| Author | Message | ||
| Jim02 Registered user Username: Jim02 Post Number: 1282 Registered: 5-2007 |
I completed a book today on the subject of healing. The last chapter spoke about obedience as the precursor to authority or power from God towards healing. It aimed this aspect more toward the one exercising the authority. The one administering the healing. It also discussed in the book that healing one who is sick was not preceeded by an inquiry as to whether they were without sin or in some other way disqualified. They were simply healed. So by the SDA mentality, I was thinking about the the idea of obedience, and how it appears that everything goes back to this. Wherein is the practical truth. If we obey, what are we obeying? The law? A standard, The Spirit? Jeremiah 7:23 New International Version (NIV) 23 but I gave them this command: Obey me, and I will be your God and you will be my people. Walk in obedience to all I command you, that it may go well with you. Romans 1:5 Through him we received grace and apostleship to call all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith for his name’s sake. Romans 6:16 Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? 2 Corinthians 10:6 And we will be ready to punish every act of disobedience, once your obedience is complete. 2 John 1:6 And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love. J: There is that word again, commands....... Obedience ? Through faith? How does that work? I am not sure I understand the context or even the definition of obedience in faith. When I think of obedience, I think of the law. Is there a different content of obedience for the Christian understanding? | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 12916 Registered: 12-2003  |
Jim, this is the most prevalent confusion I know among those who freshly leave Adventism. "Obedience", in the context of the NT and the church, is never about "salvation". The commands to "obey" are given not to the unsaved but to the saved. The saved are literally in Christ instead of in Adam. Because they are in Christ and the Holy Spirit is in them, God Himself is who they obey. The law was fulfilled in Jesus. When we receive Him and are born again, we no longer have any use whatsoever for the law because the Author of the law is INSIDE us. If you go on vacation and I am going to water your yard while you're gone, you may leave me a detailed list of places that need watering and the amount of water each plant needs. Your instructions to me also state that when you get back, you will be installing and using an automatic watering system, so there will be no more need for your list of instructions. But until you return, I've got to carry out your written instructions, or everything will die and I will be responsible for forgetting your trust in me and disrespecting your property and your requirements for my acting as your representative in keeping your yard alive. Well, you FINALLY return, and sure enough...within a week of your arrival, you have had an automatic watering system installed that does a much more thorough and comprehensive job than my hand-watering did as I followed your list. But let's say that in spite of your return, your physical presence taking charge of your yard, and your automatic watering system, I insist that I have to continue to water your yard using that list of instructions. You tell me, "Hey, I've fulfilled the requirement of that list way better than you could by following it! The yard is getting watered more and better with this whole-yard electronic watering system! Please, don't keep coming here with that list and hosing those individual plants! The watering is being done...I've taken care of it! You're no longer responsible!" But I say, "I am committed to doing what you asked me to do. I want to obey your instructions to me...I'm glad you're back and I love your automated system and your amazing yard, but I want to PLEASE you! I WILL obey your instructions to me!" And you say to me, "How is it that you aren't hearing me? I AM HERE NOW!!! I'm watering the yard better than you ever could. Please, if you desire to please me, STOP trying to do the watering! Obey my new command to you: enjoy my provision for my yard and for you! Rest in my accommodations! Enjoy ME! I'm here now, and I'm taking care of everything! If you want to "obey" me, STOP going back to my instructions to you that I gave you before I came back and BEFORE I took care of the watering problem permanently!" Jim, that list of watering instructions is the law. That automated watering system is Jesus' fulfillment of the law...He provides for everything on that list but WAY more and WAY better and WAY more efficiently than the list allowed me to do it! Let the law go, if you know Jesus. If you are in Him, if He has come to you and given you His Spirit, the law is obsolete, like a will that has been fulfilled and the assets disbursed when the trustor died. Jesus died--the law—His will—has been fulfilled, and the assets are distributed: His blood has paid for your sin, and His life has brought you back from the dead. The law is obsolete because Jesus has fulfilled everything in it. "Obedience" is for the saved...and it is not obedience to the law. It is obedience to GOD HIMSELF. He WROTE the law. How can the law be as great as God? It can't! It was temporary and given to a particular group of people for a specific purpose. It's not eternal and all-powerful. Only GOD is. He is the one who is holy. It is God we obey...by honoring the "law of Christ". His new command was that we love one another as He loved us...sacrificially, willing to die for the salvation of another. This love is only possible when we have been born again. Colleen | ||
| Jim02 Registered user Username: Jim02 Post Number: 1285 Registered: 5-2007 |
It is God we obey...by honoring the "law of Christ". His new command was that we love one another as He loved us...sacrificially J: Do you think this is the whole command, nothing else? The commands of God in Rev. is plural. I know of the two Love commands. Is that all? Do they sum up everything? Is there no other responsibility regarding assurance of salvation? | ||
| Loneviking Registered user Username: Loneviking Post Number: 836 Registered: 7-2000 |
Yes...they 'sum up' everything. You seem to have finally 'got it'! | ||
| Skeeter Registered user Username: Skeeter Post Number: 1614 Registered: 12-2007  |
Jim02 "Is there no other responsibility regarding assurance of salvation?" Jesus Christ IS our assurance of salvation  He DID it, He said it, BELIEVE it | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 12921 Registered: 12-2003 |
Our obedience has nothing at all to do with the assurance of our salvation. If we cannot be saved by works, we cannot be lost by works. The one fatal, eternal sin is unbelief. If we believe in the Lord Jesus and place our faith in Him and His eternal sacrifice, then we are saved and counted righteous because God credits Jesus' righteousness to us. Even the loving one another does not contribute to our salvation status. It is the evidence that we are saved...but it does not ensure us our salvation. No one keeps the commandments of God unless He is born again...and then God credits Jesus' perfect obedience to our account. Colleen | ||
| Raven Registered user Username: Raven Post Number: 1195 Registered: 7-2004  |
I'd like to add that even born again Christians will not love one another perfectly at all times. So when we fail at what we are supposed to be known for, that is not evidence we are not saved. However, born again Christians will desire to love one another perfectly and will recognize/be repentant at failures. See Romans 7:14-25. That's why it all comes down to belief in Jesus and that we will always need His righteousess credited to us. | ||
| Cloudwatcher Registered user Username: Cloudwatcher Post Number: 572 Registered: 5-2009  |
Colleen, I love that watering example.... *mind spinning* | ||
| Asurprise Registered user Username: Asurprise Post Number: 2082 Registered: 7-2007 |
Jim; the ONLY way for you to be saved, is to accept Jesus' work in your behalf. That doesn't mean to partly accept His work. That's what I'm afraid you're doing, because you are continually worrying about what YOU have to do! It's like you're saying: "Yes, I know that He died for my sins, but what do I have to do?" That's what Adventists, Catholics, Mormons, Muslims and J. Witnesses do. They are convinced that some part of it is up to them. They don't believe that what Jesus did is enough. Until you completely put your weight down on what Jesus did - I mean KNOW that none of your stuff i.e. works, attitudes, behavior, thoughts - any of it - counts toward obtaining or maintaining salvation; you won't be saved. | ||
| Jim02 Registered user Username: Jim02 Post Number: 1288 Registered: 5-2007 |
Pastor Jermiah said on the radio last week, That when one falls from grace he is not lost. Colleen you said that SDA do not have salvation in so many words. They reach a different Gospel. I take it that you meant they are like the leagalsit in Paul's day. All the years I was in SDA, Christ was always the center. Mind you they added in works. Are you saying SDA are lost even though they may have by error fallen from grace? Did they as individuals fail the test, an unpardonable sin? God cannot save them? | ||
| Jim02 Registered user Username: Jim02 Post Number: 1289 Registered: 5-2007 |
Sorry for the typos. I invert letters and miss them. It's this keyboard, yeah that' sthe problem ! | ||
| Asurprise Registered user Username: Asurprise Post Number: 2083 Registered: 7-2007 |
Jim; yes, when a person accepts Jesus' finished work, they are then saved, and they cannot become unsaved. But when I was an Adventist, I couldn't ACCEPT Jesus' finished work! Therefore I wasn't saved. The truth of the Bible stared me in the face each time I opened it, but I couldn't see it because I was blinded by Ellen White's words, where she wrote that a person can't say they are saved (despite the direct contradictions to that in Ephesians 2:8,9 and other verses!) Everywhere one turns in the Adventist church there is that insecurity - the investigative judgement, works, etc. When I learned that the SDA church was false, then I was able to BELIEVE the words of the Bible! Colleen gave a perfect example in her story about the yard. Here's a verse that says the same thing. "But in fact the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is mediator is superior to the old one, since the new covenant is established on better promises." Hebrews 8:6 | ||
| Thegoldenway Registered user Username: Thegoldenway Post Number: 110 Registered: 5-2011 |
So unbelief in Jesus' completed/finished work is the sin. So basically all SDA's are living in sin. Or anyone who doesn't accept Jesus' finished work on their behalf are living in sin....are not saved. So the sin that we need to be careful of getting tangled up in is the sin of unbelief. This is so weird....cuz I remember sitting in a SS class and the topic of people saying they are saved came up. Everyone in that class couldn't say they were saved. Then there was me...hehe I just shocked the entire class when I said "If I were to die this afternoon, I know that I would be saved. Not because I am a good person but only because of Jesus." You should have seen the looks on all their faces....it was priceless! At that time, I didn't even really understand what I was saying....it just came out of my mouth. At that time I was still very much tangled up in SDA doctrine.....but yet some how in my experience while still SDA I had received the baptism of the Holy Spirit....I was born again. That is quite the story in of itself. But apparently the Spirit was teaching me things that my mind wasn't quite grasping yet but my spirit was. So even back then even tho it was just my spirit, I had an understanding of the true gospel. But at the same time it really revealed the true heart of those SDA's in class. They didn't accept or believe in Jesus' finished work so they couldn't say they were saved. They never can say they are saved....because their unbelief is holding them back. It really is all about believing in Jesus' finished work! So simple.....hmmmmmmm but so beautiful and complete thank you, Jesus!!!! lynn | ||
| Jim02 Registered user Username: Jim02 Post Number: 1291 Registered: 5-2007 |
What type of verses can I safely delete from the NT? The ones that no longer apply. Admonitions and warnings I need to be concerned about? Just a few examples so I know them when I read them. I still feel we are putting words in their mouths concerning their relationship in Christ. What they are more likely guilty of is trying to incorporate the whole teachings of the NT. They may have gone off track perhaps. But they do in fact depend upon Christ. If we are judging other servants of God because they may have a weak conscience, I think we are the ones off the track. Scripture says God is able to make them stand. (despite their possible error or confusion) . I have never met and adventist who did not rely upon Christ for their redemptive salvation. There are plenty of examples of where they get their attitude from. Again, please list the ones we can safely ignore. For example: Romans 2: 7 To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. Works as a way of life, by persistence to obtain eternal life. You don't see the implication here? 3:31 Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law. J: This one means , we acknowledge that the law proved us sinners, but no longer applies. We are not upholding law, we are upholding what ??? 6:15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? By no means! J: This sounds like more works to me. My point is , the SDA see a more direct application to the efforts and disciplines of walking in faith. They do not conclude once saved if a person falls back into sin. I am still unsure about this myself. Again, one side ignores half the information and so does the other side. Are we so absolutely certain that we understand the truth that we now have the authority to pronouce other Christians as saved or unsaved? Scary. Jim | ||
| Thegoldenway Registered user Username: Thegoldenway Post Number: 111 Registered: 5-2011 |
Jim, I know I can only speak for myself here...but from my experience I don't need to judge whether SDA's are saved or not....They have already judged themselves. They are the ones who say they don't know they are saved. I would love to see them understand that Jesus really does have their salvation secured....but the ones I know don't want that assurance cuz it contradicts what EGW says in her writings. In fact that is what several in that SS school class brought up...that EGW quote that states that we are never to say we are saved. Jim, it really is true....Jesus is enough. And it's Jesus only. Have you ever listened to Lee Venden? I just listened to one of his cds entitled "Is Jesus enough?" A friend lent me this cd. I have to admit that his message was pretty much on target. I don't know how you would be able to get a hold of this cd....maybe if you google it or something you'd be able to find it. I think you would get a lot out of it tho....I know I did. It is actually part of a seminar series he put on at Anchor Point Church. I know that I may possibly get flack from some others for recommending this but I truly believe that there are still people in the SDA church who really do get it but for some reason or another haven't left yet. But I am not their judge....and that is something between them and God. As far as the NT and even the OT is concerned....none of it should be discarded. but rather we are admonished to rightly divide the Word. The division point would be the cross of Jesus Christ. On this side of the cross we need to see the entire bible thru the lens of the cross and Jesus' completed work. We need to renew our minds and have a cross/resurrection perspective when it comes to the Word and even life in general. Jim, don't be in a rush....just give the Holy Spirit time to work in you. He who started a good work in you will bring it to completion.... This is the Lord's work and He is faithful and true and never leaves anything unfinished. He will finish what He has started with you....with all of us lynn | ||
| Got2bfree Registered user Username: Got2bfree Post Number: 4 Registered: 7-2011 |
Jim, you said, "I have never met an adventist who did not rely upon Christ for their redemptive salvation." Question: Whom do those SDAs say Christ is? Is it the Christ of Scripture? Is it the Christ whose work was completed at the cross? If anyone is relying on a false Christ for their salvation, can we really say that they are relying on Jesus the Messiah for their redemptive salvation? | ||
| Jim02 Registered user Username: Jim02 Post Number: 1292 Registered: 5-2007 |
Hi Lynn, I remain hopeful that God will make a way and that clarity will come. I become defensive when anyone sumarily judges other people who call upon Christ for salvation. If salvation is based upon how smart we are in deciphering theology, then I have no hope and I doubt few of us would. I am willing to consider that it is very likely that the SDA have serious errors in many of their teachings and beliefs. Nonetheless, they do look to Christ wholeheartedly. Their belief is that they take many passages regarding obedience , repentance and putting away sin as a personal and agressive responsibility. They consider the warnings all throughout the NT as objective issues that must be dealt with. This is how they get into endless works and that is where I do see many problems. In many of the books I had read while SDA, I saw many similar if not the same teaching lines of thought I see here. But they have just as much confusion in tying it together as I experience here. (Yeah, maybe it is just me) Got2bfree I will simply say, in over three decades of SDA , I have always seen the same Christ I see spoken of in scripture among the SDA. The fact that the SDA are works focused does not make them non Christian. I suppose Catholics, Baptists and other Conservative Christians all believe in a false gospel too. I am not arguing for works based salvation here. My point is , if we can be lost on a technicality of error in theology, especially in the face of passage after passage of practical admonitions against sin, then being honestly in error is apparently the unpardonable sin. Please quote me the passage where condemnation is upon those in honest error? If God covers true believers inability to keep the law. Then it follows He covers the rest of us for our past, present and future inability to get it theologically right. Jim | ||
| Jeremy Registered user Username: Jeremy Post Number: 3795 Registered: 10-2004  |
Jim, You must keep Romans 2:7 within the context in which it is found--namely, the first 2 1/2 chapters of Romans which have the purpose of showing that there is no hope of salvation for anyone, whether Jew or Gentile. See Paul's summary in Romans 3:9, and the following verses. Jeremy (Message edited by Jeremy on September 05, 2011) | ||
| Asurprise Registered user Username: Asurprise Post Number: 2084 Registered: 7-2007 |
Jim; did you read that the law condemns the unsaved and that once you've DIED to the law -written by Handmaiden and which is in the Bible [New Covenant] (who was the one whom the Lord used to bring me and four other Seventh-day Adventists to the Lord!!!! ...AND KEPT several other OUT of that religion!) - so Jim are you saved? If you aren't saved, THEN you are under the law! | ||
| Asurprise Registered user Username: Asurprise Post Number: 2086 Registered: 7-2007 |
Jim; Got2bfree has a point. You said: "I will simply say, in over three decades of SDA , I have always seen the same Christ I see spoken of in scripture among the SDA." Are you kidding?!?! How did you miss that? I didn't miss that when I was an Adventist. I believed in a "Jesus" that didn't finish the atonement, that left a bunch of it up to my works, is having to investigate everybody and will leave the "righteous without a mediator" for a time in the end. The Jesus of the Bible did the WHOLE atonement. Read Hebrews 10:10 & 14 Verse 10: "By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." Verse 14: "For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified." As long as you think you have stuff you HAVE TO DO to be saved, you have not accepted His free gift and you have not been filled with His Spirit "WHO IS THE GUARANTEE OF OUR INHERITANCE" Ephesians 1:13-14. And Jesus NEVER STOPS INTERCEDING FOR US! Hebrews 7:25. Have you noticed how Adventists ignore that? And in the same verse it says that Jesus can "save to the uttermost those who come to God." |
