| Author |
Message |
Jeremy
Registered user
Username: Jeremy
Post Number: 79
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 10, 2004 - 12:32 pm: |     |
Dd,
One possible response could be, "No, because the New Covenant (or "the Law of Christ") tells us to not do those things. But the New Covenant (or "the Law of Christ") never tells us to keep the Sabbath."
Also, the illustration that Dale Ratzlaff gives about the US and British laws might help. Just because I refrain from stealing does not mean I'm obeying the old law of Great Britain. I'm obeying the law of the US.
But, also, maybe you should ask them if they are admitting that they refuse to believe the Bible when it says we are free from the Law? ;-)
Jeremy |
Susan_2
Registered user
Username: Susan_2
Post Number: 1094
Registered: 11-2002
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 10, 2004 - 1:31 pm: | |
I get that line from my loved ones alot. So we are now free to steal, to lie, to commit adultry, etc. I tell them no, we are under the law of the heart now, in our hearts we know right from wrong. I tell them what Jesus answered when asked that same question. He said, "The old law said do not commit adultry but I say to you whoever looks at another in lust has already committed adultry in his heart. The old law says do not kill but I tell you whoever hates his brother has already killed within his heart", etc. For me those texts work best because I understand them and they are not way academical. |
Pw
Registered user
Username: Pw
Post Number: 178
Registered: 6-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 10, 2004 - 1:35 pm: | |
Is anyone familiar with this website by L. Ray Smith called bible-truths.com? He sounds very much like an SDA but doesn't claim that he is. He goes through tons of scriptures explaining the SDA /JW theory of the state of the dead, and numerous other topics. His claims are just as whacked out as EGW's. He even goes so far to say that God created evil. Any feedback on this guy would be helpful. |
33ad
Registered user
Username: 33ad
Post Number: 111
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 10, 2004 - 1:43 pm: | |
The law of the NT is in Matt 5 (Sermon on the mount)
Jesus is quite clear on what is sinful and to what degree. (I don't mean some sins are lighter than others. I just meant that we can sin by merely thinking "Hmm, Not a bad idea".)
Further, in Acts, the first church council gives the guidlines of what the new pagan converts could not do, but gives freedom from the Law.
Loren |
Flyinglady
Registered user
Username: Flyinglady
Post Number: 729
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 10, 2004 - 4:48 pm: | |
I have put Doc R and Stephanie in my prayer book. They get prayed for morning and evening when I have my prayer time.
Diana |
Sheryl
Registered user
Username: Sheryl
Post Number: 21
Registered: 5-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 10, 2004 - 6:41 pm: | |
I was going to ask what is CARM also, but saw the post made earlier,
I used to be confused over Paul's writing also, kinda noticed that the church would translate Paul according to Old Testament doctrine to make it fit their beliefs, but now, when I read all the epistles written by him, what wonderful truths!! Oh how I enjoy reading what he wrote and everything starts to make more sense. The book of Romans is vital to understanding law and grace. I am still learning! |
Melissa
Registered user
Username: Melissa
Post Number: 577
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, November 11, 2004 - 6:37 am: | |
B says we are free from the law for salvation, but salvation should naturally lead us to keep the law. He quotes a few half phrases of scripture and that's all he needs. The line about us being 'spiritual Israel' means the Sabbath is for us and no other NT passage is going to change his mind. |
Madelia
Registered user
Username: Madelia
Post Number: 92
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, November 11, 2004 - 7:08 am: | |
As I read these posts, it really emphasizes to me the "canned" responses SDAs have. I've heard Sam, my husband, over and over again, say that Peter said Paul was hard to understand. And what B says about salvation naturally leading us to the law: all too familiar!!
BTW, Sam has been watching '04 Revival with D. Batchelor. Lots of quotes from EGW!! |
Pw
Registered user
Username: Pw
Post Number: 179
Registered: 6-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, November 11, 2004 - 9:04 am: | |
Of course the SDA's have a "canned" response to many questions that they may encounter. They don't have a valid explanation when it comes to issues that revolve around what EGW claimed for instructions. It's basically "if she wrote it, then it must be binding...no questions asked". Even Paul was impressed when the Bereans searched the scriptures to see if what he was preaching was in line with what was written. SDA's do no such thing, they just think keeping a sabbath day and following a bunch of rules grants them a special favor with God. How did I ever get mixed up with this when I joined? It's so obvious now, but so blinding at the time. As Homer Simpson would say..."D'OH!" |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 928
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, November 11, 2004 - 9:06 am: | |
Madelia, we saw part of Doug Batcheolor and the 04 Revival last night on the internet. I had that old familiar heaviness in my stomach when I heard him say some people willingly give their key to salvation to Satan by willfully sinning. He went on to say that when you KNOW you're forgiven and saved, you'll have no desire to give your key away to Satan. Believing you're forgiven, he said, gives you new power to keep from sinning, and you'll no longer want to sin.
In all his dancing around what he knows evangelicals believe--that salvation is secure when you belelive in Jesus--he still can't come right out and say it because it's not what Adventists believe. Instead he gives them the crazy-making "advice" that tells them to believe JEsus has forgiven them, and then you'll have a new view of sin.
He did not come out and ask them to accept Jesus; he did not mention the Holy Spirit or His bringing one to new life and thus breaking the power of inherited sin. He gave them no hope. It was the sort of sermon that used to leave me feeling absolutely confused about HOW TO DO IT so I would be saved.
You really can't put new wine in old wineskins.
Colleen |
Jeremy
Registered user
Username: Jeremy
Post Number: 83
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, November 11, 2004 - 12:50 pm: | |
That "canned" response about salvation leading you to the Law probably comes from this anti-Gospel quote by EGW:
"God has given man a complete rule of life in His law. Obeyed, man shall live by it, through the merits of Christ. Transgressed, it has power to condemn. The law sends men to Christ, and Christ points them back to the law." (Bible Echo and Signs of the Times, 04-16-1894, paragraph 13.)
What a hopeless gospel! And once Christ points you back to the Law then wouldn't the Law send you to Christ again? What is it, just an endless cycle?
And isn't it sick how EGW says "Christ" all of the time? She makes Him sound impersonal and she sure did not like to use the name of JESUS!
According to blueletterbible.org there are 522 verses with "Christ" in the Bible, and 942 verses with "Jesus." According to the EGW cd-rom, EGW uses "Christ" in 71,486 paragraphs, and "Jesus" in only 35,695 paragraphs! The ratio is almost exactly opposite from that of the Bible! And most of the times that the Bible uses "Christ" it puts it together with "Jesus" or it's talking about the title of "Messiah," it's not using it as a "name" of Jesus like EGW does.
Praise JESUS for SAVING us!
Jeremy |
Madelia
Registered user
Username: Madelia
Post Number: 93
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, November 11, 2004 - 2:23 pm: | |
One time I asked my husband: "If the Ten Commandments are so important to follow, then what was the point of Christ dying on the cross?" He didn't answer me |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 936
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, November 11, 2004 - 3:24 pm: | |
Jeremy, your point about EGW using "Christ" instead of "Jesus" is significant. When we left Adventism, one of the first things I noticed was that Christians actually said "Jesus" without feeling self-conscious. In fact, I remember our pastor refering to something "the Lord Jesus" said in a casual conversation one evening, and it really caught me off-guard. I'd NEVER heard anyone casually talk about Jesus that way before--especially a man, and especially a pastor!
Adventists as a whole (with some exceptions, I'm sure) are uncomfortable with Jesus while "God" seems safe and suitably impersonal. I believe that when a person doesn't know Jesus, He is truly an offense.
Colleen |
Jeremy
Registered user
Username: Jeremy
Post Number: 84
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, November 11, 2004 - 6:23 pm: | |
I just want to expand on a couple of points from my previous post. If the Law is to lead us to Jesus, then once we have Jesus, how could we possibly be under the Law still??! Once we have Him, why would we need to be led to Him? This is exactly the point of Galatians 3.
My sister likened EGW's quote to a ping-pong game. Salvation is not a spiritual ping-pong game, and we are not ping-pong balls which get banged around, bounced from the Law to Jesus, back to the Law, back to Jesus, back to the Law... We would get nowhere if Ellen's "ping-pong theology" (as my sister called it) was true!
Colleen, I think that is true. Part of the reason EGW did not like to even write the name of Jesus may have been because He was an offense to her, like you said.
But I also think there may have been something more to it than that. Satan may have led her to do that, so that SDAs would think of "Christ" as just a name of Jesus. SDAs think "Christ" is just a name of Jesus, and so when they come across texts like the ones that mention "the Law of Christ" they don't realize that it's saying "the Law of Messiah" which means that it has to be a Law which came after the 10 Commandments! EGW says that "Christ" was the law-giver that gave the 10 Commandments. She makes people think that His "name" was "Christ" way back then. And so SDAs probably naturally think of "the Law of Christ" as being the 10 Commandments!
SDAs seem to never try to think about the audience being written to in the Bible. Those that Paul was writing to (especially the Jews) understood that "Law of Christ" meant that Messiah had come and had given a new law!
Jeremy |
Tealeaves
Registered user
Username: Tealeaves
Post Number: 187
Registered: 5-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, November 11, 2004 - 6:40 pm: | |
Upon reflecting, i have to say that I think you guys are defintiely right. The SDAs I know DO have trouble with talking about Jesus, speaking intimately about a relationship with Him. Because they don't KNOW Him. |
Susan_2
Registered user
Username: Susan_2
Post Number: 1095
Registered: 11-2002
| | Posted on Thursday, November 11, 2004 - 8:19 pm: | |
I'd like to add a few comments here. That Doug Botchler with his Annoying (non)Facts really annoys me. Now a comment or two about talking about Jesusin a personal way. It always seemed to me that once a person is into the Junior division the SDA's do not pu much emphasis on Jesus anymore. Cradel Roll, Kindergarten and Primary get Jesus. Starting in Junior He's outta there and only gets the occassional bidding. Having grown up SDA I was with the understanding tht the song "Jesus Loves Me" is a kids song and is never sung by anyone around eight years old. Too simple. Too juvenile. Then I started attending the Lutheran church and "Jesus Loves Me" is regurally sung during the main worship service by the adults. It just blew me away because to SDA's that is a childs song. In the Lutheran church that is an adult song because it puts to music the gosple. Totally different that in the SDA. What a pleasant change. |
Ric_b
Registered user
Username: Ric_b
Post Number: 77
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Friday, November 12, 2004 - 6:42 am: | |
How very true Susan.
The final time I gave a sermon in an SDA church (something I did 6 to 8 times a years in different churches around the area), I started the sermon by having the congregation sing "Jesus Loves Me" and made the point that somewhere between Kindergarten and college we start doubting the basic truth of that song. It took a little while to get everyone singing along. I think your point about being comfortable singing that song as an adult is probably true. |
Susan_2
Registered user
Username: Susan_2
Post Number: 1099
Registered: 11-2002
| | Posted on Friday, November 12, 2004 - 7:55 am: | |
Jeremy, are you the same Jeremy that posts on VAF? I sure do like reading the posts on there by Str-8 and Jerem. Those two are the voices of reason and compassion and understanding. Those two are lighthouse lghts on that otherwise leek forum. These are several others on there who I like reading, too but their names have escaped me right now. |
Jeremy
Registered user
Username: Jeremy
Post Number: 85
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Friday, November 12, 2004 - 10:45 am: | |
Susan,
Yes, that's me, although I have quit posting on there, and haven't even looked at that forum for awhile. It creeps me out.
Jeremy |
Pw
Registered user
Username: Pw
Post Number: 181
Registered: 6-2004
| | Posted on Friday, November 12, 2004 - 10:59 am: | |
How can Jesus Loves Me be considered a children's song only? Read the lyrics and see that it portrays people of all ages. We have a contemporary version of it (with some slight modification of additional lyrics) and it sounds very cool. I think once a person thinks he's outgrown a personal love song from the savior then that person is no longer connected to him. |
Praisegod
Registered user
Username: Praisegod
Post Number: 186
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, January 01, 2005 - 3:20 pm: | |
I just checked into CARM to find the entire SDA board gone, supposedly for a few days off. I gathered there must have been a disagreement of some sort???? I haven't been keeping up so don't know.
|
Ric_b
Registered user
Username: Ric_b
Post Number: 149
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, January 01, 2005 - 4:31 pm: | |
As the questions about EGW became more and more pointed, the personal attacks and imflammatory comments seemed to grow just as quickly. In the final few posts before it was shut down, several SDAs were justifying their remarks towards others based on the fact that we were "attacking" a person (EGW) so they should be able to respond to others however they saw fit. But the rudeness had become so pervasive that nearly every post (mine included) was showing little, if any, Christian Spirit. We were all given a much deserved time-out. I think several people went out of their way to be rude and imflammatory in their comments, and we are likely to see a number of edited posts when it reopens--and maybe a couple less regulars (at least for a little while). |
Ric_b
Registered user
Username: Ric_b
Post Number: 150
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, January 01, 2005 - 6:04 pm: | |
Seems our time out has ended. But I find it amusing that a thread on "the Gospel" is locked. Of course the original post was trying to prove that the Gospel was Jesus being raised on Tuesday. And multiple SDAs responded, but none were questioning the day of resurrection. I guess anything anti-Sunday is OK, Scriptural or not. |
