...Virtually anyone would recognize Martin as an orthodox believer, with perhaps a few nonstandard beliefs, certainly not a heretic. Bowman used Martin as an example to demonstrate that if someone says, "Jesus worked His miracles and performed His earthly ministry as a man dependent on the Father (and/or the Spirit)," you cannot properly extrapolate that to mean that the person who said that believes Jesus stopped being God, and that therefore the person is a heretic. If the person also explicitly says that Jesus remains eternally God, the *most* one can honestly claim is that the person is inconsistent or unclear.
While I disagree with Martin's stance, he was, at least, consistent in his claim that Jesus retained all divine attributes, yet chose not to exercise the Omni- traits while Incarnate. Johnson, on the other hand, is not teaching that Jesus did not exercise His divine attributes, since Johnson's explicit claims are that Jesus had "no ability", was "unable", etc. even to the point of making the statement, "He had so emptied himself that He was incapable of doing what was required of Him by the Father – without the Father’s help." This implies that Jesus had no divine attributes at all, for if Jesus had merely chosen not to use them, he'd still have the latent ability, though unutilized. This is consistent in the myriad statements Johnson makes, including, "He had NO supernatural capabilities whatsoever!" (all emphasis Johnson's). Certainly, God has supernatural capabilities!
However, there is a way to take his seemingly ambiguous and/or contradictory statements, such as "While Jesus is eternally God, He emptied Himself of divinity and became man..." and harmonizing them. It's the Manifest Sons of God doctrine. Bill Britton, in a booklet titled
Tent to Temple, has a subsection titled "A Man in Two Worlds" - essentially, meaning Jesus lived in the eternal world, as well as,
separately, in the temporal. In the following, Britton is referencing the 'longer' version of John 3:13, as in the N/KJV, including the final clause "who is in Heaven' (most modern versions omit it (I think erroneously, but that's a whole different subject)):
Jesus told Nicodemus a very strange thing in John 3:13. He said that He was living in heaven at the same time he was living on earth. It was too much for Nicodemus to comprehend, as well as for many of God’s people today. But it was true. Hebrews 10:20 tells us that the Veil that separated heaven and earth was His flesh.
One side of the Veil faced the sanctuary with its candlestick and the priests who ministered daily. This was his earthly existence, living under a skin covering. But the other side of the same veil faced the Holy of Holies and the Skekinah Presence of His Father. So he could say “I do only those things I see my Father do – I say only those things that please Him”. He lived on the earth where men could see him, in an earth body. But in that body He also walked continually in a heavenly place on the other side of the veil. And I see a people who live in “tent” bodies which have been redeemed from the sense realm, a people who walk victoriously because they walk in the spirit. Jesus showed us the way.
Someone adhering to Britton's belief could very easily state, "While Jesus is eternally God, He emptied Himself of divinity and became man..." with the intention of positing an eternal Jesus separate from a non-divine temporal Jesus - two different realms, two different 'Jesuses'. And this is what I believe Johnson is teaching. This accounts for Jesus being "eternally God" (God in the eternal realm) and for Jesus also having "emptied Himself of divinity and became a man (man in the temporal realm).
As I've shown in other quotes used earlier on this thread:
1) Johnson's Jesus did not, in fact, could not receive the title of Christ until baptism (contradicting Luke 2:11), aka, "the anointing." This baptism, aka "the anointing" is also known as the "Christ anointing." In Christian theology, most usually, the term "Christ" denotes divinity. This means, according to Johnson, implicitly, Jesus wasn't 'divine' until baptism. Which accounts for Johnsons' statement, "...The anointing is what linked
Jesus, the man, to the divine enabling Him to destroy the works of the devil." So, Johnson's Jesus wasn't actually 'divine' even at baptism, for He was only divine by this "the anointing" 'linking' "Jesus, the man, to the divine"; hence, Jesus was not actually divine at all, as it is "the anointing" that is 'divine'. To see that this is so, it was only "the anointing" that "enabled Him...", which implies that Jesus had "NO supernatural capabilities" without "the anointing, which means He had no divine attributes, latent or otherwise. This is certainly not the doctrine Walter Martin adhered to.
2) In Johnson's theology, others can, and should receive this same "Christ anointing." Carrying this to its logical conclusion, any and everyone receiving this "Christ anointing" should receive the title of Christ, just as Jesus did.
3) This reduces Jesus to a man - just as Johnson asserts above: "He emptied Himself of divinity and became a man."
So, to reiterate, in Johnson's theology, we have a Jesus who is temporally a non-divine man, concurrent with a Jesus who is "eternally God" = Manifested Sons of God teaching.
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