| Author | Message | ||
| Bskillet Registered user Username: Bskillet Post Number: 28 Registered: 8-2008 |
Edit: Title should read, "Earning Spiritual Blessings, or Hidden with Christ in God?" So I went to an SDA church with my family today. After watching a video about how much God will bless you if you pay your tithes (so now blessings come by works, which is the Old Covenant), the sermon was on the "Latter Rain." As soon as I heard the pastor announce his topic, I knew exactly the point he was going to make. The pastor went through Joel 2 and the latter rain, and what surprised me is that he admitted that Peter said the prophecy of Joel 2 was fulfilled at Pentecost (which Peter makes undeniably clear in Acts 2). Apparently he didn't fully realize that admitting Joel 2 was fulfilled at Pentecost does tremendous violence to Great Controversy Theology. He also never connected the obvious Biblical implication that former rain = Old Covenant and latter rain = New Covenant. As you would expect, he then went to the section in GC where EGW talks about the coming of the latter rain, and he started talking about how we have to be living the right way now in order to prepare ourselves to receive the latter rain. Of couse, this is supposedly a more liberal "grace-centered" SDA church, so he described doing the right stuff as trying to cultivate a relationship, which in SDA theology invariable means fulfilling a checklist of proper religious practices. In SDA theology, they'll use the word relationship, but they'll re-define it to mean "works" and "law." He ended it all up by talking about how everyday we have to invite the Holy Spirit into our lives, or however the Adventists put it, meaning of course that our place before God is insecure, and has to be re-established by the proper incantations every day, or else we lose our salvation. Tell me, does the Holy Spirit depart from the Adventist every night at the stroke of 12 midnight? Does their spirit die daily and need to be resurrected every morning at sun-up? The central theme of this Great Controversy Theology, with its focus on the latter rain, is that God is withholding spiritual blessings from us until we earn them by living right. This is the same lie that was at the core of Satan's deception of Even: There is some spiritual blessing that God is withholding from you, that you have to secure by your own efforts. Adventists are teaching that you cannot experience the fullness of the indwelling of Christ through the Holy Spirit unless you do your part to merit it. Once Adventists start doing the right stuff, then they will be prepared to receive the full administration of the Holy Spirit. Adventists do not receive the new birth by grace, but by their works. There is always something just over the horizon, that, once you work hard enough to get there, will allow you to receive the true spiritual happiness you now lack. This is why, as an Adventist, I would always question my place with God, or whether or not I really had the Holy Spirit. I now know that it was no coincidence that Jesus had been walking me through Ephesians, Colossians, and Philemon at this point. I had read in Philemon 6: Paul makes a similar statement in Ephesians 1:18-19: Here Paul is clearly saying that every good thing is already in us, and that our maturation in Jesus is to learn what good spiritual gifts we already have in Him, to live by trusting in His spiritual providence through His grace. There is no spiritual blessing that is being withheld from us, because Paul says, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavens, in Christ" (Eph 1:3). We aren't waiting for some pie-in-the-sky-by-and-by outpouring that we merit be finally willing ourselves to do all the right stuff, but rather, Paul says in Colossians 3:1-4: And right after that Paul writes: Likewise, Paul writes in Eph. 2:4-7: Clearly, Paul is not saying here that we live a certain way in order to receive the fullness of Christ through the Spirit. Rather, because we already have the fullness of all spiritual blessings in Jesus, we walk according to the reality of His Kingdom that He has brought us into, and not like we're still living in the shadowland reality of the law of sin and death. We are now living in the full spiritual reality of the Kingdom of the Son of God. Again, the born-again Christian does not live a certain way in order to receive something greater. He lives as he does because he has already received Someone greater. And as Paul points out in Eph. 2:7 and Col. 3:4, it is the display of the power that comes by the work of Christ dwelling in us--not ourselves--that shows to the world the power of the risen Christ: "Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Col 1:27). (Message edited by bskillet on November 29, 2008) (Message edited by bskillet on November 29, 2008) | ||
| Asurprise Registered user Username: Asurprise Post Number: 551 Registered: 7-2007 |
When I was an Adventist, I believed I was saved by grace, but I thought that meant simply that Jesus forgave all my sins as I asked forgiveness. (I didn't think that I had to actually know what they were exactly - just that it was important to ask that they all be forgiven.) I did have a sort of check-list as well, which, if I kept pretty well - as well as asking forgiveness fairly frequently; I thought my standing before God wasn't too bad. I couldn't quite take to heart Ephesians 2:8,9 which says that believers "have been saved" because Ellen White says that no one should say they're saved. Therefore I took a position halfway between what Ellen White said and what the Bible said. Since finding out that Ellen White is wrong, I have been able to go completely by the Bible and WOW!!! it is radically different than what I believed before!!! The Bible says that not only are our past sins forgiven but the future sins of believers are forgiven as well. The apostle Paul couldn't have said that believers "have been saved" (Eph. 2:8,9 1st Tim. 1:9, Titus 3:5,6) and John wouldn't have been able to write saying: "I am writing to you, little children, because your sins have been forgiven." (1st John 2:12) if they weren't! (Also see Colossians 2:13 which says that ALL our sins are forgiven.) Die hard Adventists would say, "no way!!! Then they would just sin more!!! That's greasy grace!!!" Such people don't understand grace. When a person is saved, they are sealed with the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 1:13,14). Believers then "walk in the Spirit." (Gal. 5:16) The Holy Spirit within them is working out a new life in Christ. | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 9063 Registered: 12-2003  |
Yes, Bskillet! And Asurprise, I totally saw it like you explained it. I really believe that it is EGW and her legacy of spiritual deception that is responsible for Adventists being unable to grasp the true definition and meaning of being saved by grace. The definitions are "off" because of EGW's commentary, and because she is considered a continuing and authoritative source of truth, people can't dismiss her once and for all because of the fear she MIGHT be right. That clinging to her validity--even as a valid founder and early "prophetic voice"--is the bottom line of what keeps Adventists unable to understand the Bible. Colleen |
