| Author | Message | ||
| Asurprise Registered user Username: Asurprise Post Number: 3337 Registered: 7-2007 |
I've been emailing back and forth to my SDA sister. I wrote: "Dear ____, Remember how Hebrews 4 warns that everyone who fails to enter God's rest will be lost? Are you doing that? Israel kept the Sabbath but they hadn't entered God's rest. (They didn't dare not. If they didn't, they were immediately killed!) And you keep the Sabbath too. So what is that rest? It's the Sabbath Rest in Christ. Are you "neglect[ing] so great a salvation?" Hebrews 2:3 http://www.gotquestions.org/Jesus-Sabbath.html What I mean is; are you RESTING in Christ or are you striving to stay in Him and keep on repenting in order to be saved? Are you COMPLETELY RESTING in Jesus or are you depending just a tiny bit on yourself?" She wrote back and I THINK she quoted this from one of Ellen White's "better" writings, but I'm not sure. (She absolutely doesn't want to discuss Ellen White - likely because she can't defend her.) She wrote back with this quote: "Dear _____, This answers your question really well. 'Some who come to God by repentance and confession, and even believe that their sins are forgiven, still fail of claiming, as they should, the promises of God. They do not see that Jesus is an ever-present Saviour; and they are not ready to commit the keeping of their souls to him, relying upon him to perfect the work of grace begun in their hearts. While they think they are committing themselves to God, there is a great deal of self-dependence. There are conscientious souls that trust partly to God, and partly to themselves. They do not look to God, to be kept by his power, but depend upon watchfulness against temptation, and the performance of certain duties for acceptance with him. There are no victories in this kind of faith. Such persons toil to no purpose; their souls are in continual bondage, and they find no rest until their burdens are laid at the feet of Jesus. There is need of constant watchfulness, and of earnest, loving devotion; but these will come naturally when the soul is kept by the power of God through faith. We can do nothing, absolutely nothing, to commend ourselves to divine favor. We must not trust at all to ourselves nor to our good works; but when as erring, sinful beings we come to Christ, we may find rest in his love. God will accept every one that comes to him trusting wholly in the merits of a crucified Saviour. Love springs up in the heart. There may be no ecstasy of feeling, but there is an abiding, peaceful trust. Every burden is light; for the yoke which Christ imposes is easy. Duty becomes a delight, and sacrifice a pleasure. The path that before seemed shrouded in darkness becomes bright with beams from the Sun of Righteousness. This is walking in the light as Christ is in the light.'" I responded: Dear _____, What you quoted sounds SOOOO true - almost! I read it through carefully and I can see that what she's saying [in the first sentence of the second paragraph] is that as long as a person has faith in Christ, they're kept saved by the power of God. But let's see what the word of God says: "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast." Ephesians 2:8-9 Did you notice what it said? The believers "have been saved." So they don't have to continually put their faith in Christ in order to be saved. But if you use the "King James Version," you might object, telling me that it says: "For by grace are ye saved through faith," - the present tense, not the past tense. If that's what you're telling me, then let's look at some other verses in the King James Version: "Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost" Titus 3:5 Did you catch that? "He SAVED us." So salvation obviously happens the first time a believer turns COMPLETELY to the Lord - accepting His FINISHED work! That's something an Adventist cannot do! In fact she says in the quote you quoted from her to do the exact thing she says NOT to do. First she says that a believer is "kept by the power of God" and then she says that it's "through faith." She says not to depend partly on yourself and partly on God, but at the same time here's she's saying "through faith," indicating that as long as a person depends on God they're "kept." But the Bible here says that a believer has already been saved. Remember that Adventist Camp Meeting that we went to in California? Remember the older generation of Adventists there, how long and sad their faces were? They obviously swallowed the whole of Ellen White's writings - not just the almost perfect thing you quoted, but the really harsh things as well. We, who were younger, looked mainly at the more encouraging things that Ellen White said - matching them as best we could to the Bible. Of course the two didn't match up completely - we couldn't, for example say that we HAD BEEN saved because we could be tempted, as Ellen White said. But the early believers in the Bible could. [Perhaps that's because they didn't have the wonderful new light that Ellen White was shown!] Like people nowadays, the early believers fell into temptation just like believers now. They lost their tempers, stretched the truth occasionally and did other "little" sins - just like anybody now - yet they still had been saved. John's letter was still true by the time they received it! [1st John 2:12] Love, _____ P.S. Here's another.... "Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began," 2nd Timothy 1:9 (Message edited by Asurprise on April 18, 2014) |
