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Chris
Registered user
Username: Chris
Post Number: 1610
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Monday, September 12, 2011 - 10:24 am: |     |
The SDA logic on this makes very little sense and is inconsistent. SDAs will say something like, "In Revelation 11 the Ark is seen in Heaven. We all know what was in the ark, the ten commandments and we all know that the ten commandments state that the 7th day is to be kept holy. So the fact that the Sabbath commandment is enshrined in Heaven tells us that this is still a requirement for Christians".
There are so many problems with this broken train wreck of logic that it's hard to know where to start. Never mind that they're reading something into the passage that isn't there (eisegesis). Never mind that they haven't developed a similar theology for manna and Aaron's staff (the other items in the ark). Let's just just focus on contextual inconsistency for now. The first part of the chapter talks about the temple, the court yard, and the alter. So using the same string of logic we could say, "In Revelation 11 the temple alter is seen in Heaven. We all know that the alter was where animal sacrifices were carried out. So the fact that the alter is enshrined in Heaven tells us that animal sacrifices are still a requirement for Christians."
Obviously this is nonsense (as SDAs would readily admit). That's not the way to approach a symbol rich passage in a symbolic book that pulls almost exclusively from the OT for its symbols. Handmaiden's analysis of the symbolism here is correct. At the start of the chapter we see that there is still a division among those who do not believe, "gentiles", and those who are of the community of faith and have been brought near to God through the ultimate sacrifice. We then see the holy of holies and the presence of God represented by the ark. We are at once reminded by the distance that we once had from God as well as the reconciliation we now have via the ark's most prominent feature, the mercy seat.
Here's something odd about the SDA view the ark. SDAs tend to think of the ark as the container for the Sabbath commandment. The Bible's focus is very different though. Biblically the focus of the ark has to do with God as a covenant keeping God, the covenant that extended mercy to us via the blood of the lamb (the mercy seat), and the significance of entering into the very presence of God. Biblically, where is the ark ever used as an iconic symbol for Sabbath-keeping? SDAs have developed an abberrant theology around the Sabbath that requires them to read it into nearly every passage even when such a concept is absent from what the passage actually says. |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 12943
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Monday, September 12, 2011 - 3:23 pm: | |
Exactly, Handmaiden and Chris. Underneath all this faulty logic and misuse of symbols and Scripture lies a belief that God is defined by the Law...or perhaps more accurately, the Law defines/reveals God.
Last week I received a series of emails from Tim Jennings, one of the producers of the Good News Tour that has come to the Loma Linda area a couple of times and teaches a bloodless atonement and the "loving God" idea that says Jesus came to show us what a Law-abiding life is like and to make it possible for us to live a law-abiding life, also. He took exception to the Great Controversy article in the last Proclamation, and he finally concluded his email exchange with me by posting a blog about it. I'm going to quote a little bit from one of his emails below:
quote:Regarding your concern about the atonement, full at the cross or not. In order to understand this issue one has to understand how the Roman Church changed God's law, in a nutshell the Roman Church didn't merely change the 10 Commandments (removing 2, splitting 10 and changing the Sabbath), it changed the entire concept of God's law from a natural law upon which life is built (I.e. Laws of health type laws) to imposed, enacted, legislated type of laws like humans impose and to which we must adhere or else get punished by the imposer of law. This change in the idea of God's law led to a complete misinterpretation of the plan of salvation to a legal payment of sin debt to a God who imposed law and must impose penalties for His law.
Adventism was called to challenge this idea and turn the mind back to a Triune God of love, who when creating, created all things to operate in harmony with their character of love. Thus the law of love, upon which all law hangs, the royal law, is a principle of giving, a design template that God created His universe to operate upon. Example, with every breath you freely give away CO2 to the plants and the plants freely give O2 to you, which gives life to both. If you "horde" and selfishly keep your CO2 you will die, not as a infliction for breaking the law of respiration, but as the unavoidable result of being "lawless". This principle of giving is a design template for creation based on God's character of love. Sin is "lawlessness" or deviating from the design God built life to operate upon, selfishness, (keeping all your CO2 and not freely giving). Thus the breaking of the design template, (sin) breaking the "law" results in death, just as the scripture says. God could not save mankind deviant from the way He built life to exist, so Christ came to do for man what man could not do for Himself, fix the deviation in the human being.
Think of it this way, when man sinned did God get changed? Did God's law get changed? Or is God and His law unchangeable? So we agree that when man sinned mankind got changed. Does it make sense then, that Christ's purpose was to change back what had been changed by sin – and that was not God, nor His law, but the very nature and condition of human kind, which no longer operated in harmony with God's design, but was in a terminal condition of selfishness. This is why He became human.
Therefore, in Jesus Christ the human species was saved at the Cross, because of Jesus a human being will always exist. Yet, not every individual human being will be saved, why? Because what Christ achieved at the Cross was remedy to our sin condition and this remedy must be freely accepted by and applied to those who are saved. So all who accept Christ, open their heart/mind and the Holy Spirit comes and recreates in them a new heart and right spirit, restoring God's law of love again into humanity. The is the new convenient, "I will write my law on your hearts and minds" Heb 8:10. This is only possible because of what Christ has done at Calvary. Therefore, after calvary, it was expedient to send the spirit, "who would take" all Christ achieved and "make it known" to us. In other words, He would take Christ's perfection and reproduce it in us, thus "it is no longer I that live but Christ lives in me." We "become partakers of the divine nature" and receive "the mind of Christ." This is a real, literal, actual experience in the one who trusts in Christ. This is the message of Adventism. And it is not the legal fiction of legal penalty being paid at the Cross to an offended God.
I know--his writing is convoluted and hard to follow--because his thinking and theology are quite muddled. He MUST explain away the significance of the atonement and keep the law central.
Here's the bottom line with Adventism: Law = God. In their framework, if a person "accepts Jesus" and serves Him, he will find the law has become accessible to him and within his ability to obey. Jesus was all about preserving and vindicating the Law...which translates into God.
Adventism cannot even think about God without assigning Law to that thought about Him. They have created a straw-man argument: that the Law reveals God's character. They COMPLETELY ignore the fact that Scripture tells us that JESUS was the revelation of God's character. Oh, they will say He came to "show us the Father". Tim Jennings would say Jesus came to show us how loving God is.
But Jesus didn't come primarily to show us any THING. He came to shed His blood for human sin and to ransom us from death. By doing this singular act of justice and mercy, He demonstrated the depth of God's love...but that demonstration was not the primary reason He died. He died because if He didn't, sin would continue to destroy His creation. Sin put creation into bondage, and it destroyed the LIfe that had been God's gift to humanity. Jesus died to take the consequences of sin in order to redeem and release His entire creation in general and His human creatures specifically.
Adventism has made a literal graven image out of the Law. To them it defines God, reveals God, and shows us how to be like and to please God. They have not only made an idol out of law but have assigned God the role of the being the one who created the idol.
The twisted heresy and blasphemy underlying Adventism is chilling.
Colleen |
Jeremy
Registered user
Username: Jeremy
Post Number: 3807
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Monday, September 12, 2011 - 4:46 pm: | |
Colleen,
Wow. So are these "Good News" liberal Adventists actually teaching sinless perfectionism (historic Adventism)??
By the way, I noticed that Jennings wrote: "Adventism was called to challenge this idea and turn the mind back to a Triune God of love, who when creating, created all things to operate in harmony with their character of love."
"...a Triune God...their character..." I'm always amazed at how their heresy forces them to have a "grammatically incorrect theology"!
Jeremy |
Gcfrankie
Registered user
Username: Gcfrankie
Post Number: 821
Registered: 1-2007
| | Posted on Monday, September 12, 2011 - 5:23 pm: | |
Jim, I what I was refering to was that sda teaches by taking texts out of context to make their teaching believable. We need to be very careful when we read the bible that these aweful teachings we were taught do not get into the way of what the bible is really saying. If you come across something in the bible you do not understand maybe it is not the right time to know that. It is not important to know everything. God will let you know what you need to know. |
Agapetos
Registered user
Username: Agapetos
Post Number: 2066
Registered: 10-2002
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - 1:04 am: | |
Ok, I don't come in here often but looked at this just because... well, whatever, it doesn't matter now.
As I looked through this thread, I just became tired of people tossing Jim02 around here and there, trying to "correct" him. Yes, he sounds confused, and we sound like there is something wrong with him for "not getting it". Jim opens himself over and over asking questions, and a flurry of answers comes from here and there, tossing him to and fro like waves, along with messages of why he's wrong and not looking at things right or still in SDA thinking or whatever.
I'm not accusing anyone, because hey, we just do this to people here all the time. Jim just happens to have stuck around to keep getting tossed around. If someone is confused about information, does it really help to heap and pile on more and more information?! I think he doesn't need to become an expert on performing the routine and repeated autopsy on the dead carcass of SDA that gets performed here over and over and over.
You know what? I don't care if Jim gets all the information and doctrines correct. I don't care if he recognizes all the various hues and shades of deception in Adventism. I don't care if he figures everything out and sees things that way everyone else does. I just want peace for him from all the confusion. I want him to have rest. I want him to know he's loved. |
Chris
Registered user
Username: Chris
Post Number: 1611
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - 11:26 am: | |
Ramone,
Of course every person here wants Jim, and every person seeking understanding, to be complete in Christ first and foremost. Jim asks some good questions that deserve solid answers and he is not the only one asking them. These questions are thrown about by current SDAs every day. This particular approach related to the ark in Revelation 11 has been posed by no less than the editor of Adventist Today, Andy Nash. In the right hands it can sound quite meaningful and cause fear in the hearts of many formers or transitioning SDAs. Because of this, it deserves an answer. It quickly loses it's power to create fear when one realizes that it only initially sounds logical to us because most of us have been conditioned since childhood to think a certain way and accept illogical presuppositions almost without thought. When one realizes how shaky and illogical some of the stuff being tossed about by Nash, Goldstein and others is, the fear is dispelled. Lots of people read these threads that never post so we should never underestimate the value of solid, factual answers and good apologetics. |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 12946
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - 2:34 pm: | |
Moreover, the Adventists claims are subtly morphing and becoming increasingly "plausible" sounding...all without ever changing the bottom line of Adventist beliefs.
When people wrestle with Adventism, it's hard to know where information and trust overlap. I know for a fact that I couldn't place my trust completely in the gospel until I had my facts ironed out regarding the new covenant. The trust and information factors travelled together in my initial questioning. I couldn't fully trust the gospel until I understood the facts, and ironically, I couldn't fully understand the facts until I trusted the gospel.
I had to start with the assumption that Scripture was completely reliable, that if there was confusion in my mind, it was not Scripture's fault. I had to stand on something. Then I had to let go of Ellen. I couldn't just say she wasn't a prophet; I had to admit she was a false prophet and could in no tiny way be trusted.
Only then could I begin to internalize the truth of the gospel.
My concern for Jim (pardon me, Jim, for speaking of you as a third party...) is that he is not yet certain on what foundation he can plant himself. As long as Jim (or anyone else) continues to "look back" at Adventism and its literature, it will not be possible to understand the iconoclastic power of the gospel.
So we continue to address the factual questions, as Chris stated, because a great many people read here who never post...and Jim's questions are not unique. The confusion will only end when we choose to believe what is true...and God's word has the track record, not EGW or other authors.
I know I sound like a narrow-minded fundy, but I know this to be true. God's word is the only sure source of truth...and all of us are precarious until we place our faith in God alone and trust His word.
Jim's questions are the questions we all ask as we begin to question; we have to address them because Jim is not the only one reading.
Colleen |
Asurprise
Registered user
Username: Asurprise
Post Number: 2112
Registered: 7-2007
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - 6:16 pm: | |
Hi Ramone;
I agree with Chris and Colleen that Jim (and all others reading) deserves answers to his questions. You must not have been following too closely or you would have seen that Jim said he would consider joining the SDA church again if it wasn't for their pro-abortion stance. That and the questions he's been asking show that he doesn't understand Jesus' Free Gift of salvation. Once he understands that, it wouldn't matter what else he didn't understand because he would be saved. Salvation is the basic thing and we're patiently and lovingly answering him and praying for him until he understands that!
Jim; keep asking your questions! |
Jim02
Registered user
Username: Jim02
Post Number: 1307
Registered: 5-2007
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - 6:44 pm: | |
Dear Asurprise,
That is teh problem, In one view angle, it appears that Christ entirely stands for us.
But in another view of scriptures, we appear to have a concerted effort of works to do.
Putting away sin by our part of the effrot which includes discipline, overcoming, fighting to resist the devil and all those elements.
Grant you they do not change the heart, but it does appear that we are to accomplish these human efforts nonetheless.
There is a merge of these concepts and I am not sure whre the sequence or boundries between them are. Not sure of any if that. That has been part of the rebuilding process. Undoing the SDA models and yet not giving license to sin.
In a more straight forward concern, growing in grace , how to acquire that connection taht makes a true change in one's nature.
Hi Lynn, Thank you.
I have ordered that book by Pastor Joseph Prince. He is hard to understand , but after awhile , I was able to learn his accent enough to follow along. He speaks very fast.
Hello Handmaiden, Hi Chris,
The Ark took me back , made me wonder.
Seems like it is a whole additional study.
The Mercy seat is above all. But what is in the ark? I am studying Galatians, But this discovery is something I feel I need to at least be aware of.
Colleen, the things you have summated about the SDA mindset may be true. But I am not sure how to frame it myself. I think the SDA tend to look at the admonitions far more direct than most. I have no idea how to bear up under that, but I still wonder how far off they are on that point.
Gcfranke, Yes , I get your point. Out of context. That has been where most of my weariness has come from. having to verify/disprove all the assumptions.
Agapetos, Taking a deep breath........
Thank You.
Colleen,
"I couldn't place my trust completely in the gospel until I had my facts ironed out regarding the new covenant."
I could not have said it better !
Asurprise, You keep saying I am not saved.
That is most discouraging. How will I know I am saved if not already?
Is there a test, feelings, levels of peace, knowledge,.......I have to cling to salvation by opinion.
God's redemption does not cover confusion?
Not being rude, please know that. You are a good friend to me.
Jim |
Ric_b
Registered user
Username: Ric_b
Post Number: 1190
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - 7:12 pm: | |
Is salvation by faith plus having the correct understanding of a minimum number of doctrines?
Or perhaps described differently, does our proper understanding of God's Word produce our faith which results in our salvation?
Or
Does the gift of faith result in our salvation which is accompanied by the Holy Spirit which brings about our understanding of God's Word?
Jim, there are "views of Scripture" but there are also the plain direct words of Scripture. When you keep focusing on reading what other people say about Scripture you are looking at the views of Scripture. When you separate yourself from all the outside influences and determine to believe what you read in His Word, even when it doesn't make sense you can begin that transition from following people (however godly), to following God's Word. It is easier said than done. We have been fed mountains of people's "views" and sometimes it is hard to take apart what is a view and what is being said. Read the NT epistles like the letters that they are, instead of looking for a verse here or there that fits with a person's "view". |
Ric_b
Registered user
Username: Ric_b
Post Number: 1191
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - 7:17 pm: | |
BTW, I asked the questions that I did not as a criticism of anyone's post, but as a challenge to how each of us really views salvation by faith alone. What or Who must we have faith in? Does that faith have to be manifested through certain actions or behaviors in order to be true faith? Sometimes our new view of salvation by faith isn't that different from the SDA view except that we have replaced the Sabbath with a different item. What would it look like if we fully embraced the "alone"?
Consider it for a little while before you flame me. |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 12949
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - 7:34 pm: | |
Well said, Rick. We have to read Scripture like the letters they are, whether we understand them or not. Just read them. They speak on their own.
Colleen |
Christo
Registered user
Username: Christo
Post Number: 275
Registered: 2-2008
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - 7:51 pm: | |
I'll say it again, don't just read the scriptures but hear the scriptures. Scripture says that "Faith comes by hearing". It's changed my life.
I always like the way Alexander Scourbey reads the KJV, not the dramatized one, but the word by word one. you can listen to a whole book of the Bible in 20 or 30 minutes, and you can listen to one book over, and over again, and each time something else can move you, or bring understanding.
Alexander Scourbey was a Shakespearian Actor so he reads King james English really well. No stumbling over words.
Unfortunately, the Christian community at large reads or listens to more Bible commentary, than they do actual scripture. : ( |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 12952
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - 10:21 pm: | |
Christo, that is really good advice, too. Listening to Scripture being read is very powerful. There are also good audio recordings of other translations of the Bible, too, including NIV, ESV, etc.
Colleen |
Bskillet
Registered user
Username: Bskillet
Post Number: 850
Registered: 8-2008
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 14, 2011 - 10:04 am: | |
quote:There are so many problems with this broken train wreck of logic that it's hard to know where to start.
As well, Chris, the Bible never says the Ten Commandments are in an ark in HEAVEN, only that they were in the Ark of the Covenant on earth. Adventists have to create some scenario somehow where they were spirited away up to heaven, something found nowhere in the Bible. |
Jim02
Registered user
Username: Jim02
Post Number: 1308
Registered: 5-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 14, 2011 - 2:52 pm: | |
Hi Colleen,
You wrote:
he is not yet certain on what foundation he can plant himself. As long as Jim (or anyone else) continues to "look back" at Adventism and its literature, it will not be possible to understand the iconoclastic power of the gospel.
J: I have attempted to restart, and as most of us know, comprehension is affected by predispositions and SDA filters.
I agree with Ric_b, the aim is to read it all new and with unfiltered common sense, plain receptive comprehension, paying attention to what it actually says.
Remove the redefines, the spins, the insertions and substitutions of outside sources.
Then after the initial reading and basic comprehension, see what can be connected in harmony using the same rules.
The prior constructs of theology have been the hardest thing to undo and start over.
It may be that they (SDA) got at least some of it right, maybe very little. So , that foundation to plant myself on clearly must be independant of SDA, EGW or any other Non Biblical source.
What do you mean by iconoclastic? |
Asurprise
Registered user
Username: Asurprise
Post Number: 2115
Registered: 7-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 14, 2011 - 3:22 pm: | |
Jim; the reason I tend to think you're not saved, is because you keep questioning what you have to do to be saved! If you knew that all you had to do was accept Jesus as your Savior, it seems to me you would have done it. That's why I think that. Those books in the Bible that were letters written to churches, are to believers, urging them to obey God, etc. not to unbelievers. The believers were already saved - notice such statements written to them, such as "In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory." Ephesians 1:13-14 and:
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 and:
"He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy..." Titus 3:5 (A couple verses earlier in verse two, Christians are urged "to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people." (First couple of verses in this chapter.) So it's obvious that the Christians being written to here, weren't saved by these things they were urged to do! They had ALREADY been saved!
"...your sins are forgiven for His name's sake." 1st John 2:12
Jim; especially notice what I wrote about Titus 3. Again, the recipients of this letter, already Christians, were being urged to be good, yet they had already been saved! Notice the past tense: "He saved us." Even pastors today urge Christians to "act" like Christians. Where they go wrong, is when they say (like "good" SDA pastors - and other cult pastors - do) that they'd better be good or else they'll be lost! |
Jim02
Registered user
Username: Jim02
Post Number: 1310
Registered: 5-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 14, 2011 - 5:44 pm: | |
Asurprise,
"Even pastors today urge Christians to "act" like Christians. Where they go wrong, is when they say (like "good" SDA pastors - and other cult pastors - do) that they'd better be good or else they'll be lost! "
Good point, and to this end. I need to arrive at the same conclusions you have.
Saved as in past tense, unconditionaly, permanetly. Is this indeed biblically sound?
I am not sure as yet.
I may have to read it a hundred times to let it sink in. |
Asurprise
Registered user
Username: Asurprise
Post Number: 2118
Registered: 7-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 14, 2011 - 5:55 pm: | |
Here's a verse Jim. If you were one of the people this was addressed to (and indeed you are if you've accepted Jesus); would you KNOW you had been saved?
"For by grace you have been saved through faith." Ephesians 2:8 |
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