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Here is the link to this week's Sabbath School Lesson Study and Discussion Material: Click Here
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Re: Lesson Study #14 - The Meaning of the JUDGMENT TODAY
#79542
09/25/06 11:50 PM
09/25/06 11:50 PM
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Sunday's study basically says that "evil will be recompensed and goodness vindicated." Monday's study says that God will also be vindicated. Quote:
What the pre-Advent judgment tells us is that, even now, the Lord is working openly before the onlooking universe. They, right now, are seeing the righteousness and fairness of God's judgment.
This is really what the pre-Advent Judgment, or Investigative Judgment, is all about.
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Re: Lesson Study #14 - The Meaning of the JUDGMENT TODAY
#79543
09/26/06 12:40 AM
09/26/06 12:40 AM
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Thomas, sad but true, the flock is not being fed in these lessons as it should be. I expected more from Goldstein, a converted Jew. Unfortunately most leaders today avoid the issue of what the Investigative Judgement actually means. Fifty years ago there was a sizable remnant in the leadership ranks that would have told you that the investigative judgment is all about the privilege and duty of those living just before the return of Christ to perfect 'holiness in the fear of God.' The three angel's messages are being sapped of their vitality by those who aren't meeting the issue the church must and will face squarely - character perfection. Character perfection is another area of doctrine that Adventists are loosing their grasp of. If we have seen many fanatical ideas on character perfection over the years should that cause us to put our heads in the sand on that issue? Any doctrine that is subject to fanatical interpretations should alert us to the possibility that Satan is making every effort to conceal an essential truth. It makes perfect sense that the means of sanctification and therefore character perfection is revealed and mediated to us through the work of Christ our priest in the Holiest. This morning, my father shared with me his devotional for the day – it happened to be on that topic. Here is what Ellen White says: Quote:
"Be ye therefore perfect, even as your
Father which is in heaven is perfect."
Matthew 5:48.
The word "therefore" implies a conclusion, an inference from what has gone before. Jesus has been describing to His hearers the unfailing mercy and love of God, and He bids them therefore to be perfect. Because your heavenly Father "is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil" (Luke 6:35), because He has stooped to lift you up, therefore, said Jesus, you may become like Him in character, and stand without fault in the presence of men and angels. {MB 76.1}
The conditions of eternal life, under grace, are just what they were in Eden--perfect righteousness, harmony with God, perfect conformity to the principles of His law. The standard of character presented in the Old Testament is the same that is presented in the New Testament. This standard is not one to which we cannot attain. In every command or injunction that God gives there is a promise, the most positive, underlying the command. God has made provision that we may become like unto Him, and He will accomplish this for all who do not interpose a perverse will and thus frustrate His grace. {MB 76.2}
With untold love our God has loved us, and our love awakens toward Him as we comprehend something of the length and breadth and depth and height of this love that passeth knowledge. By the revelation of the attractive loveliness of Christ, by the knowledge of His love expressed to us while we were yet sinners, the stubborn heart is melted and subdued, and the sinner is transformed and becomes a child of heaven. God does not employ compulsory measures; love is the agent which He uses to expel sin from the heart. By it He changes pride into humility, and enmity and unbelief into love and faith. {MB 76.3}
The Jews had been wearily toiling to reach perfection by their own efforts, and they had failed. Christ had already told them that their righteousness could never enter the kingdom of heaven. Now He points out to them the character of the righteousness that all who enter heaven will possess. Throughout the Sermon on the Mount He describes its fruits, and now in one sentence He points out its source and its nature: Be perfect as God is perfect. The law [found only in the Holiest - my comment]is but a transcript of the character of God. Behold in your heavenly Father a perfect manifestation of the principles which are the foundation of His government. {MB 77.1}
God is love. Like rays of light from the sun, love and light and joy flow out from Him to all His creatures. It is His nature to give. His very life is the outflow of unselfish love.
"His glory is His children's good;
His joy, His tender Fatherhood."
He tells us to be perfect as He is, in the same manner. We are to be centers of light and blessing to our little circle, even as He is to the universe. We have nothing of ourselves, but the light of His love shines upon us, and we are to reflect its brightness. "In His borrowed goodness good," we may be perfect in our sphere, even as God is perfect in His. {MB 77.2}
Jesus said, Be perfect as your Father is perfect. If you are the children of God you are partakers of His nature, and you cannot but be like Him. Every child lives by the life of his father. If you are God's children, begotten by His Spirit, you live by the life of God. In Christ dwells "all the fullness of the Godhead bodily" (Colossians 2:9); and the life of Jesus is made manifest "in our mortal flesh" (2 Corinthians 4:11). That life in you will produce the same character and manifest the same works as it did in Him. Thus you will be in harmony with every precept of His law; for "the law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul." Psalm 19:7, margin. Through love "the righteousness of the law" will be "fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." Romans 8:4. {MB 77.3}
This quote does not say very much about the mechanics of character perfection through the ministry of Christ in the Holiest, but there are many quotes that might have been included in the quarterly from not only the chapters that Gordon cited, which is a good start, but all throughout her writings and in scripture – Malachi 3 to 5 for example.
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Re: Lesson Study #14 - The Meaning of the JUDGMENT TODAY
#79545
09/26/06 11:51 AM
09/26/06 11:51 AM
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Human perfection of character is being clothed in the righteousness of Christ. The change is internal. The tree has to be good before it can yield good fruit. This is the focus of scripture, Ellen White, Luther, and all the prophets - the Law is spiritual and must be written on the heart by the Holy Spirit before any good works can be done. But notice Thomas how the remnant church is described in Revelation: "And it was granted unto her [the Bride] to be arrayed in fine linen clean and bright; for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. Revelation 19:8" NKJV. Another text on the relationship between the judgment and good works: Quote:
4:16 Yet if [any man suffer] as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God on this behalf.
4:17 For the time [is come] that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if [it] first [begin] at us, what shall the end [be] of them that obey not the gospel of God?
4:18 And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?
4:19 Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls [to him] in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator.
I Peter 4.
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Re: Lesson Study #14 - The Meaning of the JUDGMENT TODAY
#79547
09/26/06 02:45 PM
09/26/06 02:45 PM
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Quote:
Good text. Now, if all the legalists around us (and inside us?) would get that being perfect isnt about doing this and not doing that but about equal opportunity loving and giving mercy.
Good thought!
God sent messengers, Jones and Waggoner, with light which deals with this specific subject. As long as we are unaware of this light, I think the confusing is certain to remain.
Here's my favorite quote from the Spirit of Prophecy regarding perfection of character.
The conditions of eternal life, under grace, are just what they were in Eden--perfect righteousness, harmony with God, perfect conformity to the principles of His law. The standard of character presented in the Old Testament is the same that is presented in the New Testament. This standard is not one to which we cannot attain. In every command or injunction that God gives there is a promise, the most positive, underlying the command. God has made provision that we may become like unto Him, and He will accomplish this for all who do not interpose a perverse will and thus frustrate His grace.
With untold love our God has loved us, and our love awakens toward Him as we comprehend something of the length and breadth and depth and height of this love that passeth knowledge. By the revelation of the attractive loveliness of Christ, by the knowledge of His love expressed to us while we were yet sinners, the stubborn heart is melted and subdued,
and the sinner is transformed and becomes a child of heaven. God does not employ compulsory measures; love is the agent which He uses to expel sin from the heart. By it He changes pride into humility, and enmity and unbelief into love and faith....
God is love. Like rays of light from the sun, love and light and joy flow out from Him to all His creatures. It is His nature to give. His very life is the outflow of unselfish love....
Jesus said, Be perfect as your Father is perfect. If you are the children of God you are partakers of His nature, and you cannot but be like Him. Every child lives by the life of his father. If you are God's children, begotten by His Spirit, you live by the life of God. In Christ dwells "all the fullness of the Godhead bodily" (Colossians 2:9); and the life of Jesus is made manifest "in our mortal flesh" (2 Corinthians 4:11). That life in you will produce the same character and manifest the same works as it did in Him. Thus you will be in harmony with every precept of His law; for "the law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul." Psalm 19:7, margin. Through love "the righteousness of the law" will be "fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." Romans 8:4. (MB 76-78)
Those who wait for the Bridegroom's coming are to say to the people, "Behold your God." The last rays of merciful light, the last message of mercy to be given to the world, is a revelation of His character of love.
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