| Author | Message | ||
| Carracio Registered user Username: Carracio Post Number: 10 Registered: 3-2014 |
Sorry, I have a lot of questions, since this is the only place I can go to to talk with people who understand me. The Bible says that it is grace through faith alone. But SDA says you won't be saved if you don't keep the Sabbath (right?). So it is not grace through faith, but also works. Sometimes I hear SDA and they agree with grace through faith, but I just don't understand how they can say that..cause you have to do works (keeping the Sabbath). I don't really know the question I want to ask you.. Maybe I should ask how their brains work?? How can they say it is grace through faith, but you have to keep Sabbath day? | ||
| Philharris Registered user Username: Philharris Post Number: 3023 Registered: 5-2007  |
Carracio, You are perceptive and do correctly understand the problem. This is best understood by the expression; ‘cognitive dissonance’ which of course isn’t logical if you honestly explore your own beliefs. Part of understand the contradiction is to know Adventist have their own way of defining the meaning of words such as ‘grace’. The bible simply says that those who are perishing are ‘blinded by the prince of this world’. I once believed this way and don’t logically understand why I did so. Fearless Phil | ||
| Asurprise Registered user Username: Asurprise Post Number: 3335 Registered: 7-2007 |
When I was an Adventist, I believed I had to "keep" the Sabbath, yet I believed that salvation was by grace, though I told myself that yes, it's a free gift, but works come as a result, so that if I didn't do the works, it showed that I "wasn't saved," yet since Ellen White said that no one can say they are saved, I couldn't quite believe the Bible where is says a believer IS SAVED, so all I could do was HOPE that I would be saved, yet despite all this, I believed the Bible where it said it's a FREE GIFT, though that didn't give me cognitive dissonance because I figured that Ellen White explained it somewhere, though I had no idea where! Does this make any sense? Looking back now, I'm amazed that I didn't get cognitive dissonance from such a mess as that! Now I can see clearly that Adventists CANNOT believe the Bible the way it's written because it contradicts Ellen White. At the same time they believe that the Bible and Ellen White agree! (I did!) (By the way, I put this in a long run-on sentence deliberately because it shows the confused state of my mind as an Adventist!) Please ask all the questions you want to!  (Message edited by Asurprise on April 12, 2014) | ||
| Ric_b Registered user Username: Ric_b Post Number: 2108 Registered: 7-2004  |
SDAs believe that you are saved by grace through faith. What they don't believe is that you are saved by grace ALONE through faith ALONE in Christ ALONE. If you sincerely follow a false god, to the best of your knowledge and capability (called following the light that you have), that case saves you in SDAism-so strike Christ ALONE. I don't know any SDA who will claim that you can merit heaven on your own, they will insist that you need grace. Something has to be done about your past sins, and you need some access to the power to overcome sin. So you can not be saved without the grace that forgives past sins and provides power and victory over future sins. But that grace is combined with your will and your effort. The success of your empowered effort provides the proof and seal of your salvation (in SDAism). There is grace but it is not ALONE. And that grace isn't something that comes from faith ALONE. Faith must be exercised like a muscle. You are the one responsible for building and growing your faith (and the faith of your children). | ||
| Freeatlast Registered user Username: Freeatlast Post Number: 919 Registered: 5-2002  |
My mom used to tell me, "We are saved by grace but those who have grace keep the law." Good luck untangling that... | ||
| Foofighter Registered user Username: Foofighter Post Number: 319 Registered: 7-2005 |
Freeatlast, Yes, there is always a "but" when SDA's say "we are saved by grace..." | ||
| Mjcmcook Registered user Username: Mjcmcook Post Number: 1408 Registered: 2-2011  |
IMO~ that leaves the FEAR factor very much in place~ No Assurance of Salvation ~  It is heart-breaking~ No wonder sda's cannot embrace the Joy of "Resurrection Sunday"~!!! I say again~ HE is Risen!...HE is Risen Indeed...!!! ~mj~ | ||
| Carracio Registered user Username: Carracio Post Number: 17 Registered: 3-2014 |
How can you react when they say that those who have grace keep the law?? | ||
| Lyrical Registered user Username: Lyrical Post Number: 213 Registered: 4-2012 |
Carracio, Those with grace, who are truly reborn of the Spirit, keep the Royal Law of Love (love God & love your neighbor) as defined through the New Covenant and mentioned in the NT many times over. These moral laws are written on the believer's heart and are included in the 10C, but not all the 10C's are moral laws (Sabbath command), and so is excluded from the Royal Law of Love. Jesus fulfilled the Old Covenant and, therefore, negated the need for the sign of the Old Covenant, which was the Sabbath command. In Jesus is perfect love, so if we follow HIM, we will automatically show the fruits of the Spirit in our lives. We just can't help it... :-) | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 14787 Registered: 12-2003  |
Carracio, those who have grace have NOTHING to recommend them except Jesus. Adventists still believe that "Christ's righteousness" is righteousness that develops in them as they allow Christ to help them keep the law. In reality, Christ's righteousness is HIS...it is always HIS alien-to-us righteousness. We NEVER develop personal righteousness that counts for anything. God's grace is that He credits His own divine righteousness to us through Jesus who is our SUBSTITUTE, not our example. When Adventists say those who have grace keep the law, they reveal they have no idea what "righteousness" actually is. Grace is that we are not just forgiven but that God puts "money" into our spiritual bank accounts. We are forgiven AND credited with Jesus Himself. In other words, when we are born again, we are hidden in Christ. When the Father looks at us, He sees Jesus first and then sees us inside Jesus. We NEVER develop our own righteousness that God credits to us. Our sanctification is an ongoing process that God does in us as we learn to submit and trust Him, but that is not part of our justification and salvation. God's grace is that we are made alive, not that we are made good. We are given His resurrection life when we believe in Him and repent. Adventists think of God's grace as His giving us the ability to be saved, not that He gives us LIFE and eternity at the very moment of trust, When we're transferred out of the domain of darkness into the kingdom of God's beloved Son, we are eternally alive at that moment. That is the result of God's grace. We are made alive and hidden in Christ; the Father credits us with the Lord Jesus' personal righteousness. Grace is God's gift of forgiveness and life that He gives us when we believe in the Son and repent, receiving the gift of His blood as payment for our sin. Colleen | ||
| Grace2 Registered user Username: Grace2 Post Number: 23 Registered: 8-2013 |
Carraccio Freeatlast put it well: SDA-reasoning is that those who have been saved will want to keep the law as it reflects God's will for them. I don't see anything wrong with that. After all, who wouldn't want to do what God wishes from us? The problem arises when you start going beyond clear biblical teaching to try to prove that God's law cannot be changed (contrary to 2. Cor 3 or He 7 etc.)or that you make your understanding of what God wants you to do the measuring stick for the whole world beyond what Scripture says. IMO SDAs have to twist clear statements to make the Bible say what it doesn't (e.g. keep the distinction of clean animals contrary to NT teaching, Sabbath, tithe, 1844). And as asurprise says SDAs CANNOT believe the Bible the way it is written because it contradicts EGW (e.g. He 6:19.20). I also found the concept of cognitive dissonance helpful. It helps explain why some strong SDAs will almost refuse to study the Truth from a non-SDA perspective. They might find uncomfortable things which would create painful dissonance. That is often in the subconscious but helps me not to take personal that some people I care about refuse to study what others have to say about Adventism. Blessings. | ||
| Ric_b Registered user Username: Ric_b Post Number: 2110 Registered: 7-2004 |
Those who are saved will want to follow God. That is very different from saying that those who are saved will want to obey a set of laws. That is really what the heart of the Galatian controversy was about, saved people were being told that the obedience to the Law was God's will for them.
On the surface it sounds very godly to say that those who are saved will want to keep God's Law. But the truth is that those who are saved are being made into people who exhibit love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. The Law doesn't produce these traits, even among the saved. These traits are produced by the Holy Spirit dwelling in us and working through us. It is certainly the case that if we are saved we will, in our inner being, want to keep the commandments of God. We will want to love God with our whole heart, love our neighbor as ourself, and love other people in the same way that Christ loved. But you can't "command" someone to love, you can only command some polite actions. Love flows from the Spirit, not from the Law. So we don't show our love to God by striving to love others (or striving to follow other laws), instead the Spirit produces love in us that shows God's love to others. Think about that difference a little. In one view, we are trying to show God that we truly love Him. In the other view, God is showing others that He loves them (through us). Here is a simple Bible truth, IT ISN'T ABOUT US! p.s. I hope I'm not sounding like I'm disagreeing with Grace2, just because that was the post before mine. I'm not. | ||
| Capross Registered user Username: Capross Post Number: 83 Registered: 7-2012 |
Ric I agree wholeheartedly with what you said. We cannot change ourselves we can only allow the Holy Spirit to work the change within us. Hence the good news. We do not have to do the impossable God will do it for us. | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 14790 Registered: 12-2003 |
I agree, Grace2 and Rick! It is twisting Scriptures to say that when we are saved, we will keep the law...or that if we wander off from the law, we are antinomian and lose our salvation. Adventists really don't consider (or understand) the promise in Ezekiel (repeated 3 times in chapters 11, 18, and 32...or is it 36...?) that God would put a new Spirit in His people and give them a new heart. SDAs assume that conversion, or the new birth, is a cognitive change, not a complete heart change. Born again people have new desires, new positions, new identities...and they desire to honor God. Of course temptations come, but when people are born again, they finally have the power to submit to the Lord Jesus and resist temptation. Without being born again, the issue with temptation is just a matter of will power, not of a completely new heart prompted and convicted by the Holy Spirit. Colossians 1 explains that we have been circumcised by a circumcision done without hands, and our hearts of flesh have been cut away. That's pretty radical...and it's a spiritual reality that Adventists cannot understand because they do not believe in the human spirit or the biblical new birth, as a general rule. So, when Adventists make these arguments, they are ignoring some Scriptures and twisting others and creating straw-man arguments. The New Birth puts us in direct and eternal contact with the Triune God, and He makes us alive. That life, as opposed to spiritual death, is what marks our salvation. It has nothing to do with the law. Colleen |
