| Author | Message | ||
| River Registered user Username: River Post Number: 3911 Registered: 9-2006  |
Jeremiah, Are you saying that you accept the recapitulation theory of atonement? River | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 9208 Registered: 12-2003  |
The link is this website: www.BibleStudiesforAdventists.com, and there is an email link at the bottom of the home page there. This is it: BibleStudiesforAdventists@gmail.com Colleen | ||
| Jeremiah Registered user Username: Jeremiah Post Number: 417 Registered: 1-2004  |
River, Not if it is what is said here; http://www.swartzentrover.com/cotor/Bible/Doctrines/Salvation/FalseTheories.htm . This definition of the recapitulation theory does not even match up with what Irenaeus believed. I think that trying to precisely define and put Christian theology in a box is just another way to be led away from following Christ. You can't know Jesus by reading a book, though it is possible to learn much about him that way. We as Christians believe in a real God, who can be known personally by experience. Theological discussion and statements are good for pointing out what is known to be false. Irenaeus does teach that Jesus recapitulated the human experience, participating in what we are but not sinning. Jesus is the second Adam. We are all "in" the first Adam from birth, and we get to be born into the second Adam in baptism. The second Adam has perfect communion with God. It's beyond that... Jesus is God with both God's nature and our human nature, not mixed, and not separated. When we become part of the body of Christ we become joined to Jesus' human nature. Our communion with God gets restored. Here's a passage from Irenaeus about the propitiation of Christ to God;
Nowhere does this say that there was any kind of punishment going on. Jesus is rescuing us from our own fallen condition, but not by paying our debt to God. Jesus is being righteous in the same way the the Father is righteous, and doing so in our flesh, then allowing us to become joined to Himself. The Father forgives our debt without requiring payment, and Jesus repairs our damage... well, provided we believe in and follow Him. Basically it's like this; the first Adam made himself into the enemy of God. The second Adam is God, who took our nature and lived in the way God lives. We get to choose which Adam we will be joined to. If we are joined to the second Adam there is no condemnation. If we remain in the first Adam, we condemn ourselves. Another point; Jesus is the one mediator between God and man precisely because Jesus has God's nature and man's nature, in the same person. This is also why there is only one mediator. SDA's tend to confuse "person" and "nature", which clouds their understanding of both the Incarnation and the Trinity. Jeremiah | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 9211 Registered: 12-2003 |
Jeremiah, you are correct that Jesus' perfect life is our substitution. He is the Perfect Israel; He is the Perfect Man who keeps the covenant with His (and our) Father. In Him all righteousness resides. He has truly done what Adam did not do, and He is our substitute in every sense. Because He is human He is qualified to be our perfect Substitute. Yet He also suffered God's punishment for sin. 2 Corinthians 5:21: "He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." Galatians 3:13: "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us—for it is written, 'Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree,'" Romans 8:3: For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh Romans 3:23-26: …for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by is grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; for the demonstration, I say of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Ephesians 1:7: In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of His grace. Hebrews 2:9 But we do see Him who was made for a little while lower than the angels, namely, Jesus because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone. Hebrews 2:17: Therefore, He had to be made like His brethren in all things, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. Hebrews 9:14 …how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? Hebrews 9:22: And according to the Law one may almost say, all things are cleansed with blood and without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. And the there was the "scream of the damned", to quote a great phrase from RC Sproul, when Jesus cried, "My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?" Of course God didn't stop loving Jesus. But He sent Him to become sin and to become a curse in our place, and Jesus experienced the Father removing His tangible presence from Him in response to the sin He had "become" on our behalf. Colleen | ||
| Jeremiah Registered user Username: Jeremiah Post Number: 418 Registered: 1-2004 |
Colleen, An important question to ask and answer is this; for what purpose did Jesus suffer and die? Hebrews chapter 2 has a whole lot to say about this question.
Notice why Jesus was made lower than the angels; specifically to taste death for everyone. Notice also that while Jesus is said to suffer, it is not God inflicting suffering, in this verse.
Notice that Jesus would not be a complete Saviour without suffering. It still does not say that God caused the suffering, only that God willed it, and with a loving purpose at that.
Notice again the reason for becoming flesh and suffering death; - this is the theory of recapitulation - what is not taken by Christ is not redeemed. Jesus must become absolutely one of us, taking every phase of our life, including suffering and death. The only thing Jesus didn't do was sin.
...and pay the penalty demanded by God? Yes in this sense; sin (missing the mark) causes a departure from God the giver of life, and since all life comes from God, to depart from God is to depart from life. God didn't tell Adam that "if you sin I will kill you" but rather just told Adam the truth that sin causes death. The only "penalty" Jesus paid was that it was necessary to break the power of death by taking on death as another part of humanity to be redeemed. After Jesus died and then rose again, death is turned into victory for those who are joined to Christ. There is no more fear of death.
The fear of death kept humanity in bondage to sin, which perpetuated death.
What do humans have that angels do not? Flesh and blood, and death.
The point is driven home yet again, that Jesus had to be just like us. What is the propitiation? It is Jesus redeeming our entire existence, including our temptations, and making available his life to be our life. The propitiation is making a way for humans who are enslaved to sin and death to become united to God. This is only possible by God taking on humanity. Humans are incapable of escaping sin and death without this intervention of God. Hebrews 5:7-9 has this to say;
Jesus has two natures; God's nature, and man's nature. Man's nature does not like to submit to authority, to be humble, to be obedient, or to suffer. God's nature has a will, and man's nature has a will. Evidently, in Jesus, there was a struggle of the wills. When we become joined to Jesus' human nature, we learn to submit our will to God, to obey. Jesus is able to help us because he has already been there. It is a process and a journey of union with God, of becoming again in the likeness of God that we were meant to be in. I think to say that the "propitiation" in Hebrews 2:17 means suffering punishment from God in payment for our sins is to read into the text something that isn't there. To be a legitimate interpretation this must depend on the definition being sourced from some other instance of the use of the word, in my opinion. Jeremiah | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 9215 Registered: 12-2003 |
Jesus' mediation for us hangs on the fact that He experienced our temptations and suffering. But "propitiation" is something different. The definition of "propitiation" is crucial here. New Bible Dictionary, InterVarsity Press: "Propitiation: Propitiation properly signifies the removal of wrath by the offering of a gift. In the OT it is expressed by the verb kipper (*Atonement). In the NT the hilaskomai word group is the important one. In modern times the whole idea of propitiation has been strongly criticized as savouring of unworthy ideas of God. Many suggest that the term "propitiation" should be abandoned in favour of *expiation, and this is done, for example, in RSV. "The objection to propitiation arises largely from an objection to the whole idea of the wrath of God, which many exponents of this view relegate to the status of an archaism. They feel that modern men cannot hold such an idea. But the men of the OT had no such inhibitions. For them 'God is angry with the wicked every day' (Ps. 7:11, AV).… "But the Bible view of propitiation does not depend on this or that specific passage. It is a reflection of the general import of its teaching. 'Propitiation' is a reminder that God is implacably opposed to everything that is evil, that his opposition may properly be described as 'wrath', and that this wrath is put away only by the atoning work of Christ." ______________________________________________________________ Romans 1-3 lay out the fact that all men, Jews and Gentiles, are equally sinners before God. Romans 1 explains that the wrath of God is being poured out [note the present tense] against all ungodliness and unrighteousness, and this wrath currently occurs in the "shape" of God giving evil men over to their lusts, their degrading passions, and to their depraved mind. Chapters 2 and 3 clearly explain that Jews who have the law are no better off sin-wise than are Gentiles who do not have it. All are condemned. There is no partiality with God. Thus, in Romans 3:25, according to Wayne Grudem in Bible Doctrines, p. 254, Paul tells us "that God put forward Christ as a 'propitiation' (NASB [and ESV]), a word that means 'a sacrifice that bears God's wrath to the end and in so doing changes God's wrath toward us into favor'…God had not simply forgiven sin and forgotten about the punishment in generations past. He had forgiven sins and stored up his righteous anger against those sins… "Many theologians outside the evangelical world have strongly objected to the idea that Jesus bore the wrath of God against sin. Their basic assumption is that since God is a God of love, it would be inconsistent with his character to show wrath against the human beings he has created and for whom he is a loving Father. But evangelical scholars have convincingly argued that the idea of the wrath of God is solidly rooted in both the Old and New Testaments… "Three other crucial passages in the New Testament refer to Jesus' death as a 'propitiation': Hebrews 2:17; 1 John 2:2; and 4:10. The Greek terms (the verb hilaskomai, 'to make propitiation' and the noun hilasmos, 'a sacrifice of propitiation') used in these passages have the sense of 'a sacrifice that turns away the wrath of God—and thereby makes God propitious (or favorable) toward us.' This is the consistent meaning of these words outside the Bible where they were well understood in reference to pagan Greek religions. These verses simply mean that Jesus bore the wrath of God against sin." ______________________________________________________________ In order to understand the word "propitiation" in the biblical text, we have to understand what it meant in the literature and usage of contemporary writing and language. It meant "a sacrifice that turns away the wrath of God—and thereby makes God propitious (or favorable) toward us." We can't change the meaning of the word. Paul and John and the writer of Hebrews (three different authors) all used this word, and they all understood it in the way the contemporary language used it. Propitiation is at the heart of the doctrine of the atonement. It means there's an eternal, unchangeable requirement in God's holiness and justice, and sin must be paid for. Colleen | ||
| Jeremiah Registered user Username: Jeremiah Post Number: 419 Registered: 1-2004 |
The wrath portrayed in Romans 1 would be difficult to apply to Jesus. Jesus glorified God and was thankful, and His heart was not darkened. Jesus was never given up to uncleanness, vile passions, or a debased mind. I don't see how this wrath could ever have been experienced by Jesus. If this description of the wrath of God is taken to be accurate, then it can explain the motivation behind God's anger in the Old Testament. There is a teaching that we progress spiritually in the same way that we progress when growing up from babies to children to teenagers to adults. To motivate a 2 year old, punishment and reward are used. As the child grows, the training changes shape. As adults, we understand the deeper meaning behind the spankings we got as children, and all the detailed rules our parents gave us in our early teens. If God relates to humanity the way a father relates to children, it is no surprise that for most of history before Christ there was punishment and reward, and finely detailed rules. Only the people who were especially close to God would realize that God doesn't actually like sacrifices and offerings, and the whole goal of life wasn't actually to perfectly keep the Sabbath, etc. It would be no problem that for the spiritually immature, propitiation would seem like God punishing the wicked. God simply relates to people at their spiritual level. Jesus certainly did change how we think God likes us. When we follow Jesus, we do experience God's favor. But ultimately, for spiritually mature people, we can discover that God never had a change of mind about sinful humans. All the changing happened to us, with the exception of God taking on flesh and blood and defeating death by dying. You might call it propitiation, but it is totally from the love God has for us, and so far I do not see how it would require God punishing Jesus. Jeremiah | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 9216 Registered: 12-2003 |
Jeremiah, I don't think God "punished" Jesus. I believe He punished SIN. 2 Cor 5:21 states that Jesus "became sin", and Gal 3:13 states that He "became a curse". God accepted Jesus' sacrifice of Himself as payment for the debt of sin—the sin of all believers—and of COURSE it flowed from His love—both Jesus' sacrifice and God's acceptance of it for our sakes. Jesus took the punishment as our stand-in, our substitute. His wasn't merely a vicarious death; He became sin and a curse and experienced God's withdrawal from it. It wasn't out of hatred or God not loving Jesus. God always loved Jesus—and us. But God hates sin, and He poured out His wrath against sin in His withdrawing when Jesus was on the cross. Jesus experienced the isolation of the "second death". That was God's wrath against sin, God's inability to be in the presence of sin. Colleen | ||
| Bskillet Registered user Username: Bskillet Post Number: 96 Registered: 8-2008 |
I read a point once on God's wrath from Romans 1:18. "For God's wrath is revealed from heaven against all godlessness and unrighteousness of people..." God's wrath is not directed at the people themselves, but the godlessness and unrighteousness of the people. I have heard that some theologians define God's wrath as His righteous anger at that which corrupts the object of His love. God hates sin because it destroys what He loves, us. Jesus became sin on the cross, so that God could destroy it in Him. Or at least, that's how I've heard someone explain it once. | ||
| Jody Registered user Username: Jody Post Number: 67 Registered: 7-2007 |
Gilbert, did u do some review of the last quarters Sabbath School lesson on the atonement? I thought i read a post somewhere that u did.Is it on ur website somehwhere? Can u direct me? Or did i imagine this whole thing? | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 9218 Registered: 12-2003 |
The commentary for the first two days of this next week's lessons are up at this site: http://www.biblestudiesforadventists.com/index.html The remainder will appear as the week progresses. (Hopefully I'll be able to do more than one per day and complete them all before the end of the week..!) Next week's commentary will be by Richard, and the fourth week's will be by Dale Ratzlaff. Colleen (Message edited by Colleentinker on January 03, 2009) | ||
| Joyfulheart Registered user Username: Joyfulheart Post Number: 433 Registered: 10-2006 |
Colleen, Thanks so much for doing this! I know digging through all that stuff and replacing those thoughts with truth from the Bible is a lot of work - not to mention writing it all up in paragraph form, editing it and putting it online. Your commentary is excellent! I'm praying that God will use it in ways none can yet even imagine. | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 9220 Registered: 12-2003 |
Thank you, Joyfulheart. I join you in that prayer. This project came suddenly—our own Gilbert contacted us about doing this and worked with Richard on getting the project ready to go. Sometimes God seems to plunk things in front of us without any forethought on our part, and we know He's asking us to run with it. This SS Lesson commentary is one of those instances. We're so thankful for all those who are contributing. Colleen | ||
| Flyinglady Registered user Username: Flyinglady Post Number: 6247 Registered: 3-2004  |
I know all of us are praying for this project. It is so important. Diana L | ||
| Indy4now Registered user Username: Indy4now Post Number: 338 Registered: 2-2008 |
Hi Colleen~ Another big thanks from me also. I talked to my mom earlier today and she wants to send me some link with Doug Batchelor about "The Gift of Prophecy." I thought I was done with studying these guides after the 1844 quarterly... I may have to dig into your website. I'm SO GLAD that I have this resource available to me. Thanks for all your hard work and to everyone else on this project. ~vivian | ||
| Jorgfe Registered user Username: Jorgfe Post Number: 1473 Registered: 11-2005 |
Colleen, your much-needed commentary on these Sabbath School Bible Guides is a real eye opener -- not only for Adventists, but for those of us that are formers as well. I am floored at the amount of cultic doctrine rampant in the current Sabbath School Bible Study Guides. What this demonstrates is that Adventism's "love affair" with Ellen White has not abated at all. It is those so-called "progressive Adventists" that are out of touch with the "heartbeat" of Adventism. They need to shut off their IV of Adventist "pain killer", and actually analyze what Adventism teaches. It is my prayer that every Seventh-day Adventist will begin to study the Sabbath School Bible Study Guide. Gilbert Jorgensen | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 9222 Registered: 12-2003 |
Hey, all--today's commentary, the third one for the week, is finally up. This one was pretty complex. It involved some amazingly heretical ideas. The two biggest were that Moses' veil over his face made him a type of Christ in that Christ veiled his divinity in a human body so God could fellowship with man without destroying him, and the glory on Moses' face represented the blessings promised through Christ to God's commandment-keeping people. The second was from a quote in the companion EGW notes that Moses would have been translated if he hadn't sinned when striking the rock, and that Christ and the angels came an resurrected him a took him lovingly to heaven. Sigh. So I brought up 2 Cor 3:7-18 where Paul talks about the fading glory representing the old covenant, the "letters on stone", and the new covenant, the "ministry of the Spirit", being one that brings us increasing glory. To counteract the Moses/resurrection/translation notions, I had to touch on Michael the archangel along the way. The EGW-isms are totally foundational to Adventist teaching, understanding, arguments, and worldview. Adventists have NO IDEA how much a product of Ellen they are. The comments for today are available here: http://www.biblestudiesforadventists.com/2009/quarter1/week2/sabbathschoolqua.html Colleen | ||
| Jorgfe Registered user Username: Jorgfe Post Number: 1474 Registered: 11-2005 |
You probably know that Adventism teaches that both Satan and Jesus arr archangels. I have a whole article with a Signs of the Times photo that I can't embed here so I will just share the link to my notes with you - http://www.exposingadventism.com/content/facts/satan_both-jesus-and-satan-archangels.php Gilbert Jorgensen | ||
| Jonvil Registered user Username: Jonvil Post Number: 266 Registered: 4-2007 |
These SS lessons are a theological disaster with only one goal, to establish EGW as the one and only prophetess for these last days. I'm only studying this mess because that's what my wife is studying (but is strangely silent on), but due to the fact that there is not a single point of agreement to be found, there's no way to start a discussion without attacking everything in sight, which is hardly conducive to a 'friendly' conversation. I don’t think I’ll be able to endure 11 more weeks of this drivel even though I’m avoiding the Ellenisms like the plague. My hat is off to Colleen for slogging through this SDA pretext of a ‘bible’ study. John | ||
| Bskillet Registered user Username: Bskillet Post Number: 97 Registered: 8-2008 |
Once again SDA-ism tiptoes past 2 Cor. 3, saying, "Move along. Nothing to see here." |
