| Author | Message | ||
| Bob Registered user Username: Bob Post Number: 95 Registered: 7-2000  |
Diana, this site also requires registration in order to post on the Forum. O'Fill has been forced to realize that if you don't have some control over who posts, you will have chaos. While I don't agree with their views, the SDAs have the right to limit posters, just as this forum does. And as Colleen and Richard know, even that does not sometimes prevent misuse by pretenders, until they are found out. | ||
| Belvalew Registered user Username: Belvalew Post Number: 163 Registered: 7-2004 |
Dear Co-laborers, It was a great ride while it lasted. I'm not surprised that restrictions have been put in place. As I said before, before we showed up they had a lovely mutual admiration society. I do think our interaction has been an education for both sides. My greatest hope is that even more people have been educated than we know of. The basic truths of grace have now been put in place on a SDA site, so all we can do is pray that those seeds will grow. Belva | ||
| Praisegod Registered user Username: Praisegod Post Number: 260 Registered: 3-2004  |
It makes sense to me to have people register. Most forums require registration to post. I can even understand wanting to keep the debate to one area. Here we are not a doctrinal site and we don't encourage debating theology either. This is a support group. The SDAs could do likewise--have a support group without doctrinal discussion. They truly need it given the drivenness of a religion requiring perfection. But it would also be great if there was a doctrinal thread on the same site where taboo things could be openly questioned and brought out into the light. Praise God... | ||
| Chris Registered user Username: Chris Post Number: 664 Registered: 7-2003  |
Jeremy, one of the things that really sturck me about O'Ffill's quote is that he referred to the Holy Spirit as an "it" instead of using the pronoun the Bible consistently uses, "He". No one would refer to a person as an "it". Certainly the Bible does not refer to the person of the Spirit as an "it". So why does O'Ffill use such impersonal terminology. Could it be that he rejects the Biblical teaching of the personhood of God the Spirit? Chris | ||
| Praisegod Registered user Username: Praisegod Post Number: 262 Registered: 3-2004 |
O'Fill is not the only SDA pastor who I've known to refer to the Holy Spirit as "it". I know that I had absolutely no correct concept of the Holy Spirit as SDA until I arrived at the point where I sensed I was to study the book of Acts without any EGW material. For me, I had to come to a correct understanding of the role of the Holy Spirit prior to studying out doctrinal issues such as the New Covenant. Maybe I'm just really, really a slow learner, but I didn't see people around me who understood the Holy Spirit either. The other danger is that if the SDA church accepted that people are to be led by the Holy Spirit, they would start thinking for themselves and comparing each decision to the law of Christ and the royal law. That would mean the church would lose control of how someone should think and act on specific issues. Praise God... | ||
| Belvalew Registered user Username: Belvalew Post Number: 167 Registered: 7-2004 |
Praisegod, You have a point there. My experience with the church I now attend is that they let scripture establish precepts, rather than have a doctrine and try to find scriptures that might support that doctrine. The gospel story, for instance, is that with all the access to the law mankind has still remained hopelessly riddled with sin. Add in now a holy God in the person of Jesus Christ, who put on the garb of human being, kept the law, accepted death in his being to make restitution for mankind, and made his atoning blood available to all of those who want to be covered by it. Its simplicity can confound the most studied of us. We want salvation to be more complex than it is. I guess that is why so many of us miss the point of the gospel, or try to embellish it. The Holy Spirit comes to us by invitation, fills up that empty dark place that original sin had been inhabiting until the indwelling occurs, reestablishes the direct link to God that man was originally intended to have. Again, a great mystery because it confuses the intelligence of the learned. As for Pastor O'Ffill's site, I'm contemplating registering, but am not sure my membership will be okayed. I'll continue to lurk about for a while and if it appears that complacency has established itself over there again, I'll see if I can stir up a brain cell or two. Belva | ||
| Greg Registered user Username: Greg Post Number: 33 Registered: 2-2005 |
Belva, You bring up a topic I studied this morning in my reading of John chapter 9. Recall this is the story about the man who was born blind who was healed by Jesus. The message of this story is that those who know their faults, acknowledging their "blindness", can come to Christ and understand the grace His salvation brings. Someone who "knows everything", like the pharisees, will not see this pure message and will actually be more blind than the physically blind man. I like how Jesus ties up this message at the end of the chapter when talking with the blind man, who, incidentally was thrown out of the synagogue for his conviction that Jesus had healed him:
I know I have been guilty of blindness to the simple message of the gospels in my life. It was only after I acknowledged this that my eyes were really opened for the first time. Praise Jesus for that! Greg | ||
| Susan_2 Registered user Username: Susan_2 Post Number: 1608 Registered: 11-2002 |
Diana, I noticed too that he kept referring to you as Flylady. At first I thought he was just being forgetful but then I noticed it happened several times and he was just being unkind. Flylady, makes me think of a lady fly. That is not kind at all. And, those were the quotes by EGW, Jeremy that I was thinking of. After reading those quotes by EGW no wonder the SDA preacher wouldn't pray for my sick baby. | ||
| Jeremy Registered user Username: Jeremy Post Number: 373 Registered: 10-2004  |
Chris, yes that bothered me also. Ellen liked to refer to the Holy Spirit as "it." I've come to see that SDAs just don't believe in the Holy Spirit in the Biblical sense. I did find 2 verses in the Bible (John 1:32 and 1 Peter 1:11) which in the King James Version refer to the Holy Spirit as "it." But modern translations do not translate it that way. I just found this quote from Ellen:
Belva, what you said about Jesus putting "on the garb of human being" bothered me. That is a phrase used over and over by Ellen G. White, and it sounds like Jesus did not really become human, but that He just "wore it" as a garment. I know you did not mean it that way, though.  Jeremy | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 1504 Registered: 12-2003  |
Yes, I caught that "it" also. I think ADventism in general sees the Spirit as an "it". The entire Trinity is murky in Adventism, and even today the theologians do not agree about what it is, exactly, and Who the Trinity is. Is Jesus really the eternal God Almighty? Many Adventists think not. I am so moved to realize that the entire Trinity is equally involved in my salvation, my growth, my gifting, my protection, my being loved--everything! Praise Father, Son, and Holy Spirit! Colleen | ||
| Belvalew Registered user Username: Belvalew Post Number: 168 Registered: 7-2004 |
Dear Jeremy, So right, I meant that he was divinity disguised as a human, because other humans cannot be in the presence of God and live. I may have been alluding to something I recently was listening to from Gene Scott's broadcasts. He mentioned that Jesus had to be the product of a virgin birth. Had he been the product of a normal earthly birth, that spark within, that spirit that was lost in the Garden, would not have been found in the infant Jesus. Because he was the product of a special indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the "living" God, eternal in all aspects, became a new creature, a God/man -- man/God, something never before seen or experienced, and someone who will never again be, occured. This is not the person that Ellen describes where he was completely human/completely God. Jesus was completely God veiled in human flesh. That veil was torn at the cross when he died. That is why the veil which foreshadowed him was torn at the time of his death, opening the way directly to God for sinning man. Early on Sunday morning when Mary encountered Jesus in the grave yard/garden, he was still in the process of performing his high priestly duties. He was on his way to heaven to present before God the blood, contained within his own body, of the sacrifice for sin. Once he had done that, all of the patriarchs who were held "in the bosom of Abraham" were declared citizens of heaven. After that he returned to intereact with the disciples and a few others for another 40 days, but just like the high priest, after having administered the sacrificial lamb's blood in the holy of holies, Jesus was free to put off his priestly garments and once again interact with people. That is my understanding. Belva | ||
| Chris Registered user Username: Chris Post Number: 669 Registered: 7-2003 |
Actually Belva, Jesus WAS 100% human and 100% God. That is why we speak of the theoanthropos, the God-man. I highly recommend reading the section on the doctrine of Christ in any good evangelical/orthodox systematic theology. Such a reading is quite helpful in organizing the biblical data that supports the historic orthodox doctrine of Christ being both fully human and fully man. Chris | ||
| Belvalew Registered user Username: Belvalew Post Number: 170 Registered: 7-2004 |
Right. Jesus is so amazing to me. The degree to which he would go to open heaven for you and me is beyond me to comprehend. I stand by the God/man-man/God description. I just wasn't able to phrase it well. I know that Ellen White, in trying to describe how Jesus handled temptation, indicated that he was put in the position to almost capitulate to temptation, but then "divinity would flash through humanity, and he would resist completely." I think that was her statement. I had one SDA preacher tell me that he thought that Mary Magdaline was Jesus' girlfriend, and that he believed that she and Jesus would get the chance to consumate their relationship after he comes back for his church. That statement never did sit well with me. It's not that I would want to deny Jesus the opportunity to have a family, it's just that that was not why he assumed his God/man identity in the first place. Anyway, correction taken and I thank you. Belva | ||
| Jeremy Registered user Username: Jeremy Post Number: 380 Registered: 10-2004 |
Wow, I signed up on O'Ffill's forum and the comments I'm getting are simply amazing. It's just incredible. Check it out. Jeremy | ||
| Chris Registered user Username: Chris Post Number: 670 Registered: 7-2003 |
Oops, in reading back over my post, this should have said: "Such a reading is quite helpful in organizing the biblical data that supports the historic orthodox doctrine of Christ being both fully human and fully God." Jeremy, can you post a link to the thread? I forgotten the URL for O'Ffill's forum. Chris | ||
| Greg Registered user Username: Greg Post Number: 34 Registered: 2-2005 |
"Someone Owes the Apostle Paul an Apology" http://www.revivalsermons.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=533 "The Temple Curtain" http://www.revivalsermons.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=527 "A Modest Proposal" http://www.revivalsermons.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=539 "Who is Responsible for the Moral Decline in Society?" http://www.revivalsermons.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=529 By the way, my account has been reinstated, on condition that I don't discuss a certain prophet. Greg | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 1508 Registered: 12-2003 |
Well, that confirms your observations, doesn't it? Any critiquing of the Bible or Jesus is permitted--as long as it doesn't expose Ellen. I'm so thankful for Jesus. Colleen | ||
| Greg Registered user Username: Greg Post Number: 35 Registered: 2-2005 |
I've been through both extremes with EGW lately. On the one hand, cultural Adventists don't want to talk about her, because she is irrelevant. On the other hand, historic Adventists don't want to talk about her, because she might be rendered less than a prophet. Something just doesn't add up. Greg | ||
| Greg Registered user Username: Greg Post Number: 36 Registered: 2-2005 |
On second thought, the only way those two extremes can be reconciled is if she really isn't a prophet. Hmm... Greg | ||
| Susan_2 Registered user Username: Susan_2 Post Number: 1612 Registered: 11-2002 |
Just a bit ago I read pages 12-16 over there. It is very frustrating to read the posts on that site. I think the historical SDA's are creepy. I found the information about Lorraine Day interesting. My mom is a total devotee of hers. My mom sends LD a lot of money for all her books, videos and tapes. It's really weird too because my mom does not have health problems, certanily no cancer. Yet just by being SDA my mom (age 84) is completely obsessed with her health and with food. She measures everything she eats and drinks. I just think there is something about being SDA that lends itself towards its devotees becomming obsessive fanatics about most everything-food, drinks, rest, what they can do and what they cannot do, everything. Didn't someone once say the reason Jesus drank wine and ate meat was because He didn't have EGW's health message? That is how the SDA's think. |
