Posted on Friday, May 12, 2006 - 7:09 am:

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I am not an enemy of Adventism. I am a friend of Adventist people and a lover of truth. I did my level best at great risk - in 1956 and from then on ñ to take a strong position on the basis of Questions on Doctrine. If they are going to repudiate the book and turn back the pages, I have no other alternative but to rewrite the chapter in The Kingdom of the Cults. And I'll have no other alternative but to come out and do another tape or series of tapes. I mean, just lay the whole thing out. I don't want to do that. I'd much rather see them come around to a solid position.

-Walter Martin in an Adventist Currents interview, Vol. 1, No. 1, July, 1983

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Posted on Friday, May 12, 2006 - 12:44 pm:

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Luke 4:41 41 And demons also came out of many, crying, "You are the Son of God!" But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew that he was the Christ.

Luke 8:27-28 27 When Jesus had stepped out on land, there met him a man from the city who had demons. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he had not lived in a house but among the tombs. 28 When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him and said with a loud voice, "What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me."

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James 2:19 19 You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe- and shudder!

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Posted on Friday, May 12, 2006 - 8:33 pm:

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Although the church never disavowed the book, debate over one section on the nature of Jesus Christ and whether the Savior had a propensity to sin, (contained in "Appendix B" of the original volume) eventually sidelined its distribution. Another conflict Adventist critics found in the book centered on the question of whether Christ's atonement was completed at the cross. Both QOD and Ellen White, in some of her writings, referred to the atonement as being "completed" at the cross, though Mrs. White also taught that it is applied to believers during the present judgment being conducted in the heavenly sanctuary. Thus, she could speak of a "final" atonement.

Because of these conflicting areas of Adventist thought, some church leaders, in particular a retired theologian named M. L. Andreasen, claimed the book did not properly represent Adventist teaching. Andreasen, who believed QOD had removed one of the "foundation pillars" of Adventist thinking in its view of the atonement, began a campaign of broadsides against the book, that resulted in the suspension of his ministerial credentials. After reconciliation with church leaders three days before his passing in February 1962, Andreasen's credentials were restored the following month. (Knight's commentary in the republished volume makes it clear that some of Andreasen's complaints about certain sections--particularly the controversial "Appendix B"--were valid.)

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The core of Andreasen's theology is that the atonement involved three essential phases. The first consisted of Christ's sinless life of perfect obedience to God's law; the second was His death on the cross where ëChrist finished His work as victim and sacrifice.í6 While these first two atonement phases were certainly foundational to Andreasen's teaching on the atonement, it was the third that contained the essential focus of his theology, and Andreasen had laid it out in clear and unmistakable language: ëIn the third phase Christ demonstrates that man can do what He did, with the same help He had. This phase includes His session at the right hand of God, His high priestly ministry, and the final exhibition of His saints in their last struggle with Satan, and their glorious victory.í This third phase, Andreasen said, is now in progress in the sanctuary above and in the church below. Christ broke the power of sin in His lifework on earth. He destroyed sin and Satan by His death. He is now eliminating and destroying sin in His saints on earth. This is a part of the cleansing of the true sanctuary.7

The key theological principle that undergirded this Most Holy Place phase of the atonement was Andreasen's Christology. He firmly held that Christ had taken a sinful human nature, just like Adam's after the Fall (in other words, a sinful nature with tendencies to sin). Thus with the empowering Christ as an example to His last generation followers, the final atonement could be effected from the heavenly sanctuary as it played out through the sinless perfected characters of the embattled saints on earth. This final atonement, final generation theology was most clearly set forth in the chapter ëThe Last Generationí in Andreasen's well-known book The Sanctuary Service.8

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Posted on Friday, May 12, 2006 - 9:42 pm:

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On the cross the penalty for human sin was fully paid. Divine justice was satisfied. From a legal perspective the world was restored to favor with God (Rom. 5:18). The atonement, or reconciliation, was completed on the cross as foreshadowed by the sacrifices, and the penitent believer can trust in this finished work of our Lord.

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Posted on Saturday, May 13, 2006 - 6:05 am:

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Andreasenís discontent begun to surface with the September 1956 publication in Eternity, with itís assignment of those who held his position on the sinful human nature of Christ to the Ñlunatic fringeî of adventism. That smoldering discontent brought aut into the open when Froom published a February 1957 Ministry article on the atonement. Especially offensive to Andreasen was a sentence reffering to Christís death for every sinner that read: ÑThat is the tremendous scope of the sacrificial act of the crossóa complete, perfect, and final atonement for manís sin.î What Froom meant by that sentence was that the sacrifice on the cross was a full and complete sacrifice (in terms of the sacrificial aspect of the atonement) for sin. But that is not the way Andreasen read it on February 15 when he misunderstood and misquoted Froomís words. Andreasen repeatedly quoted Froom as saying that îíthe sacrificial act on the cross (is) a complete, perfect, and final atonement for manís sins.íî But Andreasenís rendering of Froom sentence changed his meaning. The word Ñisî is not in Froom original sentence. Rather, he followed the word Ñcrossî with a mid-sentence dash, with the words following the dash functioning as an explanatory phrase to the several words that went before. Thus Froomís meaning was that the cross was a complete sacrifice (or the sacrificial aspect of the atonement). But Andreasen, in quoting Froom, removed the dash and supplied the word Ñisî in parantheses. With that one small stroke he changed Froomís meaning from a completed sacrifice (or sacrificial aspect of the atonement) on the cross to a completed atonement on the cross. That interpretation, of course, put Froom and his colleagues aut of harmony with traditional Adventism, which had often used atonement exclusively to refer to Christís ehavenly, day-of-atonement ministry.

That Froom was not abandoning the traditional adventist understanding is clear from the context of the controverted statement. Two paragraphs earlier he had written that Ñthe term Çatonement,í which we are considering, obviously has a much broader meaning than has been commonly conceived. Despite the belief of multitudes in the [evangelical] churches about us, it is not, on the one hand, limited just to the sacrificial death of Christ on the cross. On the other hand, neither is it confined to the ministry of our heavenly High Priest in the sanctuary above, on the antitypical day of atonementóor hour of Godís judgmentóas some of our [Adventist] forefathers first erroneously thought and wrote. Instead, as attested by the Spirit of prophecy, it clearly embraces bothóone aspect being incomplete without the other, and each being the indispensable complement of the other.î

The context following the controverted statement is equally clear. Thus the sentence that follows Froomís statement that the sacrificial act of Christ was complete and final states Ñthat [the sacrificial act on the cross] is not all, nor is it enough. That completed act of atonement on the cross is valueless to any soul unless, and until, it is applied by Christ our High Priest to, and appropiated by, the individual recipient.î Thus Froom was not substituting atonement on the cross for atonement in the heavenly sanctuary, but was referring to what he and Anderson would consistently refer to as Ñatonement providedî at the cross and Ñatonement appliedî in Christís heavenly ministry during the antitypical day of atonement. In conclusion, it can be said that while it is true that Froom believed that Christís death on the cross was complete as a sacrifice of atonement, he did not hold that it represented a completed atonement.

In that position Froom and his fellow conferees were in good company. After all, Ellen White pictured the Father as bowing before the cross Ñin recognition of itís perfection. ÇIt is enough, He said, ÇThe atonement is complete.íî Again she had written that when Christ Ñoffered Himself on the cross, a perfect atonement was made for the sins of the people.î She, of course , also used the word Ñatonementî in dealing with Christís heavenly work in the present era. In addition, it is of interest to note that Andreasen had claimed in 1848 that Ñon the cross Christ finished His work as victim and sacrifice.î Beyond that, Andreasen had never restricted the meaning of atonement to the heavenly ministry of Christ. He perceptively noted that Ñthe atonement is not a single event, but a process, reaching down through the ages, which will not be finished until time shall be no more.î In fact Andreasen himself considered the cross to be the conclusion to what he called the Ñsecond phaseî in ÑChristís work of atonement.î Thus, in essence, Andreasen and Ellen White were in harmony with Froom that there needed to be a heavenly ministry to fully apply the benefits of that completed work of sacrifice, even though they at times used differing words to express their understanding.

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Posted on Saturday, May 13, 2006 - 10:26 am:

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The application of the atoning blood during the mediatorial ministry of the priest was also seen as a form of atonement (Lev. 4:35). The English term atonement implies a reconciliation between two estranged parties. As the atoning death of Christ reconciled the world to God, so His mediation, or the application of the merits of His sinless life and substitutionary death, makes reconciliation or atonement with God a personal reality for the believer.

[...]

The Day of Atonement, then, illustrates the judgment process that deals with the eradication of sin. The atonement performed on this day "foreshadowed the final application of the merits of Christ to banish the presence of sin for all eternity and to accomplish the full reconciliation of the universe into one harmonious government under God."

--http://www.sdanet.org/atissue/books/27/27-23.htm

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"Much love to your dear father and to your sisters and brother. Tell them to be faithful to serve God. I have often prayed for them. Tell them to pray much that their sins may be confessed upon the head of the scapegoat and borne away into the land of forgetfulness. A little longer and Jesus' work will be finished in the sanctuary." (Manuscript Releases, Volume Nineteen, page 131, paragraph 3.)

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