Does the legal aspect of imputed righteousness make sense under the Christus Victor model?

This is from another thread. I had quoted some Ellen White passages which deal with the legal aspect of imputed righteousness, among them the following:



I then asked Tom:

To clarify a point, I referenced a book called "4 models of the atonement" which presented the following models:

1.Christus Victor
2.Penal Substitution
3.Healing Model
4.Kaleidoscope

I explained, in that comment, that the view I am presenting is the first one, the "Christus Victor" view.

The name of the book is "The Nature of the Atonement: 4 Views" In this book, each author makes a presentation of his view, and the other authors respond. The response by the author of view 1 to view 3 is very informative, in understanding the difference between view 1 and view 3, which I don't have time to present right now, but will when I do.

As SDA's the language "Great Controversy" are more familiar than "Christus Victor," so I also call it the "Great Controversy" view, as both phrases as dealing with the war between Christ and Satan.

Here's another "legal" quote:

While I don't know exactly what people think each model entails, I'm pretty sure I don't want to be stuck with just one.

You might like the Kaleidoscope one, then. Actually, all the models admit to their being multiple models involved. The question is if there is some fundamental model around which the others can be organized. The Kaleidoscope model says there isn't (i.e., there are many models, but none of them should take precedence).

I hold to the "Great Controversy" or "Christus Victor" model, which emphasizes Christ as victor in the battle between good and evil. There are some who hold to this model, and also accept the penal model, although that's a minority position.

Here's a few points from "The Nature of the Atonement: 4 Views" Page 46, 47

1.The Christus Victor model is the only model that does full justice to the centrality of the motif of Christ's victory.

2.The Christus Victory model was, in various forms, the dominant model for the first millenium of church history.

3.Whereas other models make little or no connection between Christ's life, death and resurrection on the one hand, and the warfare motif that runs throughout Scripture on the other, the Christus Victor model expresses this connection and puts it on center stage.

4.Whereas other models tend to isolate the meaning of Christ's death from his lifestyle, his healing and deliverance ministry, his teachings and even (in some cases) his resurrection, the Christus Victor model reveals the profound interconnectedness of everything Christ was about. All these things are ultimately about one thing: establishing the reign of God vanquishing the reign of Satan the powers through the powers of self-sacrificial love.

5.Only the Christus Victor model does full justice to the apocalyptic context of Jesus' life.

6.Other models say little or nothing about the consmic significance of Christ's work--as though the only problem in creation was that humans sin!

This is from "Christ and His Righteousness" by E. J. Waggoner. It deals with issues brought up by Rosangela's first post.

A couple of words about this book. According to Froom, Waggoner's wife took notes from the Sermons Waggoner presented at the 1888 General Conference session. These notes were originally published as articles in Signs of the Times, and then edited and put together to make the book called "Christ Our Righteousness," which name was later changed to "Christ And His Righteousness" to avoid confusion with the book "Christ Our Righteousness" which A. G. Daniels wrote.

Moreover, the fact that to do the law is simply man's duty shows that when he has come short in single particular he can never make it up. The requirements of each precept of the law are so broad--the whole law is so spiritual-- that an angel could render no more than simple obedience. Yea, more, the law is the righteousness of God--a transcript of His character--and since His character cannot be different from what it is, it follows that even God Himself cannot be better than the measure of goodness demanded by His law. He cannot be better than He is and the law declares what He is. What hope, then, that one who has failed, in even one precept, can add enough extra goodness to make up the full measure? He who attempts to do that sets before himself the impossible task of being better than God requires, yea, even better than God Himself....

Since evil is a part of man's very nature, being inherited by each individual from a long line of sinful ancestors, it is very evident that whatever righteousness springs from him must be only like "filthy rags" (Isa. 64:6), compared with the spotless robe of the righteousness of God.

The impossibility of good deeds proceeding from a sinful heart is thus forcibly illustrated by the Saviour, "For every tree is known by his own fruit. For of thorns men do not gather figs, nor of a bramble-bush gather they grapes. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil; for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh." Luke 6:44,45. That is to say, a man cannot do good until he first becomes good. Therefore, deeds done by a sinful person have no effect whatever to make him righteous, but, on the contrary, coming from an evil heart, they are evil and so add to the sum of his sinfulness. Only evil can come from an evil heart, and multiplied evil cannot make one good deed; therefore, it is useless for an evil person to think to become righteous by his own efforts. He must first be made righteous before he can do the good that is required of him and which he wants to do....

"Being made righteous freely." How else could it be? Since the best efforts of a sinful man have not the least effect toward producing righteousness, it is evident that the only way it can come to him is as a gift. That righteousness is a gift is plainly stated by Paul in Rom. 5:17: "For if by one man's offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by One, Jesus Christ." It is because righteousness is a gift that eternal life, which is the reward of righteousness, is the gift of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Christ has been set forth by God as the One through whom forgiveness of sins is to be obtained; and this forgiveness consists simply in the declaration of His righteousness (which is the righteousness of God) for their remission. God, "who is rich in mercy" (Eph. 2:4) and who delights in it, puts His own righteousness on the sinner who believes in Jesus, as a substitute for his sins. Surely, this is a profitable exchange for the sinner, and it is no loss to God, for He is infinite in holiness and the supply can never be diminished.

The following speaks to the difference of the healing model and the Christus Victor model:(end my words)

To illustrate, suppose a scientist named Dr. Joe produced an airborne, self-replicating organism that would instantly annihilate every virus is came in contact with. Once released into the atmosphere, all viral diseases would eventually be eradicated from the earth. Now those who had been suffering from virul diseases would be perfectly correct in proclaiming, "Dr. Joe healed us of our infirmities!" But this clearly would not be the most fundamental thing that could be said about what Dr. Joe accomplished. It would not provide a complete description of explanation of Dr. Joe's achievements. For the most fundamental and significant thing Dr. Joe accomplished was the annihilation of the viruses that were causing human and animal sickness in the first place. He did just heal people and animals: he conquered viruses!...

While it is, therefore, perfectly appropriate to celebbrate the benefits were receive from this cosmic victory, including our healing, we must never forget that the benefits are fundamentally rooted in this cosmic victory... (W)e are not only healed: the cosmic viruses themselves have been destroyed! Indeed, we are healed only because the cosmic viruses themselves have been destroyed.

The cosmic foundation of the good news of what Jesus accomplished permeates Scripture....

The cosmic "murderer" who has "from the beginning" been behind every spiritual, physiological and physical ailment humans have ever experienced has at long last been "driven out" (Jn 8:44; 12:31). (The Nature of The Atonement, p. 143-145; emphasis original)

I though it was better to change the name of the topic.

Tom,

Since imputed righteousness has two aspects:
1) the sinner is declared righteous
2) the sinner is "made" righteous (by the way, I disagree with this terminology of Waggoner; I would say that the heart is renewed. In my opinion sinners will only be "made" righteous at the second coming)

I ask,

1) What relation is there between the sinner being declared perfectly righteous and the restoration of his relationship with God? I mean, since you say that God's forgiveness is similar to ours, and when we forgive someone there is no need for that person to be considered perfectly righteous in our eyes.

2) Does the sinner need this declaration of perfect righteousness to be saved? Is this a requirement for salvation? IOW, is it meritorious?

By the way, I would appreciate it if, besides the quotes, you gave your answers in your own words in replying to my questions.

I agree. All the models have some truth in them. I just defend the penal substitution model because generally those who hold to the first and the third models attack it as if it was an absurd model, completely wrong from beginning to end.

Not really. It's more to the point that there are certain aspects of the Penal Model which are problematic. Some of the things which are asserted are true, which makes it more difficult to argue against. If everything about it were wrong, then the supporters of this view wouldn't find anything to defend it by. But since some of the things asserted are true, defenders of it latch on to those, as if they somehow proved their case.

I'll give two examples.

1."Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin."

Every Atonement Model asserts this is true, but Penal Substitution (PS) adherents quote this as if it somehow proved their view was correct.

2.Jesus Christ gave Himself "a ransom for many."

Similarly, all the Atonement Models assert this is true, yet PS adherents will quote this as if it somehow proved their view was correct.

From the "Four Views" book:



Fifield asserts the following:



I recall asking where there was any instance at all where Jesus taught the Penal Substitution model, and the only text presented was the Mark 10:45 text, that Jesus gave His life as a ransom for many. I pointed out that, in context, Jesus wasn't teaching PS at all:



In context, a request had been made to be at Jesus' right hand when He set up His kingdom. They were wanting to be closest to Him, because they wanted to be the greatest, according to the worldly way of looking at things, where the greatest is the one with the most servants.

Jesus explained that His kingdom was not of this order, that the greatest in His kingdom was not the one who was most served, but the one who served the most, and gave Himself as an example in the giving of His life.

In context, there is absolutely nothing whatsoever suggesting that Jesus had to die in order for God to be legally able to pardon us. So, since this text doesn't have anything to do with PS, I asked if there was any other text which could be adduced, but none have been suggested.

It is very odd to think that Jesus would never have clearly taught PS, if this was really the chief reason (or even a chief reason) for His death.

Otoh, under the Christus Victor, or GC, view, *everything* Jesus did ties into this model. To use Ellen White's words:



Given the "whole purpose" of His mission was the "revelation of God," it follows that everything He did was for this purpose; and this fits right in with the CV Model.

Using the words of the author cited earlier (in the 4 Views book)



How does self-sacrificial love vanquish the reign of Satan? The following quote, by EGW, speaks to this:



The GC involves the character of two beings; Christ (or God, who is revealed by Christ) and Satan. Satan vested God with his own character, presenting God as arbitrary, severe, harsh, self-serving, impatient, not having our best interest at heart, to name a few things, and presented himself as having God's characteristics, beneficent, having our best interests at heart, desiring our freedom, to name a few.

Jesus Christ vanquished the enemy by revealing the truth about the character of both protagonists.

I find myself in the same position. The penal model is not all-encompassing, but it has aspects of truth that the others do not.

Here's one specific problem with the penal model. If I owe you a debt, and someone else pays it, and I accept that payment in your behalf, I cannot say that I have forgiven you your debt. I didn't forgive it; I insisted it be paid, and accepted payment for it.

So if God accepted payment for our debt, God cannot be said to have forgiven it.

Perhaps. But just as correct aspects of a model does not mean that it is completely correct, incorrect aspects of a model does not mean that it is completely incorrect.

Here's a truth that I believe:
How do the other models teach that a debt for past sins remains even if the sinner keeps God's law from now on, a debt that Jesus pays for us?

There is a mistake here. The case is not that you owe me a debt and someone else pays it, but that you owe me a debt, and I myself pay it.

By the way, Tom, you may have missed my post #103540.

Which, at least in the case of financial debts, is the way every canceled debt works.

That's a good angle, that eradication of Satan eradicates the root. But interestingly, I will touch on this in my sermon, but will deviate from it, sort of. I think I'll post my outline in advance for critique and possible modification.

No, this is too fundamental a matter to just brush off. If the model is so flawed that we cannot correctly say that God has forgiven us, we need a new model!



First of all, a person who has not been justified by faith, which is to say pardoned, cannot keep the law. In the EGW quote, she says, "He might try to keep God's law in the future; but the debt which he had incurred in the past remained, and the law must condemn him to death." A person might try to keep the law, but the person couldn't succeed, without being justified by faith, which is to say pardoned.

If a person has been pardoned, and from that point on never sinned again, such a person would still not have a perfect record to present before God as the basis for admittance into heaven. We can appeal to God on the basis of works, or of grace. Who of us would choose to say to God, "I want into heaven on the basis of my good deeds?"

This seems to be an issue which is irrespective of the atonement model one holds. For example, for 1,500 years from Christ's death, the penal substitution model did not exist, yet Christians knew enough not to depend upon their own good works as a basis for getting into heaven.

Here's something from C. S. Lewis' "Mere Christianity" which speaks of the debt we owe being paid, but in a non-penal way:

We are told that Christ was killed for us, that His death has washed
out our sins, and that by dying He disabled death itself. That is the
formula. That is Christianity. That is what has to be believed. Any theories
we build up as to how Christ's death did all this are, in my view, quite
secondary: mere plans or diagrams to be left alone if they do not help us,
and, even if they do help us, not to be confused with the thing itself. All
the same, some of these theories are worth looking at.

The one most people have heard is the one I mentioned before -the one
about our being let off because Christ had volunteered to bear a punishment
instead of us. Now on the face of it that is a very silly theory. If God was
prepared to let us off, why on earth did He not do so? And what possible
point could there be in punishing an innocent person instead? None at all
that I can see, if you are thinking of punishment in the police-court sense.
On the other hand, if you think of a debt, there is plenty of point in a
person who has some assets paying it on behalf of someone who has not. Or if
you take "paying the penalty," not in the sense of being punished, but in
the more general sense of "standing the racket" or "footing the bill," then,
of course, it is a matter of common experience that, when one person has got
himself into a hole, the trouble of getting him out usually falls on a kind
friend. Now what was the sort of "hole" man had got himself into? He had
tried to set up on his own, to behave as if he belonged to himself. In other
words, fallen man is not simply an imperfect creature who needs improvement:
he is a rebel who must lay down his arms. Laying down your arms,
surrendering, saying you are sorry, realising that you have been on the
wrong track and getting ready to start life over again from the ground
floor-that is the only way out of a "hole." This process of surrender-this
movement full speed astern-is what Christians call repentance.

Now repentance is no fun at all. It is something much harder than merely eating
humble pie. It means unlearning all the self-conceit and self-will that we
have been training ourselves into for thousands of years. It means killing
part of yourself, undergoing a kind of death. In fact, it needs a good man
to repent. And here comes the catch. Only a bad person needs to repent: only
a good person can repent perfectly. The worse you are the more you need it
and the less you can do it. The only person who could do it perfectly would
be a perfect person-and he would not need it.

Remember, this repentance, this willing submission to humiliation and a
kind of death, is not something God demands of you before He will take you
back and which He could let you off if He chose: it is simply a description
of what going back to Him is like. If you ask God to take you back without
it, you are really asking Him to let you go back without going back. It
cannot hap pen. Very well, then, we must go through with it. But the same
badness which makes us need it, makes us unable to do it. Can we do it if
God helps us? Yes, but what do we mean when we talk of God helping us? We
mean God putting into us a bit of Himself, so to speak. He lends us a little
of His reasoning powers and that is how we think: He puts a little of His
love into us and that is how we love one another. When you teach a child
writing, you hold its hand while it forms the letters: that is, it forms the
letters because you are forming them. We love and reason because God loves
and reasons and holds our hand while we do it. Now if we had not fallen,
that would be all plain sailing. But unfortunately we now need God's help in
order to do something which God, in His own nature, never does at all-to
surrender, to suffer, to submit, to die. Nothing in God's nature corresponds
to this process at all. So that the one road for which we now need God's
leadership most of all is a road God, in His own nature, has never walked.
God can share only what He has: this thing, in His own nature, He has not.
But supposing God became a man-suppose our human nature which can
suffer and die was amalgamated with God's nature in one person-then that
person could help us. He could surrender His will, and suffer and die,
because He was man; and He could do it perfectly because He was God. You and
I can go through this process only if God does it in us; but God can do it
only if He becomes man. Our attempts at this dying will succeed only if we
men share in God's dying, just as our thinking can succeed only because it
is a drop out of the ocean of His intelligence: but we cannot share God's
dying unless God dies; and He cannot die except by being a man. That is the
sense in which He pays our debt, and suffers for us what He Himself need not
suffer at all.

I have heard some people complain that if Jesus was God as well as man,
then His sufferings and death lose all value in their eyes, "because it must
have been so easy for him." Others may (very rightly) rebuke the ingratitude
and ungraciousness of this objection; what staggers me is the
misunderstanding it betrays. In one sense, of course, those who make it are
right. They have even understated their own case. The perfect submission,
the perfect suffering, the perfect death were not only easier to Jesus
because He was God, but were possible only because He was God. But surely
that is a very odd reason for not accepting them? The teacher is able to
form the letters for the child because the teacher is grown-up and knows how
to write. That, of course, makes it easier for the teacher, and only because
it is easier for him can he help the child. If it rejected him because "it's
easy for grown-ups" and waited to learn writing from another child who could
not write itself (and so had no "unfair" advantage), it would not get on
very quickly.

If I am drowning in a rapid river, a man who still has one
foot on the bank may give me a hand which saves my life. Ought I to shout
back (between my gasps) "No, it's not fair! You have an advantage! You're
keeping one foot on the bank"? That advantage-call it "unfair" if you
like-is the only reason why he can be of any use to me. To what will you
look for help if you will not look to that which is stronger than yourself?
Such is my own way of looking at what Christians call the Atonement.
But remember this is only one more picture. Do not mistake it for the thing
itself: and if it does not help you, drop it.

By "eradication of Satan" you mean the unveiling that EGW speaks about here:



Or did you have something else in mind?

If you owe me a debt, and I pay the debt you owed me to myself, nothing has changed. For example, I have $10,000, and loan you $1,000. I now have $9,000. If I pay your debt of $1,000 to myself to pay off your debt, I still have $9,000. So the debt has not been paid, it's been forgiven.

Only if a third party is introduced is it possible for me to pay your debt. If you owe a third party $1,000, and I pay that $1,000 for you, then I have paid your debt, but your debt was not forgiven; it was paid. Also in this case it cannot be said that I forgave you, since you didn't owe me; you owed a third party. Neither did that third party forgive you, since the debt was paid. In this case your debt was paid, but nor forgiven.

Let's deal with this a bit. This is from "Christ And His Righteousness"



So when Waggoner says a person is made righteous, he explains his meaning as "made obedient to the law," which is also, according to Waggoner, equivalent to having the law written in the heart.

From your assertion that you believe one is only "made righteous" at the coming of Christ that you see righteousness as an issue of the flesh. If righteousness were an issue of the heart, one could be made righteous during this life. Only if righteousness is an issue of the flesh would it have to wait. However, if righteousness were an issue of the flesh, then no one could be said to be righteous on this earth, yet the Scriptures speak of righteous people throughout. So you would have to assert that these people were called righteous without actually being righteous, which is, I suppose, precisely what you are asserting with your understanding of "imputed righteousness."

I assume you believe Ellen White agrees with you on this, but that Waggoner does not. This would again bring up to my mind the same question I've asked earlier, which is how is it possible that Ellen White could endorse Waggoner so extravagantly if he were off on such a basic point?

Secondly, the following quote comes to my mind:



This looks to me to be precisely the same as what I quoted to you from Waggoner. He even uses the same illustration:






I didn't follow this at all, but perhaps the answer to your second question will cover this.



I wouldn't say it's meritorious, but it's necessary. It is by the power of God's word that he makes us righteous when we believe in Christ.





By the way, I would appreciate it if, besides the quotes, you gave your answers in your own words in replying to my questions.

No, the debt is both paid and forgiven. Under my perspective, a price is paid, because my patrimony was diminished (I had $10,000 and now I have only $9,000); I absorb the loss. Under your perspective, you are forgiven.

Where is the payment? You withdraw $1,000 from your account to pay yourself back $1,000? I understand the loss being absorbed, but not the payment being made. If a debt is paid, the account is restored to its state before the debt was incurred; that's what it means for a debt to be paid.

No, to me the problem is not one of flesh or heart, but one of perfection or imperfection. I don't believe anyone can be absolutely righteous on this earth, or absolutely perfect. We are perfect in Christ, and that's why we are righteous in Christ.

"He [Christ] keeps His eye upon them [His children], and when they do their best, calling upon God for his help, be assured the service will be accepted, although imperfect. Jesus is perfect. Christ's righteousness is imputed unto them, and He will say, 'Take away the filthy garments from him and clothe him with change of raiment.' Jesus makes up for our unavoidable deficiencies." --Letter 17a, 1891. {3SM 196.1}

That's what I mean when I say that God's children are called righteous without actually being righteous. Waggoner says, "But if unrighteousness is transgression of the law, righteousness must be obedience to the law." Correct, but since none of us obey the law perfectly, this means we are called righteous without in fact being righteous.


You say the objective of salvation is to restore our relationship with God. But the restoration of a relationship doesn't require perfection. However, Ellen White states that "the condition of eternal life is now ... just what it was in Paradise before the fall of our first parents--perfect obedience to the law of God, perfect righteousness." None of us obey perfectly, so we just inherit eternal life because of Christ's perfection, which covers our imperfection. I sincerely don't see how aspects like these (God requiring perfection and Christ's perfection being considered as if it was ours) can make sense under your model of the atonement. It just makes sense in a legal context.


Ellen White doesn't describe this declaration as being addressed to the sinner (and thus making the sinner righteous). She describes this declaration as being addressed to the universe.

"The great work that is wrought for the sinner who is spotted and stained by evil is the work of justification. By Him who speaketh truth he is declared righteous. The Lord imputes unto the believer the righteousness of Christ and pronounces him righteous before the universe. He transfers his sins to Jesus, the sinner's representative, substitute, and surety. Upon Christ He lays the iniquity of every soul that believeth. 'He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him' (2 Cor. 5:21)." {1SM 392.2}

When the debt is forgiven a price is paid - a price equivalent to the debt; and, as far as the debtor is concerned, forgiveness means to him that his debt is paid, because he no longer owes it. You are making a distinction that doesn't in fact exist.

If you owe me $1,000, and I forgive your debt, I don't say I paid myself $1,000. Certainly I wouldn't make the argument that justice would not allow me to forgive your debt unless I paid myself $1,000.

If you owe someone else $1,000, then I can pay your debt for you, but in this case no debt was forgiven.

You're trying to have your cake and eat it too!



But there is a distinction. Forgiving a debt is not the same thing as paying one for someone else.

We are called righteous without in fact being righteous? This isn't truth.





A righteous person is one who practices righteousness. Or, conversely, a person who is obedient to the law is righteous. A person who is disobedient is not righteous, but unrighteous.



From the SOP



What does it mean to be clothed with the garments of Christ's righteousness? It means "the heart is united with His heart, the will is merged in His will, the mind becomes one with His mind, the thoughts are brought into captivity to Him; we live His life."

Now if a person is clothed with the garment of Christ righteousness -- which means his heart is united with Christ's heart, his will merged with Christ's will, his mind one with Christ's mind, and living His life -- isn't such a person in fact righteous?

Out of curiosity, what you're claiming sounds like Ford's theology. Are you familiar with Ford's theology? If so, do you agree with it?



I don't see a problem here. I think the quote from COL 312 that I just quoted makes perfect sense from my standpoint. I don't see how it makes any sense from yours. I also think the COL 312 quote addresses the concern you are raising here. The perfection that God requires becomes ours when we are clothed in Christ's righteousness, a righteousness which causes our hearts and mind to be merged with His, and results in our living His life.



The standard is perfect conformity to the principles of His law, a standard which is not one we cannot attain, and, more than that, one which we will attain, unless we interpose a perverse will and thus frustrate His grace.



The theology you are suggesting that Ellen White held is simply not possible! It's impossible that one who had a Ford-like theology could endorse someone who held such a dramatically different understanding of righteousness by faith as Waggoner did. I don't understand how you don't see this.

Because she endorsed him does not mean she had to agree with every i that Waggoner dotted, or every t that he crossed, but it does mean there was more than a general agreement. It simply isn't possible that EGW had a "legal fiction" outlook on righteousness by faith, while Waggoner had more of a Wesleyan outlook on it, and have Ellen White endorse him as she did.

For example:



Waggoner spoke of faith in Christ making us righteous, or obedient to the law. She endorses his teachings of righteousness by faith, and then repeats his concept in her own words "made manifest in obedience to all the commandments of God." Going back to your earlier assertion that we are called righteous without actually being righteous, isn't it the case that one who manifests obedience to all the commandments of God is righteous?

Here's another well known quote:



This seems in perfect harmony with what Waggoner taught but not with what you are saying.

From Waggoner:



One last EGW quote:



There are so many of these, but I'll stop here. The idea she presented was not the Evangelical "legal fiction" idea where one is declared righteous but actually unrighteous, but the same idea Waggoner taught, which is that by faith in Christ we are, in fact, righteous, meaning that by faith in Christ we "keep the commandments of God."

That's pretty much it.

I'm going to talk about how that's not all that's needed. Crushing the serpent's head is one thing, but his seeds still remain. Their disguise must be torn away also, and there's only one way to do it.

Well, you cannot say that God has forgiven, so you need a new model. R and I have no problem with forgiveness and paying off debt at the same time, so we're fine with it.

Anyway, if a model cannot say that God has paid the debt, then it is incomplete. But I generally don't throw out incomplete models to replace with another incomplete model. I prefer to take whatever works from each model, and just put it all together. And if there's something else that is not covered by the current models, I have no qualms making a new model. Perhaps that's what the kaleidoscope model is.

While what you say is true, that's not what EGW was talking about. She did not say, "His present inability to keep the law must condemn him to death." Rather, the condemnation of the law is for the debt of past transgressions. Jesus paid the debt for past sins, a debt that no amount of repentance or reformation can repay. "Could my zeal no respite know, could my tears forever flow, all for sin could not atone; Thou must save, and Thou alone."

I have used a very similar argument against those who make the same complaint about the "advantage" Jesus had because His human nature was not quite as messed up as ours. But that's for another thread.

What's the point of having a cake if I can't eat it? Unless it was for throwing in someone's face.

If we ask the question, "What is the problem that must be solved?" I think that can get us to a right understanding of the issue. The problem is that sin separates us from God. In order to be restored to harmony with God, repentance and submission are necessary. Not as an arbitrary requirement on the part of God, but as an actual fact. Repentance is a change of mind, and submission demonstrates that change of mind. As long as one is fighting against God, one cannot be at peace with God.

If the legal paradigm were correct, in terms of Ellen White's writings, it would have followed that Lucifer could not have been offered pardon without the death of Christ. Yet we read:



Before being banished from heaven, Lucifer was given the opportunity to confess his sin. He would have been restored to his position had he repented.

Now if the legal perspective were accurate, it would have been just as necessary for Christ to have died to pardon Lucifer as it was for man because the legal issues for Lucifer were the same as man. No amount of right actions on the part of Lucifer could make up for past sins. His debt would remain, so the law would require death. Christ should have had to die for his sins. Yet we don't see this. Why not? Because this legal perspective is flawed.

When we read things like "the law must condemn him to death," we should bear in mind that these statements are metaphors. "The law" stands for God, because God is the mind behind the law. The law is not a sentient being that can literally condemn. So to say that the law must condemn a sinner to death for past transgressions is to say that God must condemn the sinner to death for past transgressions. At that begs the question as to why God must do this. It also begs the question as to why the death of Christ would release God from the obligation to do this.

It seems to me clear that God is capable of pardoning past transgressions without death because this is exactly what He offered to do for Lucifer.

It does kind of tie in with this one, however, since it deviates from Waggoner's teaching of righteousness by faith, as does the idea that we are not, in fact, righteous although we are called righteous by God. Waggoner's argument is that God cannot lie, so that when He declares a person righteous, that person is made righteous by the power of God's word. I'm curious as to where you stand on this question. Do you disagree with what Waggoner said on this point as well?

I don't understand the disconnect that would allow one on the one hand to claim to accept Ellen White as a prophet, and on the other reject the teachings of Jones and Waggoner, given she endorsed their teachings over a thousand times. I understand she might not be agreeing that they dotted every "i" correctly, or crossed every "t," but how could they have gotten fundamental issues wrong, such as imputed righteousness, and whether or not a person is made righteous by faith when God declares them righteous?

In your model or paradigm, once repentance and submission are accomplished, is that all that's needed? Or is there something else that must be taken care of?

You are changing the analogy. Certainly several comparisons could be made. Your initial comparison had been with a financial debt, therefore I answered accordingly (see Matt. 18). Now you are speaking about justice – this involves a debt with the law, which is a different thing. If I, as a judge, made a law for whose transgression there is a fine, and you break that law and doesn’t have the money to pay the fine, I (the judge) can pay that fine – that debt – for you and let you go free.


Does this refer to absolute or intrinsic righteousness? Of course not. What do you make of 1 John 1:8?

1 John 1:8 ¶ If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.


Not in the sense of an absolute or intrinsic righteousness.
Remember that God requires from us a perfect obedience like that of Adam before his fall - this means no sin at all.


No, what I’m claiming sounds like Luther’s theology (simul iustus et peccator).

And sounds like EGW theology:

“In ourselves we are sinners; but in Christ we are righteous. Having made us righteous through the imputed righteousness of Christ, God pronounces us just, and treats us as just. He looks upon us as His dear children. Christ works against the power of sin, and where sin abounded, grace much more abounds. ‘Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God’ (Rom. 5:1, 2). {1SM 394.1}”

“Since we are sinful, unholy, we cannot perfectly obey the holy law. We have no righteousness of our own with which to meet the claims of the law of God. But Christ has made a way of escape for us. He lived on earth amid trials and temptations such as we have to meet. He lived a sinless life. He died for us, and now He offers to take our sins and give us His righteousness. If you give yourself to Him, and accept Him as your Saviour, then, sinful as your life may have been, for His sake you are accounted righteous. Christ's character stands in place of your character, and you are accepted before God just as if you had not sinned. More than this, Christ changes the heart. He abides in your heart by faith.” {SC 62} [Please notice that she distinguishes between the sinner being accounted righteous and the change in his heart; these are two different aspects, although simultaneous]

And sounds like Paul's theology:

1 Timothy 1:15 Faithful is the word, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom *I* am the first. [the pronoun is emphatic in the Greek]

Ford’s theology is the theology of the evangelicals. He excludes heart renewal from justification and places it in sanctification. Justification for him – and for them - is only a legal pronouncement.


I think COL 312 refers to sanctification, not to justification. By the way, do you see any difference between justification and sanctification? If so, what is the difference?


It would be more fruitful if you tried to explain what the passage means, instead of saying this theology is impossible.


Again, this is one of the aspects of justification, the one Waggoner concentrates in. But there is the other one, the legal one, which EGW mentions and which does not make sense under your theology. I would like you to explain the EGW passages I quote. There is no use in your quoting other EGW (or Waggoner’s) passages which are concentrating in other points.

Forgiveness is not merely a judicial act, but it is also a judicial act. What, however, does a judicial act have to do with your theology?

From "The Great Controversy"



As far as Lucifer's being restored to harmony with God, this looks like all that was necessary.

If you're talking about man:



This is just dealing with the aspect of man's being brought into harmony with God. There's still the aspect of Lucifer's accusations to be considered.



So, to answer your question, there is something else that needs to be taken care of.

But the law just represents God, so it's not a different thing. The law is not a third party to whom God owes something. The debt that's owed is owed to God.



Here's a comment by Waggoner on what we've been discussing:



This speaks of both a penalty being paid and of God pardoning an injury done to Himself. Do you agree with this?

(continued)

So what? Intrinsic righteousness has nothing to do with our discussion.

Righteousness is by faith. It's not something we have intrinsically.

The point is that a righteous person is someone who is obedient to the law. When God declares a person righteous, the power of His word makes the person righteous, and he becomes obedient to the law; iow, he is righteous.

Another way of seeing this is by way of the New Covenant. How does one become a partaker of the New Covenant? By believing in Christ. What happens when one does that? The law is written in the heart. What can we say of a person in whose heart the law is written? Such a person is righteous.



I think John is expressing a similar thought to the following:





I don't understand why you are speaking of intrinsic righteousness. When I say "righteous," I mean "righteous" as when the Bible speaks of a person being "righteous." When Abraham believed God, it was imputed to him for righteousness. Abraham was born into the family of God, having become righteous. That righteousness was manifest by obedience ("Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.") the same as for any child of God.



This is why He gives us the righteousness of Christ.



Also, this requirement is not something arbitrary. It's a "requirement" as a recognition of fact. In order to be at peace with God, at harmony with Him, we must be righteous, because He is righteous. Otherwise, if sin reigns in our heart, we will have no desire to have anything to do with Him:






Isn't this exactly what you are doing with COL 312?

Regarding SC 62, I think you're misunderstanding her. The "more than this" is not separate from the declaration of righteousness; it is the declaration of righteousness which changes the heart! God declares the repentant sinner righteousness, and that declaration puts righteousness into the person's heart; he is born again, a changed person.



Anyone who has seen the cross and understood it will feel like Paul. By the cross, sin is seen as an ugly thing, as something which caused the death of God's dear Son. When we recognize that it was *our* sin which caused His death, that thought pricks our conscience, and we cry out like Paul, that "that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom *I* am chief."



You think being covered by the robes of Christ's righteousness is not justification?



Will anyone be saved who is not a true follower of Christ? If not, then all saved persons will be covered by the garment of Christ's righteousness. Since all true followers of Christ are precisely those, and only those, who are saved, or justified, it follows that those who are covered by Christ's righteousness are exactly those who are justified.

In other words, there are no justified people who are not covered with the robe of Christ's righteousness.

Immediately following she says:



Receiving Christ as one's personal Savior is simply another way of saying "justified by faith."

A little while later:



Every believing soul, which is to say every justified person, has this robe of righteousness.

Regarding the difference between sanctification and justification, sanctification is the process of a lifetime. It, like justification, is a free gift, by faith in Jesus Christ. Sanctification is the result of justification applied throughout one's life.



I wasn't commenting on the passage, but on the discrepancy between a Ford-like theology (i.e., "legal fiction") and Waggoner's theology. Here's what I said:



At any rate, please pardon the hyperbole. I try to catch these and edit them out, but sometimes they get through. I should have said, "I don't see how the theology you are suggesting that Ellen White held could be possible!" etc. Sorry about that.



But they're not concentrating on other points. There's one subject, which is justification by faith. Waggoner wrote hundreds of pages on this subject. I've asked you to select *any* quote of his which deals with the subject.

I've argued that Waggoner could not have been correct in his teachings of righteousness by faith if he was off in regards to his teaching of imputed righteousness, since this is such a cornerstone to understanding righteousness by faith. I have argued that if no comments of Waggoner's can be adduced which are different than what I've been saying, then it's fair to characterize my view as being the same as his. I've argued that since Ellen White endorsed Waggoner's view, and my view is the same as his, she endorsed the ideas I've been presenting.



This is discussed in the following quote:



The law testifies to the righteousness that a person has in Christ. Since the righteousness of a person who believes in Christ is the righteousness of Christ Himself, the judicial declaration of the person's being righteous is just. The judicial declaration is a recognition of fact.

Returning to this:



Fair enough. I've given a brief description here, but will go back and discuss them in more detail.

I'd like to request the same of you. For example, from the DA 311 quote we read the following:



Any contrite soul is a justified person, right? That is, one cannot be justified without being contrite. Since Christ "always" separates the contrite soul from sin, it follows that all justified persons are separated from sin. Now the contrite person who is separated from sin is not transgressing the law, but obeying it. Therefore he is not only called righteous, but is righteous, since a righteous person is one who obeys the law.

I think so.


For someone to be considered righteous, this person must be perfectly obedient to the law from the moment of birth to the moment of death. This, obviously, is not our case. Even after we are reborn there are shortcomings in our lives, which Ellen White classifies as “unavoidable deficiencies.” That’s why she says that “in ourselves we are sinners, but in Christ we are righteous.” That’s why she says that

“Sinners can be justified by God only when He pardons their sins, remits the punishment they deserve, and treats them as though they were really just and had not sinned, receiving them into divine favor and treating them as if they were righteous. They are justified alone through the imputed righteousness of Christ. The Father accepts the Son, and through the atoning sacrifice of His Son accepts the sinner.” {OHC 52.3}


Yes, and that’s why, again, in ourselves we are sinners, but in Christ we are righteous.


No, it cannot be a recognition of fact. If the law (or God) looked simply at the reality of our lives, even after rebirth, it would never recognize us as righteous. The law (or God) must look at the reality of the life of Christ in order to recognize us as righteous. So, like an umbrella, His life must continually cover ours, because the fact is that our lives are imperfect.


Tom, COL 312 is speaking about the investigative judgment and the heavenly examination of character, of our works. Ellen White says clearly that the robe here is imparted righteousness; she even quotes Rev. 19:8 – “the fine linen is the righteousness of the saints,” or, in other versions, “the righteous acts of the saints.”

“By the wedding garment in the parable is represented the pure, spotless character which Christ's true followers will possess. To the church it is given "that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white," "not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing." Eph. 5:27. The fine linen, says the Scripture, "is the righteousness of saints." Rev. 19:8. It is the righteousness of Christ, His own unblemished character, that through faith is imparted to all who receive Him as their personal Saviour” (p. 310).

And she says, too: “When we submit ourselves to Christ, the heart is united with His heart, the will is merged in His will, the mind becomes one with His mind, the thoughts are brought into captivity to Him; we live His life.” Living His life is a process – it’s sanctification, not justification (justification is pardon, remember?).


It can refer to both imputed and imparted righteousness, and in fact both are inseparable, but here it refers specifically to imparted righteousness.


Ellen White never mentions that. She mentions the two aspects as distinct aspects.


True. We will feel like sinners, which is what we really are – although reborn, although loving righteousness, in ourselves we are sinners.

Rosangela, I'll get to your points in my subsequent post, but I don't feel you didn't adequately address the arguments I presented, so for your convenience I'm repeating them here:



I'm enumerating the arguments this time. If you see some flaw in the logic, please specify the step you see as flawed.

Argument A

1.Every justified person is a true follower of Christ.
2.Therefore all justified persons are clothed by the wedding garment which represents Christ's righteousness.
3.Equivalently, there are no justified people who are not covered with the robe of Christ's righteousness.

Immediately following she says:



Argument B

1.This robe is imparted to all who receive Christ as their personal Savior.
2.Those who receive Christ as their personal Savior are precisely those who are justified.
3.Therefore all justified persons have this garment.

A little while later:



Argument C

1.Every repenting, believing soul, has this robe of righteousness.
2.Those who repent and believe are precisely those who are justified.
3.Therefore all justified persons have this garment.




Argument D

1.All justified persons are contrite souls.
2.Since Christ "always" separates the contrite soul from sin, it follows that all justified persons are separated from sin.
3.The contrite person who is separated from sin is not transgressing the law, but obeying it.

When I asked if you "agree with this," I was referring to Waggoner's statement, not whether the statement speaks of both a penalty being paid and of God pardoning an injury done to Himself. From your response, it's not clear what you are agreeing to. I could have been more precise in my question, so I'll be so this time around. Do you agree with Waggoner's following statement?





This isn't true. For someone to be considered righteous, the person must have faith.



Waggoner makes the following point:



This point is well taken. There is such a thing as a righteous person, because the Bible refers to many people as "righteous." Indeed, anyone who has faith is righteous.



A righteous person is one who obeys the Lord's commandments. (only those who have faith keep the Lord's commandments, and conversely, only those who keep the Lord's commandments have faith, which is to say that the righteous are those who have faith, or, equivalently, keep the Lord's commandments).




This is referring to a time when they knew not Christ and didn't have faith. After having faith, they receive Christ, and are made righteous by faith. This is simply another way of saying that the law is written in the heart.



Who is it that know righteousness? The righteous, those in whose heart is written God's law.



I don't understand why you are making this point. Who has suggested we are righteous in ourselves? The only righteousness there is is the righteousness of Christ, which righteousness we receive, and becomes truly ours, by faith. We receive righteousness by receiving Christ:





The reality of our lives after rebirth is that Christ dwell in our hearts by faith. The following statement from Waggoner, which I quoted previously, explains things nicely:






Returning to this statement, I've already brought forth several arguments as to how we know this statement includes all who are justified, but here's another point. Please consider the following statement:



This is quite similar to the COL statement, and also deals with justification.



All those who are justified by faith fall in the category of those of whom COL 312 is referring. My argument is that those who have the characteristic of:

a.Having their thoughts united to Christ's
b.Having their wills merged with His
c.Living His life

are righteous. Do you disagree? If so, can you enumerate an exception? (i.e., someone who was living Christ's life etc., who was not righteous)

Waggoner's argument, in regards to imputed righteousness, goes like this:



He uses the same figure of the robe of righteousness, and certainly there's no doubt that he's speaking of justification here. There's also no doubt that Waggoner is speaking of Christ's imputed righteousness either, and he speaks of the change this righteousness makes in man.

Here are statements by Ellen White which also speak of Christ's imputed righteousness and how this righteousness "makes the believer righteous" to use Waggoner's words. We can read her own words, and see how she echos the concept.











In regards to the COL 312 statement, here is a very similar one:



Notice that the very next sentence following "Then as the Lord looks upon us He sees, not the fig-leaf garment, not the nakedness and deformity of sin, but His own robe of righteousness, which is perfect obedience to the law of Jehovah." is "Those who accept of Christ are looked upon by God, not as they are in Adam, but as they are in Jesus Christ, as the sons and daughters of God."

Now this is unquestionably speaking of imputed righteousness.

(Note: in the original, there were ellipses between "those who" and "accept of Christ," but this looks to me to be a mistake, as in every other place I found these words used, there were no ellipses.)

The robe can refer either

1) to imputed righteousness:

It is the righteousness of Christ that makes the penitent sinner acceptable to God and works his justification. However sinful has been his life, if he believes in Jesus as his personal Saviour, he stands before God in the spotless robes of Christ's imputed righteousness. {ST, July 4, 1892 par. 4}

Or

2) to imparted righteousness

The white raiment is purity of character, the righteousness of Christ imparted to the sinner. This is indeed a garment of heavenly texture, that can be bought only of Christ for a life of willing obedience. {YI, April 22, 1897 par. 5}

I’m not understanding your argument. Obviously only those who are justified can be sanctified, but COL is referring to sanctification - investigative judgment – the character developed – living Christ’s life.

And it’s obvious that even during the whole process of sanctification we need justification. Since our lives are imperfect, we need continually to be under the umbrella of Christ’s perfect life. But you are mixing imputed and imparted righteousness.

From one of your quotes:

Righteousness of Christ imputed to men means holiness, uprightness, purity. Unless Christ's righteousness was imputed to us we could not have acceptable repentance.[imputed righteousness] The righteousness dwelling in us by faith consists of love, forbearance, meekness, and all the Christian virtues. Here the righteousness of Christ is laid hold of and becomes a part of our being. All who have this righteousness will work the works of God.[imparted righteousness] (Testimonies on Sexual Behavior, Adultery, and Divorce (1989), page 134

From another quote:

When through repentance and faith we accept Christ as our Saviour, the Lord pardons our sins, and remits the penalty prescribed for the transgression of the law. The sinner then stands before God as a just person; he is taken into favor with Heaven, and through the Spirit has fellowship with the Father and the Son.[imputed righteousness] Then there is yet another work to be accomplished, and this is for a progressive nature. The soul is to be sanctified through the truth. And this also is accomplished through faith. For it is only by the grace of Christ, which we receive through faith, that the character can be transformed.[imparted righteousness] {ST, November 3, 1890 par. 1}

Imparted righteousness is the righteousness which is laid hold of and becomes a part of our being (the heart is united with His heart, the will is merged in His will, ... we live His life).


They are looked upon as perfect, as righteous, they are considered righteous, they are accounted righteous, but in fact they are imperfect sinners. From your quote:

“Those who accept of Christ are looked upon by God, not as they are in Adam [present tense], but as they are in Jesus Christ, as the sons and daughters of God.” (FILB 113)


Yes, but as I said, the law (God) recognizes the sinner as righteous because it is looking to Christ’s life instead of ours, or to our life as covered by His, or to our imperfection as covered by His perfection.


No, for someone to be considered righteous, this person must be perfectly obedient to the law from the moment of birth to the moment of death. We are declared righteous according to this requirement not because we are so in fact but, indeed, through faith. Christ’s life (of perfect obedience from birth to death) stands in place of our life. The Bible does refer to many people as righteous, but on this basis.


Just look at the text: “Sinners can be justified by God only when
1) He pardons their sins
2) Remits the punishment they deserve, and
3) Treats them as though they were really just and had not sinned

If what you said is true for the 3d statement, it must also be true for the 1st and the 2nd ones. So what you are saying is that He pardons their sins and remits their punishment before they know Christ and have faith in Him.

Here's my argument. The following statement applies to all who are justified.



I asked you the question if those who had the following characteristics were righteous:

1.The heart is united with Christ's heart.
2.The will is merged in Christ's will,
3.The mind becomes one with His mind,
4.The thoughts are brought into captivity to Him;

I presented proof that this is dealing with those who are justified. I even enumerated the arguments to make it easier to identify the steps. I'm asking you if you seen any flaw in the logic that identifies the above characteristics as applying to those who are justified. The arguments are in post #103628.

Please either accept my claim that the statement in COL 312 encompasses all who are justified, or point out some flaw in the arguments.

Regarding item 4, this is from "The Desire of Ages"



This is the same language as COL 312. This is clearly speaking of justification.

In the FILB quote, which is identical to the COL quote, she says:



Here is my argument:

1.You claim that God calls those who are justified by faith righteous, but they are not really righteous.

2.This claim is false because
a.COL 312 present the above listed characteristics of believers (every believer has these).
b.Those who have these characteristics are righteous.

To counter this argument, you suggested that COL 312 was not dealing with justification but sanctification. I countered this claim with the arguments in post #103628. Additionally I added the DA quote to show she uses the same language elsewhere as in COL 312 to describe justification. In addition, I pointed out that immediately following the statements of COL 312 (in FILB, where she says the same thing) she makes another statement making clear that she is talking about justification. Namely:



This is speaking of justification, not sanctification. Therefore your claim that COL 312 (which is the same as the FILB quote) is dealing not with justification by sanctification is off base.

Here's another argument I presented. In DA 311 it says that "every" contrite soul is separated from sin. I argued that:

1.Every person justified by faith is contrite.
2.Therefore every justified person is separated from sin.
3.Therefore every justified person is righteous (because in is transgression of the law, from which the justified person is separated).

Here's another argument I made.

1.Every justified person has the righteousness of Christ.
2.Every person who has the righteousness of Christ is righteous.

John, in his epistle, argues that everyone who practices righteousness is righteous.



This means such are not simply called righteous, but are actually righteous. This is righteousness by faith.

Another point I was trying to emphasize is that when we receive Christ by faith, His righteousness becomes ours. This is not a legal fiction, but actual truth. This is why those who are justified by faith are called righteous. As Waggoner puts it, they (those who are justified by faith) are made obedient. This happens because the word of God has to the power to do that which is stated. So when declares the person righteous, the person (because God cannot lie) is made righteous. The way the SOP put this was as follows:



This quote not only endorses what Waggoner was teaching (which is what I presented from "Christ And His Righteousness," that the believer is made righteous) but repeats the same concept in her own words (the underlined portion).

They can't be unmixed. The mistake is trying to keep them separate.

There are are couple of ways to see this. One is by considering Waggoner's argument, which is that the unbelieving repentant sinner is made righteous by faith by the power of God's word which declares him righteous. The imputed righteousness of Christ makes the believer actually righteous.

A second way is by seeing how EGW used the term "imputed righteousness". Sometimes she used it in a legal sense, but sometimes not, which I showed in the quotes I presented in post #103684.



Abraham was considered righteous because of his faith. I also quoted John, who says:



If what you were asserting were true, no one (other than Christ) would be referred to as "righteous."



I haven't been disputing this, but your assertion that *after* being born again, the believer is called righteous, without actually being righteous. Yes, faith is the instrument to that righteousness, since the righteousness is Christ's, received from Him by faith, but it becomes ours when we receive Him as our personal Savior. One the SOP statements I presented addressed this point as well.



This is exactly what I said. The Bible refers to people as righteous because of their faith.

It strikes me as odd that we have the following:



Followed by:



and then



which is what I've been saying. Clearly if people can be considered righteous, on the basis of faith, it is not true that they must be perfectly obedient to the law from the moment of birth to the moment of death.



No, I've not been saying that, although there's some truth to this, as, to a degree, God treats everybody as if they had never sinned, since, if He didn't, everybody would be dead.

Your assertion is that God calls people righteous, but they are not actually righteous. This is the point I've been disputing.

Would you agree with me that Waggoner did not agree with your suggestion? That he agreed with what I'm saying, which is that when the believer is justified by faith that God makes him righteous?

I agree. Even after repentance and submission have been obtained, there is still more to do. The quote we've been discussing - He might try to keep God's law in the future; but the debt which he had incurred in the past remained, and the law must condemn him to death. Christ came to pay that debt for the sinner which it was impossible for him to pay for himself. {FW 30.1} - reveals one of the things on the todo list, apart from repentance and submission. The text says that regardless of one's performance in the present or the future, there is still a debt to be paid for past sins, a debt that only Christ can pay.

How does the Christus Victor teach the fact that the debt of past sins must be paid, and that the sinner is unable to pay for it himself?

I'll post something in a moment which discusses a debt being paid by C. S. Lewis. A point to bear in mind is that the concept of a debt being paid is nothing new. That's in the Bible. What's not in the Bible, and is new (or newish; within the last 500 years) is the penal substitution model. We've grown up in a custom where this is the dominant model, so it's just natural to associate everything to that model.

So when we hear the word "debt" we think "that's the price Christ had to pay for our sins so God could forgive us," when we hear "without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin" we think "that's because the penalty for sin had to be paid, so God could forgive us" and so on, even though these concepts did not exist at the time these verses were actually written.

Rosangela, are you saying it is impossible for humans to reach a point where they no longer sin, that they will always be guilty of sinning in one form or another? Does this include the 144,000?

Tom, please consider the following insights:

“By His word God has bound Himself to execute the penalty of the law on all transgressors.” (6BC 1095)

“In the plan of redemption there must be the shedding of blood, for death must come in consequence of man’s sin.” (CON 22)

“Justice demands that sin be not merely pardoned, but the death penalty must be executed. God, in the gift of His only-begotten Son, met both these requirements. By dying in man’s stead, Christ exhausted the penalty and provided a pardon.” (1SM 340)

In DA 764 she writes:



The previous paragraph makes clear that the wicked are destroyed not as the result of something God does to them but as a result of their own choice. In what I've quoted here it says that had Satan and his followers been "left" to reap the "full result of their sin" they would have perished, which also brings out that the result is something which happens to Satan as a result of sin as opposed to something God did to him. If it were the result of capital punishment, for example, she could hardly have written of God's *leaving* Satan to reap the full result of his sin, as in this case God's killing him would the result of his sin, which is something God would be causing. If you cause something to happen yourself, you cannot speak of "leaving" someone to the consequences of their actions.

So the "penalty for the law on all transgressors" should be understood as "the inevitable result of sin," or the "full result of sin," which is something that is "reaped," and something God "leaves" the wicked to. This is how God executes the penalty for sin; He leaves the wicked to suffer the consequences of their actions.

This type of language is common in the SOP and Scripture as well. For example, consider the following:



The destruction of Jerusalem was something which God "left" the wicked to, a result of their "reaping the full result of their sin." This action is described as the most decisive testimony to God's hatred of sin and the certain punishment that will fall upon the guilty.

There's no better example of the punishment of the wicked than this event, we are told, and this is an event where God's actions, His judgments, His punishments, are executed by way of His "leaving" the wicked to suffer the consequences of their decisions.

Many more examples of this principle could be given. God is often presented, in both Scripture and the SOP, as doing that which He permits.



This principle applies as much to Lucifer's condition as to man's, so it begs the question as to why there was no shedding of blood for Lucifer, yet he was offered pardon. I'm not disagreeing with the statement, with which I agree, but just pointing out that the meaning of the statement cannot be a strictly legal one, because this argument would apply as much to Lucifer as to man.



Same comment. Actually, you've brought up this statement many times, and many times I've responded with an explanation by Fifield, so I see no reason why to not repeat this, since Fifield's explanation is so eloquent:

I think this is more a question of semantics. I’ll try to explain myself once again. What I’m saying is, Why can’t our works, our obedience, merit eternal life for us? Isn’t it because they are imperfect? That’s why we can obtain eternal life only through Christ’s obedience, which stands in place of ours, and which we accept by faith.

“Works will never save us; it is the merit of Christ that will avail in our behalf. Through faith in Him, Christ will make all our imperfect efforts acceptable to God.” {FW 48.3}

“The condition of eternal life is now just what it always has been--just what it was in Paradise before the fall of our first parents—perfect obedience to the law of God, perfect righteousness. If eternal life were granted on any condition short of this, then the happiness of the whole universe would be imperiled. The way would be open for sin, with all its train of woe and misery, to be immortalized.” {AG 134.5}

So God looks to our disposition and effort to obey Him, accepts this as our best service and Jesus makes up for our deficiency with His own divine merit:

“When it is in the heart to obey God, when efforts are put forth to this end, Jesus accepts this disposition and effort as man's best service and he makes up for the deficiency with his own divine merit; for he is the source of every right impulse.” {OW, December 1, 1909 par. 10}

The reality is that our obedience (righteousness) is imperfect, but God considers it perfect. Why? This is evidently a legal provision which makes no sense under your theology. We don’t consider those whom we forgive as perfect, and we don’t need to.


When they have faith, they are considered perfectly obedient to the law from the moment of birth to the moment of death – because Christ’s life stands in place of theirs, and He was obedient from the moment of birth to the moment of death.

“There is an inexhaustible fund of perfect obedience accruing from His obedience. In heaven His merits, His self-denial and self-sacrifice, are treasured up as incense to be offered up with the prayers of His people. As the sinner's sincere, humble prayers ascend to the throne of God, Christ mingles with them the merits of His life of perfect obedience. Our prayers are made fragrant by this incense.” {HP 69.3}

No, I’m not saying that. Man’s obedience, most of his life at least, is imperfect. But even if one day his obedience, through God’s power, becomes perfect, he still has a past debt of transgression he can’t pay, as Arnold has been pointing out. Therefore, Christ’s righteousness alone can avail for the obtainment of eternal life.

"Let no one take the limited, narrow position that any of the works of man can help in the least possible way to liquidate the debt of his transgression. ... God always demanded good works, the law demands it, but because man placed himself in sin where his good works were valueless, Jesus' righteousness alone can avail." {OHC 122.2}

"But are good works of no real value? Is the sinner who commits sin every day with impunity, regarded of God with the same favor as the one who through faith in Christ tries to work in his integrity? ... We are accepted through Christ's merit alone; and the acts of mercy, the deeds of charity, which we perform, are the fruits of faith; and they become a blessing to us; for men are to be rewarded according to their works. It is the fragrance of the merit of Christ that makes our good works acceptable to God, and it is grace that enables us to do the works for which He rewards us. Our works in and of themselves have no merit. . . . We deserve no thanks from God. We have only done what it was our duty to do, and our works could not have been performed in the strength of our own sinful natures." {OHC 122.3}

By the way, the passage says that one reason why our works have no merit is because they could not have been performed in the strength of our own sinful natures. If this is the case, and if Christ also had a sinful nature, it follows that His works, His obedience, His character, couldn’t be meritorious either. And, in that case, we would be lost.

Eternal life, according to Jesus Christ, is knowing God. (John 17:3) That's not something which one merits. One knows God by choosing to do so, the ability to do so being given to us as a free give. However, because of our fall, we could not know God without the sacrifice of Christ (which should not be limited to His death, as His whole life was a sacrifice given to us for our redemption). So God gave His only Son that whosoever believes in Him (this is how we know God, by believing in Christ) should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Regarding the sinful nature question, Waggoner addresses this issue, I think in "Christ and His Righteousness." I'll see if I can find it. No, I couldn't find it. Anyway, the basic idea is that without being converted, as we exercise our sinful nature, we simply dig ourself into a deeper and deeper hole, so to speak.

Ellen White says that divinity combined with humanity does not sin. She says that Christ took our sinful nature upon His own sinless nature. She also said, during the time she was preaching with Jones and Waggoner, and they were questioned about what they were teaching (and we know what Jones and Waggoner's position was on this!):



So there's no question that Christ took our sinful nature. One could hardly say this more clearly than by saying "Christ took our sinful nature." Thus taking our sinful nature could not have disqualified Him in any way, or He couldn't have done it.

Anyway, the problem for us is that sinful nature of itself cannot do anything good. It must be combined with divinity. In Christ's case, it always was, because He lived by faith.

I didn't see that you addressed my argument regarding our being righteous, and not just being called righteous. John says that one who does righteousness "is righteous, even as He is righteous." Who is righteous? One who "does righteousness." So not only can one be actually righteous (and not simply called such), but one can also actually do righteousness (righteousness is done by faith).

Now if one could only be righteous by keeping the law perfectly one's whole life, how could John say this?

I also pointed out this statement:



You claimed this isn't dealing with justification, but I presented arguments that it is, as the underlined sentence shows. And regardless of what you want to call it, the point is it applies to *every* believer:



This is just a little bit earlier. it says the righteousness of Christ is imparted to *all* who "receive Him as their personal Savior" (which is justification, btw). You might wish to point out that she uses the word "impart" here, but there are two points to this.

1.She often uses the words "impart" and "imputed" interchangeably. I produced a number of statements where she used the meaning "imputed," but the meaning clearly conveyed "imparted," the concepts not being forensic at all, but applying to practical righteousness.

2.What word she uses doesn't matter. The point is that the following applies *to every believer*



Now if *every believer* has this (regardless of what you want to call it), every believer is righteous, because anyone whose heart is united to Christ's, whose will is merged with His will, whose mind is one with His mind, and who lives Christ's life is righteous. The righteousness which God gives to us really becomes ours! It's not a legal fiction.

Now the fact that believers are righteous does not mean that they have done anything meritorious nor that this righteousness is intrinsic. The only righteousness there is is the righteousness of Christ. Any other righteousness than that is not the wedding garment, but the fig leaf.

Tom,
It seems we won't agree.

Perhaps McMahon presents the subject better than I. I don't believe EGW's position is the Protestant position in the strictest sense (as he presents it), but it's not also altogether Roman Catholic, as Waggoner presents it. Our position (based on EGW) is the position of Luther, not of Calvin (and Luther is sometimes accused of retaining part of the Catholic theology). Thus, justification or imputed righteousness includes the new birth, but everything which happens in our character from that moment onward is sanctification, imparted righteousness (although imputed righteousness is always present providing perfection to the process).

Your assertion that Ellen White uses the words "imputed" and "imparted" interchangeably is by no means true (if you want to analyze the EGW quotes one at a time we can do that). Although the two can't be separated, she distinguishes between the two roles Christ's righteousness (character) plays in our salvation - it stands in place of our character, providing forgiveness and perfection, and its elements are imparted to the human agent, making his character more and more similar to that of Christ.

McMahon's analysis can be found here: http://www.presenttruthmag.com/7dayadventist/Waggoner/7.html

By the way, I've found two more quotes of Waggoner in total disagreement with what Ellen White says:

1) Christ's "beginning" [quoted by McMahon in the same article]:

"In arguing the perfect equality of the Father and the Son, and the fact that Christ is in very nature God, we do not design to be understood as teaching that the Father was not before the Son...While both are of the same nature, the Father is first in point of time. He is also greater in that He had no beginning, while Christ's personality had a beginning" (E. J. Waggoner, "The Divinity of Christ," Bible Echo and Signs of the Times, October 1, 1889, p.298).

2) Christ could not sin because of His divinity [also partly quoted by McMahon, the link at the bottom leads to the full article]:

"One more point, and then we can learn the entire lesson that we should learn from the fact the 'the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.' How was it that Christ could be thus 'compassed with infirmity' (Heb. 5:2), and still know no sin? Some may though [sic], while reading this article thus far, that we are depreciating the character of Jesus, by bringing him down to the level of sinful man. On the contrary, we are simply exalting the 'divine power' of our blessed Saviour, who himself voluntarily descended to the level of sinful man, in order that he might exalt man to his own spotless purity, which he retained under the most adverse circumstances. 'God was in Christ,' and hence he could not sin. His humanity only veiled his divine nature, which was more than able to successfully resist the sinful passions of the flesh. There was in his whole life a struggle. The flesh, moved upon by the enemy of all unrighteousness, would tend to sin, yet his divine nature never for a moment harbored an evil desire, nor did his divine power for a moment waver. Having suffered in the flesh all that men can possibly suffer, he returned to the throne of the Father, as spotless as when he left the courts of glory. When he laid in the tomb, under the power of death, 'it was impossible that he should be holden of it,' because it had been impossible for the divine nature which dwelt in him to sin. 'Well,' some will say, 'I don't see any comfort in this for me; it wasn't possible that the Son of God should sin, but I haven't any such power.' Why not? You can have it is you want it. the same power which enabled him to resist every temptation presented through the flesh, while he was 'compassed with infirmity,' can enable us to do the same. Christ could not sin, because he was the manifestation of God" ("God Manifest in the Flesh," The Signs of the Times, January 21, 1889).

http://maranathamedia.com/start/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_view&gid=1979

Rosangela, please respond to the points I've been making. You made the claim that God calls us righteous, but we aren't really righteous. Where is a single statement where Scripture or Ellen White says that a born again Christ exercising faith in Christ is not really righteous?

In order to disprove your assertion, I presented the following quote.



I asked you the question if a person with these characteristics would not be righteous. As I recall, you didn't answer my question. You commented that this statement was talking about sanctification, not justification. I presented several arguments that this was not the case, including the fact that the very next sentence (in the FILB quote) is unquestionably dealing with justification.



I also pointed out that regardless of what one calls this "imparted" or "imputed," "justified" or "sanctified," it is something which applies to every believer. So if every believer has these traits, and these traits characterize a righteous person, then it followers that believers are not merely called righteous but are righteous.

Here are some things Ellen White regarding Waggoner's theology:



She never referred to Luther's message, nor any other message (even her own) in these terms. There was something special about their message. Do you how many times she endorsed Jones and Waggoner's message? Almost 2,000 times! How many times did she endorse Luther? Once?

I'm not understand the approach you're taking here, Rosangela. I don't understand why you would prefer Luther to Waggoner (in regards to whose message in regards to righteousness by faith is more correct), or McMahon to Ellen White (in regards to what the truth in regards to Waggoner is).

Ellen White stated many times that these were messengers specially chosen by God with a lesson which He Himself gave to them to proclaim. She warned those who were rejecting them that rejecting the Lord's messengers was rejecting Christ.



Now if God gave them a work to do, and a message to bear, how could it be wrong? I'm not understanding this. If you are correct, then Jones and Waggoner were wrong, not in regards to some unimportant side issues, but at the very core, including:

a.Imputed righteousness.
b.The human nature of Christ.

Jones said the fact that Christ took our fallen nature was salvation itself, so important did he view this aspect of the message of righteousness by faith (I'm making this point to bear out my claim that this was a core issue).

In regards to imputed righteousness being a core issue to righteousness by faith, I'm sure you must agree with this. So again I ask, how could Waggoner and Jones have a message of God, truth to bear to our church in regards to righteousness by faith, and be wrong in regards to imputed righteousness?

I've repeatedly asked you if you think what I've said in regards to imputed righteousness is different to what Waggoner taught. I don't believe you have answered this question. When you suggested I was selecting passages where Waggoner was concerned with the relational aspect of imputed righteousness, and not the legal aspect, I invited you to select any passage you wished in regards to this subject from Waggoner, and you produced nothing.

I've made the following argument.

a.If no statement of Waggoner's in regards to imputed righteousness differs from what I've presented, it's reasonable to assert that my position on this subject is the same as his.
b.Given Ellen White endorsed Waggoner's position of righteousness by faith, and given that imputed righteousness is such a crucial aspect to rbf, it is reasonable to assert Waggoner's position on this is correct (and hence mine).

I don't believe you responded to this.



There are many statements like this, warning those who spoke against the message Jones and Waggoner were bringing. I think it's very dangerous to go looking for things wrong with their message. Again, it wasn't their own message, but a message from the Lord, and Ellen White repeatedly warned against precisely this sort of approach. She spoke of those who looked for something wrong to have a place to hang the hooks of their doubts on. She said God would never remove every hook, but that He had presented ample evidence that the message they were bringing was truth. She repeatedly warned of the danger in regards to how the message and the messengers were treated. For example:



In point of fact, this is the most common objection raised against Jones and Waggoner, yet Ellen White warns of this being a "fatal delusion"!

In regards to the "two more" statements you found where they disagree with Ellen White, what are they "two more" in relation to? Regarding the statement that Waggoner said Christ couldn't sin, I pointed out to you that this was the only statement I was aware of where Ellen White corrected his theology, and that he did so. This idea was not included in his book "Christ And His Righteousness." I wasn't aware of the other statement.

Tom,

I did respond to the points you’ve been making. I’ve presented several quotes both from the Bible and from Ellen White. I quoted 1Tim. 1:12, where Paul calls himself a sinner (In which way can a righteous man be a sinner?) I also quoted from Ellen White:

“Sinners can be justified by God only when He pardons their sins, remits the punishment they deserve, and treats them as though they were really just and had not sinned, receiving them into divine favor and treating them as if they were righteous." {OHC 52.3}

“In ourselves we are sinners; but in Christ we are righteous. Having made us righteous through the imputed righteousness of Christ, God pronounces us just, and treats us as just." {1SM 394.1}

From que quote you provided:

“Those who accept of Christ are looked upon by God, not as they are in Adam [present tense], but as they are in Jesus Christ, as the sons and daughters of God.” (FILB 113)

Please note the use of the present tense in the two last quotes. Ellen White does not say “In ourselves we were sinners,” or “Those who accept Christ are looked upon by God, not as they were in Adam.” She says, “are sinners”/”are righteous”, and “are in Adam”/”are in Jesus Christ.” The states contrasted are simultaneous. We are at the same time sinners and righteous, and are at the same time in Adam and in Christ.

We are sinners both in the sense that we have sinned in the past and in the sense that, even now, after conversion, our obedience is imperfect and we sometimes sin. We are righteous in the sense that all this is covered by Christ’s righteousness if we have faith in Him. This is righteousness by faith in a legal sense. You said that a righteous person is someone who practices righteousness, and this is true, but I replied that God requires perfect righteousness, with no sin at all. You then said, in your post #103570, that this standard “is one which we will attain, unless we interpose a perverse will and thus frustrate His grace.” If this is a standard which we will attain, then it follows that only when we do attain it can we be called righteous. Therefore, if we are called righteous before we attain that standard, we are called righteous without in fact being righteous.


If I understood what you are asking, the answer would be the same as above. After we are born again, indeed our heart is united with His heart, our will is merged in His will, we live His life. But we still have “unavoidable deficiencies.” Therefore, again, we are called righteous without in fact being righteous (in the absolute sense of perfect righteousness). We are righteous due to the imputed righteousness of Christ (in a legal sense).


What? She was thankful to them because they preached the right message in the right time, but she was exalting the message – the biblical message – not the messengers.


It seems your view and the view he expressed in his published writings is similar. However, nobody knows exactly what his view was in 1888, and his theology underwent changes in the course of years. McMahon, for instance, says that "before the 1888 conference Waggoner held a Protestant meaning of justification. He believed that justification was a forensic act in which God pronounces the believer righteous on the ground of the imputed righteousness of Christ."


Why are you saying that? The writings of anyone must be tested by the Bible and, after that, by the Spirit of Prophecy. Anything which is in disagreement with these should be rejected.


The others we’ve already discussed in the past.


How did she correct him? Did she write to him?
It’s interesting that when we discussed in April the statement

Letters have been coming in to me, affirming that Christ could not have had the same nature as man, for if he had, he would have fallen under similar temptations. If he did not have man's nature, he could not be our example. If he was not a partaker of our nature, he could not have been tempted as man has been. If it were not possible for him to yield to temptation, he could not be our helper. It was a solemn reality that Christ came to fight the battles as man, in man's behalf. His temptation and victory tell us that humanity must copy the Pattern; man must become a partaker of the divine nature. (1888 Mat. 533)

I said in my post #98605:

A common idea at that time, as today, was that Christ had taken the human nature but was not capable of yielding to temptation [because He was God] ... Again, this was the subject of the letters that had been coming to Ellen White. They had nothing to do with what Jones and Waggoner were preaching.
http://www.maritime-sda-online.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=98649&fpart=4

I wouldn’t say the same thing today.

Thank for your response (addressing the points I was raising)



I didn't see you answer this. I saw some quotes dealing with the process of being converted, but what I've specifically asking for is a quote where either Scripture or Ellen White says that a person who born again and exercising faith in Jesus Christ is not really righteous. The only argument I saw addressing this was that we are called sinners, and how could be righteous if we are sinners? You specifically mentioned Paul.

My understanding of Paul's comment is that he saw, in the light of the cross, the he was the chief of sinners. He was touched by God's grace in saving him, and saw who evil he was apart from the grace of God.

I believe Paul's exclamation will be that of any true Christian. "God, be merciful to me a sinner!" will ever be our prayer. I won't go into more detail about this right now (btw, this is covered in detail at the end of the chapter "The Two Worshipers" in COL), as I think we are probably in agreement on this point.

I don't see that this addresses my question, however. Our vision of ourselves as sinners rests in our having crucified Christ by our sins. That won't change regardless of our faith or obedience.

What do you do with John who says, "He who does righteousness is righteous, even as He is righteous?" How can this be reconciled with the idea that we are not really righteous? What didn't John write something like "He who does righteousness is called righteous (but not really righteous) even as He is righteous"?



It's easier if you respond to questions the first time they come up. Then I don't need to scratch where it doesn't itch. The reason I asked you if a person who had the characteristics of COL 312 was righteous was because if you said, "no" then that leads the discussion in one direction. If you say, "yes," it goes down another path. Since you didn't answer, I had to guess, and it looks like I guessed wrong. It looks to me like you would say a person who has the characteristics described here:



is not really righteous, but is simply called righteous. I guess we'll have to disagree on this point because I believe the above describes a righteous person (not one who is merely called such).

Another quote I presented was this one:



It seems to me that a person who is not sinning is really righteous. If Christ always separates the contrite soul from sinning, wouldn't that mean he's not sinning, as long as he is contrite? And aren't all justified persons contrite?



I don't understand your response here. I said, "There was something special about their message." I didn't say "There was something special about the messengers." So why this response?

The message she endorsed was a specific message, that message being what they were preaching, not simply righteousness by faith in some generic way which didn't involve the specific truths they were presenting.



McMahon is dead wrong on this. You're taking a wrong and dangerous tack here by relying on secondary sources. We have what Waggoner wrote, and we have what Ellen White wrote. You should research these sources, and not rely on McMahon.

Here are some sources you should consider. One is "The Law in Galations." This pamphlet was passed out at the 1888 GC session. So this can be read to ascertain his views on justification by faith. If you look at this pamphlet, you will see that he speaks of the desire to write a book on Galatians without reference to responding to a specific argument (i.e., Butler's pamphlet "The Law in Galatians"), which he did in writing the book "The Glad Tidings." This would be another good book to look at.

According to Froom, Waggoner's wife recorded Waggoner's sermons, and these sermons were published in Signs of The Times articles, and later gathered into the book "Christ and His Righteousness." So this book contains the message Waggoner presented at the 1888 GC session. I've been quoting mostly from this book.

Another point to take into consideration is that EGW endorsed Jones and Waggoner almost 2,000 times over the course of almost 10 years. Even if it were true that we didn't know what was presented at the 1888 GC Session (which it isn't) it would be a moot point. Ellen White preached along side Jones and Waggoner, and continued endorsing them at the same time that they were writing many, many articles in our church papers.

Returning to your response, I understand you as saying that you agree that the view I have been presenting is in harmony with Waggoner's, but that Waggoner's view changed, and his original view was really the same as what you believe (which you believe is what Ellen White believed).

This response falls short because Waggoner's view did not change from Mpls. to the time following. This is easily verified by comparing "Christ and His Righteousness" or "The Law in Galatians" with his following works. For example, consider "Bible Studies in the Book of Romans" (1890 I think) or "Articles in Romans" (around 1895) and you'll see they present the same concepts as the aforementioned works.

Therefore we're back to square one. Waggoner's view agrees with what I've been presenting in regards to imputed righteousness, and that view was endorsed by Ellen White (assuming that an endorsement of rbf includes an endorsement of one's teachings regarding imputed righteousness, which I assume you would agree must be the case since how could one teach rbf correctly and be wrong on imputed righteousness?)



Have you read the 1888 Materials, written by Ellen White? If not, I'd suggest you do so. The answer to your question as to why I'm saying this is in those writings. It's one thing to verify from inspired works the veracity of something being presented. It's quite another to go looking specifically for things which are wrong. It is this last point the Ellen White warned against.

She proclaimed the message was light from heaven, a message from God, which He had given to His messengers, and that rejecting their message was rejecting Christ. Those rejecting the message looked for any excuse to do so. She spoke of what they did as looking for hooks upon which to hang their doubts. She said that a person doing so could always find an excuse for rejecting light, but this isn't the approach they should take. The should ask, "Has God been sending us light?" She said there was ample evidence that God had been.

This is all in the 1888 Materials. I suggest you don't take my word for what happened in 1888, or McMahon's, as this is too important a subject to treat this way. There are over 2,000 pages released by the Ellen White estate relating to 1888 (this is just considering what Ellen White wrote) and many articles written by Jones and Waggoner. There are ample primary sources to study.



Which were what?




This doesn't make sense. If this had been the case, she would have said that questions had been coming to her regarding Christ's being able to yield to temptation, not to His taking our nature. Nobody didn't believe that Christ didn't take human nature at all. The question was if He took a human nature such as we have (which is what Jones and Waggoner preached -- and her, of course, and she was preaching by their side).



"They" are the letters? You are saying the letters that were coming to Ellen White had nothing to do with what Jones and Waggoner were preaching? That's hardly a credible theory. Or perhaps I misunderstood you here.



What do you mean you wouldn't say the same thing today?

Anyway, in regards to the idea that Waggoner presented in regards to Christ's not being able to sin, his logic ran that because Christ had perfect faith he could not sin. This is the only theological mistake I'm aware of EGW correcting Waggoner on. This was immediately corrected by Waggoner, and does not appear in his book "Christ and His Rightouesness." This had become a non-issue before the time Ellen White was preaching alongside Jones and Waggoner, before her quote "letters have been coming to me," was written.

Is it possible to sin while having perfect faith?

No, but it's possible to not have perfect faith, or to choose not to exercise it when being tempted.

Thank you for answering my question. I agree people can reach a point where they no longer sin, but their salvation is based entirely on the fact Jesus 1) paid their sin debt of death, and 2) clothes them with His robe of righteousness.

I do not, of course, agree possessing sinful flesh prevents Jesus from being our sin substitute and Savior. It is not a sin to possess sinful flesh. Sin is the transgression of the law - not possessing sinful flesh which clamors for sinful expression.

The same applies to Jesus, right? He could have sinned if He hadn't exercised perfect faith every moment of every day of His life.

But I did answer it. Do you remember I quoted 1 John 1:8? (see below).


And, as I had asked in a previous post, what do you do with the same John who says

“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8)?

How would you describe a righteous person who is not without sin?
It’s not just that “our vision of ourselves as sinners rests in our having crucified Christ by our sins,” but it rests also in the fact that occasionally we do sin. About this, Gill says,

“The sins of believers are equally sins with other persons, are of the same kind and nature, and equally transgressions of the law, ... now though a believer may say that he has not this or that particular sin, or is not guilty of this or that sin, ... yet he cannot say he has no sin.”

And as I pointed out in my previous post (not to mention the subject of our pre-conversion sins), even if the standard of perfect righteousness – no sin - can and will be attained, only when it is attained could we be called righteous with propriety, otherwise we are called righteous without in fact being righteous.


Aren’t all justified persons still growing in their contrition? Do you know any justified person who has never sinned after his/her justification? As far as I know, both Moses and Elijah sinned just some days before they went to heaven.


Sorry, but I wasn’t understanding what you were asking, and I told you so. Our mindsets are so different we many times talk past each other.


Jones and Waggoner turned the eyes of the church members again to Jesus, whom they (the latter) had lost sight of. But what was distinctive about their message in relation to their predecessors was that righteousness by faith was presented in the setting of the third angel’s message. Ellen White says this:

“The Lord in His great mercy sent a most precious message to His people through Elders Jones and Waggoner. This message was to bring more prominently before the world the uplifted Saviour, the sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. It presented justification through faith in the Surety; it invited the people to receive the righteousness of Christ, which is made manifest in obedience to all the commandments of God. ... This is the message that God commanded to be given to the world. It is the third angel’s message, which is to be proclaimed with a loud voice, and attended with the outpouring of His Spirit in a large measure” (TM 91, 92).

And Waggoner himself says this, in one of his closing remarks in The Gospel in the Book of Galatians:

"If our people should today, as a body (as they will sometime), change their view on this point, it would simply be ... a step nearer the faith of the great Reformers from the days of Paul to the days of Luther and Wesley. It would be a step closer to the heart of the Third Angel's Message. I do not regard this view which I hold as a new idea at all. It is not a new theory of doctrine. Everything that I have taught is perfectly in harmony with the fundamental principles of truth which have been held not only by our people, but by all the eminent reformers."


Well, I understood he had access to materials written by Waggoner before 1888. I can’t think I once had access to all this material when I worked at the White State Center, and I now live so far from it.
The problem with “The Gospel in Galatians” (and, in fact, with all his subsequent material) is that he doesn’t explain clearly his views on justification and sanctification and doesn’t define the terms.


About the covenants, remember?
http://www.maritime-sda-online.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=96613&fpart=6


Have you read attentively the quote you provided?

"Letters have been coming in to me, affirming that Christ could not have had the same nature as man, for if he had, he would have fallen under similar temptations. If he did not have man's nature, he could not be our example. If he was not a partaker of our nature, he could not have been tempted as man has been. If it were not possible for him to yield to temptation, he could not be our helper." (1888 Mat. 533)

You presented the very same argument in the discussion to which I provided the link, and I gave on the occasion the very same reply that I will give now: Ellen White in this passage is by no means analyzing if Christ’s nature was fallen or unfallen, but the fact that He took “man’s nature,” otherwise “He could not have been tempted as man has been.” As far as I know, man could be tempted both before and after his fall, so she is here speaking of the human condition, not of a pre-fall or post-fall condition.

If I may address this point. First, John isn’t saying in 1 John 1:8 that people will continue to sin until Jesus returns and rewards them with a sinless body and nature. Since this isn’t what he’s saying, what is he saying? The context makes it clear he’s talking about past sins, that is, “all have sinned”, therefore, anyone who says otherwise is a liar and the truth is not in them.

Secondly, 1 John 3:7 is true while believers are abiding in Jesus. That they might sin in the near future is immaterial. Whether they ever sin again or not has no bearing on the truthfulness of what John wrote, which is, believers do not and cannot sin while abiding in Jesus.

John isn’t referring to anyone and everyone. He’s referring to seasoned saints, to people who “have received the knowledge of the truth,” who are “enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come”. Hebrews 10:26 and 6:4,5. People like Paul, Peter, James, etc, people who are thoroughly indoctrinated in the truth as it is in Jesus.

People like this experience real righteousness while they are abiding in Jesus, while they are walking in the Spirit and mind of the new man, while they are partaking of the divine nature. It’s real righteousness, not imputed, or a combination of imputed and imparted righteousness.

People who have not been thoroughly indoctrinated like the people mentioned above, who are not obeying and observing everything Jesus commanded because they are unaware of certain aspects of the truth, are experiencing a combination of real righteousness and imputed righteousness to make up for their sins of ignorance. But John didn’t describe these people in 1 John.

Rosangela, I'm not understanding your answer to my question regarding what John says. Johns says whoever does righteousness is righteous, even as He is righteous. What do you think he means?

In regards to my request for a statement from Scripture which says that we are merely called righteous, but not actually righteous, you are suggesting that the following is such a statement?



If so, this would seem to me to be forcing John to say something he has no intention of saying. The statement "he who does righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous" would seem to be so clear as to not be able to be misunderstood. A righteous person is one who does righteousness, or, conversely, one who does righteousness is a righteous person. Especially when you take the context into consideration, this seems especially clear. I don't understand how you can get from John's statement the idea "One who does righteousness is not really righteous, but merely called righteous."



She said, "Christ always separates the contrite soul from sin." This is a clear and easy to understand statement. A contrite soul is separated from sin.

A person's faith may waiver, or a person may fall into temptation, or whatever, but her statement isn't dealing with this, but simply stating that Christ always does something, which is to separate the contrite soul from sin. If a person is separated from sin, then wouldn't he be righteous?

Let's take a look at John again:



This is speaking of one who is born again, which is to say justified. It's very similar in thought to the COL 312 passage. It is speaking in very practical terms of what constitutes a righteous person (i.e. someone who is born again) and what doesn't. Again, I don't see where John's statement leaves room for the idea of a born again person being merely called righteous but not actually being righteous.

Regarding your point about a person not having sin, I understand that John is getting at the same thing EGW addresses here:



This doesn't imply that a person is actively sinning, nor that a person need to sin, as the following (and many, many other statements) makes clear:





Ok, thank you. I understand this, and accept it. I was bringing this up because I would like to avoid what happened recently in the Col. 2:14 thread where I labored for many posts to establish a point that you already agreed with.



What do you mean by this? (the last sentence).



I know she says this. I quoted it to you. I pointed out she says, "it invited the people to receive the righteousness of Christ, which is made manifest in obedience to all the commandments of God" which is to say that one who is justified by faith is not merely called righteous, but manifests obedience to all the commandments of God (i.e., is righteous).



It's natural that Waggoner would write something like this; he was a humble man. However, he, as the porter of the message, was unaware of somethings Ellen White, the prophet, was aware of. For example, she identified the message which Jones and Waggoner presented as the beginning of the loud cry, and of the latter rain. She identified this with the specific message they were being presented, and this was well known by Adventists at the time.

Ellen White wrote that Jones and Waggoner brought light that we would not otherwise have had unless God had sent someone else to bring it. The message Jones and Waggoner preached was not simply what Luther preached. There were distinctive elements to the message, some of which I've been quoting from "Christ and His Righteousness," which is taken from what Waggoner presented at the 1888 GC session.



The book "Christ and His Righteousness" is one of the clearest books on the subject I've every read. Actually, I can't think of anything clearer. One of the big problems of teaching justification by faith is how to relate salvation being by grace on the one hand with obedience to the commandments being necessary on the other. Sister White struggled with this, and knew what she wanted to say, but was unable to express it, except in private conversations with her husband. When she heard Waggoner present righteousness by faith, she lit up. She said, "There is great light here!" She saw in his words what she had been trying to present herself, and immediately recognized it as light from heaven.

In regards to considering Waggoner's writings, the time to be concerned with is the time during which he was being endorsed. Ellen White endorsed him (or Jones) nearly 2,000 times during the years 1888 through 1896. There are many articles available on line that one can look at. His theology didn't change during this time. This isn't to say he didn't have new insights, of course, but the doctrine of justification by faith which he taught was the same as what he presented in Mpls. in 1888 and Ellen White continued to enthusiastically endorse it throughout this time. When Prescott jumped on the bandwagon in 1895, she endorsed him as enthusiastically as she had been endorsing them.



I'm only aware of one disagreement that Waggoner had with Ellen white, which is the one I cited. I wasn't aware of the statement from the Oct. ST that you mentioned, and don't know enough about it to comment upon it. Regarding the Covenants, she writes:



And shortly thereafter:



So *she* obviously viewed her person as agreeing with Waggoner's. Hence I think it is more likely if someone thinks there is a disagreement between Waggoner and EGW, that such a person is mistaken than that Waggoner and EGW differ on this subject, since Ellen White herself didn't think so.



I don't understand what you're suggesting. Here's what I understand:

1.Jones and Waggoner preached that Christ took our fallen human nature.

2.Ellen White was preaching with them.

3.Letters came to her saying that Christ could not have taken our fallen human nature, because if He had, He would have fallen under the temptations we do.

Ellen White countered this by saying:

1.If Christ did not take our fallen human nature, it would not have been possible for Him to have yielded to temptation (which is what most pre-lapsarians believe, that Christ could not have sinned) because He could not have been tempted as we are tempted (with its implied ability of being able to fall to temptation).

I understand that unfallen Adam could have yielded to temptation, and that Christ taking human nature could have been tempted as unfallen Adam was, and failed like he did, which is what you're arguing (at least, what I understand you to be arguing). However, this isn't something Jones and Waggoner talked about, so I don't see how people could have had questions about this.

Also, I still don't understand why you think she said that letters had been coming to her affirming that Christ could not have taken our nature. It seems to me that if what you are suggesting were true, she would have written, "Letters have been coming to me, affirming that Christ could not have fallen under similar temptations that we do ..." Why did she mention taking human nature?

That is, as I see it:

1.Letters have been coming to me affirming that Christ could not have taken fallen human nature
2.Because had He done so, He would have fallen under similar temptations that we do.

You have (as I understand it):

1.Letters have been coming to me affirming that Christ could not have taken human nature (any kind)
2.Because had He done so, He would have fallen under similar temptations that we do.

I don't understand how this makes sense. I feel I must be misunderstanding you here. Surely no one was arguing Christ didn't take human nature. (or is this what you are suggesting(?))

Tom, I appreciate very much what you posted above. Thank you for the spirit and the content. Well done. God is good.

He means that he who does righteousness is righteous, in the sense that, while the fruits of Christ's imparted righteousness are seen in his life, Christ’s imputed righteousness makes up for his “unavoidable deficiencies.”


In fact, I don’t get this from John’s statement, but from my observation of Christians, including those of Bible times. I don't see them as without sin, deficiencies, imperfections.


What I’m saying from the beginning is that the Christian is righteous, but not in the absolute sense of the term. The Bible does call Christians righteous and saints but, as I said, this means they are considered to be such, without being so in the absolute sense of these terms.
I would like to know what you think about this: What happens when a Christian sins? Does he cease to be righteous? Yes or No? Why?


“Elder E. J. Waggoner had the privilege granted him of speaking plainly and presenting his views upon justification by faith and the righteousness of Christ in relation to the law. This was no new light, but it was old light placed where it should be in the third angel's message. What is the burden of that message? John sees a people. He says, ‘Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus’ (Rev. 14:12). This people John beholds just before he sees the Son of man ‘having on His head a golden crown, and in His hand a sharp sickle’ (verse 14). The faith of Jesus has been overlooked and treated in an indifferent, careless manner. It has not occupied the prominent position in which it was revealed to John. Faith in Christ as the sinner's only hope has been largely left out, not only of the discourses given but of the religious experience of very many who claim to believe the third angel's message. At this meeting I bore testimony that the most precious light had been shining forth from the Scriptures in the presentation of the great subject of the righteousness of Christ connected with the law, which should be constantly kept before the sinner as his only hope of salvation. ... The third angel's message is the proclamation of the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus Christ. The commandments of God have been proclaimed, but the faith of Jesus Christ has not been proclaimed by Seventh-day Adventists as of equal importance, the law and the gospel going hand in hand. I cannot find language to express this subject in its fullness.” {12MR 187, 188, 193}


Again, as I said in the past, she endorsed the main thrust of the message, which was the moral law as the revealer of sin, as condemning the sinner who is without a Savior, and how this relates to the old and the new covenants and to the subject of righteousness by faith.


What many people believe is that Christ took human nature but was incapable of yielding to temptation. Among those who believe this, there are both some pre-lapsarians and some post-lapsarians (as was the case of Waggoner). These two premises are mutually exclusive, as Ellen White points out:

“Many claim that it was impossible for Christ to be overcome by temptation. Then He could not have been placed in Adam's position; He could not have gained the victory that Adam failed to gain. If we have in any sense a more trying conflict than had Christ, then He would not be able to succor us. But our Saviour took humanity, with all its liabilities. He took the nature of man, with the possibility of yielding to temptation. We have nothing to bear which He has not endured.” {DA 117.2}

Ellen White's point: If He took human nature without the possibility of yielding to temptation, that is, without one of its liabilities, it wasn't human nature that He took.

How do you get this from "He who does righteousness is righteous?" This seems like a classic case of eisegesis.



Ok, I agree you can't get this from John's statement. Regarding your comment, this is a different comment. You're talking about about perfection. John isn't talking about perfection, but of being righteous. John says a person who does righteousness is righteous. This is very simple. It agrees with the Hebrew concept of righteousness expressed all throughout the OT.



This is from Wiki (and if it's from Wiki, you know it can't be wrong).

This is from http://www.ntwrightpage.com/Wright_NDCT_Righteousness.htm



The above brings out that "righteous," in Scripture, did not mean "someone who kept the law perfectly his whole life." It never had that meaning to any Jewish person. Clearly if this were what "righteous" meant, no one could be referred to as a righteous person.

From the same website:





You said that born again people are called righteous without really being righteous. What Waggoner said was the the power of God's word, which declares the sinner righteous, make his righteous, because God cannot lie. When God says "there is light" in a dark place, even though the place was dark, after God speaks the words, there is light. Similarly when God says, "there is righteousness" where there was none before God spoke, then there is righteousness.



This was Waggoner's argument. This was his understanding of imputed righteousness. I've been arguing that, given EGW's endorsements of rbf, that Waggoner's understanding on this point must have been correct. Either that or her endorsement was bogus. One could hardly be wrong on such a fundamental issue and have a correct view of rbf.



A saint, in Scripture, is simply someone who has believed in Jesus Christ. It seems to me you are using definitions of terms which are not in Scripture (i.e., the definitions), and then making statements about the terms using these definitions. For example, you say no one is righteous because they have not kept the law their whole life. But this was not the Hebrew understanding of the word "righteous." Similarly the word "saint," in Scripture, means simply one who has believed in Christ.



This is how I see it. It depends upon what you have in mind by saying "when a Christian sins". If you mean deliberate sin, then what John says applies:



If you mean an unknown sin, then the following applies:





I was actually asking what you meant by saying "righteousness by faith was presented in the setting of the third angel’s message."

By the way, there are both old light and new light quotes. People complained about both things, so she answered the complaints in both ways. That is, some people complained the J&W were presenting new light, so EGW responded to these people by saying that it wasn't new, it was in the Bible. Other people complained that there was nothing new about, and she responded to these people by pointing out that it was light from heaven that we would not have had unless God had sent someone else to bring it.



This argument doesn't work. It's not considering the historical facts, in particular the controversy in relation to the Law in Galatians.

Waggoner's whole framework on the covenants is summarized by this:



If you can't agree with this, you're not agreeing with his view on the Covenants. Waggoner's entire point, in regards to the covenants, was that it was not a matter of time but of condition. He used this argument to prove that the Law in Galatians was not the ceremonial law, but the moral law. His argument was that Paul's reasoning was not dispensational, as Butler was arguing.



The whole force of Waggoner's argument goes away without the dispensational argument, and also EGW's statement about their being afraid they'd have to change their minds regarding the Law in Galatians. She was correct in her observation, because the same dispensational (or anti-dispensation) argument that is the force of Waggoner's covenant view, knocks out their view of the Law in Galatians as well.

I'll catch the last comment on the nature of Christ later.

Again, if I may add my two cents worth. Jesus is the standard of Christianity – not fallen or faulty sinners. John describes Christians who are abiding in Jesus. While they are abiding in Jesus, walking in the Spirit, they are righteous like Jesus and for the same reasons Jesus was righteous.

When people neglect to abide in Jesus they cease to be righteous like Jesus, but the moment they repent God restores the relationship their sin severed. They resume being righteous like Jesus. They are only able to be righteous while abiding in Jesus. That’s what John is saying. He is not saying they will never sin again or that they have never sinned in the past.

SC 61
We do not earn salvation by our obedience; for salvation is the free gift of God, to be received by faith. But obedience is the fruit of faith. "Ye know that He was manifested to take away our sins; and in Him is no sin. Whosoever abideth in Him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen Him, neither known Him." 1 John 3:5, 6. Here is the true test. If we abide in Christ, if the love of God dwells in us, our feelings, our thoughts, our purposes, our actions, will be in harmony with the will of God as expressed in the precepts of His holy law. "Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as He is righteous." 1 John 3:7. Righteousness is defined by the standard of God's holy law, as expressed in the ten precepts given on Sinai. {SC 61.1}

A mere profession of godliness is worthless. It is he that abideth in Christ that is a Christian. For "every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure." In every clime, in every nation, our youth should cooperate with God. The only way a person can be pure is to become like-minded with God. How can we know God?--By studying His Word. . . . {SD 297.2}

It is through faith in Jesus Christ that the truth is accepted in the heart and the human agent is purified and cleansed. Jesus was "wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed." Is it possible to be healed, while knowingly committing sin?--No; it is genuine faith that says, I know that I have committed sin, but that Jesus has pardoned my sin; and hereafter I will resist temptation in and through His might. "Every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure." He has an abiding principle in the soul, that enables him to overcome temptation. {SD 297.3}

"Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not." God has power to keep the soul who is in Christ, when that soul is under temptation. "Whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him." That is, every one who is a true believer is sanctified through the truth, in life and character. "Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth {not professeth to do} righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous." "Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; . . . because he is born of God. In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil." Now mark where the distinction is made: "Whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither is he that loveth not his brother." "My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth." {SD 297.4}

This doesn't work for two reasons (at least). First of all, consider the historical situation. Ellen White was preaching with Jones and Waggoner. What did they preach? Here's an example:



Now someone hearing this being preached would reasonable be expected to ask a question like, "How could Christ have taken our fallen nature? Had He done so, He would have fallen to temptation, just like we do."

Your suggestion that they were actually asking, "How could Christ have yielded to temptation?" doesn't fit with what Jones and Waggoner preached. Actually, what you are suggesting is that they were asking "How could Christ have taken a nature which yielded to temptation?" which doesn't correspond to anything they were preaching.

A second problem is that her response doesn't make sense. She wrote:



If the point had been in relation to Christ not being able to be tempted, she would have said something like:



Instead she said that letters were coming to her affirming that Christ could not have come in out nature, because if he had, He would have fallen under the same temptations we fall under. In fact, many pre-lapsarians make this very argument, when hearing the preaching of Jones and Waggoner today, so it is not the least surprising that those hearing it then would have reacted the same.

Otoh, I've never heard anyone every respond to Jones and Waggoner's preaching the way you are suggesting, affirming that Christ could not have taken a nature which could have yielded to temptation. Indeed, I've never heard anyone ever have this question. I've heard the question raised that Christ could not have yielded to temptation, but never heard this issue in terms of Christ's nature.

That is, one might ask:

1.How could Christ have been tempted in all points as we are? If He had, He would need a Savior, just like we do.

But not:

2.How could Christ have taken a nature in which it was possible to yield to temptation? If He had, He would have fallen under similar temptations to ours.

The second is not a natural question to ask. Again, I've never heard anyone ask this.

(These two points have nothing to do with our present discussion, so I’ll reply to them separately and plan to drop the subject)


But this is in complete disagreement with what Ellen White says. This is the 3d or 4th time now in our discussions that I will quote the following passages:

“God's people are justified through the administration of the ‘better covenant,’ through Christ's righteousness. A covenant is an agreement by which parties bind themselves and each other to the fulfillment of certain conditions. Thus the human agent enters into agreement with God to comply with the conditions specified in His Word. ... God's attributes are imparted to man, enabling him to exercise mercy and compassion. ... It is not enough for us to have a general idea of God's requirements. We must know for ourselves what His requirements and our obligations are.” {12MR 53.4, 54.1}

“While they [the Jews] talked of the ‘ark of the covenant of the Lord,’ they ignored the real significance of the title. A covenant is an agreement between parties, based upon conditions. If Israel would obey the divine law and thus fulfill the conditions of their covenant with God, he would verify his promises to them. {ST, December 22, 1881 par. 5}

“This is the pledge that God's people are to make in these last days. Their acceptance with God depends on a faithful fulfilment of the terms of their agreement with Him. God includes in His covenant all who will obey Him.”(RH June 23, 1904). {1BC 1103.11}

Waggoner still says:

“God's covenants with men can be nothing else than promises to them.”

This is in disagreement with the Bible. If the covenants and the promises were one and the same thing, Paul wouldn’t have made a distinction between the two:

Romans 9:4 “They are Israelites, and to them belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises”

Hebrews 8:6 “But now hath he obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises.

The Bible is very clear here - a covenant is not a promise, it is established upon promises.


I didn’t suggest that. What I suggested is that EGW’s point has nothing to do with a pre-fall or post-fall condition. Her point is that a human nature which couldn’t yield to temptation wasn’t a human nature at all.
If this quote is at all related to what Jones and Waggoner were preaching, the only possibility is that they were preaching both that 1) Christ had taken a (post-fall) human nature and 2) that Christ couldn’t yield to temptation. Therefore, people didn’t find this coherent – and it isn’t. If you take the position that the letters were related to their preaching, what you stated - that by this time Waggoner had already changed his view about this – is not true.
In our previous discussion I cited several parallel quotes (I’ll include yours for comparison):

Letters have been coming in to me, affirming that Christ could not have had the same nature as man, for if he had, he would have fallen under similar temptations. If he did not have man's nature, he could not be our example. If he was not a partaker of our nature, he could not have been tempted as man has been. If it were not possible for him to yield to temptation, he could not be our helper. It was a solemn reality that Christ came to fight the battles as man, in man's behalf. His temptation and victory tell us that humanity must copy the Pattern; man must become a partaker of the divine nature. (1888 Mat. 533)

Many claim that it was impossible for Christ to be overcome by temptation. Then He could not have been placed in Adam's position; He could not have gained the victory that Adam failed to gain. If we have in any sense a more trying conflict than had Christ, then He would not be able to succor us. But our Saviour took humanity, with all its liabilities. He took the nature of man, with the possibility of yielding to temptation. We have nothing to bear which He has not endured. {DA 117.2}

“He was capable of yielding to temptations, as are human beings. His finite nature was pure and spotless, but the divine nature that led Him to say to Philip, ‘He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father’ also, was not humanized; neither was humanity deified by the blending or union of the two natures; each retained its essential character and properties. But here we must not become in our ideas common and earthly, and in our perverted ideas we must not think that the liability of Christ to yield to Satan's temptations degraded His humanity and He possessed the same sinful, corrupt propensities as man. The divine nature, combined with the human, made Him capable of yielding to Satan's temptations. Here the test to Christ was far greater than that of Adam and Eve, for Christ took our nature, fallen but not corrupted, and would not be corrupted unless He received the words of Satan in the place of the words of God. To suppose He was not capable of yielding to temptation places Him where He cannot be a perfect example for man, and the force and the power of this part of Christ's humiliation, which is the most eventful, is no instruction or help to human beings.” {16MR 182.3}

“But many say that Jesus was not like us, that He was not as we are in the world, that He was divine, and therefore we cannot overcome as He overcame. But this is not true; "for verily He took not on Him the nature of angels; but He took on Him the seed of Abraham. . . . For in that He Himself hath suffered, being tempted, He is able to succor them that are tempted." Christ knows the sinner's trials; He knows his temptations. He took upon Himself our nature; He was tempted in all points like as we are. ... Those who claim that it was not possible for Christ to sin, cannot believe that He took upon Him human nature. Christ was actually tempted, not only in the wilderness, but all through his life. In all points He was tempted as we are, and because He successfully resisted temptation in every form, He gave us a perfect example.”{BEcho, November 1, 1892 par. 6, 7}

The ideas which are common in all the quotes, including yours, are: 1) Christ’s human nature, b) His possibility of yielding to temptation, or sinning, and 3) that He is a perfect example. All the quotes are from 1890 to 1892.

Ellen White says clearly that what God requires now is what He required in Eden, before Adam’s fall – perfect righteousness - no sin - practicing righteousness 100% of the time. So when someone is called righteous, this is what is meant. If you say that imputed righteousness is not involved in this, then you must assume a position similar to Mike’s – that Christians are righteous just part of the time - in which case you would be making what you accuse me of doing - an eisegesis of the text of John. Besides, the comparison with Christ would not hold true.

“He who (most of the time) practices righteousness is (most of the time) righteous, just as He is righteous.”


This is also explained in the quote I had provided:

“The third angel's message is the proclamation of the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus Christ. The commandments of God have been proclaimed, but the faith of Jesus Christ has not been proclaimed by Seventh-day Adventists as of equal importance, the law and the gospel going hand in hand.”


I found only old light quotes. Another one says,

“Dr. Waggoner has opened to you precious light, not new, but old light which has been lost sight of by many minds, and is now shining forth in clear rays.” {1888 174, 175}

Regarding the two points you identified as not having to do with this discussion, I saw you said you were planning to drop it, so I didn't see the point in reading the points, much less responding. I'm not sure why you responded.



Pardon? Ellen White isn't Scripture, nor is she Jewish. I wrote:



If you wish to dispute this, you should present some argument based on Scripture, or by a Jewish person, or at the very least some statement by Ellen White asserting what a Jewish person believes "righteous" means.

Regarding imputed righteousness not being involved, I'm not saying this at all, but now we're just running around in circles because what you mean be imputed righteousness is a concept which John did not hold. No Jewish person had this concept. This is what the thing I quoted points out:





I don't understand your point here. This argument would apply as much to your position as mine. That is, if what John really meant by saying "he who does righteousness is righteous" that



then the comparison with Christ would fail, because otherwise you would have Christ having His imputed righteousness making up for his "unavoidable deficiencies."

Actually what John is saying is very simple: a righteous person is one who does righteous things, just like Christ did. The following translations bring out this thought:







Is what you have in mind is that the preaching of Jones and Waggoner was essentially the preaching of Luther, with the Sabbath and other SDA doctrines tacked on?



Keep looking! There's almost 2,000 endorsements, so there's a lot to go through, but one of them says that Jones and Waggoner brought us truth which we would not otherwise have had unless someone else had brought it.

Again, these old light quotes were written to try to set off prejudice, not ignite it. They were coming at it from the angle of "this is something new and scary," so she trie to smooth these fears. You're coming at it from the standpoint of "There's nothing needed here, no need to consider what these men are presenting" which is a different point of view from what she was addressing in these particular quotes.

For the benefit of those who haven't followed our previous discussions and are interested in the subject.


Pardon? Waggoner is also not Scripture nor Jewish, and you are trying to prove that his concept is correct and agrees with that of Ellen White. That's why I quoted Ellen White.


Just from the top of my mind:
Scripture:

In abolute terms nobody is righteous:
Psalms 143:2 Enter not into judgment with thy servant; for no man living is righteous before thee.

Ellen White:
“In ourselves we are sinners; but in Christ we are righteous." {1SM 394.1}


Only if he didn’t know his Bible, for “justifying” as declaring righteous is a biblical concept:

Deuteronomy 25:1 If there is a dispute between men, and they come to court, that the judges may judge them, and they justify the righteous and condemn the wicked,

Also a Pauline concept:

Romans 5:18 Then as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men. [justification as the opposite of condemnation]


No, the comparison is just in terms of righteousness 100% of the time.


What I have in mind is what the quote says: The third angel's message is the proclamation of the commandments of God and the faith of [in] Jesus Christ [as the sinner’s only hope of salvation].
It is the law and the gospel as we find them in the Bible. What we are discussing is what the Bible really says.


No need to do that. The search engine does that for me. I typed “Waggoner” and “new light” and found no quotes saying that Waggoner brought any new light. Why don't you try? Perhaps you have more luck.

Rosangela, did any of the points I brought up make sense to you?

If you're really interested in them, why not continue the discussion?



Pardon? Here's what I wrote:



What does this have to do with Ellen White or Waggoner?



This is basically saying the same thing as this, isn't it?



I don't see how your answer is responsive to my point. First of all, I've not said anything about "in absolute terms." I don't know why you're phrasing things in a completely different way than I am.



Once again, I've not asserted anything for which this should be an answer. I've pointed out many times that the only righteousness there is is the righteousness of Christ. All our righteousness is as filthy wags.

Back to the point I was making. I presented evidence that the Jewish concept of righteousness was not one of obeying the law perfectly for the whole of one's life. I've asked you to present evidence that they had this concept. I don't see how you can get from "Enter not into judgment with thy servant; for no man living is righteous before thee." to "The Jewish concept of righteousness is that one has kept the law perfectly for the entirety of one's life."

The Jewish concept of "righteous" is



No Jewish person had the concept of "righteous" as meaning "someone who kept the law perfectly his whole life." John's statement "He who does righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous" is a typical Jewish statement.



Yes, Pauline, and yes in the O.T., but not as Calvin or Agustine taught it.





What comparison? My point is that the logic you are trying to apply would fail just as much to your argument as much as it would to mine, for the reason I pointed out.

Anyway, the point is moot, because John was not speaking in these terms, "absolute" as you call it. John was simply saying that a person who does righteousness is righteous. He wasn't saying "A person who has righteousness imputed to Him by Christ to make up for his deficiencies is righteous, even as He is righteous." Indeed, how does this even make sense?

This translation brings out John's point nicely:





Do you understand that this quote means something different than how I put your understanding? That is, do you disagree with my characterization? If so, in what way?

Regarding "new light," here are a couple of statements:





Here is a related statement:



I still don't understand how you can believe Ellen White to be a prophet, and have a view of righteousness by faith which is so much at odds with what Waggoner or Jones taught. If I take a book like "The Glad Tidings" or "Christ and His Righteousness" or "Articles on Romans" or "The Consecrated Way to Perfection", to name one of Jones, and randomly quoted 10 paragraphs, you'd probably disagree with at least 7 or 8 of them.

I didn’t say I’m interested in these points; I said I replied for the benefit of those who may be interested in them. In fact, I have nothing else to say in relation to them. What I said in my last post (and in the preceding ones) is what I had said in previous discussions. Besides, these points are completely unrelated to the subject we are discussing.


It has much to do. If Ellen White is a true prophet, she cannot contradict the Bible. And if she said that God requires perfect righteousness – no sin - and if this idea of perfect righteousness is foreign to the Bible, as you are saying, then she is contradicting the Bible. Do you think she is?


Yes, basically. In a sense all are sinners and, therefore, not righteous.


I didn’t say that “the Jewish concept of righteousness is that one has kept the law perfectly for the entirety of one’s life.” I said that there is a sense in the Bible (and, by extension, to Jews) in which no one is righteous before God. In a sense we are righteous, but in a sense we aren’t.


You said Calvin but quoted something mentioning Luther. I understand you mean Luther. However, while the quote says Luther was wrong, Ellen White says,

“The great doctrine of justification by faith, so clearly taught by Luther... “{GC 253.3}

I would have to analyze what the author says with more attention, but a superficial reading of the text makes me both disagree with the author and wonder how you can agree with him. If God doesn’t give or bestow His righteousness to the human agent, there is no room for either imputed or imparted righteousness, and your view collapses.


Huh? The comparison made in the verse: “... is righteous as He is righteous.”
In your view the Christian is righteous part of the time, while Christ is righteous 100% of the time. In my view there is no such a problem.


In my opinion Ellen White was not speaking of details – whether this or that was similar to Luther’s preaching or different from it. She was concerned with the message itself – Christ as the sinner’s only hope of salvation and the law without Christ as only bringing condemnation and death – the main points of Waggoner’s preaching. This was what the church needed at the time, and what it needs today in the practical life of its members.


She does say that “light has come to us,” but I don’t see her saying it was new light.

Mike, before I reply, I would like to know if when you are abiding in Jesus you consider that your obedience is perfect. For instance, do you consider that you love God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength, and that you love your neighbor as yourself?

No, not the points, the people! You said you responded for the benefit of people. I'm saying if you're really interested in them, why not continue the discussion?



But you were the one who brought up these points, weren't you?



Ellen White is not Jewish. She is writing from a different culture. She expresses herself much differently than a Jew at the time of Christ or before would. Not only did she express herself differently, she thought differently. The fact that she thought and expressed herself differently than the Jews of many centuries ago does not mean she is contradicting the Bible.

My point was that no *Jew* had the concept that "righteous" meant "keeping the law perfectly for your entire life." I don't believe you can produce a scintilla of evidence to support this idea. I've presented several different arguments to show this is not the case, that the Jewish idea of "righteous" was what John stated, namely one who acted justly.



We were discussing 1 John 3:7, and you said:



I've been arguing that this is not what John meant, it couldn't have been, because no Jew (and John was a Jew) had this understanding of the word "righteous." The statement that "he who does righteousness is righteous," depicts a typically Jewish understanding of the word "righteous," and is easy to understand. It neither necessitates nor permits the idea that the law is being kept perfectly for one's entire life. He simply says, "He who does righteousness is righteous." He explains his meaning:



He who does righteousness is righteous, even as Christ is righteous. How? By giving his life for others, like Christ did. By showing compassion, taking care of his brother. This is what it means to be righteous, according to John.



There it is! The one endorsement of Luther! Trumping the nearly 2,000 of Waggoner.



The author is a well known N.T. scholar, perhaps the best known. He's not arguing that God doesn't give or bestow His righteousness to the human agent, but that the concept of imputed righteousness which you are discussing is not a concept that existed among 1st century Jews. This was just one source among several I was mentioning to bring out that the statement of John's that "he who does righteousness is righteous," could not have the idea that you expressed, which involved the idea that "righteous" meant someone who kept the law perfectly his whole life.

If John had meant this, then you would be right, if he called someone "righteous" the person wouldn't really be righteous. But this isn't what John meant by "righteous," which is born out by observing the context of the chapter, or by taking into account how "righteous" was understood by Jews.



John isn't talking about this. It's not germane to what John is saying. He's saying a righteous person is one who acts justly, who takes care of his brother, who does righteousness, like Christ did.



First of all, although this was something Waggoner spoke of, to characterize these as these as the main points of Waggoner's preaching is unfounded. This can be verified simply by looking at Waggoner's works.

All Adventist's believed that Christ was the sinner's only hope of salvation, and that the law without Christ only brought condemnation and death. This wasn't a point of controversy between Waggoner and Butler.

A great thrust of Waggoner's preaching was that faith in Christ made the believer obedient to the law of God. EGW characterized this as faith in Christ, which was made manifest in obedience to all the commandments of God.

This is a typical statement:



Another:





If she said it was new light, that would have played in the hands of those protesting the light, as new light would mean light that is not in the Bible. So she didn't say that. She said it was light from God, light that we needed, light that we wouldn't have had, unless someone else had brought it.

To see that what Jones and Waggoner preached was not a teaching that we had had before is easy to see; just read from their works!

Are you kidding? Why would I ever do that? I avoid discussing Waggoner as much as possible


It doesn’t? If she is saying something about righteousness which is not true according to the Bible, this means she is contradicting the Bible.


There were two different ideas of righteousness – one according to which all those who practiced righteousness were righteous, and one according to which nobody is righteous before God.
The same is true about perfection – Paul said both that he wasn’t perfect (Phil 3:12) and that he was (Phil 3:15). There was a sense in which he was perfect, and there was a sense in which he wasn’t perfect (obviously referring to absolute perfection).


Is the endorsement true or not?
The search shows about 212 documents mentioning Waggoner's name, of which there are 135 references in manuscript releases and periodicals (the other references are either from Arthur White’s biography of EGW or from books, which contain merely repetitions from the manuscripts). A quick look shows that some of these 135 documents are letters written to him or just mentioning his name. Even considering the number of 135 documents, each document would need to contain 14 endorsements to him in order to make up the number of 2,000. The fact is that, as I said, Ellen White was endorsing the message of righteousness by faith, a message which the church desperately needed. She wished that not only Jones and Waggoner, but all the ministers were proclaiming it. Therefore, it was only natural that there were several references and endorsements to it.


He is, or else he didn’t explain himself adequately.


How is that, if he explains justification in terms of a declaration only? He says, in the link you provided:

"God has, in other words, shown ‘righteousness’ in the sense appropriate for the judge and the Lord of the covenant. He is thus able to anticipate the verdict of the last day (Rom. 2:1-16) and to declare in the present (Rom. 3:21-26) that all who believe the gospel are already within the covenant community (see Justification)".

In his entry about justification, he says:

"JUSTIFICATION denotes, primarily, that action in the lawcourt whereby a judge upholds the case of one party in dispute before him (in the Hebrew lawcourt, where the image originates, all cases consist of an accuser and a defendant, there being no public prosecutor). Having heard the case, the judge finds in favour of one party, and thereby ‘justifies’ him: if he finds for the defendant, this action has the force of ‘acquittal’. The person justified is described as ‘just’, ‘righteous’ (on the terminology, see Righteousness), not as a description of moral character but as a statement of his status before the court (which will, ideally, be matched by character, but that is not the point)."


Wrong. Adventists theoretically believed that Christ was the sinner’s only hope of salvation, but in practice things were completely different - they relied on their obedience to the law for salvation. Besides, they could never accept that the law could bring condemnation and death – to them, it could bring only life and salvation.

“Elder E. J. Waggoner had the privilege granted him of speaking plainly and presenting his views upon justification by faith and the righteousness of Christ in relation to the law. ... Faith in Christ as the sinner's only hope has been largely left out, not only of the discourses given but of the religious experience of very many who claim to believe the third angel's message. At this meeting I bore testimony that the most precious light had been shining forth from the Scriptures in the presentation of the great subject of the righteousness of Christ connected with the law, which should be constantly kept before the sinner as his only hope of salvation. ... The third angel's message is the proclamation of the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus Christ. The commandments of God have been proclaimed, but the faith of Jesus Christ has not been proclaimed by Seventh-day Adventists as of equal importance, the law and the gospel going hand in hand. I cannot find language to express this subject in its fullness.” {12MR 187, 188, 193}

Obviously this was the point of disagreement:

“I know it would be dangerous to denounce Dr. Waggoner's position as wholly erroneous. This would please the enemy. I see the beauty of truth in the presentation of the righteousness of Christ in relation to the law as the doctor has placed it before us. You say, many of you, it is light and truth. Yet you have not presented it in this light heretofore. Is it not possible that through earnest, prayerful searching of the Scriptures he has seen still greater light on some points? That which has been presented harmonizes perfectly with the light which God has been pleased to give me during all the years of my experience. If our ministering brethren would accept the doctrine which has been presented so clearly--the righteousness of Christ in connection with the law— and I know they need to accept this, their prejudices would not have a controlling power, and the people would be fed with their portion of meat in due season.{1888 164.3}


Obedience is sanctification, not justification.

I brought up Waggoner in regards to imputed righteousness arguing like this:

a.My view is the same as his
b.Ellen White endorsed his view
c.Imputed righteousness is too important a concept to get wrong and still be correct in regards to righteousness by faith
d.Therefore Waggoner's view is correct on imputed righteousness.
e.Therefore my view is correct.

Where's the weakness in this argument?

Back to the other point, you brought up the points of the Covenants and the nature of Christ, right? It just occurred to me that I could make arguments just like that above one, a-e, on these two points as well. I guess you would need to argue that EGW was endorsing Waggoner on these points without agreeing with him.



If she expressed a concept which is contrary to Scripture, that would be one thing. For her to use the word "righteous" or "righteousness" in a different way that a first century Jew did is by no means a contradiction. There is no question she did this. The meaning of the word "righteous" can be traced from the Hebrews through early Christianity to the Reformation and to our times. The same thing can be said for "justice." The Western concept of justice is very different from the Jewish one. "Covenant," "justice," "righteous," "righteousness" all have different meanings in their culture from ours. A very common error is to take our Western understanding of these words and try to back-fit it into what Scripture says, which doesn't work at all well. The Bible was written by Jews. These words were used as a Jew understood them thousands of years ago, not as a modern-day Westerner understands them.



John clearly had the first meaning you are suggesting in mind.

Regarding the endorsement of Luther, Luther had the truth for his time, but he did not have the light that Jones and Waggoner had. Jones and Waggoner had the advantage of what Luther had written. Luther was several hundred years before Jones and Waggoner. A lot of light had been uncovered since this time.

Most of Ellen White's endorsements of Waggoner (and Jones) do not mention his name. Just the 1888 Materials released by the EGW estate has well over a thousand endorsements in it. I got the number 2,000 from someone else who cataloged all of them. I wouldn't be surprised if there were some errors or repetitions involved, but there are hundreds and hundreds of endorsements involved, which involve the specific message that Jones and Waggoner preached. This wasn't simply the message of Luther. There was light that had not been seen before, light which she identified as the "beginning of the loud cry," a reference understood by SDA's as a reference to the latter rain. SDA's understood that from the time of 1888, SDA's were living in the time of the latter rain, which had begun to fall, in the form of the message which Jones and Waggoner were proclaiming.



He expressed himself fine. He wasn't addressing this point. He was addressing what the Bible was actually saying, not whether the above mentioned concept is true or not.

Regarding "justification" the author writes:



I'm not sure exactly what you were asking. Does this address your concern?



If you're going to respond so crudely, you could at least present some evidence to support yourself. Please present something by Butler where he taught that Christ was not the sinner's only hope of salvation, or that the law without Christ did not bring only condemnation and death.

You say "obviously it was a point of disagreement," but present no evidence of this. Again, please cite something from Butler where he suggests that Christ was not the sinner's only hope, or that one could be saved by keeping the law.



When the believer accepts Christ, the law is written in the heart. Obedience comes from the heart. There is no obedience without justification, and no justification without obedience.



Do you agree with this?

These were things I mentioned in passing, and they are unrelated to the subject, and as I mentioned, everything else I can say about them would only be a repetition, but if you want to continue the discussion you can open a new thread.


If she is commenting upon the Bible, she can’t use a word in a sense completely different from the sense in which that word was used in the Bible. You yourself said, “A very common error is to take our Western understanding of these words and try to back-fit it into what Scripture says, which doesn't work at all well.”


I never said otherwise. What I’m insisting from the beginning is that this is not the only meaning of the word in the Bible. So there is a sense in which nobody is righteous before God – obviously in the sense of absolute righteousness (no sin). And this is the sense in which Ellen White uses the term. So she is not saying something different from what the Jews said.


As I said from the beginning – this was the proclamation of righteousness by faith in the setting of the third angel’s message.


Sure he says that justification is a matter of covenant membership, for his point is that God, “the judge and the Lord of the covenant,” is “able to anticipate the verdict of the last day (Rom. 2:1-16) and to declare in the present (Rom. 3:21-26) that all who believe the gospel are already within the covenant community”. He clearly says that justification is a declaration. And not only that, he says also that “in the Hebrew lawcourt, where the image originates,” the judge “finds in favour of one party, and thereby ‘justifies’ him: if he finds for the defendant, this action has the force of ‘acquittal’. The person justified is described as ‘just’, ‘righteous’ ... not as a description of moral character but as a statement of his status before the court.”
So, in other words, what he is saying is that the hebrew concept of justification is purely forensic.


I did, in the EGW quotes I provided with the relevant sections in bold. She says clearly that “If our ministering brethren [isn’t Butler included here?] would accept the doctrine which has been presented so clearly--the righteousness of Christ in connection with the law— and I know they need to accept this, their prejudices would not have a controlling power, and the people would be fed with their portion of meat in due season.”{1888 164.3}

Another passage:

“I was told that there was need of great spiritual revival among the men who bear responsibilities in the cause of God. There was not perfection in all points on either side of the question under discussion. [Which question was under discussion?] We must search the Scriptures for evidences of truth. There are but few, even of those who claim to believe it, that comprehend the third angel's message, and yet this is the message for this time. It is present truth. . . . Said my guide, ‘There is much light yet to shine forth from the law of God and the gospel of righteousness. This message, understood in its true character, and proclaimed in the Spirit, will lighten the earth with its glory.’"--MS 15, 1888 (see also A. V. Olson, Thirteen Crisis Years, p. 305.) {3BIO 389.5}

Yes, I agree. However, I would like to make clear that justification includes the new birth, and that the new birth includes the disposition to obey, the law written in the heart, but that obedience itself is a matter of sanctification.

It's inevitable that she uses words differently. It's impossible that this wouldn't be the case. She was a 19th century Midwesterner whose native language was English. How could she possibly be using this English word from a different culture 2,000 or more years removed in the same way it was used by the Jews who originally penned them?

I don't understand how you can have this idea. Do you think that the Jews of thousands of years ago thought like the Midwesterners of America?



I did. This looks to support what I just said. I don't understand why you're repeating it, when you look to be making the opposite point I'm making.



You're switching your point now. If you're conceding my point, I guess we're done, at least with this disagreement. John refers to born again Christians righteous, and they are righteous, not just called righteous, as John was using the term.

Will you concede the same point in relation to Waggoner? That is, that in Waggoner's theology, a person is made righteous when he believes, and not just called righteous?



It was the proclamation of the specific message which Jones and Waggoner were preaching. Later on she gave similar endorsements to what Prescott was presenting. There was specific content that she was endorsing, not just the generic subject or righteousness by faith.

Regarding justification and righteousness, and N. T. Wright, my original point was that "righteous" for a 1st century Jew did not mean perfectly keeping the law one's who life. You have made the point that no one is righteous before God, that "righteous" is used in this sense, and I suggested the verse "if You should mark iniquity, who could stand?" as similar, and you agreed. However, that no one could consider himself righteous in the sight of God does not imply that "righteous" means "perfectly keeping the law one's whole life." You still haven't presented any evidence that a Jew conceived of the term "righteous" as meaning perfectly keeping the law one's whole life.

Indeed, "righteous" as the Jews understand means "doing righteousness" or "being upright," "just," and so forth, as I discussed previously. No one is as upright as God, or as just as He. I see no reason why the verses you are bringing up would suggest that the Jews perceived righteous to be anything other than the general meaning of the term.



This is referring to the idea that Waggoner presented, which is that believing in Christ makes one obedient to the law. They had the idea of trying to believe in Christ *and* trying to be obedient to the law, as opposed to believing in Christ making you obedient to the law.

The quotes you presented do not in the least establish the idea that Butler, or those opposing Waggoner, had the idea that Christ was not our only hope, or that the law apart from Christ could bring us anything other than condemnation. Butler understood these points well. This isn't what the controversy was over.

If you read the pamphlet "The Gospel in Galatians," you can see what was involved in the controversy. In this pamphlet, Waggoner rebuts Butler's idea, presented in "The Law in Galatians."



There seem to be too issues here. One is using different terms, which is just semantical, which I'm not interested in. This quote comes to mind:



The other is the concepts themselves, which are of interest. Waggoner presented the concept that when God declared the sinner righteous, God, because He cannot lie, and because His word has the power to do that which it says, made the believer righteous.

Two questions.

1.Do you agree that Waggoner taught this?
2.Do you agree that this is true?

Christ died for the ungodly.

This doesn’t matter. She was commenting about the Bible, so she must use the word in the way the Bible uses it. Anyway, I’ve demonstrated that when she uses the word “righteousness” in the absolute sense of no sin, she is using the word in a legitimate biblical sense.


No, I’m not! There is a sense in which nobody (not even God’s children) can be called righteous before God. How? In the absolute sense of no sin.
But there is a sense in which they can be called righteous. How? In Christ. Why? Because Christ’s imputed righteousness provides forgiveness for these sins. Therefore, since they are considered to be without sin, and they are obeying the law, they can be called righteous.

Righteousness and perfection are synonymous terms. Thus, Ellen White says,

“And while we can not claim perfection of the flesh, we may have Christian perfection of the soul. Through the sacrifice made in our behalf, sins may be perfectly forgiven. Our dependence is not in what man can do; it is in what God can do for man through Christ. When we surrender ourselves wholly to God, and fully believe, the blood of Christ cleanses from all sin. The conscience can be freed from condemnation. Through faith in his blood, all may be made perfect in Christ Jesus. Thank God that we are not dealing with impossibilities. We may claim sanctification. We may enjoy the favor of God. We are not to be anxious about what Christ and God think of us, but about what God thinks of Christ, our Substitute. Ye are accepted in the Beloved. The Lord shows, to the repenting, believing one, that Christ accepts the surrender of the soul, to be molded and fashioned after his own likeness.” {GCB, April 23, 1901 par. 4}


What do you mean by that? That the person receives a new heart, an obedient heart, on which the law is written? I’ve never questioned that. Justification is not only a legal declaration – I’ve made this clear from the beginning. But it is also a legal declaration, and this thread was created to discuss if this legal declaration makes sense under your view. But till now we haven’t discussed this point, because you focused on Waggoner’s assertion that this declaration is made to the believer making him righteous, and from then on we began to sidetrack. I provided EGW quotes saying clearly that this declaration is made to the universe declaring the believer righteous. I would like to focus on this point.

What do you mean it doesn't matter? How is it even possible that a first century Jew would use words the same way as a 19th century Midwesterner? Just because the word is in the Bible doesn't change the basic fact that these are different cultures and different languages involved.



This is true even for people of the same culture and language. How much more so when spanning millenia!



Where do you get such an idea? She wasn't writing a Commentary. She is trying to communicate concepts. She doesn't need to use the word "tsadiq" the way a 1st century Jew would. Even if she tried to do so, it would be difficult. This word expresses a concept, which is dependent upon their time and their culture. Instead she used the word "righteous," in a way that Americans reading what she wrote would understand what she meant.

Anyway, the idea that because she is commenting on the Bible means she has to use the words the same way the Bible does I find to be a very odd assertion to make. Take the word "peace." "Shalom" has a much broader meaning that "peace" does to an American. Yet she just spoke of "peace" like any American would. She didn't go into the broader context of what the Hebrew word meant. The fact that she was commenting on the Bible didn't require her to do so. The fact that she used the word "peace" in a more limited sense than a Hebrew would doesn't limit the Biblical meaning of that word.

There isn't even a correspondence between words in the languages. The Greeks, like Portuguese, only had one word -- "dikaiosyne" -- for either "righteousness" or "justice."



Where in the Bible does the word "righteous" mean "someone who has kept the law perfectly their whole life." I don't think any Jew of that time had this concept of the word. Do you think they did?



Yes, you are! I said this:



to which you responded:



You didn't allow for the definition I was suggesting. You argued against it.

We were talking about 1 John 3:7. I asked you what John meant. You said:



Now you are agreeing with what I said John meant.



We've been discussing imputed righteousness. My argument has been:

a.My view is the same as Waggoner's.
b.Ellen White endorsed Waggoner's view of righteousness by faith.
c.If Waggoner's ideas of imputed righteousness were wrong, then Ellen White could not have endorsed his ideas of righteousness by faith (which she said he could teach better than she could), because imputed righteousness is too big a thing to have wrong.

And so I've asked you if Waggoner's view of imputed righteousness is correct, because if it is, then it stands that what I've been presenting is correct.

Regarding the declaration of the person being righteous, Waggoner's point was that this declaration made the person righteous. God's word caused the thing which He said to be the case to be the case. Thus the person is not only called righteous but is righteous. This righteousness is not intrinsic, but is a free gift, coming from Jesus Christ.

Let's try approaching this from a different angle. To be justified is the same thing as being forgiven, so let's talk about being forgiven. When the love of God shining from the cross draws the sinner to repentance, if he does not resist, like the publican he asks to be forgiven, and is forgiven. God declares the person forgiven. How can God declare the person forgiven? Because He has forgiven him. Now why wouldn't this make sense from a non-penal perspective?

The parable of the Prodigal Son presents this idea. While he was a long ways off, the father went looking for him. Before the son could get his researched speech out of his mouth, his father had forgiven him. He clothed him in fine garments, and declared to all that his son had returned. Is this the same idea as what Ellen White was presenting? Where is penal substitution involved in the parable of the Prodigal Son?

By the way, Tom, in relation to your question about whether posts can be deleted, Daryl informed that five minutes will be allowed for deleting posts from the moment they are posted.

No, it’s not. If you are using a biblical word, you have to use it in the same way the Bible uses it. Take the word “soul,” for instance. If you use it in the modern sense of an immortal entity who leaves the body after death, how can you arrive at right conclusions about what the Bible says?


Yes, I think they did. When the word is applied to God or to Christ, it means no sin during one’s entire existence. When the psalmist says that “in Your sight no one living is righteous,” it means no sin during one’s entire existence.


Tom, look at what I said:

But there is a sense in which they can be called righteous. How? In Christ. Why? Because Christ’s imputed righteousness provides forgiveness for these sins. Therefore, since they are considered to be without sin, and they are obeying the law, they can be called righteous.

while the fruits of Christ's imparted righteousness are seen in his life = they are obeying the law
Christ’s imputed righteousness makes up for his “unavoidable deficiencies” = Christ’s imputed righteousness provides forgiveness for these sins

How are these two statements different? It’s just that in the second case I tried to adequate my language to your language.


Because “forgiven” here is used in the sense of “as if you had not sinned.” As I said from the beginning, you claim that God’s forgiveness is similar to ours, but our forgiveness is not like that. We don’t consider the person as free from sin, as righteous. To me, this makes sense only in a legal perspective.

Do you dispute that words mean different things in one culture than in another, especially cultures separated by millenia? You speak a different language. You should understand the principle I'm speaking of. For example, words like "carinho" and "saude" are lacking in English. We don't have these words, so we have to make due with approximations.

In Aramaic, there was no word for "grateful," so we read that the one who owed his creditor 500 denarii loved him more than the one who owed 50. This word "love" doesn't mean "love" like we say in English, but "grateful," a word they didn't have.

The words "love" and "hate" can mean "prefer."

The word "justice" in Hebrew has a meaning that few Westerners even understand, let alone use correctly.

Ellen White used these words, "justice," "love," "hate," and "grateful," as a native-speaking English person would use them, not as a Hebrew would. This would seem to be so obvious. The fact that she was commenting on Scripture did not make her an expert in Hebrew or Greek.



Ok. I think they didn't.













I'll stop here. I couldn't find any definitions which have "sadiq" or "righteous" meaning "one who kept the law perfectly his whole life."

Regarding the use of the word "righteous" by John, I'm now confused as to what you are saying. I am saying that when John says that one who does righteousness is righteous, he is simply referring to what he says later in the chapter, that one who is righteous is one who loves his brother and takes care of him. Simply put, a righteous person is one who does righteous things. He wasn't saying anything about imputed righteousness or making up for deficiencies or any of that. (I'm not commenting on the veracity of the idea, just that John was discussing this).



That's always what "forgiven" means. If you owe me money, and I forgive you your debt, then it's as if you hadn't incurred a debt. If you step on my toe, and say "pardon me," and I forgive you, it's as if you didn't step on my toe.



I'm not sure what you're saying here. We ask God to forgive us. He forgives us. Why does this only make sense from a legal perspective?

Didn't Jesus give us the parable of the Prodigal Son so that we could understand forgiveness? (i.e., how God forgives) Isn't that the whole point of the parable? Does this parable only make sense from a legal perspective?

No, but by studying the Bible and comparing passages you can ascertain the meaning of a word. If you take the word hades in the NT, for instance, and attribute to it the meaning it had in secular Greek, you will arrive at wrong conclusions.
I don’t think Ellen White arrived at wrong conclusions, nor that she applied to biblical concepts ideas that were foreign to the Bible.


Tom, the word “righteousness” means just compliance with the law, obedience to the law. The law is the standard of righteousness.

“Righteousness is right-doing. It is obedience to the law of God; for in that law the principles of righteousness are set forth. The Bible says, ‘All Thy commandments are righteousness.’” Psalm 119:172. {SJ 61.1}

Now, does the law require just partial obedience or perfect obedience? Can the law declare righteous someone who sins? Even if you have just one sin during your entire life, how can the law declare you righteous?

“Christ died because there was no other hope for the transgressor. He might try to keep God's law in the future; but the debt which he had incurred in the past remained, and the law must condemn him to death. Christ came to pay that debt for the sinner which it was impossible for him to pay for himself. Thus, through the atoning sacrifice of Christ, sinful man was granted another trial.” {RH, March 8, 1881 par. 4}

That’s why we need a Substitute. The law considers both the death and the obedience of the Substitute as being ours.

“In Christ we are as if we had suffered the penalty we have incurred. In Christ I am as if I had obeyed, and rendered perfect obedience to the law, which we can not perfectly obey without Christ imparts to us His merits and His righteousness.” {PUR, September 4, 1913 par. 3}


He was discussing obedience to the law versus transgression of it (see v. 4). So I think the ideas discussed above are implied in what he says.


When Christ forgives us, it’s as if He had done what we did, and as if we had done what He did. It’s the same as if you killed my son and I was put to death with the lethal injection in your place, and you went free to live in my house. God doesn’t require that of us, and human forgiveness is not like that.
So, again, to me, this only makes sense from a legal perspective.

I'm not disputing, nor discussing, the question as to whether the law requires obedience for one's entire life. What I'm saying is that this is not a Jewish concept. If you want to prove it is, you cannot do so by quoting Ellen White. She's not Jewish! She wrote and reasoned, not as a first century Jew (or earlier) but as a 19th century American. Now just because she thought, used words differently, and reasoned differently than first century Jews did, does not mean that she is wrong, or that she contradicts their thoughts or reasoning. This is just a matter of different cultures and languages.

I provided a host of definitions of "righteous" as the Jews conceived it. I've been looking around the internet, and I haven't seen the idea you're suggesting, that Jews had the concept of righteousness meaning perfectly keeping the law one's whole life. If you have some evidence that this is the case, I'd be very interested in seeing it.



But you're reading the legal perspective into the thing. That's not necessary. When Christ forgives us, He forgives us, out of the goodness of His heart. The same with God.

I asked previously:



I can open this up further. Where does Christ anywhere teach the penal substitution idea of forgiveness? There are a number of parables and examples from Christ's life that suggest this is *not* the case (such as the prodigal son, the servant forgiven 10,000 talents, Christ's forgiving the paralytic, the Lord's prayer, to mention a few) but I don't know of any incidents, teachings, or parables of Christ which suggest this *is* the case.

In fact, this was a common concept:

Luke 18:21, BBE: And he said, All these things I have done from the time when I was a boy. (The Bible in Basic English) [referring to the keeping of the commandments]

Philippians 3:6 with respect to the righteousness which is by the law, blameless.
(Philippians 3:6, Phillips: As far as the Law’s righteousness is concerned, I don’t think anyone could have found fault with me.)

They believed in the righteousness of the law, that is, they had the notion that "righteous" were those who kept perfectly the law (the idea that it was during one's whole life is implied). Since most of them were legalists, they thought that this was an achievable goal. Only those who were spiritually mature and had a true conception of the depth of the precepts of the law, could say, like the psalmist,

Psalms 143:2 Do not enter into judgment with Your servant, for in Your sight no one living is righteous.


Of course they forgive us out of the goodness of their heart. But the legal dispositions of the plan of salvation exist to refute/avoid Satan’s accusations against God before the universe.

“By dying in our behalf, he gave an equivalent for our debt. Thus he removed from God all charge of lessening the guilt of sin. By virtue of my oneness with the Father, he says, my suffering and death enable me to pay the penalty of sin. By my death a restraint is removed from his love. His grace can act with unbounded efficiency.” {YI, December 16, 1897 par. 7}


Well, of course the parables do not teach all the aspects of the plan of salvation. Where do the parables teach that Christ had to die for our forgiveness? None of Christ’s parables alludes to His death (except, if memory serves me well, that of Matt 21:33-44, but it speaks of His death in terms of the Jews taking His life, so in a way not related to our salvation).
In His teachings He mentions the purpose of His death a few times (Mark 10:45, John 6:51, John 10:11, 15), but not in detail, probably because the disciples were not prepared to understand it.
So the clearest passages we have about the purpose of Christ’s death (except Isa 53) are NT passages written by the apostles (1 Cor 15:3, Gal 1:4, 1 John 2:2, 1 Pet 2:24, 2 Cor 5:21, Gal 3:13, Heb 2:9).
In my opinion the clearest of them are: 2 Cor 5:21 - He was made to be sin for us (especially speaking of the cross), that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. IOW, our sins were imputed to Him so that His righteousness might be imputed to us. Also Gal. 3:13 - Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. He took on Himself the curse (penalty) of the law which we had incurred, in order to redeem us from this penalty.

The idea isn't that they had never committed an error their whole life, but they were, at that time, keeping it. You're reading into what they are saying the idea of righteousness that you have have, that to be righteous meant keeping the law perfectly one's whole life, but this isn't the idea they had. If that's what it meant, how could Abraham have been called righteous?

When the fellow said he had been keeping the law since a boy, it would be just like our saying we've kept the Sabbath since a child, assuming we were raised as an SDA. In saying, "I've kept the Sabbath since I was boy" we wouldn't mean, "I've never, ever broke the Sabbath, even once" but that this is our custom, and also was in childhood.



What accusation could have been leveled against God if Lucifer had taken Him up on His offer to pardon him?



Do they teach all the important aspects?



Where indeed.



How is the Jews taking Jesus' life not related to our salvation? The first recorded sermon after Jesus' ascension:



Doesn't this have to do with salvation?

Regarding Jesus' teaching, His mentioned His death on quite a number of occasions, sometimes indirectly. One of the principle places he mentions it is John 12:



If one takes the Christus Victor standpoint, then Jesus' death becomes a part of everything else He did, which was to fight against the powers of evil. In this perspective *everything* He did has significance, and His teachings in relation to His death are simply an extension of everything else He did.

To use the familiar language of the SOP, the "whole purpose" of Christ's mission was the "revelation of God." From this perspective, it is easy to see that everything Christ did contributed to this purpose.

If one takes the penal substitution perspective, then one becomes embarrassed by the question of where Christ taught the ideas expressed by this perspective. Where did Christ teach that God could not legally forgive us unless He (Christ) died? The supposedly most important aspect to Christ's death then becomes something He Himself never personally taught. That's problematic.



This raises an interesting question. Did the Jews conceive of the curse as a penalty? I'll have to think about that.

I’m afraid this is not the case. The pharisees told the man born blind, "Thou wast altogether born in sins, and dost thou teach us?" meaning that he had sinned from his birth, and implying that theirs was the opposite case.
They were blind to their own sins and many of them probably thought they had never sinned during their whole lives.
And sure many of them thought the same about the Biblical heroes, as this very interesting article shows:

“Indeed, from early rabbinic times to the contemporary Jewish world, rabbis and commentaries have strained to reconcile the biblical text with doctrinal beliefs concerning the righteousness of Judaism’s biblical founders and heroic personalities. ... It is true that, at times, early rabbinic literature either showers hyperbolic praise upon biblical heroes or resolutely defends, excuses, or denies their apparent misdeeds. ... dismissal of the sins of biblical heroes seems to demonstrate rabbinic commitment to the notion of the heroes’ flawlessness (or near-flawlessness) to an extent that even fulsome praise does not. ‘Anyone who says that X sinned is mistaken’ (BT Shabbat).”

Of course these views were legalistic and wrong, but they demonstrate that it’s only natural to think of righteousness as perfect obedience to the law during one’s whole life. This is a biblical notion:

Leviticus 18:5 You shall therefore keep my statutes and my ordinances, by doing which a man shall live: I am the LORD.

And:

Deuteronomy 27:26 "‘Cursed be he who does not confirm the words of this law by doing them.’”

If the Bible says you will live by your obedience to the law, and that you will be cursed by its transgression, of course if you do not believe in a Savior from sin (as was the case of the Jews), you must believe you have no sin.

Think for a little: the law cannot forgive. Therefore, if you commit even a little sin, at whatever point of your life, the law can no longer declare you righteous and you are subject to its penalty. That’s why Christ had to come and take the penalty of the law in man's place, and also obey the law perfectly on his behalf.


After his transgression of the law (rebellion, defiance of God's will), Satan hadn’t been pardoned, therefore he held that no one else who transgressed the law (rebelled, defied God's will) could be pardoned.

“In the opening of the great controversy, Satan had declared that the law of God could not be obeyed, that justice was inconsistent with mercy, and that, should the law be broken, it would be impossible for the sinner to be pardoned. Every sin must meet its punishment, urged Satan; and if God should remit the punishment of sin, He would not be a God of truth and justice. When men broke the law of God, and defied His will, Satan exulted. It was proved, he declared, that the law could not be obeyed; man could not be forgiven. Because he, after his rebellion, had been banished from heaven, Satan claimed that the human race must be forever shut out from God's favor. God could not be just, he urged, and yet show mercy to the sinner” (DA 761).


Not all of them.


They don’t, but Christ did.

Matthew 26:28 for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.


No, the fact that the Jews took Jesus’ life is not related to our salvation. It was related to theirs, because they needed to repent of that, and that's why the fact was included in Peter's sermon.


As I said, many aspects of the plan of salvation Christ taught only indirectly, because the disciples weren’t yet prepared to understand these things. These aspects would be expanded by the NT writers later.


What else could a curse be?

Why not?

The blind person being born in sins doesn't mean someone not born in sins never sinned, but they weren't born that way.

The thing about Biblical heroes says this:



Now if "righteous" means "keep the law perfectly one's entire life" what does "extraordinarily righteous" mean? This would be the epitome of redundancy. The phrase "extraordinarily righteous" makes sense with how Jews thought of the word "righteous," but not with what you're suggesting.



This is a general principle, which agrees with the Jewish concept that righteousness is being obedient. Where do you get the idea that being righteous means perfectly keeping the law one's who life?



I take it you mean some of the Jews didn't believe in a Savior from sin. There were certainly Jews who did.

Actually I'm not following your whole train of thought here. Would you try again please?



I don't believe the Jews thought this way. None of this. This is what I'm asserting.

You can disprove this by quoting something from a Jew of the first century or earlier (or some authority which explains that this is how they thought) which says "the law cannot forgive" or "if you commit even a little sin, at whatever point of your life, the law can no longer declare you righteous and you are subject to its penalty." In particular, the concept that you are subject to the penalty of the law if you break it is a concept I would like to see verified (that is, as a Jewish concept).

Please bear in mind I'm not arguing the veracity of the statements, just the idea that the Jews thought in this way.



He wasn't pardoned because he didn't accept God's offer of pardon. I'm asking what accusation could have been leveled against God had Lucifer accepted God's offer to pardon him.



And we could extend this to Christ's teachings in general? That is, there are important aspects of the Plan of Salvation which Christ did not teach?



I've always agreed that we needed Christ's death in order to be forgiven. I've questioned that *God* needed Christ's death.



How is Christ's death not related to our salvation? I'm sure this isn't what you mean, so you must have the idea that some things related to Christ's death have to do with our salvation, but other things don't? For example, Christ was crucified. Does that have to do with our salvation? Or is this something only the Romans who actually crucified Him need to be concerned with?



Your understanding, then, is that Christ did not deal with how one is saved, in relation to His death, to the disciples, because they weren't ready to understand this?



An action. Being rejected of God, being cast off from the Covenant community. I think the Jews thought of the curse in these terms. Not as a forensic penalty prescribed by the law.

????
The contrast was clearly that he was a sinner while they were righteous.


????
The author is trying to show the absurdity of the early rabbis’ view, so in his phrase “extraordinarily righteous” he is trying to express all of their hyperboles: “the most luminous, loftiest, and purest personalities, the holiest creatures,” etc.
Extraordinary = different from common human beings.


After you are cursed, how can this curse be removed? It can’t, unless a qualified Substitute bears it in your place. That’s why Paul says, “For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse.” Why? Exactly because it’s impossible to obey the law perfectly during your whole life.


Was Paul a Jew? This is his reasoning in Galatians (see above).


I said after his transgression (rebellion). Then he asked to be pardoned, but Jesus said he couldn’t be. Do you remember this?


There are important aspects He did not teach in detail.


What do you make of this passage?

“By dying in our behalf, he gave an equivalent for our debt. Thus he removed from God all charge of lessening the guilt of sin. By virtue of my oneness with the Father, he says, my suffering and death enable me to pay the penalty of sin. By my death a restraint is removed from his love. His grace can act with unbounded efficiency.” {YI, December 16, 1897 par. 7}


He didn’t die because He was crucified (which was what the Jews and Romand did); that’s the point.


John 16:12 "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.”


Being rejected of God is OK. Or being under God’s wrath. Or feeling the weight of one’s own sins. It’s a forensic penalty if it happens as the outcome of a judgment.

(Part 1)



They weren't saying they were righteous because they had never sinned. They were saying simply that the other guy was born in sins, and they weren't.



If righteous means "to keep the whole law for one's whole life" that's something that can't be improved upon. "Extraordinarily righteous" would be meaningless. It would be like saying "extraordinarily virginal."



That's not Paul's argument at all. Paul says:



The curse comes upon those who are disobedient. Those who live by faith are righteous. Why? Because they are obedient. Those who are of the works of the law are cursed. Why? Because they are not obedience. Obedience is by faith, not by the works of the law.

Again:



By the works of the law, they could not receive the Spirit, and so could not obey the law, for the law can only be kept by the power of the Spirit.

A fuller explanation from your favorite author:

(Part 2)



The way you are reading Galatians is by no means the only way to read it (for example, what I quoted from Waggoner is another way to understand Paul's argument). I think you're whole thought process is something that would not have even entered Paul's mind.



Yes, but I wasn't referring to that. Lucifer's asking for pardon there wasn't sincere. I'm talking about when God offered Lucifer pardon and an opportunity to confess his sin before being banished from heaven. If Lucifer had accepted that offer of pardon, what accusation against God would have remained?



Or plainly. Could we say that? There are important aspects of the Plan of Salvation which Christ did not teach plainly. Would you agree to that? He didn't teach them plainly because the disciples weren't ready to hear it. This is what I'm understanding you to say. Is this correct?



I think it (especially the part you underlined) means this:





Peter says He did:





I take it by your applying this statement in answer to my question, that your answer is "yes."



Of course, Christ was not really rejected by God.



There are two aspects here. One is what we thought was happening "God is smiting Him" and the reality "He was wounded for our transgressions ... with His stripes we are healed."



I don't believe any 1st century Jew would have had this thought. Or 1st century non-Jew. I don't think this was a concept which existed at this time.

Also I don't think is reflecting what really happened. Jesus' suffering was not the *result* of a penalty being arbitrarily enforced upon Him so that we could be let off. Instead, His suffering *was* the penalty; it was the result of sin.

From DA 764:



The "this" is that the death of the wicked comes not as the result of an arbitrary action on God's part, but as a result of their sin. Had Satan and his followers been "left" to reap the full result of their sin, they would have perished. This is what happened to Christ. It is because this happened to Christ that the angels *do* understand "this." Now, since Christ has died and demonstrated the truth, the angels understand that "this" is "the inevitable result of sin."

They weren’t saying it literally, but that was their clear intent.


Tom, again, the article’s author is just commenting about the hyperboles of the early rabbies, and using the expression ironically. He confirms, in the article, that for many of them “righteous” was equivalent to “no sin”, a concept he doesn’t accept, probably because this is humanly impossible (at least during one’s whole life).


Right, and since all are disobedient, for “all have sinned”, the curse is upon all. I agree with Waggoner that faith removes the curse. But why? Because the Substitute “redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us” (Gal 3:13).


But *I* was referring to that, because that was Satan’s argument.

“Because he, after his rebellion, had been banished from heaven, Satan claimed that the human race must be forever shut out from God's favor. God could not be just, he urged, and yet show mercy to the sinner” (DA 761).


Yes, this is true for the period of His ministry before the crucifixion. He must have taught these truths in more detail after His resurrection, during the 40 days He was on earth, or afterwards, through prophetic revelations of the Holy Spirit.


You have questioned that *God* needed Christ's death. What Ellen White is saying here is that there was something which prevented God’s love and grace to act – it was the charge of lessening the guilt of sin. Christ removed that charge by dying in our behalf and giving an equivalent for our debt. IOW, God (the Godhead) needed Christ’s death.


Tom, did Christ die because of the cross?


Well, these were your words. I added other phrases to express the thought because I didn’t know exactly what you meant by it.


The text which Paul cites in Gal 3:13 (to verify the fact that Christ "became a curse") is set within a context dealing with capital punishments (Deut. 21:18-23). The capital punishment came as the result of a judicial decision (see Deut. 21:19-21). Then the criminal's corpse was hung on a "tree" or "wooden post" the same day of his death to be exposed as a warning.


Well, Ellen White describes it as a judicial punishment:

“God permits his Son to be delivered up for our offenses. He himself assumes toward the Sin-bearer the character of a judge, divesting himself of the endearing qualities of a father. “ {SpTA04 20.2}

“He, the sin-bearer, endures judicial punishment for iniquity, and becomes sin itself for man.” {3SP 162.2}

I think their clear intent was that the guy was born in sins, and they weren't. He was beneath them because he was born in sins, which was evidenced by the fact that he was blind. They took the fact that they weren't blind, and he was, as a sign that they were more favored by God than he. That they had not sinned their entire life didn't enter into this at all.



This is commenting on their thoughts in regards to the blind person.




The article said:



Why do you think this is ironic? I think it means just what it says. Because the biblical heores were very, very righteous, it is unthinkable that they should have greviously sinned. "Extraordinarly righteous" means "very obeident." If "righteous" means "never sinned one's whole life" "extraordinarily righteous" wouldn't make sense as a phrase.



Here is Waggoner's argument:



1.The curse comes upon the disobedent.
2.They that are of faith are keepers of the law.
3.Because they are keepers of the law, they are not under the curse.
4.Those who are "of the works of the law" are under a curse because are disobedient to the law.



You were responding to what *I* wrote. I was the one who brought up the question, which still hasn't been answered, which is if Lucifer had accepted God's offer of pardon, what accusation against God would have remained?



Ok, thanks for the clarification. We're in disagreement on this point. I think Jesus Christ taught the essential aspects of the Plan of Salvation.



If God needed Christ's death in order to pardon, then He couldn't have offered Lucifer pardon. But He did offer Lucifer pardon. Therefore Christ's death is not necessary for God.

You asked me what I thought the passage meant. I quote what she said immediately after the part you quoted. I think she explained her meaning. I don't think your suggestion makes sense, as I understand it, that the constraint was upon God. The constraint is upon human beings *receiving* the love of God, not on God's being able to love us. God loves us because He is love. Here's the very next sentence after what you quoted:



This is talking about receiving Christ as one's personal Savior. Doing this allows God's grace and love to be effective.



Did Peter say Christ was crucified and slain?



I was speaking of what being cursed would have meant to a Jew.



There were cultural connotations to the manner of one's death, which this manner of death was dealing with. It wasn't communicating the forensic idea of penalty you are speaking of (which wasn't a part of their thinking), but the idea of dying in a certain manner, indicative of being an outcast of the Covenant community.



I think this statement ties into this:



If the point of view you are coming from were true, I don't see how God could have offered Lucifer pardon without Christ's dying.

That they were referring to his life and their own lives not just in relation to birth, but to their whole existence up to that point, is evidenced by their reply to him: "You were completely born in sins, and are you teaching us?" Of course the implied thought is that they were righteous until that moment, and he a sinner until that moment - and that's why he was unworthy to teach them.


Exactly that is the point. For the author, “righteous” does not mean “flawless,” but for some of the old rabbis, it did. The expression is ironic because the author doesn’t share their opinion, and he is criticizing the “hyperbolic praise,” the “examples of hyperbole extolling the virtues of biblical heroes,” the “extravagant praise for biblical heroes,” “the notion of the heroes’ flawlessness,” “the fawning approbation ... [of] biblical figures,” “their view of the blamelessness of the righteous.”


Both you and he completely overlook Paul’s argument that “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law,” how? by “having become a curse for us” (Gal 3:13). So the curse is removed by faith in Christ’s substitutive sacrifice, and not by the believer’s obedience of faith. The believer’s obedience of faith is just a fruit, or result, of the faith in Christ’s substitutive sacrifice.


And you were responding to what *I* wrote, that “the legal dispositions of the plan of salvation exist to refute/avoid Satan’s accusations against God before the universe.”
Let’s try again.
God’s offer of pardon to Lucifer occurred before he defied God’s will, before he cast off his allegiance to God and His law, and, therefore, before he was in the same situation which Adam and Eve found themselves after they transgressed.
After man sinned, Satan said that God would not be just if He showed mercy to the sinner, because after his own rebellion he had been banished from heaven. So, if he couldn’t be forgiven, neither could man.
But, by dying in our behalf, Christ removed from God all charge of lessening the guilt of sin. Therefore, God (the Godhead) needed Christ’s death.


David did not kill Uriah directly, but God considered him guilty of Uriah’s death because that was his intention. The same is true about Jews and Romans; God considered them guilty of Christ’s death, but you know and I know that Christ didn’t die because of the cross. So, the fact that the Jews were considered guilty of Christ’s death has nothing whatsoever to do with our salvation. Our sins killed Christ – this has to do with our salvation.


The text is speaking of legal covenant regulations concerning capital offense. And obviously all Jews were aware that the capital punishment was a judicial punishment.


I don’t know what you mean. Ellen White describes Christ’s death as a judicial punishment. She didn’t need at all to have used this expression if that wasn't what she meant. She also says the Father assumed toward Christ the character of a judge, which confirms what she said in the other quote.

(Part 1)



Here's EGW's comment:



The Pharisees were suffering from this misconception. The (formerly) blind person said to them:



to which the Pharisees responded:



They were angry, and so retorted that he was born in sins, so who was he to question them. On what basis did they assert he was born in sins? Because he was blind. The fact that he was born blind, and they were not, pointed to their superiority over them.

There's absolutely no idea that the Pharisees were claiming to never having sinned, or were thinking in these terms. They were simply arguing that the fellow was born in sins because he was born blind, so who was he to presume to teach them.



But righteous didn't mean "flawless." It meant "observant, obedient, morally upright, just."



Did you read what Waggoner wrote? For your convenience, I'll repeat his argument. No, he did not overlook Paul's argument!!



Waggoner's argument is that Christ redeems us from the curse of the law by making us obedient to it! How can you assert Waggoner overlooked Paul's argument? You could assert that you disagree with Waggoner's treatment of it, but it's evident he did not "overlook" it!

I presented Waggoner's argument, and you responded:



This wasn't Waggoner's argument at all! You're not agreeing with Waggoner, but disagreeing with him.



Christ's becoming a curse for us is what enables faith to function:





Regarding this statement:



I agree! The faith is what removes the curse, because the faith is what results in the believer being obedient. It is not the obedience which removes the curse, but the faith, as you say.

(Part 2)



Lucifer's situation was much worse than Adam and Eve's.



Lucifer indulged a spirit of discontent, worked with mysterious secrecy, hid his true intent under the guise of reverence to God, claimed not to be aiming at self-exaltation when in reality that's exactly what he was doing. He made false claims before the loyal angels. Adam and Eve didn't do any of these things! Yet, in spite of all these things, God *still* offered Lucifer pardon. *Long* was he retained in heaven. "Again and again" he was offered pardon!

Why was he offered pardon? Because of sin, of course!



Who cares what Satan says? I'll comment on Satan's argument in more detail later, tomorrow.



If the Godhead needed Christ's death to forgive, then how did the Godhead offer Lucifer pardon?

If we look at Christ's life and teachings, we find no evidence that death was necessary for forgiveness to be given. For example, Christ forgave the paralytic. This was evidence of His divinity. There's not even a hint that death was necessary in order for him to do so.

Christ taught us to forgive as we have been forgive, that we had been freely forgiven. If we are only forgiven because a debt has been paid, then we are not freely forgiven. Similarly, we need not, should not forgive (if we are to follow how God supposedly forgives) without insisting on our debt being repaid (which isn't forgiveness at all).



*Both* have to do with our salvation. The actions of the Jews and the Romans are *our* actions. It is only by luck of circumstances that we were not there. The books of heaven record the sins we would have committed had we had the opportunity. Peter's sermon in Acts was recorded for our benefit; it wasn't something only for the Jews.



There whole concept of justice was different than that of a Westerner. We think of justice as retributive. They thought of it as restorative. (http://www.peaceworkmagazine.org/pwork/0499/049910.htm)



I mean she wrote that God's love was no longer constrained, and then explained her meaning in clear language in her very next sentence:



The constraint on God's love is removed when people accept Christ as their personal Savior. The cross was necessary in order for this to happen:

Blindness was not the only factor they were referring to. They considered themselves righteous and despised the common people, whether physically ill or not.

John 7:49 "But this crowd that does not know the law is accursed."

Luke 18:9 Also He spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others:

You are not considering the essence of the pharisaic spirit. If a man considers that he is perfectly righteous at the present, what prevents him from thinking that he has been perfectly righteous during his whole life?

“The Pharisees felt that they had need of nothing to make them spiritually perfect. They were just in their own eyes, and felt no need of repentance” {ST, January 29, 1894 par. 2}


For some of the old rabbis, it meant flawless, blameless. This is amply demonstrated in the article.
In fact, I only mentioned the Pharisees and the early rabbis because you had said no Jew had ever considered righteousness as perfect obedience during one’s whole life. This is not at all the case.
Of course the view of the Pharisees and early rabbis was a distorted view, and in fact the Bible does refer to God's children as righteous, meaning “observant, obedient, morally upright,” but that’s because, for Christ’s sake, God attributes perfection to those who are imperfect.

“Works will never save us; it is the merit of Christ that will avail in our behalf. Through faith in Him, Christ will make all our imperfect efforts acceptable to God.” {TMK 229.2}

“The nearer the Christian lives to God, the more he advances in divine illumination of mind. He has more distinct sense of his own littleness, discerns his defects of character, and sees his duty in the light in which God presents it. The more closely he draws to Jesus, the more he has a near and clear sense of his own defects which had before escaped his notice, and he sees the necessity of humbling himself under the mighty hand of God. If lifted up it will not be because he lifts and exalts himself, but because the Lord exalts him. Having his eye fixed upon the purity and perfection of Christ Jesus, and acknowledging and obeying God in all his ways, he is not blinded to his own failures and imperfections. When his deportment in the eyes of men is unblamable and irreprovable, God reads the intents and purposes of the heart.” {TDG 16.2}


Didn’t he? Where is Gal. 3:13 mentioned in the whole passage you quoted?


This is exactly why he is overlooking Paul’s argument, for Paul’s argument is, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us” (Gal 3:13), not by making us obedient to it!


I said I agreed that faith removes the curse. I disagreed with the explanation he gives. Did you notice I begin the other sentence with “But”?


Tom, two questions:
1) When did Lucifer fell from his allegiance to God/His law?
2) When did Adam and Eve fell from their allegiance to God/His law?


God does. If He didn’t care, He would have destroyed Satan and his angels at the beginning of the great controversy.


The answer is in the reply to the two questions I asked you above.


No, they aren’t. These are two different things. Jesus’ mother didn’t agree with His crucifixion, nor John, who was at the foot of the cross, nor the women who followed Jesus, nor Nicodemus, nor Joseph of Arimathea, nor many other people. They would never have crucified Christ.


Even if it was restorative, the fact remains that a capital punishment is a judicial punishment (the result of a judgment). However, a capital punishment could hardly be described as restorative. When Ellen White describes the punishment of the wicked, she refers to it as retributive justice.


You are confusing the quotes. We are speaking here of judicial punishment, not of the quote you mention.

None of this is addressing the issue we were discussing. What I said was that the Jews did not understand "righteous" as meaning "keeping the law perfectly one's whole life."

You presented their statement to the blind man as evidence that they had this in mind, so I presented evidence that this was not the case. Of course they trusted in themselves and were self-righteous, but this isn't the issue we were discussing. We were discussing what "righteous" would have meant to a 1st century Jew, or earlier. You have a view of "righteous" which is recent Western, not ancient Hebrew.



You are stating this is the case, but what's the evidence? I presented a whole host of definitions, and none of them suggested this. I haven't been able to find this definition or idea anywhere for ancient Judaism. If you can present some evidence of this, I'd be really interested in seeing it. I would like to see either a statement by a 1st century Jew, or earlier, stating that "righteous" means "keeping the law perfectly one's whole life" or by an authority of ancient Judaism explaining that they had this concept, because, to date, I haven't been able to encounter any evidence that they did.



This isn't an idea that a 1st century Jew would have had. You're just restating what you believe. I've been asking for evidence of what a Jew would have believed.



What I quoted was in reference to Gal. 3:10. Indeed, it says, "No one can read Gal.3:10 carefully and thoughtfully without seeing that the curse is transgression of the law." so it's clear he was commenting on Gal. 3:10. He wrote a whole book on Galatians. Quoting the whole thing would have been a bit much. Saying that he "overlooked" Paul's argument seems a bit silly. Here's some more of what he wrote:



The reason I was quoting from Waggoner was in response to what you claimed Paul's argument was, which is a common idea. You said Paul's argument was basically:
1.The law requires perfect obedience
2.We don't have that to offer
3.Therefore Christ obeyed in our place, and died for us, and His obedience is accepted in our place.

I counted by saying that this was not Paul's argument, but it was what Waggoner presented, which is that those who are of the works of the law are condemned by the law because they do not keep it, because it can only be kept by faith. Those who are of faith are not condemned by the law, because they keep it by faith.



Lucifer fell when he made his final decision no to accept God's offer of pardon. Adam and Eve fell when they ate of the forbidden fruit.

More later.

Regarding that God cares, in the terms you are speaking of here. However, I would prefer to use the following language:



If God didn't care, he would have left Satan to reap the full result of sin, which is death, the inevitable result of sin. God could not have allowed this to happen at first, because then it would have appeared to the watching angels that God was killing Satan, rather than allowing him to suffer the inevitable consequences of sin.

When I asked, "Who cares what Satan says?" I was pointing to the dangers of using Satan's words as a basis for one's theology. He lies. It is Satan, not God, that has the attitude of demanding that a debt be paid to the last penny. God has the attitude of freely forgiving. The two characters are contrasted here:



The king in this parable is manifesting the character of God, the servant is manifesting Satan's character.

Satan says God cannot pardon without death, but he knows this isn't true, because God freely offered he himself pardon. He seeks to twist the meaning of the sacrifice:







Rather than seeing the sacrifice of Christ as something God freely gives to us because of our great need, it is presented instead as something God Himself needs in order to be able to forgive us.



How was man deceived?



But God isn't severe and unforgiving. Satan knows this is false because God, even after Satan had misrepresented God's character for the purpose of gaining control of heavenly beings, *still* freely offered him pardon.

Christ came to reveal that truth about God. The whole purpose of His mission was the revelation of God to set men right with Him. Christ did a marvelous job in so doing, so much that He could say, "When you've seen Me, you've seen the Father!" But so successful has Satan been with his deceptions that man naturally views God the Father very differently than Christ.

It is because it was Christ's purpose to reveal the Father, that I ask where Christ taught the idea that the Father cannot forgive us apart from Christ. This isn't the idea Christ presented! Over and over again we see Christ freely forgiving, freely healing, freely giving of Himself. This is the way God is. He gives of Himself freely, He forgives freely. The only conditions He sets are conditions that *we* need. If we confuse our requirements with His, our perception of His character is impacted. God becomes different than Christ.



Oh yes they are! There's a story that goes like this. A man was having a dream, seeing Christ about to be crucified, His hands being held down, and a man about to pound nails into His hands. The one dreaming cried out, "Stop! Stop!" Upon hearing this, the man about to hammer the nails turned around. The one dreaming saw himself!

The books of heaven record the sins we would have committed had we had the opportunity. But for the grace of God, we would have acted just as the Jews and Romans did. We are no better than they.

What the Romans and Jews did speak to the natural hatred of man against God. The Gospels record these actions for a reason. When Peter preached in Acts 2, that was for our benefit as well. It was just something for the Jews.

There is much to learn from Christ's death.



This (restorative) is how the Jews thought of it. The capital punishment was a restorative action, to bring the Covenant community back into a state of shalom.



Here is the quote I was referencing:



You presented this quote, especially this part "By my death a restraint is removed from his love. His grace can act with unbounded efficiency."

You presented other quotes too. I said I thought those other quotes tied into this one:



The YI quote ties both ideas together. I'm saying that the judicial language that Ellen White uses is equivalent to the non-judicial language. That is, they are presenting the same ideas, using different language. So when she says "By my death a restraint is removed from his love." her meaning is explained in the next sentences: "His grace can act with unbounded efficiency. For all who receive Christ as their personal Saviour, there is opened an ample channel, in which human and divine instrumentalities can co-operate to communicate to the world the tide of God's love."

The judicial idea you have in mind falls apart when applied to Lucifer's case. The framework I'm presenting works perfectly. Lucifer was rebelling, and God offered him pardon if he would repent. God did the same thing for man. Because man was deceived, it was necessary that Christ come and reveal the truth. That revelation involved His death. Christ's work made it possible for man to repent. This work wasn't necessary for Lucifer, so Christ didn't have to die in order for God to offer him pardon. If *God* had required Christ to die in order for Him to be able to extend offers of pardon, then God would have required the same thing to pardon Lucifer.

I know you understand the argument here, and you've tried to deal with it by suggesting that Lucifer's actions were not as bad as Adam's, but that seems to me to be extremely obviously false. It seems to me you are constrained to do so in order to hold to your theological position. I don't think any neutral person, say not an SDA, could read through Ellen White's descriptions of what Lucifer did and come to the conclusion you have. Again, I don't think the text allows for this at all, but you are constrained to interpret things as you have because that's the only way you can continue to hold to the position that God requires death in order to pardon.

However, our differences are deeper than that, I believe. I think they have to do with how we conceive of God's character, and the underlying issues of the controversy. You perceive things (from my point of view) in terms of authority, that God's authority has been challenged, and God must maintain that authority, but must do so in a way that will work. Also you perceive that there are issues involved which are because of the law.

I see the issues as related to God's character being misrepresented, and the truth about that needing to be made known. I see the sanctuary service, and the law issues, as just being another way to communicate this same truth.

Here's the history of the points I brought up:


So, yes, I believe the born again people described in the Bible, people who are abiding in Jesus, do not sin. Their obedience is perfect. Like Jesus, they grow in grace and mature in the fruits of the Spirit as they progress from childhood to manhood, from babes in Christ to seasoned saints. I also believe this growth and maturation, this progression will continue throughout eternity.

While abiding in Jesus, while walking in the Spirit and mind of the new man, while partaking of the divine nature - love to God and man grows every day. It becomes more and more perfect. The difference between stages of perfection has nothing to do with sin and everything to do with righteousness. In the same way Jesus began perfect and became perfect, so too, born again believers who are vitally connected to Christ begin perfect and become perfect. "Perfecting holiness in the fear of God." (2 Cor 7:1)

PS - Of course, this isn't to say they lose the ability or freedom to sin. They are always free to stop abiding in Jesus and resume sinning. But while abiding in Jesus they do not and cannot sin.

So you think that the self-righteous Pharisees thought that they were perfect at present but that their past had flaws? I don’t think this is realistic at all but, anyway, you have the right to believe it.
As to the early rabbis, I don’t think you have how to contradict what the article shows clearly, that is, that many of them thought that the biblical heroes had never sinned.
Besides, Paul, a first-century Jew, presents a simple argument, perfectly understandable both then and now: anyone who transgresses the law is under a curse. Obviously the curse must be borne in order to be removed. That’s why we had to be redeemed from the curse of the law, which Christ did by becoming a curse for us.
And last but not least, either what Ellen White says agrees with the Bible or it doesn’t, and if the latter is the case, then she can by no means be called a genuine prophet.


I probably didn’t express myself adequately. What I meant to say was that Waggoner failed to pay attention to what Paul is really saying. Waggoner’s argument is that Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by making us obedient, something which Paul never said.


This is not the only problem involved. What you are saying is that the curse simply vanishes when one becomes obedient, that there is no problem in relation to past transgressions. This is not what the Bible says and this is not what Ellen White says.


Which means that Lucifer was in the same situation of Adam and Eve only after his final decision.


In the great controversy, God has to do everything in such a way as to demonstrate that none of Satan’s accusations are true. Satan had said that, since he himself hadn’t been pardoned after defying God’s will, if God pardoned Adam and Eve, He would demonstrate that 1) He had double standards, and 2) the violation of His law was not so grave a thing as it had been made to appear at the beginning. That’s why Ellen White says that, by dying in the sinner’s place, Christ removed from God all charge of lessening the guilt of sin.


God is not angry - God hates sin. And yes, God needed the atonement in order to forgive us, for the reasons explained above.


We simply differ here. To me there is a difference between the cross as a physical instrument of death and the cross in its spiritual significance. We crucified Christ by our sins. Those who, besides crucifying Him by their sins, also crucified Him physically, will even be raised at a special resurrection.


Sure, it was restorative to others, but not to the person who was being the object of punishment. In the same way, the destruction of the wicked will be restorative to the universe, but it will be retributive to them, who are incorrigible offenders.


Works perfectly? I beg to differ. When God offered pardon to Lucifer, he wasn’t subjected to death, he would have been restated to his position, and everything would have been just fine. In Adam and Eve’s case, however, even though they were offered pardon, they were subjected to death, were expelled from the garden, and the human race has had to struggle with suffering, disease, death and misery for 6,000 years. You may think this is perfectly fair. I don’t. This isn’t fair either here or in China, as we would say in Brazil. No matter what you say, such a God as your view presents is not at all a fair God. So, saying that the sin for which Lucifer was offered pardon was greater than the sin of Adam and Eve is something that will never make the least sense to me.

___________
I've edited this post to add the following passage I've just found:

"The young man answered without hesitation, 'All these things have I kept from my youth up; what lack I yet?' His conception of the law was external and superficial. Judged by a human standard, he had preserved an unblemished character. To a great degree his outward life had been free from guilt; he verily thought that his obedience had been without a flaw. Yet he had a secret fear that all was not right between his soul and God. This prompted the question, 'What lack I yet?'" {COL 391.4}

But what then do you make of passages such as these, for instance, which I quoted to Tom in my post #104174?

“Works will never save us; it is the merit of Christ that will avail in our behalf. Through faith in Him, Christ will make all our imperfect efforts acceptable to God.” {TMK 229.2}

“The nearer the Christian lives to God, the more he advances in divine illumination of mind. He has more distinct sense of his own littleness, discerns his defects of character, and sees his duty in the light in which God presents it. The more closely he draws to Jesus, the more he has a near and clear sense of his own defects which had before escaped his notice, and he sees the necessity of humbling himself under the mighty hand of God. If lifted up it will not be because he lifts and exalts himself, but because the Lord exalts him. Having his eye fixed upon the purity and perfection of Christ Jesus, and acknowledging and obeying God in all his ways, he is not blinded to his own failures and imperfections. When his deportment in the eyes of men is unblamable and irreprovable, God reads the intents and purposes of the heart.” {TDG 16.2}

You think the idea that a person would not think their past had any flaws is not realistic? Really?



What does this have to do with the concept of righteous not meaning "perfectly kept the law one's whole life?" "Righteous" means "morally upright," "just," "obedient," "observant."



Where does Paul say, "Obviously the curse must be borne in order to be removed."? I'm not commenting on whether this is true or not, but on your assertion that this is part of Paul's simple argument.

Clearly vs. 13 says that Christ redeemed us from the curse be becoming a curse for us. However, it doesn't explain how this happens; this needn't be understood forensically. Indeed, for centuries, it wasn't.



The concepts she presents should be Biblical. She doesn't need to use words the same way. What "righteous" meant to a 1st century Jew isn't what it meant to a 19th century American. She used the word "righteous" as an American would use the term.



Sin vanishes when it is forgiven:









Why would it mean this? It's easy to see this isn't the case. When Lucifer fell, he could no longer be pardoned. When Adam and Eve fell, they could be. Clearly they weren't in the same situation.



If an accusation is based on a false premise, all that needs to be shown is that the premise is false.



This is a false premise. Satan wasn't pardoned after defying God's will simply for the reason that he refused God's offer of pardon. It had nothing to do with Christ's dying or not dying. Big red herring here. Satan is trying to cloud the issue by having God be responsible for something he himself brought upon himself.



There's no problem in saying that God is angry at sin. The problem is in thinking that God's being angry at sin is the problem. The problem is with sin, not God's anger of it.

No, God does not need the atonement. The atonement is "at-one-ment," as God was never against us. God so loved us, He gave us His Son. God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself. God is not reconciled to us, be we are reconciled to God. As Peter put it, Christ suffered for us, to bring us to God. This is what the atonement is about - "at-one-ment," bringing us to God.

I'll include a quote from Fifield separately which discusses this.



I'm not understanding what we you say we are differing on. My point is that what Peter preached is for our benefit, not just for the Jews he spoke to, which is why it's a part of Scripture. I also pointed out that all aspects of Christ's death relate to our salvation. Consider the following:



Surely being drawn back to God has to do with our salvation, and surely the events of the cross have to do with beholding His character.

Regarding the specific point of disagreement, that their actions are our actions but for the grace of God, that we are no better than they, and that the books of heaven record the deeds we would have committed had we had the opportunity, I don't see how you could agree with any of these assertions.

What you state here is odd:



since, of course, we have no disagreement on this point.



The purpose of the judgment was restorative, not redemptive. Retributive:



Restorative:



From "Evil and the Justice of God" by N. T. Wright.



There are different paradigms involved. One needs to consider not just what happened, but how these events would be understood, and the paradigms of the people. The whole concept of justice as used in Scripture is little understood by Westerners. The whole way we look at it is different.

For example:



This isn't how we think of justice, but this is the Scriptural idea of it. Justice has to do with setting things right, with returning the Covenant community to shalom.



I don't understand your reasoning here at all. Are you saying that Adam and Eve were treated more severely than Lucifer? What's your point here? What wasn't fair?

And your conclusion I don't get at all. To determined whose sin was greater, Lucifer's or Adam's, all we have to do is look at what they did. I guess your argument is this:

1.Adam and Eve's punishment was greater than Lucifer's.
2.Therefore there sin was greater.

Is this what you're thinking? So when I say that Lucifer's sin was greater than Adam and Eve's, you say my view is unfair because Lucifer's punishment was less than Adam and Eve's. Is this what you're thinking?

She is not talking about sinning; instead, she is talking about past mistakes and present defects and imperfections. Even the most mature Christian possesses defects and imperfections, but this isn't saying they are sinning. Possessing defects and imperfections is not the same thing as sinning. While abiding in Jesus, all defects and imperfections are keep under the control of a sanctified will and mind.

“Watch ye and pray, lest ye enter into temptation.” Mark 14:38. Watch against the stealthy approach of the enemy, watch against old habits and natural inclinations, lest they assert themselves; force them back, and watch. Watch the thoughts, watch the plans, lest they become self-centered. (6T 410)

The words, "I keep under my body," literally mean to beat back by severe discipline the desires, impulses, and passions. {AA 314.1}

He who has determined to enter the spiritual kingdom will find that all the powers and passions of unregenerate nature, backed by the forces of the kingdom of darkness, are arrayed against him. Each day he must renew his consecration, each day do battle with evil. Old habits, hereditary tendencies to wrong, will strive for the mastery, and against these he is to be ever on guard, striving in Christ's strength for victory. {AA 476.3}

Speaking of the Pharisees, no, this is not realistic at all. I hope you have read the quote of COL 391.4.


To them, the righteousness of the biblical heroes was equivalent to having never sinned (perfectly keeping the law their whole lives).


When he says that Christ removed it from us by bearing it for us.


This may be apparently unrelated, but how do you explain the verse “One has died for all; therefore all have died” (2 Cor 5:14)?


When she says that the law cannot forgive, for instance, is she expressing a biblical concept?


First, how do you reconcile what you said with an investigative judgment?
Second, how do you reconcile what you said with this passage:

“Christ died because there was no other hope for the transgressor. He might try to keep God's law in the future; but the debt which he had incurred in the past remained, and the law must condemn him to death. Christ came to pay that debt for the sinner which it was impossible for him to pay for himself. Thus, through the atoning sacrifice of Christ, sinful man was granted another trial.” {RH, March 8, 1881 par. 4}


They were in the same situation of having defied God’s will, and of having fallen from their allegiance to God. The light they had had before their fall determined if they still could be saved or not.


If that was the case, God didn’t need to refute any of Satan’s accusations, because all of them are based on false premises.


After his rebellion he wasn’t offered pardon and wasn’t allowed pardon. The opposite occurred in man’s case. The inhabitants of the universe didn’t know why.


I said that the fact that the Jews physically crucified Christ has nothing to do with our salvation, but it had to do with theirs, because they needed to repent. You disagree.


I suppose you mean retributive, not redemptive. But could you be clearer as to what your point is in relation to what we are discussing?


I don’t see any difference between the word “justice” as used in the Scriptures and as used by us. The word just has several facets, that’s all.


Lucifer’s punishment was less? It would have been none. So, according to your view, there is no punishment for a greater sin while there is a severe punishment for a smaller sin.
According to my view, Lucifer’s punishment and Adam and Eve’s punishment was the same: After their fall, Lucifer was expelled from heaven, and Adam and Eve were expelled from Paradise.

Mike, do you consider it's impossible to sin without knowing it? For instance, is it impossible that you have traces of selfishness in your motivations of which you are unaware?

This says, "To a great degree his outward life had been free from guilt." This means that to some degree it wasn't.

How many people have you met in your lifetime? Has even one of the believed they never sinned?





Even if this were true, it wouldn't mean that the definition of righteousness means keeping the law perfectly one's whole life! This should be easy to see. It would simply mean *their* righteousness was like that. Not that "righteousness" means that.



I understand Paul to be saying here that Christ redeemed us from the curse by becoming a curse for us. How do you get from that that Paul is saying "obviously the curse must be born in order for it to be removed?" Especially the obviously part. I can see how you could assert, "Obviously the curse must be born to be removes since Paul said Christ redeemed us from the curse, having born it for us," but I don't see how you could assert that *Paul* was saying "obviously the curse must be born to be removed."



I see it as expressing the same thought as this:





Yes, just as her saying that God offered Lucifer pardon (although Christ had not died) is expressing a Biblical concept.



As the quote I presented stated, every sin confessed with a contrite heart, God removes. The investigative judgment reveals the sins which are in the character. If the sins have been removed from the character, they won't be in the books of heaven either, as the books of heaven reflect what's in the character.



I said that sin vanishes when it is forgiven, and quoted "every sin which is confessed with a contrite heart, he will remove." If it is removed, it has vanished. What is it that needs reconciling between what you quoted and that sin is vanishes when forgiven (or is removed when confessed, to put it another way)?



Because Lucifer had had tremendous light, and knew, His character, and his love, his defiance reached a point to where he could no longer be healed. But before this time he had despicably sought to exalt himself by misrepresenting God's character. But God, not being like Lucifer presented Him as being, long bore with him, and offered him pardon over and over again.

Lucifer indulged a spirit of discontent to overcome him, allowed envy and hatred of Christ to enter his heart, became enamored of himself, and sought to exalt himself by any means possible, even lying about God to do so. This is incomparably worse that what Adam did, which was simply to eat of a forbidden fruit because he didn't want to see his wife die alone (this isn't to defend Adam's action, which represented a lack of faith in God, but to make clear that his actions were in no way comparable to Lucifer's).

In spite of all Lucifer did, God *still* offered him pardon, even *after* the lying misrepresentations. And all this without Christ's dying! Now if *God* required an atonement in order to be able to offer pardon, He would have needed it for Lucifer as well as for Adam. Why the death of Christ for one but not the other?





You are arguing that if an accusation of Satan if based on a false promise, then God didn't need to refute any of his accusations because all of them are based on false premises. That's absurd. The fact that one may make an argument with a false premise does not mean that every argument that one makes is!



Not allowed pardon? Of course not! God is not willing that any should perish. He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. The issue was never, and never can be, that a being is not "allowed" pardon. It is always whether the person wants to repent. God's not ever going to prevent a person from repenting!



The same thing happened. God offered Lucifer pardon (again and again) and God offered man pardon. The difference is that Lucifer rejected that pardon.



This is because you see the only thing about the cross that has to do with our salvation is that Christ's death paid a debt for our sins?



Yes, sorry, that's what I meant.

You said:



I responded:



I had said (which led to your response)



The death of Christ satisfies justice because it restores those who believe to shalom, which is to say being justified by faith we have peace with God.



I've never heard anyone say this:



The idea that justice is executed by showing mercy and compassion is not a common thought to Westerners. However, it sounds from your comment that you agree that this is a facet of justice, so I'm glad to hear you say that.



If it was none, and Adam's was some, then it would have to be less, wouldn't it? I was asking these questions to ascertain what you were wanting to say. I was accurate, wasn't I?



You're asserting that I don't think Satan will be punished?

The punishment for sin is death. If God had allowed Satan to reap the full result of his sin, he would have died, but it would not have appeared to onlooking angels that his death would have been the inevitable result of sin. Instead it would have appeared that God was killing him. This would have created an evil seed of doubt. So God had to allow Satan time to develop his principles so that his true character could be made manifest, as well as God's true character, since Satan had made accusations against it.



This has nothing to do with what we were talking about. I've said nothing about this one way or the other. What I said was that both sinned, and God offered both pardon on the condition of repentance. For man, Christ died, because that was necessary to bring him to repentance.

Have you read what he thought? “He verily thought that his obedience had been without a flaw.”


Your argument had been that a first-century Jew would never had thought of righteousness as perfectly keeping the law one’s whole life. I’ve showed that, in fact, this was a very common concept.
As I’ve also said, righteousness is compliance with the law. Does the law require partial obedience or perfect obedience to declare someone righteous?


Sorry, I didn’t get it. In which sense have all died?


At this point Lucifer hadn't yet broken the law in defiance of God's will, as man did.

"Evil originated with the rebellion of Lucifer. It was brought into heaven when he refused allegiance to God's law. Satan was the first lawbreaker." {RH, June 4, 1901 par. 3}


How is it that a sin I confessed ten years ago is still in my character (since it is registered in heaven)? Did God remove it or not?


If sin vanishes when confessed, Christ paid no debt and there was no debt which was impossible for the sinner to pay for himself. If I understand you correctly, it is the sinner who pays the debt when he confesses his sin.


What we are discussing is pardon after fall. Had Lucifer already fallen when he was offered pardon? If not, he wasn’t in the same situation as Adam and Eve.


Which of Satan’s accusations were based on true premises? That God’s law was arbitrary and should be altered or abolished? That God was unjust? That He was self-centered? Which one?


The difference is that God offered pardon to Lucifer before his fall, and to man, after his fall.


Tom, you are insisting that the sin of the Jews in physically crucifying Christ is the sin of every human being. I simply disagree with this. This was a national sin, distinct from the fact that the sins of all human beings crucified Christ.


Neither was it a common thought to Easterners, including Jews. This is God’s justice, and every person who reads the Bible understand what God’s justice is. However God’s justice also involves the retributive aspect, which is simply giving to each his due:

Rom 2:5-11 But in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who "will render to each one according to his deeds": eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honor, and immortality; but to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness——indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, on every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek; but glory, honor, and peace to everyone who works what is good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For there is no partiality with God.

Revelation 22:12 "And behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to give to every one according to his work.


No, I’m asserting that when Lucifer was offered pardon (before his fall), he wouldn’t have been punished at all, while when man was offered pardon (after his fall), he was severely punished. According to you, man was much more severely punished for a lesser sin. This position doesn’t make any sense at all.

As I stated, "To a great degree his outward life had been free from guilt." means that to some degree it wasn't. Since this is dealing with his outward life, he should have been aware of it. He may have thought his obedience was flawless because it was good enough, paying small moment to the areas where his outward life was not free from guilt. You'd probably assert that he wasn't aware of these shortcomings, but that might not have been the case.

I asked you if you have ever in your life met a person who wasn't aware that he had done something wrong in his lifetime. I doubt such a person has ever existed in the history of the world who didn't have mental problems. (excepting Christ, of course).

And even if he thought his obedience to be without fault, that still doesn't deal with the question of what "righteous" would mean to a 1st century Jew. It would simply treat a specific case of what one that about one's own righteousness.

If you wish to contend that "righteous" means "keeping the law perfectly one's whole life," I've offered suggestions on how to show this. Either find something by a 1st century Jew which explains "righteous" in this way, or cite an authority of ancient Judiasm. What I see you doing is to take you view things, and superimpose that on the things you're reading. I'm asking you to disassociate yourself what you already believe, and consider what the term would have meant to someone living at that time. Don't try to prove you're right, but look for the truth.

I don't claim to be an expert on ancient Judaism by any means. I've done some investigating, and share what I've found. If you can find some Jewish evidence that a Jew thought of "righteous" in terms of "perfectly keeping the law one's who life," I'd be interested in seeing that. From everything I've seen until now, it appears to me that how they thought of things is as John stated: "he who does righteousness is righteous."



A common concept? I haven't seen evidence that the concept existed at all, let alone was common. What's your evidence that any Jew thought that way? Can you cite something where the word "righteous" is used by a first century Jew?



This is again looking at things the way you look at them. I don't believe a Jew looked at things in this light. That is, to a Jew, the assertion that the law requires perfect obedience would mean simply that the whole law needs to be kept.



The KJV has "then all were dead." Iow, all would be dead if Christ had not died. Or, to use EGW's language, to the death of Christ we owe even this earthly life.



I don't see how it's possible to assert this. Lucifer:

1.Allowed his heart to be filled with envy and hatred of Christ.
2.Indulged in a spirit of discontent.
3.Sought to exalt himself.
4.Sought to steal creatures to pay homage to himself.
5.Presented false claims in order to do so.

How can one think these things are not contrary to God's will? Lucifer has grievances, and God, in the person of His Son, met personally with him and explained why he was wrong to be upset. *After* this, Lucifer continued to do the things listed above. This is acting defiantly against God's will. Of course it is. God's will would have been to agree when it was shown to him that his grievances were without cause.



This looks to me to be clearly acting in defiance of God's will.

(More later)

If you confessed it with a contrite heart, then, according to TM 92, God removed it. That doesn't mean you could choose again to do the sin you had confessed. You have free will to do so. If you do, then it returns to be a part of your character.



Why?



No, Christ paid the debt. When the sin is confessed with a contrite heart, God will remove it (TM 92). I don't see why you would construe this as the sinner paying a debt.



I wasn't. My point had to do with the forgiveness of sin. I pointed out that God offered Lucifer pardon, again and again, without Christ's having to die. I said nothing about God's offering Lucifer pardon after he fell. That would have been pointless.



I didn't say his situation was the same. I said if it is necessary for God to have death in order to be able to pardon someone for sin, He couldn't have offered Lucifer pardon, since no one had died.



You're missing the point. Your questions are moot. You made an argument which is totally invalid. Here's what you said:



This argument is totally invalid. Do you not see this? Even if all of Lucifer's accusations had false premises, this argument would still be invalid. The fact that some argument of Satan is based on a false premise does not mean that all of them are. Even if all of them were based on false premises, it still wouldn't be the case that because some argument was based on a false premise that all the others were too.

Do you understand the point here?



I wasn't discussing their respective falls, but that they would be restored to harmony with God after sinning by repentance. If they would repent, God would forgive their sin, both for Lucifer and man. Man needed blood, and Lucifer didn't, in order to repent, for the reason brought out here:



Or, as Fifield put it:





You said, "the fact that the Jews physically crucified Christ has nothing to do with our salvation."

So I asked you, "This is because you see the only thing about the cross that has to do with our salvation is that Christ's death paid a debt for our sins?" What's your answer please.



Sure it was. Their whole culture was based on this. Shalom is the well-being of the Covenant community. Justice was restoring the Covenant community back to shalom. Every Jew understood this. It was as much a part of their culture as retribution is to ours.



I don't see the punishment of either Lucifer or man as something arbitrarily inflicted upon them by God (which appears to me to be how you are looking at this) but rather being the consequence of their respective actions.



Sin separates the one sinning from God. Such a one requires healing. The healing for Lucifer would have different than the healing for man, because of the difference in their circumstances (Lucifer knew God's character and love; man didn't. Man was deceived; Lucifer knew what he was doing, etc.)

What one suffers depends on how sin impacts them.

Our big difference here, it appears to me, is that you see their respective punishment as unrelated to their sin, except in that God did something to them because of what they had done, whereas I see their punishment as being caused by their sin.

Where in the Bible or the SOP is this idea expressed? That is, where does it say the righteousness of believers who are abiding in Jesus is tainted with traces of selfishness?

How do you understand this quote, MM?



This is speaking of believers. I know you wouldn't call the earthly corruption a sinful nature, because you are a post-lapsarian. So what is it?

You seem to think that you don't have any trace of selfishness. I think that's an exceedingly dangerous position to take.

I came across something discussing Gal. 3:10-14:

Similarly, Galatians 3:10-14 expounds the salvific character of the cross of Christ in ways well-oriented to the context Paul is addressing. At this juncture in his argument with Galatian Christians enamored with legal observance, Paul needs to overcome the obvious problem of the essential partitioning of Jew and Gentile--a distinction centered on the status of the law-abiding Jew in contrast to the lawless Gentile. Gentiles lived under God's curse as persons outside the law; how then could they share in the blessings of Abraham?

Paul's first answer was that those who use the law to drive a wedge between Jews and Gentiles have abused the law and therefore fall under the same divine curse. How then can anyone participate in the blessings of Abraham? Second, borrowing the imagery of Deut. 21:22,23, Paul writes that Jesus has in this crucifixion borne the curse of God--htat it, he has been placed outside the community of God's covenant. More than this, he has done so "on our behalf."

In his death he has exhausted the poewr of the law to segregate people from the covenant. It is not accidental that in constructing his argument Paul refers to "Christ" bearing the "curse," for this places in provocative juxtaposition two profoundly contradictory images: the one "anointed by God" is the one "cursed by God." If Jesus has identified with humanity in having been placed outside the covenant of God's people as one who bears the divine curse, his divine "anointing" signifies the acceptance of the "outsider," both Jew and Gentile. The death of Christ thus marks the new eon in which Gentiles may be embraced, in Christ, as children of Abraham. (The Nature of the Atonement, 4 Views, p. 171; emphasis original).

Note the following:



This is exactly the idea I presented!

Tom, you have no right to accuse of me of anything. This isn't about me or you, it's about the biblical description of a believer abiding in Jesus. Again, where in the Bible or the SOP does it say the righteousness of believers who are abiding in Jesus is tainted with traces of selfishness? In the quote you posted above she doesn't say the righteousness of believers is tainted with the sin of selfishness.

MM, Rosagela asked you:



You're answer was an implied "no." I wrote "seem" because your answer was an implicit "no," not an explicit one. So if you don't really mean "no," please explain that. If you really do mean "no," then conscience compels me to warn you that I believe this to be an exceedingly dangerous position to take. Not only do I have the right to warn you of this, but I have the duty to do so.

I'm not accusing you of anything. I'm simply reading what you wrote, and inferring something from that. I hope my inference is incorrect, and I'll be able to apologize for misunderstanding your meaning.

You didn't answer my question regarding the quote I presented. I asked you what you think it means. I didn't assert a meaning for it, but asked your opinion.

I’ve presented clear evidence that the word “righteous” is used in this sense by first-century Jews.
I’ve showed how the belief of many of the Pharisees was that their entire lives had been flawless, and how the rabbis thought the biblical heroes had never sinned. Although clearly wrong, these notions were based on the concept that righteousness is perfect obedience to the law during one’s whole life.
This concept, in its turn, was obviously based on the biblical statement (in Deuteronomy) that those who do not obey the law perfectly are under a curse of death - that is, they are lost. Paul later expands on this, arguing that we are only freed from this curse by Christ’s bearing of it.
Finally, Ellen White confirms this concept by saying that the law cannot forgive, and that the debt of sin we have incurred remains, condemning us to death, even if we try to obey the law in the future. Christ came to pay that debt for the sinner which it was impossible for him to pay for himself. Thus, I believe Ellen White was expressing a biblical concept, and not a modern western concept completely unrelated to the Bible and foreign to it.
I don’t think I have anything else to add about this.


Both sentences use the same verb in the same tense, voice and mood (died/died). But let’s translate it in the second sentence as “were dead,” as you wish.
Ara, the conjunction connecting the two sentences, means “therefore, so then, wherefore”.
What the verse says is:
If one has died for all, then all were dead.
What you want it to mean is:
If one hadn’t died for all, then all would be dead.
Therefore, the verse is saying the opposite of what you wish it to say. The first verb should be in the negative, and the second one in the subjunctive mood, for the verse to mean what you wish it to mean.


Because Ellen White says it clearly:

“Understanding the character of God, knowing His goodness, Satan chose to follow his own selfish, independent will. This choice was final. There was no more that God could do to save him.” {DA 761.5}

When Satan chose to follow his own will there was no more that God could do to save him. Obviously he hadn’t chosen to follow his own will before that. And obviously it was when he chose to follow his own will that he defied God’s will.


Is it still in the registries of heaven or not?


What exactly is the debt that Christ paid and how did He pay it?


Comparing pardon in two completely unrelated circumstances (before fall/after fall) is impossible.


Death was the penalty for willful disobedience, that is, for the choice of following one’s independent will instead of God’s will (which would mean a fall from allegiance). At the point Lucifer was offered pardon, he hadn’t yet made this choice.


My logic is valid and proves that your argument is invalid.

All of Satan’s accusations are based on false premises.
Accusations based on false premises don’t need to be refuted (your argument).
Therefore, none of Satan’s accusations need to be refuted.


No, I don’t think it has to do with that. What I see about the cross that has to do with my salvation is that the shame Jesus bore for me, the physical sufferings He bore, the agony He bore – all this shows the width and length and depth and height of His love for me. As Ellen White points out, the Jews didn’t need to have any part in Christ's crucifixion – if they hadn’t killed Christ the enemies of God would have done that. So, the fact that they did it is entirely their responsibility and entirely their sin (this, of course, refers to the Jews of that generation only).


This doesn't make matters better. Lucifer had more light than Adam, so his responsibility was greater. Therefore, if his sin had been graver than Adam’s, so would have been the consequences of it. Unless the universe that God created is unjust. Which would lead us, again, to the conclusion that God is unjust.

Where? That is, where is the word "righteous" used to mean "keep the law perfectly one's whole life"? I'm referring here specifically to the word "righteous."



Not at all! Have you ever met anyone who has this idea? I doubt anyone in the history of man, not counting Christ or mentally unstable people, have had the idea that in their whole life they never did anything wrong.



And I pointed out that even if this were true, this wouldn't mean that "righteous" means "keeping the law perfectly one's whole life." Indeed, the author of this article spoke of how these people believed the Bible heroes to have lives which were "extraordinarily righteous." Now the phrase "extraordinarily righteous" makes sense according to the standard definitions of "righteous" (I presented 6 or 7 of these), but doesn't make any sense according to your idea, which would be all or nothing to start with. You've not presented any source whatsoever as citing a Jewish definition of "righteous" as "perfectly keeping the law one's whole life," have you?



The idea was based on the Bible heroes being very good, not on the definition of "righteous" being "keeping the law perfectly one's whole life." I'm not following how you're coming to this conclusion.

Ellen White's comments have nothing to do with what "righteous" would have meant for a 1st century Jew. Unless you can present something saying, "I was shown that 1st century Jews understood 'righteous' as meaning ..."

Regarding 2 Cor. 5:14, do you have some point to make? If so, what is it?

You asked me what I thought it meant. I told you. I think it means the same thing that EGW is saying here:



I believe this reasoning is born out by the context. Paul recognized that he owed all that he had to the death of Christ. If it weren't for Christ, he would be death. He owed even his earthly life to Christ. Let's look at what he says immediately following:



Paul felt gratitude for Christ's death, which gave him life. Because of Christ's death, we are alive, and Paul argued that we should live for Him who gave Himself for us.



The fact that someone, at some point, follows his own independent will in no way implies that before this point he wasn't following his own independent will.

Let's just look at some things she writes:



Whose will was Satan following here, if not his own? Was it God's will that Satan's heart was filled with envy and hatred?



Whose will is Lucifer following here, if not his own?



Whose will was Lucifer following here if not his own?



Is it removed, or not?



I've quoted C. S. Lewis in response to this a couple of times. It would make this post too long to quote it here, but I like his thoughts. Also Fifield's:





Comparing pardon in two completely related circumstances -- after having sinned -- is very possible. God offered to pardon Lucifer his sin under the condition of repentance and submission. This is the same offer He makes to man. You're focusing on the wrong word-pair. The focus should be on the word-pair "sin/pardon" not "fall/pardon."



How does this prove my argument is invalid? What's your proof that your first premise is true? (that all of Satan's accusations are based on false premises)

*If* it were true that all of Satan's arguments were based on false premises, then, obviously, all that would be necessary would be to show that these premises are false. Indeed, to show anything other than this would be pointless.

If you argue: "Because pentagons have 3 sides, they have fewer sides than squares" once it has been established that the premise is false, and that pentagons really have 5 sides, there's no point to arguing anything further.



She writes that the books of heaven record the sins we would have committed had we had the opportunity. Why would we be any better than the Jews? Apart from the grace of God, we would have acted just like they did. There's a valuable spiritual lesson involved in perceiving this.



Yes it does! It makes all the difference in the world!

If the things which happens are not arbitrarily imposed, but rather the consequences of choices that are made, then we can understand God's actions as being involved with trying to get His creatures to not do things which are harmful to themselves, as opposed to trying to get them to avoid behavior which will lead to His killing them. That's a big difference!



But Satan will suffer more than any other creature when he suffers the consequences of his choices. So where is the injustice? The only thing God did was to postpone the consequences, for the reasons pointed out here:



God have very good reasons to postpone allowing Satan to reap the full result of his sin, in which case he would have perished. Here death is described as "the inevitable result of sin." I don't see the injustice here.

One final comment. You write:



If? You have some doubt about this? Here's a description of what Satan did:



Here's a description of what Adam did:



I don't see how anyone could perceive this latter paragraph as describing graver sin than the former one.

That Gal. 3:13 and 2 Cor. 5:14 are complementary. The liability to the curse is removed from those who are united by faith to Christ because Christ took on Himself the curse which the Law pronounces on the law-breaker. If one died for all, then all died. In Christ I am as if I had borne the curse and, therefore, I become free from it.

“In Christ we are as if we had suffered the penalty we have incurred. In Christ I am as if I had obeyed, and rendered perfect obedience to the law, which we can not perfectly obey without Christ imparts to us His merits and His righteousness. O, the plan of salvation is a wonderful matter, and we have enough to think of, and talk of, and to be thankful for every day of our lives.” {PUR, September 4, 1913 par. 3}


Tom, the text is clear enough. At the moment he chose to follow his own selfish, independent will, this choice was final. She is not saying at all that he chose to follow his own selfish, independent will several times, and at some point the choice became final.


The point was not if he was following his own will, but if he was making a conscious choice to follow his own will after understanding all that was involved in this.


It’s removed from my life, but not from the registries of heaven.


If I’m not mistaken C. S. Lewis considers the debt to be repentance, surrender of the will, death (to self?). I don’t know how this could be the debt. The debt is the curse the law pronounces on the law-breaker, and this curse is eternal death.


There are two kinds of sin here - one which necessarily led to a fall, the other which didn't.


This is a self-evident truth. Can any accusation against God be based on a true premise?


Of course she refers to sins we planned to commit but couldn’t commit for lack of opportunity.


Apart from the grace of God, I could be one of those criminals who are in jail. But I’m not responsible for the crimes they committed.


Again, I’m referring to his pre-fall sin, in case he had been pardoned, like Adam was. You are saying his sin was graver than Adam’s. How can this make sense? If Lucifer had been forgiven, he wouldn’t have experienced any bad consequences for a supposedly much graver sin, while Adam, although forgiven, experienced a series of very bad consequences for a supposedly lesser sin. According to this reasoning, either God is unjust or the universe He created is unjust (which also makes Him unjust).


1) the first paragraph doesn't make a distinction between what happened before and after Lucifer's fall.
2) during a long time Lucifer didn't understand he was wrong, nor what would be the result of his course. He had to be convinced that he was in the wrong. Adam had Lucifer's fall to warn him, he knew the laws of Paradise and the penalties for their transgression; he knew that what he was doing was wrong, but did it nonetheless. Therefore, his sin was equivalent to the sin of Lucifer in his final decision, not to his sin before that.

The "all died" would be every human being, then, wouldn't it? Since this is something which happened in the past, it can't apply only to believers, since they didn't exist yet. Iow, Christ would be corporately dying for the human race. This is the same idea that EGW expressed in saying, "To the death of Christ we owe even our earthly life." Not only believers owe their physical life to the death of Christ, but all men do. Paul recognized this debt, and argued that we should be grateful because of this sacrifice of Christ.



I agree! The text says that Lucifer followed his own selfish, independent will. *Not* that he *began* to do this at the time he made his final decision, which seems to be your interpretation of events. Clearly Lucifer was following his own selfish, independent will the entire time he was hating Christ, envious of Him, plotting to exalt himself, and so forth.



If what you were saying were true, then whose will was he following when he was doing the things I listed?



Up until now your argument was based on her saying that Satan chose to follow his own independent will. Now I understand you are agreeing with the point I have been making, which is that whole time Lucifer was doing the things I listed he was following his own selfish, independent will.

Now you're making an additional point, which is that the salient point is not simply that Lucifer was following his own selfish, independent will, but that he chose to do so after understanding all that was involved. A counter to this point is simply that Adam didn't understand all that was involved when he rebelled. Indeed, Adam understood far less when he ate of the apple than Lucifer did during the time he was making false claims and seeking to exalt himself above God (I'm speaking of the time before Lucifer made his final decision).



I believe the books of heaven are a faithful representation of one's life.



Here's the link: http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/mischedj/ca_lewisatone.html

It looks to me that C. S. Lewis is making the same point that Fifield makes:



For example, C. S. Lewis speaks of our getting ourselves into a hole, and not being able to dig ourselves out, and of a debt being necessary in this sense. He says:



Fifield speaks of Christ's sacrifice being the price paid in order to bring us to a repentant attitude, so that He could pardon us freely. Lewis says that there is a description of what must be done, be we are unable to do it of ourselves. Both are conceiving of the price as not an arbitrary legal requirement, but as a description of reality, which reality cannot be realized without Christ's death.



This seems like not a helpful way of looking at things. The sin that led to the fall of Adam was clearly very different in nature than the final sin that led to the fall of Lucifer. At any rate, this seems not to have to do with the point I have been making, which is that if God is unable to forgive sin without someone being killed, then He wouldn't have been able to forgive Lucifer.



Yes, an accusation against God can be based on a false premise. An argument can be constructed like this:

a.True premise
b.Invalid reasoning resulting in an accusation against God.



Regarding Christ's prayer, "Forgive them, for they know not what they do," she writes:



Now this is dealing with the actual act of crucifying Christ, not simply our sins being upon Him. We are all guilty of crucifying the Son of God. Why? Because the acts of those who actually crucified Christ are the acts of humanity. We are no better than the ones who actually crucified Christ. But for the grace of God, we would have done the same thing, had we had the opportunity.



Of course not. Why are you making this point?

Ok, so you're saying, if God had forgiven Lucifer, then he would not have suffered. Yet Adam suffered greatly, for what I'm claiming is a lesser sin. How could this be just?

The first thing that comes to mind is that had Lucifer accepted God's offer of pardon, there would have been no sin to compare it against, as Adam's sin would not have happened. So this is a hypothetical question involving a comparison of two things which could not have both happened.



I was only considering things which happened before Lucifer's fall. I had written out a description of the specific things previously. A quick recap:

a.His heart was filled with envy and hatred of Christ.
b.He sought to exalt himself above God.
c.In order to do so, he presented false claims against God.
d.He indulged a spirit of discontent
e.He masked his true intent of self-exaltation under a guise of reverence for God.

These are all things he did before his final decision to rebel. All of the above was forgivable.



No, Adam's sin was not equivalent. Not at all. For one thing, if it were equivalent, Adam could not have been forgiven.

What happened in Lucifer's case is that he sinned over and over again against greater and greater light, until he hardened his heart to such a great extent it was no longer for Lucifer to be pardoned. God did not arbitrarily withdraw an offer of pardon, but Lucifer lost the desire and capacity to repent, after refusing to do so so many times.

In the case of Adam, Adam knew he had been told not to eat of the forbidden fruit, but he had much less of a concept of this being wrong than Lucifer did in terms of what he was doing. I mean, just look at the situation! In Adam's case, Eve was going to die. Adam resolved not to allow Eve to die alone. It's not at all an easy thing to see that this is wrong, even today. That is, even today many would question if what Adam did was wrong. His action was motivated by self-sacrifice.

Now I'm not saying Adam's decision wasn't wrong, but that many question this, and that it was motivated by self-sacrifice, a good motivation. Otoh, Lucifer's actions from the get go were motivated by a selfish desire to be exalt himself. No one would argue that Lucifer's decisions were not wrong.

On the one hand we have:
a.A creature resolving to sacrifice himself because of love for another

On the other we have:
b.A creature seeking to exalt himself, hiding behind a guise of reverence, using deception to get his desires, and motivate not by self-sacrifice but by envy and hatred.

IMO a theology which leads one to see Adam's actions as worse than Lucifer's needs to be seriously questioned. That is, there must be something wrong with the assumptions one is taking to arrive at such a place. Lucifer's actions were reprehensible. Adam's were bad, but understandable.

No, it wouldn’t. It’s like in Rom. 5:18, “Therefore as by the offense of one, judgment to condemnation came upon all men, even so by the righteousness of One, the free gift unto justification of life came upon all men.” It’s true that the gift of justification came upon all men, but it is made effective by faith – so only those who have faith are justified. In the same way, it’s true that all died in Christ, but this gift is also made effective by faith – so only those who are united by faith with Christ are considered to have died in Him.
If Christ had paid the death penalty for all men and faith was not necessary to make this effective, then all would be saved.


Lucifer had not been following the will of God, of course, but his own will. However, he didn’t have a clear notion about the result of persisting in revolt, he didn't think he was wrong, and he didn't think the divine statutes were just. But when he finally understood all that, and even so he chose to follow his own will – it was a conscious choice after God had given him enough light to make an intelligent decision. Therefore, this was a defiant, presumptuous sin.

“He was made to see what would be the result of persisting in revolt. Lucifer was convinced that he was in the wrong. He saw that the divine statutes are just, and that he ought to acknowledge them as such before all heaven. ... The time had come for a final decision; he must fully yield to the divine sovereignty or place himself in open rebellion.” -- PP 39.

Adam also had enough light to make a decision, so his sin was also a defiant, presumptuous sin.

"To Adam and Eve were plainly stated the laws of Paradise, with the penalty for willful disobedience. They disobeyed, and disobedience brought its sure result." {HP 153.2}

"The words of Christ are both explicit and comprehensive. 'Whosoever... shall break one of these least commandments'--willfully or presumptuously, as did Adam and Eve--is included in the condemnation.” {ST, September 4, 1884 par. 11}

"God's law appeals to man as an intelligent being; he possesses a mind to understand its demands, a conscience to feel the power of its claims, a heart to love its requirement of perfect righteousness, a will to render prompt and implicit obedience. God does not compel men to render obedience to his law. If man purposes to defy God, and transgress his law, as did Adam, he may do so, but he must suffer the terrible consequences" {ST, May 12, 1890 par. 6}

Notice that it is said about both that they refused to obey the law:

“Evil originated with the rebellion of Lucifer. It was brought into heaven when he refused allegiance to God's law. Satan was the first lawbreaker.” {RH, June 4, 1901 par. 3}

“By rebellion and apostasy man forfeited the favor of God; ... The moment the workmanship of God refused obedience to the laws of God's kingdom, that moment he became disloyal to the government of God.” {FW 21.1}

Adam still had Satan’s fall and its results to warn him, so he made a very conscious choice.


Self-sacrifice? This was idolatry! He put his wife above his Creator. He also put Satan’s words above God’s words.


Ellen White tells us what would have happened if Lucifer had accepted God’s offer of pardon, so we can compare what would have happened to him with what happened with Adam after Adam accepted God’s offer of pardon. This is not hypothetical and it’s a legitimate comparison.


The investigative judgment happens exactly to blot out the sins repented of and forgiven. If they have already been blotted out, there is no need for an investigative judgment.


He is saying that the debt is repentance, surrender of the will, death to self, and that since Christ did all that, He can now do it in us. But the debt is not repentance, surrender of the will and death to self; the debt is the penalty of the law – eternal death.


You obviously mean a true premise. If that is the case, you should have no problem in listing the accusations based on true premises.


Again, I disagree with this. We all crucified Christ by our sins. But the acts of those who actually crucified Christ are only repeated (in fact, in a greater degree) by those who reject Him (Heb. 6:6, 10:29).

“In our day greater light and greater evidence is given. We have also their [the Jews’] example, the warnings and reproofs that were presented to them, and our sin and its retribution will be the greater, if we refuse to walk in the light. Many say, ‘If I had only lived in the days of Christ, I would not have wrested his words, or falsely interpreted his instruction. I would not have rejected and crucified him as did the Jews;’ but that will be proved by the way in which you deal with his message and his messengers today. The Lord is testing the people of today as much as he tested the Jews in their day. When he sends his messages of mercy, the light of his truth, he is sending the spirit of truth to you, and if you accept the message, you accept of Jesus. Those who declare that if they had lived in the days of Christ, they would not do as did the rejectors of his mercy, will today be tested. Those who live in this day are not accountable for the deeds of those who crucified the Son of God; but if with all the light that shone upon his ancient people, delineated before us, we travel over the same ground, cherish the same spirit, refuse to receive reproof and warning, then our guilt will be greatly augmented, and the condemnation that fell upon them will fall upon us, only it will be as much greater as our light is greater in this age than was their light in their age." {RH, April 11, 1893 par. 7}

"All died" is in the past. It can't be dependent upon something which hadn't happened yet, if you have in mind something which Christ did. What Christ did, he did for everyone, not just for some who would accept it. So "all died" would be "all," not some. The "all died" is saying, "if one died for all, then all died" meaning that Christ died as the representative of all. It's like saying the president of Brazil speaks for all Brazil.

Regarding Romans 5:18, here's a comment by Waggoner:



I think the idea here is that which EGW expressed, "To the death of Christ we owe even this earthly life." We owe everything to the death of Christ (since without our earthly life, what would we have?). Even the ability to reject the gift of eternal life is of itself a gift of infinite value purchased for us by the blood of Christ.



Only if salvation has to do with death penalties. If salvation has to do with being reconciled to God, then clearly that's not something Christ could accomplish Himself alone by paying a price.

Regarding Lucifer and Adam, Lucifer did the following things before his final decision not to repent:
a.Allowed his heart to be filled with envy and hatred of Christ.
b.Indulged in a spirit of discontent.
c.Sought to exalt himself above God.
d.Presented false claims, under the guise of reverence, with the intent of deceiving others, in order to exalt himself.

Adam, otoh, resolved not to leave Eve to die alone.

Which of these is worse? I think one has to look at things in a very odd way to conclude that what Adam did was worse than what Lucifer did.





Yes:



Adam was willing to sacrifice his life so he could die alongside Eve.



This is true also.



This was the real problem. He believed Satan's lies regarding God.



Of course's it's hypothetical. You're considering what would have happened had Lucifer hypothetically done something different. That's what "hypothetical" means.

Since Lucifer knew what he was doing, and knew God, His love, and His character, had Lucifer repented, that would have solved everything. He would have been restored to harmony with God, and that would have been that.

However, Adam was deceived. He didn't know God's love or character fully, so it was possible to move man to return to God. So God, in love, acted in such a way that man could have an opportunity to learn the truth about God and His love, and return to Him.

The negative effects which Adam and his offspring experience are the result of Satan's efforts. Had Lucifer repented, he would have not had Satan to do the awful things which he did and does to man. That man suffered more than Lucifer would have is due to Satan's activity, not to some unfair action on God's part.



The investigative judgment is an examination of the evidence; it's investigative, meaning it investigates. The evidence reflects the reality of the character of the people being considered. The sin is blotted out from people's character, and that fact is reflected in the books of heaven. Blotting out the record of sins in the books of heaven, of itself, without a corresponding reality in the lives of those being investigated, would be without value.



(More later)

Fifield says that Christ's death was the price God paid to bring us to a repentant attitude. This seems to me to be the same point C. S. Lewis is making; he talks about how we are unable to repent apart from what Christ did. It seems like the same concept to me.



Why would you think an accusation against God couldn't be based on a true premise?

Here are a couple of examples. A person loses a loved one. Satan argues: "If God were a just and loving God, He wouldn't have let your loved one die." He makes this argument all the time. The premise is true: God is a just and loving God.

Here's another example of this principle:



Satan is in the one who causes the destruction, and then he presents what he has done as a decree of God. The premise is that destruction has occurred because of some sin (in this case, the Jews and their rejection of Christ). The conclusion is that God was responsible, another example of a false accusation against God based on a true premise.





Clearly this is dealing with the acts that were being performed against Christ, not our sins.



Who hasn't rejected Christ? That's why His prayer embraces the whole world. Any one of us, but for the grace of God, would have done what those who had the actual opportunity to crucify Christ did. You say that the act of those who reject Christ (which includes all of us) are "repeated." If they are "repeated," "in a greater degree," then surely they would have been committed by those who repeated them had they had opportunity.

The acts performed against Christ were simply the acts of humanity. Any unregenerated human would act in a similar manner to how the Jews acted. Their actions are our actions because they are the actions of humanity. Their actions demonstrate the heart of humanity; human being hate God! We can learn much by seeing what they did.

Not only do we learn by what they did, but in the reaction of Christ, we see His reaction to our evil deeds. As His prayer was, "Father, forgive them ...." to those who treated Him so spitefully then, so is His prayer "Father, forgive them" for us, when we so spitefully treat Him today.