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Message |
Riverfonz
Registered user
Username: Riverfonz
Post Number: 1846
Registered: 3-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, July 06, 2006 - 2:13 pm: |     |
Grace,
Don't worry--I was not implying any offense at your statement (smiley)
But you are right, however in this statement you made:
"For instance, I can see my Adventist friends nodding at your above statement, "But our obedience springs from the fact that we are already eternally saved. We obey not to keep our salvation, but because we are saved and we want to please God." I completely agree 100% with your comment, but my Adventist friends would say they agree too. It basically comes down to a difference in believing 'what we obey'."
This is close Grace, but not exactly. Because, when I make that statement, I believe there is no possibility of losing your salvation if you are truly given an eternal resurrected soul. But I think your SDA friends would say that you can lose your salvation if you don't keep the Sabbath, which has a different meaning.
Stan
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Riverfonz
Registered user
Username: Riverfonz
Post Number: 1847
Registered: 3-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, July 06, 2006 - 2:31 pm: | |
Grace,
As an afterthought, I was reading your quote again. The difference is subtle. However, it is possible to believe in the doctrine of justification by faith alone, and then say that you obey because you are saved. So, evangelical SDAs like Desmond Ford would say that the decalogue and the Sabbath is binding, but, as long as you are trusting Christ, you cannot be lost. This is also the position of other non-SDA evangelicals who believe it is possible to lose your salvation, as evidenced by this quote:
"I tell people that, of course, I believe in eternal security. As long as I abide in Christ, Iím eternally secure. As long as I abide in Him, Heís going to keep me from falling and present me faultless before His glorious presence. I believe that and I experience Godís security."
Does anyone have a problem with that last quote?
But, if an SDA says that keeping the Sabbath is contingent on staying saved, then that is a different gospel. I have never heard Des Ford say that if you don't keep the Sabbath, you won't be saved.
Stan
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Snowboardingmom
Registered user
Username: Snowboardingmom
Post Number: 129
Registered: 11-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, July 06, 2006 - 3:12 pm: | |
I've been in between patients as I've been posting -- so my ramblings are really disjointed, and not very organized. But I really wanted to comment on the quote about "As long as I abide in Christ, I'm eternally secure..."
This type of comment used to really confuse me. With my Adventist upbringing, it seemed to make perfect sense. If we abide in Him, and stay in Him, then we will be okay. Arrogantly, it seemed logical. I've come to realize though, how the power or strength to abide in Him isn't from us, but from God. As humans, we will always fail in trying to abide in Him -- it goes against our natural tendency. Our human-ness is naturally repulsed by it. But when we are born again by His Spirit, and God indwells us, WE CAN'T HELP but abide in Him. God won't allow any other way. If one truly understands the gospel, it seems silly to actually have to state "as long as I abide in Christ, I'm eternally secure..." Of course! It's almost like saying, as long as I keep breathing, I'll stay alive. Well of course!!
I better get back to work before my staff fires me  .
Grace |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 4271
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, July 06, 2006 - 5:52 pm: | |
This is such an interesting discussion! Here's what it is illustrating to me: First, we cannot know whether or not a person claiming belief in Christ is actually saved or not. The Adventist comments Grace is referring to sound almost exactly like those of people who do know Jesus. Yet the fact that people SAY they trust Jesus does not mean they have been born again.
I believe some people who claim faith in Jesus but feel they personally must keep themselves secure ówhether Adventist or notóare really saved because they are truly desiring to know and grow in Christ. Others, however, see Jesus as necessary but also see the law as necessaryóand they don't actually know Him.
I know some very rigid, historic Adventists who totally claim to be saved through faith in Christóyet they are miserable, cranky, unhapy people who honor Sabbath as an eternal TRUTH and are eating their way to righteousness.
So no, Stan, I don't assume that because an Adventist professes faith in Christ he really has been born again. As long as there is a deep resistance to knowing Jesus as Sabbathóbottom line, as long as there is a desire to hold onto Ellenótheir faith is not in Jesus alone.
I cannot presume to know which professing people are truly saved and which are not. But the deception Grace describes is SO TRUE. The bondage of needing to include the law is a giant red flag. If a person cannot explore the possibility that Jesus is more than he thoughtóthat He is more than the Sabbathóthen I question their freedom in Christ.
I can't possibly know who is saved and who is not among those who profess. But I do know that teachers like Doug Batchelor are accountable for the deceptive teaching they promulgate. I know that God holds me accountable for the deceptive teaching I promulgated as an Adventist too.
I just pray that He will continue to reveal Himself to me and teach me truth, glorifying Himself in me. He is all that matters.
Colleen
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Ric_b
Registered user
Username: Ric_b
Post Number: 572
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, July 06, 2006 - 7:42 pm: | |
Colleen, you are really striking at the heart of the challenge in proclaiming the message of the true Gospel into churches where truth and error have become some intertwined that it is hard to pull the good from the bad. There are many followers of our Lord mixed within the group, and we can't often know who those are. And their are many honest seekers who want to "do the right thing" but still don't know that it isn't about their doing. We need to clearly expose errors in hopes of breaking the chains that are binding these folks and encourage them to find the rest that only exists when we turn all of our efforts over to Him, and let Him do it all. But in our fervent desire to expose these errors, it is easy to sound like we are judging whether other individuals are true believers and follower of Jesus. We must continually strive to make it clear that we are judging the falseness of the doctrines, not the salvation of the one who may believe, or even teach, those errors. |
Agapetos
Registered user
Username: Agapetos
Post Number: 150
Registered: 10-2002
| | Posted on Thursday, July 06, 2006 - 8:02 pm: | |
Yes, Stan, that quote was rather.....I don't have a word for it, but it was simply sad and insecure. When Adventists I knew (and perhaps myself for one year) used these kinds of expressions, everything always returned to the law. "What does it mean to abide in Christ? We abide in Him by keeping His commandments". For those people, everything is twisted to come back to the law.
I noticed that when I lived under this idea, I always was trying to "clean up" before I came to Jesus, instead of coming to Him to be cleaned up. Then I began to learn that it's not your faithfulness that saves you, it's His faithfulness. |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 4273
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, July 06, 2006 - 8:26 pm: | |
Rick, you're right. And Ramone, I so relate to your experience of "cleaning up" before coming back to Jesus. That was my experience over and over.
I'm so thankful for Jesusóand for His removing the veil!
Colleen |
Riverfonz
Registered user
Username: Riverfonz
Post Number: 1849
Registered: 3-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, July 06, 2006 - 9:44 pm: | |
Ramone and Grace,
I am glad you both saw the problems in this quote:
"I tell people that, of course, I believe in eternal security. As long as I abide in Christ, Iím eternally secure. As long as I abide in Him, Heís going to keep me from falling and present me faultless before His glorious presence. I believe that and I experience Godís security."
notice all the I's and me's in that statement. Grace, you called it exactly right:
But when we are born again by His Spirit, and God indwells us, WE CAN'T HELP but abide in Him. God won't allow any other way. If one truly understands the gospel, it seems silly to actually have to state "as long as I abide in Christ, I'm eternally secure..." Of course! It's almost like saying, as long as I keep breathing, I'll stay alive. Well of course".
But that quote was not from an Adventist pulpit, but an evangelical non-denominational church.
On the White horse Inn radio show, www.whitehorseinn.org there has been documentation showing that the evangelical church as a whole is woefully ignorant of the doctrine of justification by faith alone. Some 70% of so-called evangelical pastors either can't articulate it properly, or think that it is important. This doctrine of justification by faith alone is THE HEART OF THE GOSPEL. Anything less, or muddled up by mixing law and gospel, is very serious. There is a tendency to say that doctrine is unimportant. But it is very important, because even a gospel that is even slightly compromised then compromises the message.
Stan
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Agapetos
Registered user
Username: Agapetos
Post Number: 156
Registered: 10-2002
| | Posted on Thursday, July 06, 2006 - 10:24 pm: | |
Stan,
Very interesting revelation. I think the church at large is suffering from the idea of needing to "get clean" before you come to God. We dress up in our Sunday-best, after all, instead of coming as we are. Philip Yancey began his book "What's So Amazing About Grace?" because he was so disturbed by a story related to him by a friend who works with the down-and-out in Chicago:
quote:A prostitute came to me in wretched straits, homeless, sick, unable to buy food for her two-year-old daughter. Through sobs and tears, she told me she had been renting out her daughter--two years old!--to men interested in kinky sex. She made more renting out her daughter for an hour than she could earn on her own in a night. She had to do it, she said, to support her own drug habit. I could hardly bear hearing her sordid story. For one thing, it made me legally liable---I'm required to report cases of child abuse. I had no idea what to say to this woman.
At last I asked if she had ever thought of going to a church for help. I will never forget the look of pure, naive shock that crossed her face. "Church!" she cried. "Why would I ever go there? I was already feeling terrible about myself. They'd just make me feel worse."
We all so desperately need God's grace, often most of all inside the buildings we call "His house". We're all His broken children, but we're all so desperately afraid of admitting it to one another. Lord, help us do that and find healing in You alone, no matter what we look like in the end. |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 4275
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, July 06, 2006 - 11:04 pm: | |
Yes, Ramoneóthe issue of grace is ultimately not about theology but about our own vulnerable dependence upon God. As long as we think about it theoreticaly, we can believe we "get it".
But God saves us in our sins, and he while we were dead in our transgressions and the uncircumcision of our flesh, He made us alive together with Him, forgiving all our transgressions and cancelling the certificate of debt that was hostile to us.
Unless we allow our hearts to be broken and to literally experience this overwhelming conviction of sin and undeserved redemption, we tend to look at the issue of grace as a theory, an interesting "clinical" reality.
One of the things God does for us when He redeems us is give us the ability to feel. Sometimes we don't want to feelóbut knowing the pain and conviction and suffering of our lives is part of how God heals us. He comes into our suffering and memories, and He heals even the past. But we have to be willing to feel them in order to know we need Him to heal them!
You're right; experiencing God's grace is not merely a legal, clinical event; it is a deeply moving, upsetting, joyful miracle that leaves us forever changed.
Colleen |
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