Stan Ermshar - 10 June 2008 10:27 AM

Bill - 08 June 2008 11:46 AM

I’ll take it, Greg, that you have a disagreement with the SDA church and not me.  Thus the nasty tone.  You’ve done me a great favor.  I have been reading the threads you referenced on the IJ.  That is so far the best discussion I have come across in all my searching on the web.  Thank you very much!

Bill,
Thanks for acknowledging the IJ threads, and I am glad you have found them helpful. There is a wealth of information on this website. Kudos to Greg for putting this together for the glory of God.

If the basic SDA doctrine of the sanctuary cannot be supported by scripture, then by the chuch leaders own admission, the SDA chuch has no reason to exist.  It is a church based on a false view of the atonement and the gospel. The official teaching of the SDA church IJ doctrine denies the gospel. They know this, and this is why there have been so many “revisionist history” attempts to sanitize the doctrine or to change it into something else.

Stan

Hi Stan,

Glad to hear from you. I’m interested also in what you think about Grieve’s letter posted at the beginning of this thread. Do you think that it is fitted for those who just start to read Hebrews in a different light? Until this moment I have only PhenB opinion which gives me hope that it is a good place to start.  It is very important to have this start done well. Thank you Phen for your evaluation. And a lot of thanks to Greg for the huge work in dealing with the doctrine of IJ.

Stan, any thoughts?

Gabriel

Hi Gabriel,

That quote by Grieve is a masterful and very thoughtful work. Thanks so much for sharing his perspective. The last time I read this was back in the early 80’s while studying out of SDA. Of course he met the same fate as many others, as the church has cast these men out as Ballenger put it “for the cross of Christ”

I like this last part of that paragraph:

Paul said the law was satisfied in his day. Rom. 3:20, 21, “Therefore by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in His sight; but now apart from the law, the righteousness of God hath been manifested, being witnessed, or attested by the law…” To witness or attest the validity of righteousness is to be satisfied with it. The law was satisfied all right for Paul says, “There is therefore now (in AD 50 not 1844) no condemnation.” Rom. 8:1. He did not say like our theoreticians, “not completely expiated,” partly expiated, partly not. He did not say like Mrs. E.G. White, “Not entirely released from the condemnation of the law.” No, he said, “There is therefore NOW NO CONDEMNATION.”
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Wow, the full force of Romans 8:1 is not comprehended by most SDA’s and other Arminian leaning groups. According to our PCA pastor, this text is the last word on the unqualified and eternal security of the believer. When the Lord of heaven saves us He then makes the declaration “there is now no condemnation”.  I am not a Greek expert, but Ron Gleason says that the tense in the Greek is such that this means there is no condemnation now or ever!

Praise God for His unbreakable promises. He is faithful to see to it that the work of salvation He began in us will be completed for His glory.

Soli Deo Gloria!

Stan

Stan Ermshar - 10 June 2008 09:14 PM

Wow, the full force of Romans 8:1 is not comprehended by most SDA’s and other Arminian leaning groups. According to our PCA pastor, this text is the last word on the unqualified and eternal security of the believer. When the Lord of heaven saves us He then makes the declaration “there is now no condemnation”.  I am not a Greek expert, but Ron Gleason says that the tense in the Greek is such that this means there is no condemnation now or ever!

Praise God for His unbreakable promises. He is faithful to see to it that the work of salvation He began in us will be completed for His glory.

Soli Deo Gloria!

Stan

Is this not amazing? It seems that always this sounds fresh, because by default we think that it is impossible, how can I be free from any possible future condemnation today? If there is something that the Christian Church, Christ’s body has unique, original, is the gospel of free grace which promises eternal salvation on the basis of the finished work of atonement accomplished by Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. There is simply no other religion in the world which had this message, because no human mind can conceptualize such an amazing grace. It is the exclusive possession of the Christian Church because it’s not man’s message, it’s God’s message.

And because it’s not human, the message is misinterpreted, changed, in order to fit man’s mind. I listened to a debate between catholics and a group of reformed scholars, in which Romans 8:1 was brought on the table. The RC scholars surprised me by pushing in front the temporal point of reference, “there is now no condemnation”, now, now, but. . .  it is only now, in the future, who knows?

I wonder if an Adventist can interpret this text differently and side with the protestants at this point, rather than with the Catholics. I was raised in a religious context in which the text inevitably took the meaning given by the Catholics. This made me reluctant to accept what the text really said, gradually its significance and importance gained foot in my mind until it brought me the joy and peace it contains.

Gabriel

Stan and Gabriel, thanks for sharing your thoughts about Romans 8:1. I think Grieve’s use of Romans 8:1 accurately captures what many transitioning and former Adventists discover as they study their way out of the Adventist church. We find that the Bible holds the promise of justification and eternal salvation for the believer as a present reality to be enjoyed NOW. Salvation is not merely a theoretical possibility for those who will successfully pass a future investigative judgment but a present reality we take possession of at the moment our faith is entrusted to the work of Jesus.

It is very difficult for me to understand why anyone could find fault with this promise of the gospel. Why would we want to dilute the force of Romans 8:1? I suppose the good news is just too good for us that we cannot take it at face value. Our sinful flesh and this world tell us that there is no free lunch, and that good things come to those who work hard. We so easily transfer this idea to our eternal salvation and in the process we may lose the very thing we are trying to obtain.

The early Adventist message plays directly into the natural motivation of men to justify themselves. While grace is given lip service, the ultimate message is that perfection of the flesh remains to be accomplished after Jesus our justification possible. Jesus begins the work, and as long as we remain diligent, we can finish it. This is the same message of Roman Catholicism and all Christian churches who teach that man’s work plays a central role in his salvation. At this level, the Roman Catholic “gospel” is indistinguishable from the Adventist one.

Here’s a short devotional by Charles Spurgeon on Romans 8:1:

Come, my soul, think of this. Believing in Jesus, you are actually and effectually cleared from guilt; you are led out of your prison. You are no more in fetters as a bond-slave; you are delivered now from the bondage of the law; you are freed from sin, and can walk at large as a free man, your Saviour’s blood has procured your full discharge. You have a right now to approach your Father’s throne. No flames of vengeance are there to scare you now; no fiery sword; justice cannot condemn the innocent. Your disabilities are taken away: you were once unable to see your Father’s face: you can see it now. You could not speak with him: but now you have access with boldness. Once there was a fear of hell upon you; but you have no fear of it now, for how can there be punishment for the guiltless? He who believes is not condemned, and cannot be punished. And more than all, the privileges you might have enjoyed, if you had never sinned, are yours now that you are justified. All the blessings which you would have had if you had kept the law, and more, are yours, because Christ has kept it for you. All the love and the acceptance which perfect obedience could have obtained of God, belong to you, because Christ was perfectly obedient on your behalf, and has imputed all his merits to your account, that you might be exceedingly rich through him, who for your sake became exceedingly poor. Oh! how great the debt of love and gratitude you owe to your Saviour!

“A debtor to mercy alone,
Of covenant mercy I sing;
Nor fear with thy righteousness on,
My person and offerings to bring:
The terrors of law and of God,
With me can have nothing to do;
My Saviour’s obedience and blood
Hide all my transgressions from view.”

Source: Morning and Evening, February 13

Greg--thanks for the Spurgeon quote as it revived my spirit anew this very late night after a very difficult day.

Gabriel--thanks for your uplifting and inspiring reminders of the wonders of God’s sovereign grace.

I would appeal to any Adventists or others who are more inclined towards a more Arminian or Rome based gospel to prayerfully consider the points made by R.A. Grieve in the initial post of this thread. 

Please read the Spurgeon quote above.  Why would anyone resist the good news of the gospel? Why do we want to ascribe to man some participation in a plan that is all inspired and accomplished by God?

To anyone burdened by the load of sin--just remember that great old gospel hymn:  “There is power, power, wondrous working power in the blood of the Lamb! 

Soli Deo Gloria!

Greg - 08 June 2008 07:36 PM

Simple answer. If one of the divine Persons of the Trinity ceased to exist, God would no longer be triune and his nature would fundamentally be changed.

Some Bible doctrines are explicit and some are implicit. If you are looking for a text to explicitly define the Trinity, you will miss what Scripture implies and end up in error.

Greg

I agree with that Greg.  The Trinity would obviously no longer be a Trinity, but that is not what Gabriel seems to be saying.  Gabriel seems to be saying that if one disappeared, there would be 0 or no God remaining.  That is not the impression I get from Jesus on the cross when He cried out that God had forsaken Him.

I’m not saying that we can’t use what is implied by Scripture.  Where is it implied that if one disappears there would be nothing?

Phen B - 08 June 2008 10:03 PM

Earlier quote from Phen B:
“I too “thought” I knew the bible very well,”

, so I will refrain from persuing it any further.

I’m not sure what that was all about.  I’ve have still been studying through Hebrews per my promise to you, but have been sidetracked lately.  The last two weeks I have been traveling and working long hours in Chicago and I have also been trying to study through some long threads on IJ, which have been VERY interesting.

Anyway, I’m back home for now.

God bless you Phen B

Stan Ermshar - 10 June 2008 09:14 PM

That quote by Grieve is a masterful and very thoughtful work. Thanks so much for sharing his perspective. The last time I read this was back in the early 80’s while studying out of SDA.

Stan,

I also interacted with Grieve’s article in the period in which I verified the biblical basis of the Investigative Judgment in the light of the objections. He was instrumental in highlighting the presuppositions behind Adventist interpretation of the Sanctuary, and by addressing them he brought into the light the Adventist understanding of the justification of Romans 4. He said

Protestantism as inaugurated by Luther was founded on the book of Romans, which makes no reference to the old Aaronic Sanctuary, and therefore all the churches in line with true protestantism, have believed in the blotting out of sins for the believer at the acceptance of Christ. It was the acceptance of the Sanctuary teaching by the pioneers of the church that countermanded the teachings of Luther, Wesley and other great reformers, and set the teaching on the so-called pattern of Aaronism in opposition to Protestantism

Here we see the temporal and logical order of the Adventist thought compared with the temporal and logical order of the Protestant thought. Accordingly, the conclusions of these different trains of thinking are far away one from the other, even contradictory..

Adventism used the OT typological system of sanctuary ceremonies as an interpretative grid of the book of Hebrews which is the book of New Testament in which the subject of the sanctuary is the main subject, explaining in the light of Christ’s coming and revelation the meaning and true significance of OT shadows. Instead of studying the shadows in the light of fulfillment, they used the shadows as an interpretative grid for the fulfillment described in Hebrews. This is exactly backwards.

The Reformers started with NT and especially with the book of Romans which is the NT book which explains par excellence Christ’s work, death and resurrection. They came to the subject of justification and understood that all sins are blotted at the acceptance of Christ, excluding any possible further condemnation. With this view about the gospel clear in their mind, it was not difficult to see how the epistle of Hebrews confirms this gospel of Romans by affirming that Jesus already fulfilled the Day of Atonement by performing the one and only sacrifice which blotted the sins. 

According to the Adventist order, first it cames the OT shadow, in the light of this grid the NT book of Hebrews is interpreted and in the light of Hebrews the book of Romans and justification in particular is interpreted. In this way, when it comes to justification as the blessing of Christ’s sacrifice, the meaning of this concept is interpreted through the lens of the unfinished atonement previously established.

And here the problematic aspect of this hermeneutic becomes evident: According to the Epistle to the Hebrews the weak point of the Old Covenant Sanctuary system does not consist exclusively in the fact that it is only a shadow, without substance, but also in the practical consequences of this typological status.

For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near. 2 Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins?  But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year.  Hebrews 10:1-3

The imperfection of the Old Covenant sanctuary system is seen in its inability to cleanse perfectly the conscience, to bring the perfection which was necessary in order that the people will experience fully the liberation from sin’s condemnation

According to this arrangement, gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper Hebrews 9:9

This perfection of conscience consists in having no longer “any consciousness of sin”, which was not possible because of the repetitive character of the sacrifices

But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. Hebrews 10:3

By contrast, Christ’s sacrifice was made once and for all, not following the pattern of repetitiveness, and consequently not being a reminder of sin, but offering the perfection of a justification having the same quality as Christ’s sacrifice: it is once and for all, and it is not repetitive.

For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. Hebrews 10:14

Notice the close relation: single offering, not repetitive, single perfection, single justification, once for all act. This brings to light another issue related to the perfection of conscience: the finality of Christ’s sacrifice and the finality of justification.  It is not only for the time present, it is for all time, from now until the final end, we are saved now and in the judgment and our conscience is made perfect because our sins are blotted out, remembered no more.

This is seen in the declarations of the blessings of the New Covenant. Immediately after affirming that by a single offering Jesus has perfected his saints for all time, the author of Hebrews confirms this fulfillment of OT shadows by reminding us that in this way the long awaited prophecy about the blessings of a new covenant was fulfilled. Beside the writing of God’s laws in the heart, the NC differs from the OC because of the fact that there is no longer a remembering of sins in the NC, as it was in the Old Covenant because of its repetitive sacrifices (Hebrews 10:3)

“I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.”

Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin. Hebrews 10:17, 18

We here see again the close relation between repetitive sacrifices and justification, and how the first are made obsolete by the second. If you have perfect and final forgiveness this makes any future sacrifice totally unnecessary. The finality excludes the repetitiveness.

Coming back to the Adventist interpretation of the Sanctuary, by postulating a two apartment ministry it results in seeing Jesus engaged in repetitive actions in the Sanctuary above, like in the OT earthly Sactuary. And as in the earthly sanctuary, this repetitiveness is closely related with an imperfect conscience and with a justification which is not a once for all event, but something that happens many times in the believers life. Consequently God remembers sins at the bar of judgment, because he keeps the record of the sins in his books. This means that justification is something different than what it is declared by the Bible and by the Reformers, involving the imperfection of not having finality. It lacks this very important quality. The necessity of justification by faith alone is affirmed, but it is not sufficient to qualify a sinner for heaven at the present moment, offering only a potential qualification for heaven on the condition of being faithful to God’s commandments until the end. The final justification, according to this view, is based on the entire life lived, because it waits until the death of the person or the end of judgment for a living person before achieving the characteristics of finality. In a word, justification is made dependent on sanctification, which is a reiteration of the Roman Catholic view of justification. .

Grieve’s article was instrumental in bringing to light the hermeneutical blunders of Adventism who come to a different understanding of justification and blessings of the New Covenant by reading in the NT epistles, Romans and Hebrews, the repetitive and incomplete, deficient character of the Old Covenant. Once I became conscious of my hermeneutical wrong assumptions, the entire perspective changed. Despite close resemblance with the protestant view of justification, the lens through which Adventist look at justification distort it to the point of robbing people of the blessings of a clean conscience by pushing into the future the cleansing of sin. I’m praying to God to bless Adventists with the same blessing he blessed me by removing the lens which stand in the way of understanding the truth of justification by faith ALONE, not on the basis of entire life lived.

Gabriel

Gabriel,
Your last post above summarizes beautifully the issues. You have clearly stated the fatal flaw on which the SDA, and also Roman Catholic gospels are based. Both of these false systems have some form of Christ continuing to make atonement after the finished atonement on the cross--SDA’s with Christ beginning a new work in 1844, and the RCC view of Christ continuing to be sacrificed in the communion and works based salvation.

May God use your post, Gabriel, to impress on those who have been taught in false gospel systems, the beauty of the simple truth of justification by faith alone.

Stan

Gabriel,

My thanks to you also for the very simple and revealing treatese on the SDA Sanctuary Doctrine. It has been very eye opening for even me, a non-former, non-SDA.

Is the Grieve article available electronically?

Dan Hagan - 16 June 2008 08:54 AM

Gabriel,

My thanks to you also for the very simple and revealing treatese on the SDA Sanctuary Doctrine. It has been very eye opening for even me, a non-former, non-SDA.

Is the Grieve article available electronically?

You’re welcome

http://www.goodnewsforadventists.com/home/skymultipage.php?id=360&keyid=379

You can read more than this on this site about SDA sanctuary doctrine.

Gabriel

Gabriel
Thank you!  Very good post.
Bob

I’d like to chime in, too, Gabriel.  Terrific post!  You always bring much to ponder.

Aaron

Hi Brother Bill,
Didn’t mean to ignore you. I just was busy as well.

I also got involved in studying more on the sanctuary, as far back as Exodus, and it has lead me through a few more books in the bible.

I sometimes get caught up in the word, and like to take a rest from posting. That’s the only way I can become aquainted with what scripture says, as these past few years have been filled with breathing deeply, just inhaling the blessings and walking in them as never before.

Will get back to you concerning this topic in the near future.

Thanks as well Brother Gabriel, the spirit of Christ should govern all we say, and “patience” is of course the fruit of that spirit. I guess our struggle is still in the flesh as long as we live, but these “earthen vessels” in which Christ dwells, have not been glorified as yet, so we still slip and fall.  (not making this an excuse, just stating a fact)

God bless you as well Brother Bill, I do appreciate the discussion.