| Author | Message | ||
| Raven Registered user Username: Raven Post Number: 435 Registered: 7-2004  |
In a recent women's Bible study at our church, we were going through John 20 and discussing the part about Mary clinging to Jesus. I was glad others didn't automatically have a certain answer about why Mary couldn't touch Jesus, but a few verses later Jesus tells Thomas to touch Him. I decided to tell them the only two views I've ever heard. Almost immediately I realized the standard view I heard growing up must be distinctly SDA and probably comes from EGW. Here is the verse, John 20:17 (NASB)
I was trying to explain the way SDA's do, that Jesus still needed to apply the blood of His sacrifice up in Heaven, and then the next time He appeared to the disciples He had already done that, so it was ok for Thomas, or anyone, to touch Him. One of the ladies said, "Ok, I'm trying to picture this. Up, down. Up, down. No, that doesn't work." It was one of those moments again where I felt really stupid for ever thinking it could be that way! Then I explained the view I've seen posted on here before, that Jesus was just saying not to cling to Him because He wasn't gone yet, He'd be around awhile longer. They liked that one better. Later, I looked it up in the Clear Word, because if it was changed to read the SDA way, it's probably from EGW. This is how it reads in the Clear Word:
Then I started wondering why it's so important for SDA's to teach this way. I would say the main reason is because it's "proof" that Jesus hadn't gone to heaven yet and therefore He couldn't have meant "Today you will be with me in paradise" to the thief on the cross. Any other ideas on why SDA's want this interpretation? Why do they think Jesus had to apply His sacrifice up in Heaven before He could interact with anyone on earth? If that's true, wouldn't He have known exactly when Mary was going to come around and Jesus would have already done what He needed to do a little earlier? Or if Mary touching Him contaminated Jesus and would interfere with the application of the perfect sacrifice as I've heard alluded to before, then by saying "Stop clinging to me" doesn't that say Mary had already touched him? Then that would be a problem and you'd think Jesus would be more careful than that to let the perfect sacrifice get contaminated. It's almost like the way SDA's say it happened was a mistake and wasn't supposed to work that way. I looked in several study Bible commentaries, and none of them had the SDA explanation. | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 3829 Registered: 12-2003  |
Raven, what an interesting exchange! Wow, I know that feeling of suddenly realizing, in front of others(!), that you had just said something illogicalóand realizing in a flash that it had come from Ellen! I think you've gotten to the bottom line of this problem when you said SDA's couldn't have an explanation that suggested that Jesus had somehow interacted with the Father before His resurrection. Further, because Adventism tries to make a step-by-step parallel between Jesus and the Jewish Day of Atonement sacrifice, they had to have Jesus physically taking his "blood" (how, don't ask me!) to the Father just as the high priest physically took the sacrifice's blood into the Most Holy Place. They interpret this verse to mean that Jesus was talking about that ceremonial presentation of sacrificial blood to God. As one thinks about it, the logic of this SDA position is shaky; if Jesus' blood hadn't done its "work" already, the curtain could not have ripped upon His death, and frankly Jesus could not have risen from the dead. It was His shed blood that made it possible for death to be overcome, because death is the curse of sin. I think this problem is especially complex because Adventism understands sin to be related to actual physical reality instead of to a spiritual reality that is unseen to us. Just as, to them, sin is about flawed flesh without an understanding of dead spirits, even so Jesus' atonement had to be about physical presentation instead of about a spiritual reality occurring at the point of Jesus' death which we can neither see nor fully grasp. They have to have a logical, physical explanation for a mystery which God has not revealed to us but which he has hinted at through the shadows of the old covenant and the reality of Jesus' death. So, yes--I think you've really figured out the main reason SDAs explain this the way they do: they couldn't have any hint of Jesus interacting with the Father before the resurrection, and also they couldn't live with the mystery of the atonement without trying to explain it physically. Colleen | ||
| Jwd Registered user Username: Jwd Post Number: 204 Registered: 4-2005  |
Ladd's Theology of the N.T. says "Jesus is merely reassuring her that he is to be with her and the other disciples for a brief period before he leaves them to return to the Father." Heb 9:12 speaks of Christ having entered the heavenly sanctuary "through his own blood." Unfortunately the RSV and UNASB say "he entered", taking not the blood of goats and calves but his own blood. While Aaron certainly carried the sacrificial blood into the holy of holies, but the author of Heb. deliberatly avoids saying that Christ carried His own blood into the heavenly sanctuary. Even as a symbolic expression this is open to objection. There have been expositors who, pressing the analogy of the Day of Atonement beyond the limits observed by the author of Heb, have argued that the expiatory work of Christ was not completed on the cross - - not completed, indeed, until He ascended from earth and "made atonement" 'for us' in the heavenly holy of holies by the presentation of His efficacious blood. K.M. Monroe in his article "Time Element in the Atonement" warns against "basing doctrines on types, instead of using types to illustrate securely based doctrines." F.F. Bruce says "...while it was necessary under the old covenant for the sacrificial blood first to be shed in the court and then to be brought into the holy of holies, no such division of our Lord's sacrifice into two phases is envisaged under the new covenant." Christ accomplished on the cross in reality what Aaron and his successors performed in type. The Anglican Article XXXI speaks rightly "of the one oblation of Christ finished upon the cross." And then "through his own blood" - that is, by virtue of the infinitely acceptable oblation of His life - - He could appear before God, not on sufferance but by right, as His people's prevailing representative and high priest. Bruce again writes: "...but Christ entered in once for all, to be enthroned there in perpetuity, because the redeption procurred by Him is perfect in nature and eternal in effect." All we can say is Praise God. All Glory to God for what God's sovereign grace has accomplished for us in Christ, as well as our freedom from the error teachings of Adventism. | ||
| Doc Registered user Username: Doc Post Number: 207 Registered: 2-2003 |
Hello Raven, I have heard the teaching that Jesus ascended and came back again before he appeared to the disciples from other sources, and not SDA. In fact, we were discussing this in my Christology Bible college class the other day. We are getting to the end of the course, to Jesus' ministry at the present time, following the ascension. I can't remember where or when I heard this, but the idea was that Jesus went to heaven and came back with the Holy Spirit because in John 20: 22 he gave the Holy Spirit to the disciples. I actually think this idea is incorrect, one reason being the way that the Greek text is worded. John 20: 17 says, "I have not yet returned to the Father." The Greek is, "oupÛ gar anabebÈka pros ton patera." The expression "I have not yet gone up" is in the Greek perfect tense, which in the same way as the English perfect expresses an action in the past which is still valid in the present. So Jesus is telling Mary that she need not hang onto him as he has not yet finally and permanently gone up to heaven, and he is not about to do so immediately, so it is all right for her to leave and tell the disciples he has risen, he will still be around for a while. Roughly translated :-) At least that is my view, Adrian | ||
| Dennis Registered user Username: Dennis Post Number: 678 Registered: 4-2000  |
Adrian, I like that explanation. Dennis Fischer | ||
| Doc Registered user Username: Doc Post Number: 209 Registered: 2-2003 |
Thanks, Adrian |
