| Author | Message | ||
| Agapetos Registered user Username: Agapetos Post Number: 1529 Registered: 10-2002  |
Some time after our recent discussion of the scapegoat on another thread, I got a picture and just finished it yesterday. I had wanted one during the discussion, but nothing came until after the thread was finished: http://art-for-jesus.blogspot.com/2008/05/scapegoat.html Below the picture I put a lot of the things I'd written on the previous thread. I forgot to explain the picture, though... that the goat is "white" representing His purity. The yellowish color seems to be the "desert" and also the non-purity of our sins. But I'm not sure about everything else yet. I'll make another write-up of this with a few additional comments for my Former-Adventist-Japan blog, hopefully soon. Blessings in Jesus! Ramone | ||
| Patriar Registered user Username: Patriar Post Number: 716 Registered: 3-2005 |
Ramone! Oh my goodness! I can't even respond until I print this out and read it again. This is incredible...just incredible!!!!! Patria (Message edited by patriar on May 27, 2008) | ||
| River Registered user Username: River Post Number: 2787 Registered: 9-2006  |
I got a lot of good out of that Ramone even though I was never mis-taught about things of this nature as the Adventist teach it and the scape goat business doesn't effect me the same way. One thing you said to do “Start backwards instead. Start with Christ who is the fulfillment, and then the things of the shadows will become clear.” That is so right on. I remember after I was saved the first thing I wanted to do was read the Bible thru and so I did all but the song of Solomon and I read a few verse of that and thought to pick it up later and read on. Then I started looking back from the cross and thought oh yeah and I started seeing the types and shadows. I saw a shadow in the deliverance from Egypt as the smeared the blood over the door post and I saw shadows in the Ark of Noah, the whole story of Noah is a shadow of our Ark of safety in Christ Jesus, how he shuts us in from the flood and seals the door. It is amazing but the Adventist don’t do that, they are always living in the shadows (or) the forerunner, they camp in Genesis but we cannot pitch camp way back there, instead we must make the trek all the way to the cross and look upon him who was pierced. Back so many years ago I made the trek from Genesis to the cross and beheld his glory, I wish I could get my Adventist friends to do that instead of camping way back there in the dust of a dry desert, but come to the living water. No wonder they live in such a dry and baron desert of heart, we say “Look, here is water!” and they will not raise their eyes to look, but instead flee back into the shadows of the Sabbath and the sacrifices of that that cannot cover our sin. I tell you Ramone, it is a burdensome thing. Worthless sacrifices of foods and days and a useless false profit and we can find profit and substance in none of that. But John 7:38 He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. River | ||
| Agapetos Registered user Username: Agapetos Post Number: 1530 Registered: 10-2002 |
I feel your heart, River. I feel His heart for my loved ones in Adventism, and for Adventists. Many have chosen a dry and barren place because they don't know (and sometimes choose not to know!--oh Lord!) that He, our Scapegoat, went to the dry and barren place for us so that we don't have to go there. | ||
| Patriar Registered user Username: Patriar Post Number: 717 Registered: 3-2005 |
Ramone: That struck me as intensely important as well. We have to start at Reality. He shows us Truth. This is true in every area of our lives; in studying Adventist doctrine, in personal relationships, everything, everything, everything! If Christ is the focus, and we live in His Reality, then He sheds light on everything else. He IS Light. He IS Truth. He is our Strength. We can truly trust Him... And in regards to your thought: "but, He would save us from our sins! That means He would take our sins away from us. He would take our original sin away from us. He would take away our iniquity, our soul's propensity to sin and bent-on-rebellion nature. He would take away "sin itself" by becoming our sin for us. 2 (Cor. 5:21)" I also thought of Romans 8:15, 16 "For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, "Abba, Father!" The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God..." and Ephesians 5:8 "for you were formerly darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; walk as children of the Light. We dwell IN HIM. That is a huge truth to understand ... we will never fully understand it, I think. We now understand that we dwell in the LIFE of the SON. We are a new creation in Christ. 2 Cor. 5:17 Patria | ||
| Patriar Registered user Username: Patriar Post Number: 718 Registered: 3-2005 |
River: I love your analogy of not pitching camp in Genesis. Adventist doctrine pitches camp in Exodus quite well, too. I've just been studying Psalm 40 and have been moved by the significance of Jesus as the rock...how He was the rock in the desert that provided the water of life, but the Israelites didn't know that. They only knew they were getting to drink. Then in 1 Cor. 10:1-4 Paul tells us that it was a shadow of Christ. That HE is the rock and the water. Then in John 4, Jesus Himself tells us that He is the Living Water. WHY would we go back to a cupful of water that we don't even fully understand the source of, when we can have the river of LIFE, revealed in the person of Christ and dwelling in us? Patria (Message edited by patriar on May 28, 2008) | ||
| Christo Registered user Username: Christo Post Number: 38 Registered: 2-2008 |
Ramone, River,Patria I understand now, more than ever how wilderness is the dry and barren land, and Christ is the Scapegoat, who went their so we don't have to.I am moved by your insights, and the analogies, concerning Genesis,and Exodus.Truely inspired use of the word wilderness. I'm Pitching my tent in Christ, wherever his big heart desires. Chris | ||
| Asurprise Registered user Username: Asurprise Post Number: 331 Registered: 7-2007 |
I like how my little reference Bible refers Leviticus 16:21 where it's talking about Aaron confessing all the sins of Israel over the head of the live goat "...putting them on the head of the goat..." before it's sent into the wilderness. I like how that refers to Isaiah 53:6 where it says: "...And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all." | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 8185 Registered: 12-2003  |
Ramone, I love your discourse on the Scapegoat and the fact of Jesus being the reality through which we look backward to understand the shadows. I also love the picture including the colors. Patria, I agree with with you. The fact of Jesus being the reality where we have to start and through Whom we experience every part of our lives is true. I am learning that I have to make all my decisions, even little ones that get clouded by emotion or weariness, through seeking to know Truth and to stay in reality instead of letting my head or feelings tell me what is real. Reality is bigger than we can see. I ultimately have to trust God by surrendering to Jesus and asking Him to show me truth and root me reality. And being indwelt by the Holy Spirit means that we are connected to eternity, to Reality—and we can trust God to do His will when we submit. I think I'm babbling...I have trouble putting these ideas/thoughts into words, sometimes. Colleen | ||
| Agapetos Registered user Username: Agapetos Post Number: 1531 Registered: 10-2002 |
Christo, I love what you said: "I'm Pitching my tent in Christ, wherever his big heart desires." Amen! Yes, Jesus! Yes! Wherever You desire! Patria, what you wrote about the rock in the wilderness is right on and I had not thought of it that clearly before -- that they didn't understand the rock completely then. As you began to write of the rock in the wilderness, it occured to me that Adventism would generally see Paul's words as if he was saying that life under Moses is the same as life in the New Testament. They would see it as meaning something like, "Things have not changed." In other words, they would see it as meaning that the Law is still in force for us in Christ. Showing as you did that the "source" was not completely understood, I realize that to look back that way at the old is to actually go back to a place where you can't clearly recognize "where the water is coming from"! In fact, it's like going back to the wilderness... I guess I said that somewhere above, huh. But now it's resonating deeper how going back to life under the Old Covenant Law is choosing to go back into the wilderness and veil the Rock, the source of the water of life. Water can still pour to us there, but it's rarer to come by, and the fountain is not clear. How much more wonderful to live in that Rock, in the source, in Jesus and in His fruitful freedom! Bless you all in Jesus! Ramone | ||
| Agapetos Registered user Username: Agapetos Post Number: 1535 Registered: 10-2002 |
I put up the scapegoat picture and it's explanation on my FAJ blog here, and I added an introduction giving a bit of my Adventist background ("What we didn't know, what we unwittingly declared") -- http://formeradventistjapan.blogspot.com/2008/06/who-is-scapegoat.html Also, I forgot to link here the original thread that had most of my comments (and some others' too) which got this ball a-rollin': http://64.226.233.122/discus/messages/11/7282.html Blessings in Jesus! Ramone | ||
| Agapetos Registered user Username: Agapetos Post Number: 1601 Registered: 10-2002 |
(New link to the earlier thread which got this started in May: http://www.formeradventist.com/discus/messages/11/7336.html?1212337888) | ||
| Agapetos Registered user Username: Agapetos Post Number: 1711 Registered: 10-2002 |
A blogger wrote a short article on Yom Kippur here, which really describes what is meant by "scapegoat" and the process in our hearts that occurs as we make someone a scapegoat: http://scrivenblog.blogspot.com/2007/02/yom-kippur.html What gets me the most is the picture of the goat near the end of the post. It guts me. Blessings in Jesus, who took our sins, our arrows, our darkness! Ramone |
