| Author | Message | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 13585 Registered: 12-2003  |
I'm working on commentary for the Sabbath School lesson for April 21. The Teachers' Comments, on page 37 of the Teachers' quarterly, has an introductory exercise to help the class members appreciate that the spiritual gifts are a "direct endowment from the Holy Spirit to the body of Christ". It directs the teacher to read and discuss the following (quoted right out of page 37):
I have never seen the Adventist tri-theism so blatantly expressed to the "common" member!! Moreover, the discussion question has the three gods bringing gifts to new believers like the magi brought gifts to Jesus! The Adventist "god" serves the "new believer" as if he is a king deserving of god's reverence and worship!!! This is no accident. This IS Adventism. This passage completely reveals the fact that they do not believe in the Christian Trinity, and it totally shows that man, not God, is their ultimate "value" in the universe! God honors MAN!! And by inference based on their own comparison, baby Jesus was just a man... But of course, that's how we learned about Him. We were just told He was "god". Colleen | ||
| Bskillet Registered user Username: Bskillet Post Number: 976 Registered: 8-2008 |
That little SDA snippet was so poorly written that I actually had a hard time following it. But yes, now that I follow it, it's blatant tritheism. Also, "how does it make you feel"? I hate "how does this make you feel" questions. Why does it matter how something makes me feel? The question is, what is true? | ||
| Jeremy Registered user Username: Jeremy Post Number: 3910 Registered: 10-2004  |
Colleen, Wow, that is very blatant! I do have one other quote, on my website, where they say "Kings." It's from an article by Dr. Norman Gulley in the Fall 2003 Journal of the Adventist Theological Society, entitled "A Biblical Evaluation of Islamic and Catholic Soteriology":
Like the SDA gods do "gift" salvation?? There is too much wrong with those excerpts to even unpack it all... Jeremy (Message edited by Jeremy on April 11, 2012) | ||
| River Registered user Username: River Post Number: 7883 Registered: 9-2006  |
Shoot, if you all have trouble un packing this stuff, think of the trouble me and Leigh Ann have un packing it!  River | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 13586 Registered: 12-2003 |
Jeremy, good grief! That's blatant! So much confusion...so much unbelief. They totally do not believe in the One True God. They have a different god and a different jesus. Colleen | ||
| Grace_alone Registered user Username: Grace_alone Post Number: 2065 Registered: 6-2006  |
River, I was thinking the same thing. Glad you can decipher the rigmarole, Formers. The author of confusion strikes again! Leigh Anne | ||
| Ric_b Registered user Username: Ric_b Post Number: 1772 Registered: 7-2004  |
Confusion is the underlying secret. If you can't make sense of it, you can't prove it wrong. Therefore, your questions would be answered if you were only: a) smarter b) spending more time study Scripture c) more spiritual so God would grant the insight The confusion keeps people trapped. And it keeps the real nature of SDAism hidden from Christian world. | ||
| Asurprise Registered user Username: Asurprise Post Number: 2552 Registered: 7-2007 |
The article said that God"come[s] to us at our new birth..." but SDAs don't believe in a new birth - not the Bible way. When I was an Adventist, it was just: believe the fundamentals including Ellen White, get baptized, keep asking God to forgive your sins and keep pushing out our sins by Jesus power. If we did all that, then we were supposed to have a fair shake at being saved in the end. No certainty of being saved - not a bit, despite what the Bible says! | ||
| Shelley68 Registered user Username: Shelley68 Post Number: 30 Registered: 3-2012 |
That's the kind of stuff that used to make me think....huh? Very hard to follow. | ||
| Nowisee Registered user Username: Nowisee Post Number: 1123 Registered: 5-2009 |
I had to read the quarterly quote several times--it sounded like gobbledygook. OK, in Matthew, the magi (humans) came bearing gifts to the Baby (God the Son)...so how is this comparison valid? I used to think, as a SDA, "Well, a bunch of men with impressive credentials and education would have caught any error, so there's something wrong with MY thinking if I don't understand this doctrine/teaching!" It's so cool now--the Holy Spirit is not in the business of gobbledygook! Or confusion. | ||
| Kiki Registered user Username: Kiki Post Number: 79 Registered: 9-2011 |
Proverbs 30 5 “Every word of God is flawless; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him. 6 Do not add to his words, or he will rebuke you and prove you a liar. | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 13593 Registered: 12-2003 |
Well, Nowisee, your insight is exactly the issue. How is this comparison valid? The fact that they have "three Kings" (god) bringing gifts of homage to new "believers" really does elevate the believer to a state that's actually above god. It certainly places the "believers" on a par with Jesus--God's child who received gifts of honor from royalty. The heresy here is horrific, if you think about it. People who "believe" what Adventism teaches about Jesus and god are elevated (sorta like Jesus was once supposedly elevated) to a position of honor next to god. This scenario, which most Adventists wouldn't understand enough to actually articulate, is nevertheless what the Adventist view of God leads to. He is obligated to US; in the SDA worldview, we are not obligated to God. He is obligated to US, to honor and protect our supposed free will, to give us every advantage, to exalt us...and He is dependent upon us to vindicate him and reveal his true nature. We, the creatures, are to reveal his nature. This belief is only a twist away from the Mormon belief that "as God once was, we are; as God is, we can become." Or maybe it's really not even a twist away from that Mormon belief...? This scenario of three gods bearing gifts of god's power to "new believers" is not the fevered rambling of a crazed individual. This is actually Adventism. This is the official quarterly, and Clifford Goldstein is the editor. This is NO mistake. It is "hidden" in the teacher's section, and some teachers may not use it at all. But it is there, and it is positioned in such a way that it will be introduced subtly but organically: as the focus of a class discussion. Do you remember how many beliefs we cemented in our heads as Adventists not because we actually LEARNED them from a textbook but because a teacher or SS leader or class discussion facilitator drummed certain ideas into us during the course of those endless philosophical discussions we thought were religious exchanges? This is no accident. It is intentional, and it is deeply, deeply heretical. It is thoroughly Adventist...and it is related to the heresies of other pseudo-Christian cults. Ask yourself where these ideas originated... Colleen | ||
| Jeremy Registered user Username: Jeremy Post Number: 3917 Registered: 10-2004 |
Also, notice how they say: "How does it make you feel, knowing that God the Father and the Son, through the Person of the Holy Spirit, come to us at our new birth..." They have to say "through the Person of the Holy Spirit" because they don't believe that the "Father" and the "Son" actually "come to us" (not "indwell" notice!) at our new birth, since they have physical bodies and Jesus forever gave up any omnipresence that he may have once had! So actually only one god comes to us--hmmm, if they're not careful they might start teaching monotheism!  Jeremy | ||
| Asurprise Registered user Username: Asurprise Post Number: 2558 Registered: 7-2007 |
Shelley; it was hard for me to follow too. Perhaps the SDA leadership intentionally makes it hard to follow, so that the ordinary person in the pew will simply think it's lofty stuff that it takes years of education at an SDA university to learn! It's sad how they give lip service to the gospel - ["Jesus died and rose so that I can live, when I accept Him"] - and then completely undermine it by saying that the person themselves has to do part of the work/keep striving in order to be saved.  |
