Since leaving Adventism, I have to come to really appreciate the Christmas carol “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” and the wonderful lyrics that it contains. It certainly exalts the Lord Jesus as the one and only true God. Here are the first three verses of the hymn:

Hark! The herald angels sing,
“Glory to the newborn King;
Peace on earth, and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled!”
Joyful, all ye nations rise,
Join the triumph of the skies;
With th’angelic host proclaim,
“Christ is born in Bethlehem!”

Refrain

Hark! the herald angels sing,
“Glory to the newborn King!”

Christ, by highest Heav’n adored;
Christ the everlasting Lord;
Late in time, behold Him come,
Offspring of a virgin’s womb.
Veiled in flesh the Godhead see;
Hail th’incarnate Deity,
Pleased with us in flesh to dwell,
Jesus our Emmanuel.

Refrain

Hail the heav’nly Prince of Peace!
Hail the Sun of Righteousness!
Light and life to all He brings,
Ris’n with healing in His wings.
Mild He lays His glory by,
Born that man no more may die.
Born to raise the sons of earth,
Born to give them second birth.

--http://nethymnal.org/htm/h/h/a/hhangels.htm

The truths of this song clearly refute several SDA teachings. In fact, the SDAs seem to have recognized this. Today I was disgusted to find (although I had known this before) that the SDAs, in the official SDA Hymnal, have (as they’ve done with many other hymns) completely changed the wording (since they defend EGW’s plagiarism, I guess they also have no problem with “reverse plagiarism”!). In the official SDA Hymnal, they have totally deleted the references to Jesus’ full deity in the second verse of this carol, and replaced those lines with other words. Here is the song as it appears in the SDA Hymnal:

1
Hark! the herald angels sing,
“Glory to the new born King,
peace on earth, and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled!”
Joyful, all ye nations rise,
join the triumph of the skies;
with th’ angelic host proclaim,
“Christ is born in Bethlehem!”
Hark! the herald angels sing,
“Glory to the new born King!”

2
Christ, by highest heaven adored;
Christ, the everlasting Lord;
in the manger born a king,
while adoring angels sing,
“Peace on earth, to men good will;”
bid the trembling soul be still,
Christ on earth has come to dwell,
Jesus, our Immanuel!
Hark! the herald angels sing,
“Glory to the newborn King!”

3
Hail the heaven-born Prince of Peace!
Hail the Sun of Righteousness!
Light and life to all he brings,
risen with healing in his wings.
Mild he lays his glory by,
born that we no more may die,
born to raise us from the earth,
born to give us second birth.
Hark! the herald angels sing,
“Glory to the new born King!”

--http://www.digitalhymnal.org/dhymn.cfm?hymnNumber=122

Notice how they have changed the two lines:

“Veiled in flesh the Godhead see;
Hail th’incarnate Deity,”

to

“‘Peace on earth, to men good will;’
bid the trembling soul be still,”

This is beyond despicable--but should not be too shocking, since Adventism simply rejects the teaching contained in those lines. (By the way, the LDS hymnal simply leaves out the second verse.)

If Adventism actually believes in the full deity of Christ (that He is the only true God), then why would they carefully delete such references from their Hymnal?

But those aren’t the only changes they made to this hymn. Notice that they also changed:

“Late in time, behold Him come,
Offspring of a virgin’s womb.
[...]
Pleased with us in flesh to dwell,”

to

“in the manger born a king,
while adoring angels sing,
[...]
Christ on earth has come to dwell,”

In other words, due to their Gnostic/Nestorian beliefs, they get rid of the fact that Christ actually became a man and has come in the flesh (one person--Jesus Christ--with two inseparable natures, divine and human).

And then, in the last three lines of the third verse, they change:

“Born that man no more may die.
Born to raise the sons of earth,
Born to give them second birth.”

to

“born that we no more may die,
born to raise us from the earth,
born to give us second birth.”

(Changes in bold.)

Here, for the third verse, they use an alternate version, so that they can speak of the resurrection (actually “re-creation") of the righteous instead of the new birth (being born again). Since they teach that the promise of Jesus ("everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die"--John 11:26 NASB) is actually “the devil’s first lie"--they can’t have “that man no more may die” be referring to the new birth!

One way to see what Adventism really teaches is to simply look at what they do with the lyrics of the classic hymns of the Christian faith.

And they simply refuse to accept Jesus as the one true God.

Jeremy

Okay Jeremy.

1) I’ve never sung these verses in the SDA church...ever. Always sung the ones you’ve posted

2) Here is the SDA hymnal

http://sdahymnal.tripod.com/MIDI/SAH/S122.html

Notice the second verse btw…

And really...the third verse? Are you that desperate that you’d scream, heresy over that? For the record, I’ve always sung ‘sons of earth’. At least in my church and every other SDA church I’ve sung it in.

3) Why are you on such a rampage to slander and denigrate the SDA church at all costs? Any more untruthful and unnecessary mud to sling?

Gnostics?? LOL. Oh brother. Is this your opinion because I’ve never heard Walter Martin or any other cult watcher call us that.

guibox - 13 December 2009 03:36 PM

Okay Jeremy.

1) I’ve never sung these verses in the SDA church...ever. Always sung the ones you’ve posted

2) Here is the SDA hymnal

http://sdahymnal.tripod.com/MIDI/SAH/S122.html

Notice the second verse btw…

And really...the third verse? Are you that desperate that you’d scream, heresy over that? For the record, I’ve always sung ‘sons of earth’. At least in my church and every other SDA church I’ve sung it in.

3) Why are you on such a rampage to slander and denigrate the SDA church at all costs? Any more untruthful and unnecessary mud to sling?

Gnostics?? LOL. Oh brother. Is this your opinion because I’ve never heard Walter Martin or any other cult watcher call us that.

Nothing that I posted was untruthful.

I link you to the official Digital Hymnal site, and you link me to somebody’s Tripod site? LOL. The SDA Hymnal’s version is as I posted it.

You really think the SDA Digital Hymnal site just made up those words?

Jeremy

And to put Guibox’s false allegations to rest once and for all, here is the official Seventh-day Adventist Hymnal, as scanned into Google Books, where you can see for yourself (on page 122) that the SDA Digital Hymnal lyrics I posted are the ones that are in the current official SDA Hymnal, published by the Review and Herald Publishing Association in 1985: http://books.google.com/books?id=VJUBoFYC21QC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_navlinks_s#v=onepage&q;=&f=false

Jeremy

EDIT: In looking at the third verse at the above link, it appears that the current hymnal has the traditional wording for the third verse, unlike what both the Digital Hymnal and Guibox’s link showed. The second verse is identical to the words I posted from the SDA Digital Hymnal, however.

Additionally, the popular SDA songbook Christ In Song, which was compiled by F.E. Belden and published in 1908 and was recently re-published in 2008 by the official Review and Herald Publishing Association as a 100th anniversary edition (an “exact copy” of the original), also contains the same wording as the current official SDA Hymnal (as displayed at the above Google Books link). The song can be found in Christ In Song at the following link (#353): http://books.google.com/books?id=fZbCH_CoFOIC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_navlinks_s#v=onepage&q;=&f=false

Jeremy

Well, I see that it is in the hymnal, but I have seen it the other way.

Here is the SDA hymnal with each song laid out. The verse is traditional

http://www.wattpad.com/92612-SDA-HYMNAL?p=10

I have yet to meet any SDA that doesn’t believe the verse. To say that it was taken out due to anti-Trinitarianism is false for even anti-trinitarians do not negate the ‘incarnate deity’.

What I’m saying is don’t make a hobby horse out of it when it is not suspect like you want it to be to garner more mud to sling at the church.

By the way, if anyone wants to see some more hymns that have been corrupted in the SDA Hymnal, check out the following issue of Proclamation! magazine: http://lifeassuranceministries.org/Proclamation2005_JanFeb.pdf (the article starts on page 8).

Jeremy

Hark the Herald Angels sing!

How nice if we could just enjoy the beauty of the song.

I am still wondering how it is possible to have an argument over such a beautiful song.

At some point Adventist bashing gets a little old.

There are websites and magazines that specialize in Adventist bashing and the links to those sites are posted above and of course most know where to find their forum.

I would hope that on this site we would make a New Years resolution to be more “FOR THE GOSPEL”

I love the great hymns of the faith and there are great Reformed praise songs at this link:

http://www.forthegospel.org/forum/viewthread/315/

And there are other great Christmas songs posted here:

http://www.forthegospel.org/forum/viewthread/241/

This Christmas season, let’s just bask in the glory of Christmas and maybe take a break from the polemical spirit.

Merry Christmas to all!

Stan

Stan Ermshar - 14 December 2009 12:01 AM

Hark the Herald Angels sing!

How nice if we could just enjoy the beauty of the song.

I am still wondering how it is possible to have an argument over such a beautiful song.

At some point Adventist bashing gets a little old.

There are websites and magazines that specialize in Adventist bashing and the links to those sites are posted above and of course most know where to find their forum.

I would hope that on this site we would make a New Years resolution to be more “FOR THE GOSPEL”

I love the great hymns of the faith and there are great Reformed praise songs at this link:

http://www.forthegospel.org/forum/viewthread/315/

And there are other great Christmas songs posted here:

http://www.forthegospel.org/forum/viewthread/241/

This Christmas season, let’s just bask in the glory of Christmas and maybe take a break from the polemical spirit.

Merry Christmas to all!

Stan

More U.S. Christians mix in ‘Eastern,’ New Age beliefs

http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2009-12-10-1Amixingbeliefs10_CV_N.htm

Christendom as a whole is departing from God’s ‘Word’ as the only path to salvation.

John 1:1 (NASB) In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. 

I have been guilty of majoring in minors, those hotly debated secondary issues, but discovered that inevitably those paths led me away from the source of salvation, not toward it.

Christmas is an opportunity to refocus our attention on what has truly eternal consequences:

That we are SINNERS worthy of God’s condemnation BUT by God’s grace, saved through faith alone in Christ alone, imputed with His righteousness, no longer under condemnation.

Isaiah 9:6 (KJV) For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

Jesus IS the reason for the season

Merry Christmas Stan

John Douglas

Galatians 1:8 (NIV) “But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned!”

Stan Ermshar - 14 December 2009 12:01 AM

I am still wondering how it is possible to have an argument over such a beautiful song.

Dearest Stan,

It is easy to see Paul’s motivation in saying what he says in Galatians 1:8 (NIV) when you consider that he is trying to correct the injection of Jewish legalism into the Gospel of Grace that he had preached. Clearly, Paul teaches that a modified gospel is no gospel and that we are to zealously defend the written Truth.

Now, by the power of the Holy Spirit and as believers and emulators of Christ, there will be times when our presentation (sharing) of the Truth will be uncomfortable to those who have an errant understanding or have added to that same Truth. And when this happens, and because we are not infallible, we must continuously use scripture alone to correct in a winsome and loving way.  However, if drift, or the introduction of unscriptural ideas continues (and I apologize for the redundancy), then we must do as Paul did and forcefully contend for the Truth of the Gospel. An increase in fervency and urgency in the presentation does not necessarily indicate a lack of charity or love. In fact, to neglect the defense of the gospel and ignore the error, or worse yet to simply give up the corrective effort, would be the most un-loving and thereby the most un-Christ-like of all possible behaviors.

Stan Ermshar - 14 December 2009 12:01 AM

At some point Adventist bashing gets a little old.

Of course to some the Truth with have the taste of mud! And we might also want to say: “But it’s only a hymn!” Yet, is not a hymn simply a prayer set to song? Did we not all learn, especially as children, some of our fundamental beliefs from the hymns and carols that we so joyfully sung? Do we not also declare and reaffirm the concepts within the hymns as we sing them again, and again? Is not the obvious alteration of these musical prayers a symptom of a pervasive errancy?

Stan Ermshar - 14 December 2009 12:01 AM

I would hope that on this site we would make a New Years resolution to be more “FOR THE GOSPEL”

Stan, I think that all who participate in this forum know you as a man of great strength and conviction. Your desire for a peaceful resolution to the disagreements on this forum are fully understood and are laudable. The implication of your statement (above) is that (simplistically) you would like us all to “agree to disagree” and move on…

However, can we as Christians rightfully tolerate an altered gospel!?!?!

More importantly, can an altered gospel really be good “For the Gospel”???

In Christ,

P.S. My continued prayers for you and Marti…

Dan Hagan - 14 December 2009 07:58 AM

The implication of your statement (above) is that (simplistically) you would like us all to “agree to disagree” and move on…

However, can we as Christians rightfully tolerate an altered gospel!?!?!

More importantly, can an altered gospel really be good “For the Gospel”???

What ‘gospel’ is ‘altered’? Nobody is denying the deity of Christ. Adventists fully accept the deity of Christ. Despite Jeremy’s continual protests, nobody denies the Trinity Godhead. Nobody is denying that He came in the flesh. There is no proof that the second verse as is altered in some hymnals was due to a rejection of this. According to you Calvinists, anything Arminian is theoretically an ‘altered gospel’. Do we then nit-pick on this continually until a consensus of Calvinism is reached for this to be an ‘aligned gospel’?

I think Stan is saying to pick your battles and not nit-pick at everything simply for the sake of bashing SDAism as some here are wont to do.

Adventist bashing- ouch, that hurts.

It should be quite funny to read this if these things are not serious.

In spite of their church’s history of antitrinitarianism and extremely confused trinitarian statements, I decided out of charity to assume that the adventist with whom I’m engaged in conversation truly believes in Trinity and not in tritheism. And as any normal dialogue develops, when I’m trying to be persuasive I use arguments based on doctrinal points with which my interlocutor is supposed to agree. Especially when you’re accused of holding to an awful doctrine, monotheism is a very good point to bring into discussion.

I brought the argument of Trinity in this post on another thread, Jeremy emphasized my point, and I received a reply in which the adventist classified my view as unitarianism. You can read the adventist reactions in the posts that follow the post I linked at the beginning of this paragraph, to see for yourself how the mentality develops.

It’s clear that the adventist considered my interpretation of monotheism as being too much monotheistic for his taste. That tells me that his view of monotheism doesn’t include the unity that my monotheism assumes. And if the unity that my monotheism assumes is a unity of essence, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit sharing the same, identical essence, or being, it results that the adventist view of monotheism doesn’t include this unity of essence. That means that in what I said I spoke past him because I assumed this adventist to be trinitarian while he was not.

On another thread I had some talks with Bill regarding the tritheism found in “The Shack. And I explained that the difference between tritheism and trinitarianism can be highlighted if we ask ourselves what happens if one of the person of the Trinity disappears. What happens for example, if Jesus is gone, wiped out of existence. What happens with the Father and the Holy Spirit?

And here are the answers given by tritheists and trinitarianists:

1. Tritheistic answer
3 - 1 = 2
If the Son is gone, the Father and the Holy Spirit continue their existence. That’s because they don’t have the same essence, they are not one being. They are three beings, three pieces of a pie.

2. Trinitarian answer
3-1 = 0
Simply stated, if the Son is gone, God is gone, if we can speak in those hypothetical situations. That’s because the Son and the Father and the Holy Spirit share the same essence, the same core, the same being, and if the Son becomes non-existent, so his being becomes non-existent. And because his being is the same, identical being of the Father and the Holy Spirit, their being becomes non-existent, and they become non-existent.

This mathematical equation gives the same result as the following

1-1=0

That means, for example, that, if we have had only the Father, and not the Son and the Holy Spirit, the unitarian definition of God, the result of the mathematical equation is the same. Why? Because, while not being the true biblical monotheistic view of God, unitarianism is still a monotheistic belief. And if the equation 3 - 1 = 0 may seem strange, it is as true as 1 -1 = 0 which is easy to understand because in both cases we have monotheistic beliefs.

Well, Bill rejected this definition of Trinity and said that 3 - 1 = 2 is a valid equation from the trinitarian perspective. That tells me that what Bill calls Trinity is in reality tritheism. When I looked for common ground with adventists regarding Trinity, I quickly found that I searched in vain.

The last experience is with the recent issue of the penal substitution. My view regarding penal substitution was described by guibox as an unbliblical contrast between a vengeful and wrathful Father and a loving Son. In my defense I presented the monotheistic argument: Father’s wrath and Son’s wrath are the same wrath, identical, because the two are one being. The Son took upon himself his own wrath in the act of obedience to the Father that poured his wrath (the same wrath) upon the Son. God propitiated his own wrath. In spite of this description, the monotheistic argument fails to be convincing. I wonder why, if we have trinitarianism as common ground. I wonder why, when using trinitarian monotheistic arguments, assuming a common ground with the adventist with whom you’re talking, the common ground seems to evaporate quickly than the morning mist. Where is the common belief in monotheism that adventists supposedly share with the rest of the evangelical world when you truly need it?

Time will tell if raising serious questions regarding the orthodoxy of the adventist trinity is such an unfounded and bashful practice as it seems. Starting with an anti-trinitarian, semi-arian position, the adventist church took steps in the right direction. Time will tell if they made all the necessary steps in order to arrive at a truly monotheistic position.

Gabriel

I think you and others should be a little more lenient and less dogmatic in the details of the trinity, Gabriel. It is a mystery that cannot be solved or properly understood this side of heaven.  He probably does believe in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Your SDA friend most likely believes in God in Three Persons.

Anti-Trinitarians could turn it back on you and say, ‘How exactly was Jesus praying to Himself? ‘Was Jesus schizophrenic that He was speaking of Himself in the third person?’ Was Jesus speaking to Himself on the cross when He cried out in anguish ‘My God, My God why hath You forsaken Me’?

You cannot clearly explain this...but you don’t need to. This is the mystery of the Trinity.

It is clear that Christ prayed to the Father. He was not praying to Himself: but He is still God. He spoke continually of the Father’s love for the people and that Christ ‘was there to do the Father’s will’: but He is still God. John 3:16 speaks of two Persons: For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son’: Yet Jesus is still God.

“God in three persons, blessed Trinity’.

This is what Adventism believes. They do not believe Christ was created. They do not believe that Christ was simply deity but not part of the Godhead.

The nit-picking details are simply brow beating in my opinion and not valid arguments against SDAs.

Stan Ermshar - 14 December 2009 12:01 AM

Hark the Herald Angels sing!

How nice if we could just enjoy the beauty of the song.

I am still wondering how it is possible to have an argument over such a beautiful song.

At some point Adventist bashing gets a little old.

There are websites and magazines that specialize in Adventist bashing and the links to those sites are posted above and of course most know where to find their forum.

I would hope that on this site we would make a New Years resolution to be more “FOR THE GOSPEL”

I love the great hymns of the faith and there are great Reformed praise songs at this link:

http://www.forthegospel.org/forum/viewthread/315/

And there are other great Christmas songs posted here:

http://www.forthegospel.org/forum/viewthread/241/

This Christmas season, let’s just bask in the glory of Christmas and maybe take a break from the polemical spirit.

Merry Christmas to all!

Stan

Stan,

Yes, I agree, as I said in my opening post, that it is a beautiful song.

That’s why it is so disgusting that the SDAs have corrupted it, and deleted the full deity of Jesus Christ from the song.

To expunge the deity of Christ from it does not allow it to remain a beautiful song.

How can this not bother you??

Jeremy

guibox - 14 December 2009 02:26 PM

I think you and others should be a little more lenient and less dogmatic in the details of the trinity, Gabriel. It is a mystery that cannot be solved or properly understood this side of heaven.  He probably does believe in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Your SDA friend most likely believes in God in Three Persons.

It is clear that Christ prayed to the Father. He was not praying to Himself: but He is still God. He spoke continually of the Father’s love for the people and that Christ ‘was there to do the Father’s will’: but He is still God. John 3:16 speaks of two Persons: For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son’: Yet Jesus is still God.

“God in three persons, blessed Trinity’.

This is what Adventism believes. They do not believe Christ was created. They do not believe that Christ was deity but not part of the Godhead.

The nit-picking details are simply brow beating in my opinion and not valid arguments against SDAs.

(Emphasis mine.)

Exactly. That’s my whole point. Adventism believes that Jesus is only part (one third) of the Godhead. That is why they can’t have the words “Veiled in flesh the Godhead see; Hail th’incarnate Deity,” in their Hymnal. As I posted yesterday on CARM:

The song, as originally written, is not compatible with SDA doctrine (why else would they distort it?). Adventism believes, just like the Mormons, that Jesus is only one third of “the Godhead” and that He is divine but not “the...Deity.” The carol teaches that Jesus is fully (all of) God, which Adventism denies. The SDA statement of belief says that Jesus is “truly God” instead of “fully God"--and they are using “God” as an adjective, simply meaning “divine.”

In fact, one of the SDA pastors posting on CARM has said before that it is wrong to call Jesus “the God” (and when I showed him that in the NT, the Greek does call Jesus that, he tried to ignore the evidence).

Jeremy

JeremyG - 14 December 2009 02:47 PM

Exactly. That’s my whole point. Adventism believes that Jesus is only part (one third) of the Godhead. That is why they can’t have the words “Veiled in flesh the Godhead see; Hail th’incarnate Deity,” in their Hymnal.
Jeremy

I edited my post before you posted. Please go back to read and answer the questions.

I fail to see how the phrase ‘veiled in flesh the Godhead see, Hail th’incarnate Deity’ is contradicted by even a belief in ‘one third of the Godhead’? Jesus was divine, He was deity, He was part of the Godhead who became flesh. Nobody I know who is an SDA denies this.

If you are going to be so nit-picky, then explain who Jesus was separated from, who He was praying to and who He was speaking of in the third person?

God in three persons.

You have as many contradictions by holding so dogmatically to your interpretation. As I said before: Jesus was a separate person from the Father, but He is one with the Father. He prayed to God, but He is God. This is the mystery that we cannot explain.  I believe that the biblical evidence and the acceptance of the mystery of the Godhead and seemingly a contradictory mystery at that, should make us a little more tolerant in the details instead of being so dogmatic.