guibox - 01 January 2010 08:45 AM
GABRIEL PROKSCH - 31 December 2009 05:12 PM
The issue is not only confessing sins, but the necessity to live a perfect life while not knowing if you are saved or not because you can’t know the result of the Investigative Judgment. It’s like your destiny is already sealed, but you have no comfort from knowing that you had passed the judgement and you are saved, but you must go through the worst period without having no light of the gospel shining around you.
Hmm...I have a BA in Religion too and I’ve never understood the IJ this way, nor do I know any SDA who does. I know I am saved and so does everyone else. I know I am justified. The IJ does not determine our salvation at the point in our life we are in Gabriel. I don’t go through my life wondering if the ‘radar beam’ of the IJ might fall on me when I’ve eaten a pork chop and choked to death on it thus condemning myself to eternal damnation. The church doesn’t teach this and I don’t even know of any conservative I personally know that believes this either. The most avid supporters of the IJ say the IJ is good news in our favor for our judge is also our advocate. The theology of the IJ as you are saying wouldn’t even give the most hardcore, obey or die conservative any assurance or hope whatsoever and this is not what I see from those who fully support and endorse the IJ.
What about Ellen White? Great Controversy, chapter 39, the Time of Trouble
Though God’s people will be surrounded by enemies who are bent upon their destruction, yet the anguish which they suffer is not a dread of persecution for the truth’s sake; they fear that every sin has not been repented of, and that through some fault in themselves they will fail to realize the fulfillment of the Saviour’s promise: I “will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world.” Revelation 3:10. If they could have the assurance of pardon they would not shrink from torture or death; but should they prove unworthy, and lose their lives because of their own defects of character, then God’s holy name would be reproached. Great Controversy, page 619
That’s a description of what happens after the process of the IJ is finished, when people must stand without a mediator before God. It is called the time of Jacob’s trouble, and pictures faithful believers in deep distress. The following points are emphasized
(1). they fear that every sin has not been repented of.
Behind this fear is the fear that they are lost, because confessing and repenting of every sin is a condition to pass the IJ process:
As the books of record are opened in the judgment, the lives of all who have believed on Jesus come in review before God. Beginning with those who first lived upon the earth, our Advocate presents the cases of each successive generation, and closes with the living. Every name is mentioned, every case closely investigated. Names are accepted, names rejected. When any have sins remaining upon the books of record, unrepented of and unforgiven, their names will be blotted out of the book of life, and the record of their good deeds will be erased from the book of God’s remembrance. The Lord declared to Moses: “Whosoever hath sinned against Me, him will I blot out of My book.” Exodus 32:33. And says the prophet Ezekiel: “When the righteous turneth away from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, . . . all his righteousness that he hath done shall not be mentioned.” Ezekiel 18:24. Great Controversy, p. 483
Notice:
1. The lives of those who believed in Jesus are reviewed.
2. If there are unrepented sins the names are blotted out of the book of life, they are damned
This makes clear that the IJ is not only in somebody’s favor, but also condemns people. In the time of trouble, the saints fear that they had unrepented sins and consequently lost.
(2.) if they could have the assurance of pardon
Implicit in this statement is the affirmation that they have not the assurance of pardon. Consequently, in this battle they cannot rely on God’s grace, they are no longer sure that they are in a right standing before God, justified.
(3) should they prove unworthy, and lose their lives because of their own defects of character
This part teaches that people need to be worthy in order to be saved, and that they can lose salvation because of their defective sanctification, “own defects of character.” They can’t rely on justification because their standing before God depends on their sanctification and their worthiness.
All who have truly repented of sin, and by faith claimed the blood of Christ as their atoning sacrifice, have had pardon entered against their names in the books of heaven; as they have become partakers of the righteousness of Christ, and their characters are found to be in harmony with the law of God, their sins will be blotted out, and they themselves will be accounted worthy of eternal life. Great Controversy, page 483
The condition of having pardon is a necessary but insufficient condition. The character must be found in harmony with the law of God. Defects of character disqualify people from passing the IJ. It’s a temporary pardon, so to speak, but the final verdict is based partially of being found worthy of eternal life by having a character in harmony with the law of God, without defects.
guibox - 01 January 2010 08:45 AM
GABRIEL PROKSCH - 31 December 2009 05:12 PM
Where is justification, belief in justification? In the time of trouble you can’t rely on justification because justification IS the final verdict already given at the bar of judgment and you simply can’t know if your initial justification is still valid, if you passed the test of the IJ.
Where is justification and belief in it? In our core theology and in our FBs. LOL...which church have you attended in the past few years? I don’t see anywhere in our FBs that we can’t rely on justification because a final verdict is given in our lives.
I was explicitly clear that the period in which people can’t rely on justification is “in the time of trouble”, because the final verdict depend partially on the perfection of character, of confessing and repenting of every sin, and people can’t know for sure if they met these requirements. They are not sure, their struggle in the time of trouble is a struggle in which they can’t rely on God’s pardon, a struggle in which they simply don’t know if they had passed well the IJ. While initially their standing before God was entirely on the basis of his grace, at the judgment, if people had not repented of all their sins and actually stopped sinning, there is no forensic justification by an imputed righteousness to save them.
Even in 1890, when Ellen White supposedly matured to a evangelical gospel, she wrote
In order to let Jesus into our hearts, we must stop sinning. Signs of the Times, March 3, 1890
guibox - 01 January 2010 08:45 AM
Nonetheless, my church doesn’t teach this, no SDA I know believes this and I think you are creating a methodology of understanding SDA doctrine that doesn’t exist anymore save on the fringes of our cultic branches.
That’s because adventists have not the guts to embrace their theology and the logical consequences of it. If they will do, they will realize that what they hold in hands is a doctrine of demons, coming from the bottomless pit, and will do everything they can to reject it and amend their theology. Instead they pick and choose what they want from their theology, make a hotch-potch, a mingle-mangle, that is neither fish or flesh, as the Marrow of the Modern Divinity says. (see my previous post on the second page of this thread).
The SDA Church is a master of dissimulation. As long as they print Ellen White’s “Great Controversy” and present her as authoritative, they can’t deny that what she wrote in chapter 39, “The Time of Trouble” or in chapter 28, “Facing Life’s Record” is not the genuine Investigative Judgment doctrine. They are stuck with a period without a mediator and with a gospel partially based on sanctification. They are afraid to follow the logical consequences of their belief system, as they are not able to deal with the logical consequences of believing that the goat for Azazel is Satan. That’s another doctrine of demons that is part of their system, and they shrink from the practical consequences of holding it.
I had hear disclaims from many adventists when I presented their theology in those terms. They want to detach themselves from it, and I can have understanding for this. Something is telling them that this is bad, and don’t want to go this path. They are satisfied that they don’t believe this and are quick in accusing others for construing straw men. Still, as in the case of the goat for Azazel, there are practical consequences that can’t be evaded.
Here is an accurate commentary from another forum about running from the practical consequences of their beliefs.
The problem is, Hec, that if the doctrine exists but you don’t believe it, it still colors what you believe in the big picture. For example, most Adventists don’t believe Satan takes the punishment for their sins—but they DO believe that their sins are not actually done away with until they’re placed on Satan’s head and he carries them into the lake of fire.
So, even if they don’t believe Satan takes the punishment for their sins, they DO believe he cleanses heaven by carrying them away from heaven and being punished for causing them.
This belief means that Adventists never ultimately believe they are responsible for their own sin. They believe, deep down, that Satan is the one who is ultimately responsible for their sin, and that he will “get it in the end” for being such a bad devil.
This belief is completely unbiblical. We are fully responsible for our personal sin; unless we place our faith in the Lord Jesus, we will die eternally because of our sin. If we place our faith in the Lord Jesus, are sins are, at that moment washed away. They NEVER depend upon Satan carrying them anywhere, much less away from the presence of God.
Moreover, to believe that Satan bears away the sins of the saved and is punished for causing them means that Jesus’ work couldn’t have been finished at the cross.
So, no matter how an Adventists “believes” it, as long as he believes satan is the scapegoat, in practical reality he does not believe Jesus took responsibility for his sin, and ultimately he believes satan will be punished for causing his sin. Satan is NEVER punished for causing our sin. Jesus took full responsibility for our sin.
---------------------------------------------------
So, even though they don’t think they BELIEVE the true meaning of Adventist doctrine, those doctrines shape their worldview and their sense of reality. It doesn’t matter if I call a rose a violet; it is still a rose even if I firmly believe it’s a violet. And even if I believe it’s a violet, I will not be able to use it as I’d use a violet. The rose will be much bigger, more fragrant, and require a great deal more care and fertilizer than the violet would require. The fact that I say I don’t believe it’s a rose would not change how that rose functioned in my flower garden or in my bouquets. It would still be a rose—I alone would be deceived, believing I was dealing with a violet and confusing those to whom I talked about it. They would be imagining a small, dainty flower, and as I talked about the large, fragrant bloom I picked, they’d be confused.
Deception is deception precisely because it masquerades as reality. Definitions do not determine meaning or function. They only serve to reveal or else to cover up the truth.
Gabriel
