| Author | Message | ||
| Colleentinker (Colleentinker) |
In that same Adventist Review referred to in aother thread--the one which contained the article about the world SDA church, there was an article by Gordon Bietz, president of Southern Adventist University, about prayer. In it Bietz admits that he has questions about prayer which he can't answer, and he talks about some of the questions that concern him. He also concludes, essentially, by saying that we need to pray, even if we don't understand how it works. I agree that we need to pray even though we don't understand exactly how it works. But I had such a flashback to the knot-in-the-stomach feeling I used to have so often as I read his assesments and questions about praying. On the one hand, he said, God can do anything or not do anything he deems fit. That seems to make God the "unmoved Mover" who can do everything without our prayers to help him along. He can't quite accept that view of God, because it renders our prayers usesless. On the other hand, we're supposed to pray, implying that our prayers make a difference. That suggests that if we ask, God will answer. Life, however, doesn't bear out that theory. What to make of prayer, then? Bietz suggests that it is by praying that we enter into relationship with God. And, just as we need friends, God also needs friends. God needs us. I remember that theory well. It always seemed a bit weak or lame--a bit like an excuse for God whom we couldn't explain very well. Now as I read that article, I have some clearer understanding of why those arguments and theories just don't make sense, and why they always seemed lame. First, we do not enter relationship with God by praying. We enter relationship with God by accepting Jesus and being born again by his Spirit. Second, God doesn't owe us any explanation of himself at all. He is sovereign. If he owed us explanations of himself and his choices, he wouldn't be sovereign. The idea that God needs friends and, as I often heard as an Adventist, that he created us because he wanted companionship, completely reduces the awesomeness of God and his sovereign will. In a healthy marriage, a couple doesn't primarily have children because they want companionship or friends. They have children as an experession of the love in their relationship. Companionship and affection will be results of having those children, but those aren't the primary reasons for having them. It seems disrespectful and irreverent to suppose God created us for more "selfish" reasons than those for which couples have children. God's creation of us is an expression of the sovereign, complete love inherent within the Trinity. God did not create us to be his friends; he created us to be his children, the objects of and expression of his love. Prayer isn't about God needing friends or even about our entereing into relationship with God. Prayer is communicating with God who is our all-in-all: Father, Savior, Brother, Friend, Creator, etc. It is about becoming vulnerable to the sovereign power in the universe, asking him to reveal himself to us in deeper and more personal ways, allowing him to change us in our most secret places of shame and fear. It's hard to put into words exactly what this particular article made me feel, but I guess I can summarize my reaction by saying I was overwhelmed at how my understanding of God as completely sovereign is changing the confused thinking I had about so much as an Adventist. God is sovereign; he sent Jesus as a sin offering because he chose to do so BEFORE the creation of the world. He is not struggling to vindicate himself. He is not beggin us to fulfill his friendship needs. He is NOT incomplete without us. He does, however, suffer if we refuse him--but he does not NEED us. It is so much more awesome and powerful to realize that the sovereign God of all chooses and wants me as part of his family than it ever was to think he was somehow incomplete without my "friendship". And when I start to think of what it means that this sovereign Father shares his Spirit with me, that his love is so certain of itself that he can risk being misrepresented and rejected by me--and still not lose ANY of his sovereign majesty or justice or mercy, I'm quite overwhelmed. All I can say is, Adventism grossly misrepresented the truth about God. It diminshed the deity of Jesus. It diminished the ultimate power and control of God. It somehow reduced God to a brilliant but dependant demi-god who needed and depended on us to make him look good and to make him happy. I am SO THANKFUL that God reveals himself to us as One who is greater than all and who, in his total sovereignty, chooses us to belong to him--while paradoxically allowing us to say no if we choose to be that blind. Wow! What an amazing honor! Colleen | ||
| Jerry (Jerry) |
Very sad, Colleen. One of the most pernicious distortions of the Gospel that I have heard is the Adventist doctrine explaining the crucifixion. As most of you know, a common explanation is ìJesus died to justify the Law.î That is to say, Jesus died to help God (notice how I separated the two) prove that the Law ìworksî or is within the capabilities of human behavior. The unspoken supposition here is that Jesus was completely ìnot Godî while He was on earth. The doctrine implies that He (Jesus) became as susceptible to sin like any one of us, and ìprovedî that we could follow the Law. From that logic, it follows that the crucifixion and the resurrection become incidental. They seem interesting, but not ìreally importantî compared to how Jesus ìfollowed the Law.î In fact, a relationship through Christ becomes optional when all you need to do is ìnoteî that Jesus followed the Law perfectly and then do the same on your own. It is much as when your parents might have said something like, ìYour older sister, Eunice, cleans her room every day. See? Why canít you can do it, too?î Not very much sovereignty there. | ||
| Cindy (Cindy) |
Thank-you Colleen and Jerry... Coming home from work very tired, it is a blessing to be reminded of the sovereignity of God. And His all-surpassing greatness! Grace always, Cindy | ||
| Chris (Chris) |
A very thoughtful post Colleen. I was blessed by it. I grew up in Adventism with the misconception that the Tinity was something like a very close family unit. However, these three individuals (this is how I understood it at that time) wanted a realtionship with others so we were created. What a terrible devaluing of the one triune God Who is all self-sufficient in and of Himself. The very nature of God is defined by the eternal relationships inherent in His being. Indeed he does not need us for realtionship or love because He by nature is the very essence of both these things. It is only by His unfathomable grace that He sovereignly chose to to create objects of His grace and love even knowing that it would result in the sacrifice of the Word made flesh. What a truly awesome God that we serve.....so far above our comprehension.....so full of grace and mercy beyond any merit of our own. Chris | ||
| Colleentinker (Colleentinker) |
Chris, I loved your sentence, "The very nature of God is defined by the eternal relationships inherent in His being." What a mystery! And Jerry, I couldn't agree more with your assessment of Adventist understandings of Jesus' death and resurrection. You're right; Jesus keeping the law as a human is His most important contribution as identified by Adventists! What an amazing God we REALLY serve, even though many of us didn't know it for a long time! Colleen | ||
| Bmorgan (Bmorgan) |
Yep! I remember reading in "Desire Of Ages" something to the effect: ..Jesus did not have to die on the cross, our sins would have killed Him in Gethsemane. Jesus I oft heard mentioned as our example or friend. Funny thing though, He was illusive. I never knew Him then. Now, I DO. Whenever I sing: Knowing You Jesus, knowing you There's not greater thing than this; You're my All You're the Best You're my joy, my righteousness. And I love you, Lord. ...I STAND and SHOUT the words of the song and whisper hallelujahs in my heart. Praise God our Sovereign Lord and King. | ||
| Colleentinker (Colleentinker) |
And isn't it just amazing freedom to be able to sing and praise God with real emotion?!! I love that song, too, BMorgan. It amazes me how real it is that knowing Jesus IS the greatest thing there is. I can't explain it, but then, you know what I'm talking about! Colleen | ||
| Speakeasy (Speakeasy) |
Just wanted to chim in. I will rock the boat by just asking this question. There is no question that God's Sovereignty is still intacted! God has not and will not step down to no man or other so called God's. He is the same God from beginning to the end. God himself has NOT changed. But Has God changed his mind on things? Has God kept things from us that we take for granted today? if he has kept things from us can we trust that he will not change his mind again? These I know are wierd and strange questions. But I just wanted to see what some of your responses are. Speakeasy | ||
| Colleentinker (Colleentinker) |
Speakeasy, If God veils things from our knowledge, that doesn't mean he's changing his mind. Jesus even said no one but the Father knows the day and hour of his own return! Does that mean God is changing his mind, or that we can't trust him? Absolutely not! God sees all eternity at once. We see each moment of time at once. Paul said the mystery of Christ in us, of Gentiles being one with Jews, is the mystery that was hidden from the ages. Although the law and the prophets testified of Jesus and of the new covenant, the reality of what that would look like was veiled. Likewise, the future is veiled from us, even though we know prophecy testifies to us of it. God didn't change his mind when he gave the law; he didn't change his mind when Jesus abolished the law's authority over us at the cross. All of that was planned from the creation of the world. Jesus is the Lamb slain from the creation of the world. The fact that God doesn't reveal everything to humanity before its appointed time does not mean we can't trust him, or that he's changing his mind. How could Israel ever have comprehended thereality of the church, of all humanity being one when they are in Christ, of eternal life--how could Israel have even begun to understand these things before sin had been atoned? Until Jesus atoned for sin and created a new an living way--the Holy Spirit--for us to be united with the Father, none of the new covenant reality would have made sense at all. In the same way that non-born-again people do not understand the spiritual truth of the new birth existence and the non-intellectual aspects of perceiving truth through the Spirit's witness to our spirit, even so Israel could never have understood the church. It was a mystery, but not a surprise. It was unseen, but not a change of God's mind. We know that Christ is eternally our Savior and our way to the Father. What specifically will happen in the future, we do not know in detail. But we do know that the revelations in the Bible assure us that nothing will separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus once we have accepted his atonment for our sin. Praise Him! Colleen | ||
| Speakeasy (Speakeasy) |
can I ask a question about the topic I brought up and not be blasted as a blasphemer? I have asked questions in public at church and have been asked to leave 3 churchs because of doing this. I have learned that I would rather not ask the questions and be apart of the group than asked to leave. Thanks Speakeasy |
