Donkeys talked in the Old Testament, and I hope you haven't seen any talking donkeys around lately.

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If you have, you probably need to spend a little bit of time in Ephesians chapter five and lay off the suds a little bit, because you shouldn't be seeing any talking donkeys.

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Well, there was in the Old Testament, so why aren't there talking donkeys today? Well, Jesus has not changed.

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His character, his nature has not changed, but the way in which he interacts with his own creation has.

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And employing charismatic logic with this verse, we might also ask the question, well, why are we not still sacrificing animals today?

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I mean, they sacrificed animals in the Old Testament, millions of them. Why aren't we sacrificing animals today?

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Has God changed? I mean, it says right there in Malachi, we just read the verse from Brian's screenshot there, his little picture that he put up.

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I, the Lord, do not change, so why aren't we still sacrificing animals? Why aren't we still sacrificing goats and bulls and slaughtering animals by the millions and blood running freely everywhere?

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Has God changed? Obviously not. But the way in which he interacts with his creation certainly has as history has progressed.

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We're no longer sacrificing animals today because Jesus offered himself as a once for all sacrifice, never to be repeated again.

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Another great example is the flood. Remember the flood? Remember how

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God flooded the entire earth? It's not a regional flood, by the way, it was a global flood.

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Well, God certainly did that. Obviously, Noah built an ark for a reason, but God also said after the waters dried, after the waters are seeded and Noah and his family came out of the ark,

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God said what? I will never flood the earth again. He made that promise. Did God change?

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I mean, he did flood the earth. Then he said he'll never do it again. Did God change? No, emphatically no.

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His character and his nature has remained unchanged, but the way in which he interacts with his creation certainly has changed and will continue to.

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God himself does not, Jesus himself does not, but the way in which he interacts with his creation does.

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In fact, even the spiritual gifts themselves change. 1 Corinthians 13, verses eight through 10.

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Love never fails, but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away. If there are tongues, they will cease.

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If there is knowledge, it will be done away. For we know in part and prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away.

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So the text right there says that prophecy will be done away. Tongues will cease.

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Now, when they cease, that's a matter for another video at another time, but nonetheless, it says that they will cease.

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So friends, it is really, really bad logic and quite honestly, embarrassing logic to employ

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Hebrews 13, eight as an argument for the charismatic position. That's really embarrassing.

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So I hope that this has been helpful for you, dear ones. God does not change.

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His character and his nature remains unchanging, immutable, to give a theological term to it.

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We talk about the immutability of God, of Christ, of the Holy Spirit. The Godhead does not change.

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So, and that's a great comfort to us, is it not? Because we never have to worry that God's going to, anthropomorphically speaking, wake up on the wrong side of the bed one morning or he's going to change his mind, change his disposition towards us.

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No, his character and his nature remains unchanged. The attributes of God, the perfections of God remain unchanged.

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Nothing can affect him. Nothing can sway him. What he has decreed will come to pass.

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He is sovereign and that is a great comfort to us. So, hope this has been helpful for you, dear ones.

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Until our next time together, may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of his