Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath?
Posted By: Tom
Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 02/27/06 11:03 PM
The following post by MM comes from another thread. I thought it would be interesting to discuss it, as MM has done a good job articulating a view of the significance of the cross which is quite different than my own. I'm interested in the views of others, particularly in regards to the actions God took on the cross.
I will present MM's post first without comment, and then with my comments:
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Tom, the physical abuse Jesus received at the hands of the Romans was actually inconsequential compared to the soul anguish He suffered on Gethsemane and on the cross. I believe His soul anguish was caused by something our heavenly Father did.
I believe much of what the Father did was a mystery. We cannot totally understand it or completely explain it. We know He prevented Jesus from sensing His divine presence, and that this caused both of them great pain and sorrow. But there was more, much more, going on, things our dull minds will never be able to comprehend. We short change the cross, Christ, and ourselves if we think that’s all there was to Jesus’ soul anguish.
We know Jesus felt the woe and wrath of God, that He realized God’s hatred toward sin. Jesus had become sin for us and He felt the full brunt of God’s anger against sin – as if He were sin itself. We cannot know how much God hates sin, but we know He treated Jesus as if He were sin itself.
I cannot imagine God cutting sin any slack. I cannot imagine Him withholding one ounce of hatred and anger. I see, with limited perception, God unleashing all His pent up wrath and anger. To minimize how God treated Jesus on the cross is to undermine how much He hates sin.
And Jesus endured the combined wrath of God against sin as if He were sin itself. If we view things in this manner, rather than remembering how much the Father and Son love each other, I believe we can better understand just how much wrath Jesus really felt at the hands of an angry God.
It is easier for me to envision God taking out His hatred and vengeance upon sin than it is for me to imagine Him taking it out on Jesus. As such, I cannot begin to fathom the soul anguish Jesus suffered. Nor can I imagine God withholding His anger, or limiting His vengeance for any reason.
Such a display of wrath against sin is necessary for the salvation of man and the eternal security of the universe. Had God held back even one ounce of His wrath He and Jesus would have come short of saving us, and the entire universe would have been in peril. God could not risk losing everything by showing sin (i.e., Jesus) any sympathy on the cross.
Posted By: Tom
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 02/27/06 11:09 PM
Tom, the physical abuse Jesus received at the hands of the Romans was actually inconsequential compared to the soul anguish He suffered on Gethsemane and on the cross.
I agree.I believe His soul anguish was caused by something our heavenly Father did.
I agree with this too, but I see what God did very differently than you.I believe much of what the Father did was a mystery. We cannot totally understand it or completely explain it. We know He prevented Jesus from sensing His divine presence, and that this caused both of them great pain and sorrow.
God didn't prevent Jesus from seeing His presence. It was sin which did this.But there was more, much more, going on, things our dull minds will never be able to comprehend. We short change the cross, Christ, and ourselves if we think that’s all there was to Jesus’ soul anguish.
Why? How would we be shortchanging the cross? Remember because of sin, Christ could not see through the portals of the tomb. He could not discern His Father's love. This mental anguish, caused by sin, broke His heart. If we all of this in the His sufferings on the cross, how are we short-changing the cross if we do not see more to His sufferings than this?We know Jesus felt the woe and wrath of God, that He realized God’s hatred toward sin.
God hates sin because He loves the sinner, and sin cause pain, suffering, miseary and death. Christ Himself, being God, hated sin as much as God, so realizing God's hatred toward sin was nothing new to Him. What was new was the impact of sin on Christ's mind. Sin caused Christ to view God in a way He is not, the same as we see sin impacting others. For example, Christ felt like God was far away and abandoning Him when in reality, God was never closer to Christ than when He was suffering on the cross.Jesus had become sin for us and He felt the full brunt of God’s anger against sin – as if He were sin itself.
Why?We cannot know how much God hates sin, but we know He treated Jesus as if He were sin itself.
How do we know this? Sin is transgression of the law. Jesus was a personal being. What sense does it make to say that Christ was treated like a transgression?I cannot imagine God cutting sin any slack.
What would happen if God cut sin slack? Would it take over? Is sin more powerful than love and truth?I cannot imagine Him withholding one ounce of hatred and anger. I see, with limited perception, God unleashing all His pent up wrath and anger. To minimize how God treated Jesus on the cross is to undermine how much He hates sin.
God hates sin, and because of this pent up anger He must punish His Son, is that the idea? What about Jesus? Is He not God? Who did He take out His pent up wrath and anger against? Did He cut sin slack? What about the Holy Spirit? Who did He take out His pent up wrath and anger against?And Jesus endured the combined wrath of God against sin as if He were sin itself. If we view things in this manner, rather than remembering how much the Father and Son love each other, I believe we can better understand just how much wrath Jesus really felt at the hands of an angry God.
This seems to me to be the opposite of the following consel: quote:
We need to have higher and more distinct views of the character of Christ.... We are not to think of God only as a judge and to forget Him as a loving Father. Nothing can do our souls greater harm than this, for our whole spiritual life is molded from our conceptions of God's character. We have lessons to learn of Jesus' love.
It is easier for me to envision God taking out His hatred and vengeance upon sin than it is for me to imagine Him taking it out on Jesus. As such, I cannot begin to fathom the soul anguish Jesus suffered. Nor can I imagine God withholding His anger, or limiting His vengeance for any reason.
I think a big difference in how we see things has to do with what we perceive God's wrath to be. I understand that God's wrath is His giving His Son up. For example:
quote:
He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification. (Romans 4:25)
quote:
He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?(Romans 8:32)
Note how in Romans God's wrath is equated with His giving up:
quote:
18The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
21For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.
24Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
26Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. 27In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.
28Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. 29They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. (Romans 1:18-28)
You appear to perceive God's wrath against Christ to be something other than His giving Christ up, a releasing or pent-up anger as you call it. This seems to me to be a characture of God's character, as opposed to the revelation of it we see in Christ. One big problem with this idea is that it would have God the Father and God the Son doing exactly opposite things as it relates to the sin problem. One Being acts as the Victim whereas the Other takes the role of the Torturer. The truth is that both were victims, for God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself. The cross is but a slight revelation to our dim senses of the pain which sin has always caused God, and this pain comes from the revelation of what sin does, something which God has known since the beginning, but which was not fully known by His creatures until the cross.
Such a display of wrath against sin is necessary for the salvation of man and the eternal security of the universe.
Inspiration doesn't say that. It says this:
quote:
It was God's purpose to place things on an eternal basis of security, and in the councils of heaven it was decided that time must be given for Satan to develop the principles which were the foundation of his system of government. He had claimed that these were superior to God's principles. Time was given for the working of Satan's principles, that they might be seen by the heavenly universe. (DA 759)
Similarly this:
quote:
Satan's position in heaven had been next to the Son of God. He was first among the angels. His power had been debasing, but God could not reveal it in its true light and carry all heaven in harmony with Him in removing him with his evil influences. His power was increasing, but the evil was yet unrecognized. It was a deadly power to the universe, but for the security of the worlds and the government of heaven, it was necessary that it should develop and be revealed in its true light.(1SM 341)
Again this:
quote:
In the councils of heaven it was decided that principles must be acted upon that would not at once destroy Satan's power; for it was God's purpose to place things upon an eternal basis of security. Time must be given for Satan to develop the principles which were the foundation of his government. The heavenly universe must see worked out the principles which Satan declared were superior to God's principles. God's order must be contrasted with Satan's order. The corrupting principles of Satan's rule must be revealed. The principles of righteousness expressed in God's law must be demonstrated as unchangeable, perfect, eternal.
Nowhere does she say that a display of wrath against sin in the manner you are suggesting was necessary for the salvation of man or the eternal salvation of man. What she does say is that it was necessary that the corrupting principles of Satan's rule must be revealed, as well as the principles of rightouesness expressed in God's law, which is the principle of love. The cross did exactly this. It demonstrates the truth about God, the principles of His government and of Satan, and his principles. It is in so doing that the cross accomplishes our salvation and forever secures the universe.
Had God held back even one ounce of His wrath He and Jesus would have come short of saving us, and the entire universe would have been in peril. God could not risk losing everything by showing sin (i.e., Jesus) any sympathy on the cross.
It makes no sense to speak of showing sin sympathy. Sin is not a personal being to whom sympathy can be given. God shows us sympathy, who are personal beings, and who need it. He shows us sympathy be revealing His character to us, which demonstrates that God is a God who gives without end. The salvation of the cross comes by way of infinite giving.
Posted By: Mountain Man
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 02/28/06 09:25 PM
Tom, thank you for explaining exactly how you perceive the wrath of God. One of these days we'll find out if you're right, that is, when we watch it first hand at the end of time.
Posted By: Colin
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/01/06 06:21 AM
To the best of my understanding you're both right, but you're talking past each other.
Why did Jesus die? Suffering our death is the focus of God's wrath in Jesus' sacrifice. How did Jesus feel our sin? - he felt our guilt, cummulated and undiluted. That was spiritual, psychological, mental & fatal torture that was legally required to suffer our punishment. For the sake of every sinner Jesus vicariously suffered our total guilt.
No sympathy for sin? Jesus himself asked the 'terrible twins' can you drink the cup I shall drink? and Jesus drained that cup. Suffering the fulness of guilt, he graciously and legally relieved all sinners of having to do so. Giving up his Son was the Father's suffering in that sacrifice, no doubt, and his heart broke too (but only the Son was able to die of a broken heart PTL); but God's wrath isn't his suffering: that's expecting oil and water to mix!
Our guilt and God's wrath rather complement each other. Sinning separates us from God's Spirit's presence, in our experience of guilt: that calls for God's mercy (PTL!). God's wrath is simply conscious, actual, permanent separation from God - a nightmare of the sinner's own making and the horror personally realised at the last day. Since God is love, voluntarily separating oneself from that love only because of pride of selfishness is lunacy in its psychiatric purity of mental horror, and God's wrath is only felt by the sinner on realising the wages of sin.
Eternal death is only retrieved by the unrepentant in spite of grace, and the Saviour who relieved them of such a fate in the first place. Eternal death isn't suffering, since it is annihilation, and so cannot be part of experiencing God's wrath; but total guilt - the unrepentant suddenly consciously realising their permanent separation from the source of eternal love & life: that is suffering.
The fire to finally cleanse the earth of sin can't be punishment, since it isn't permanent, but suffering one's full load of guilt is punishment, as such awareness consciously affects the psyche. That punishment is suffering God's wrath, which Jesus suffered during his quote of Ps 22:1, and he endured the suffering by faith.
Jesus' motivation of agape to die for us didn't save us: Jesus' death saved us, since he died our death, executing our sinful humanity in his body. Agape's truth can't redeem: only its actions are redemptive.
As for Father and Son misrepresenting their characters by One being the Other's Torturer, such a view of the cross highlights the Adventist trinity debate today. Why else Tom's rhetorical question about the Holy Spirit's participation in the handling of sin at the cross? That's another thread, though, in the private forum.
Posted By: Tom
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/01/06 06:35 AM
Colin, nice response. You touched on many issues; too many to treat well at any depth (at least at once; perhaps with time we'll get to the excellent issues you have raised).
First I'll start with this. MM wrote:
quote:
I cannot imagine Him withholding one ounce of hatred and anger. I see, with limited perception, God unleashing all His pent up wrath and anger. To minimize how God treated Jesus on the cross is to undermine how much He hates sin.
You wrote:
quote:
God's wrath is simply conscious, actual, permanent separation from God - a nightmare of the sinner's own making and the horror personally realised at the last day.
You also wrote that we are both right. However, I don't see how you can reconcile MM's view with mine. I think it would be difficult for me to think of a statement I disagree with more than the above one. I also don't see how that statement agrees with your own, which defines God's wrath as permanent separation from God -- a nightmare of the sinner's own making. Your statement looks to agree with Ellen White's statement:
quote:
The rejecters of His mercy reap that which they have sown. God is the fountain of life; and when one chooses the service of sin, he separates from God, and thus cuts himself off from life. He is "alienated from the life of God." Christ says, "All they that hate Me love death." Eph. 4:18; Prov. 8:36. God gives them existence for a time that they may develop their character and reveal their principles. This accomplished, they receive the results of their own choice. By a life of rebellion, Satan and all who unite with him place themselves so out of harmony with God that His very presence is to them a consuming fire. (DA 764)
As I said, I can see how what you wrote about God's wrath agrees with this, but I cannot see how what MM wrote agrees with this, or with what you wrote, or with what I wrote.
Posted By: Tom
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/01/06 06:49 AM
Colin, just a little background before getting into another point you raised. I started studying the 1888 message in 1990. While studying at Andrews, at the seminary, I wrote a 100+ paper entitled "The Gospel and Corporate Solidarity" or something similar, which was about corporate justification (also called "legal justification" as Wieland uses the term). I've read many of Wieland's books, as well as having had many private conversations with him. I'm well familiar with what Sequeira has written, and have read much of Prescott, Jones and Waggoner, as well as many others in doing my research on the corporate theme, as well as for my own edification.
The reason I'm mentioning this is to let you know I am well familiar with the ideas you are presenting. It is not the case that I do not understand what you are saying, or am not familiar with the concepts you are sharing. I am well familiar with FW 18, 19; 1SM 353; DA660; Romans 5:18; 2 Cor. 5:14, 15, 19 and other texts and statements from the Spirit of Prophecy. I just perceive the meaning of these statements in a somewhat different way than you.
I look forward to sharing thoughts on the subject of the meaning of Christ's death.
Posted By: Mountain Man
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/02/06 07:38 AM
I vehemently disagree with any idea that suggests the wrath of God is experienced when an unsaved sinners separates himself from the love and mercy of God. It was the Father who initiated the separation that contributed to soul anguish Jesus suffered - not the other way around.
The Bible and the SOP make it very clear that there is more to the punishment and destruction of unsaved sinners in the lake of fire than merely realizing they lost out on heaven. That insight is purely selfish and hedonistic. Sin cannot punish and destroy unsaved sinners - only God can do that.
I'm away from my home computer right now so I don't have convenient access to the SOP, which means I won't be posting the quote, but in last chapter of the GC she describes how the unsaved sinners turn upon Satan and the leaders with maddness and anger once they realize they have lost everything.
That's not how Jesus felt when He suffered separation. What Jesus felt and what the unsaved sinners will feel is similar, but how they will react and respond to it is different than Jesus how did. How do you account for this difference? And, how do you account for the fact Jesus died on a cross and the unsaved sinners will not?
Posted By: Tom
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/01/06 08:12 PM
The quote above states the sinner "separates from God, and thus cuts himself off from life." That's clear, isn't it? She also says the decision not to go to heaven is voluntary on the part of the wicked, and that God accepts their decision. God would have them be saved, but they choose not to.
The anguish of the wicked is not due simply or primarily to missing out on heaven, because they themselves choose not to go. The anguish is due to the interplay of sin and God's holy character:
quote:
By a life of rebellion, Satan and all who unite with him place themselves so out of harmony with God that His very presence is to them a consuming fire.
Regarding Christ's death, the Spirit of Prophecy states Christ felt the anguish the wicked will feel, and that it was this mental anguish, caused by sin, which caused His death. This same anguish will kill the wicked, just as it did Christ. Why wouldn't it? It killed Him.
The reason for the difference between Christ and the wicked is that Christ had faith. He chose to believe what He knew in His heart to be true about God, rather than the lies sin was impressing upon Him. The wicked do not have this conviction; they do not God, hence they have nothing to fall back on. They will be deceived by the impact of sin upon them, and will not choose to have anything to do with God.
God's reaction will be, "How can I give you up?" but He will respect their wishes, even though it breaks His heart.
Christ died on a cross, rather than in Gethsemanee , for example, in order that His death might be publicly seen. The purpose of Christ's ministry was to reveal the character of God, and nothing reveals this better than His death. Had He died in Gethsemanee, His death would not have been seen.
I would think you would have to agree with this. Even from your perspective where you see Christ's death as a legal transaction whereby He purchased the right to forgive us, that debt could have been just as easily paid in Gethsemanee as on the cross.
But remember that the whole purpose of Christ's ministry was to reveal God to us that we might be set right with God.
quote:
Christ exalted the character of God, attributing to him the praise, and giving to him the credit, of the whole purpose of his own mission on earth,--to set men right through the revelation of God.(ST 1/20/90)
The cross was the best way to accomplish this.
Posted By: Mountain Man
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/01/06 10:10 PM
The cross was the best way because the Jews failed to obey the law and the prophets. Otherwise the sacrifice of Christ would have played out differently. Like Isaac and Abraham, Jesus would have been slain by His Father.
Also, the story of David and Absalom teaches us that weeping over the final demise of the enemies of God is counterproductive. In the last chapter of the GC I do not read about holy angels weeping over the death of the wicked.
Posted By: Tom
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/01/06 10:21 PM
Have you read Hosea 11? Do you think God thinks of those who reject Him as enemies or children? If your child rejects you, do you cease to think of him/her as a child? Will you rejoice if your child is among the wicked and gets destroyed? Assuming you would weep for your lost child, do you think God would weep less than you?
Consider how Jesus wept for Jerusalem.
Posted By: Tammy Roesch
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/02/06 02:24 PM
Tom, I'm just curious, have you ever heard of Fred Wright (from Australia) and Mike Clute? Some things you have said reminds me of things they say...on the character of Christ. Have you read their material? Have a good day! Tammy
Posted By: Tom
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/02/06 05:21 PM
Yes, I'm somewhat familiar with both. Mike Clute passed by a church I was intending many years ago. He didn't make that favorable an impression on me, although some of his ideas struck me as interesting at the time, although I can't remember what they were.
F.T. Wright reminds me a lot of what Ty Gibson writes. I see the same principles in both of their writings. Wright applies things a bit differently to some situations.
Posted By: Mountain Man
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/02/06 06:34 PM
Tom, please show me where the holy angels do not praise God with rejoicing for unleashing the seven last plagues on the unsaved sinners. If this seems unlovely to us then obviously something is wrong with our perception.
Revelation 16
5 And I heard the angel of the waters say, Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art, and wast, and shalt be, because thou hast judged thus. 6 For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink; for they are worthy. 7 And I heard another out of the altar say, Even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are thy judgments.
Revelation 18
5 For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities. 6 Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double. 7 How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow. 8 Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her.
Posted By: Tom
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/03/06 07:23 AM
MM, please answer the 5 questions I asked you (well, I assume you've read Hosea 11, so you can skip that one if you want, but please answer the other 4).
The rejoicing being spoken of is after every tear is wiped away. It's because sin will be no more. It's not because our loved ones have been lost. Perish the thought! Noone will be sadder than God, as He loves with as much greater capacity and intensity as the heavens are above the earth.
Posted By: Mountain Man
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/03/06 05:25 PM
1. Have you read Hosea 11?
Yes. God obviously loves His chosen children.
2. Do you think God thinks of those who reject Him as enemies or children?
In the cases of non-Jews in the OT He considered them His enemies. Please read the OT.
3. If your child rejects you, do you cease to think of him/her as a child?
No. In the cases of some elses children it's a different matter.
4. Will you rejoice if your child is among the wicked and gets destroyed?
I cannot imagine it now but I believe my response will harmonize with that of the holy angels. If I were Hitler's father I suspect I would rejoice with the holy angels.
5. Assuming you would weep for your lost child, do you think God would weep less than you?
Is it possible to weep and rejoice at the same time? I think so.
6. Consider how Jesus wept for Jerusalem.
And yet Jesus do not restrain the Romans from executing His will, right?
PS - The passages I posted above refer to the rejoicing that occurs during the seven last plagues. The last part of Revelation 14 describes the 144,000 praying for the death and destruction of unsaved sinners in the seven last plagues. Can you imagine yourself praying this prayer if your child was one of the unsaved sinners?
Revelation 14
17 And another angel came out of the temple which is in heaven, he also having a sharp sickle. 18 And another angel came out from the altar, which had power over fire; and cried with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle, saying, Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully ripe. 19 And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. 20 And the winepress was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs.
Posted By: Tom
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/03/06 06:35 PM
1. Have you read Hosea 11?
Yes. God obviously loves His chosen children.
God loves everyone. God so loved the world that He gave His Son.
The point I was addressing in referring to Hos. 11 was "How can I give you up?" That's how God will feel. It's utterly astounding to me that you (or anyone) could have a view of God's character that does not incorporate this aspect of Hos. 11 into it.
This is how God the Father felt when Christ was dying on the cross. This is how He will feel when His children are lost forever.2. Do you think God thinks of those who reject Him as enemies or children?
In the cases of non-Jews in the OT He considered them His enemies. Please read the OT.
The OT is full of examples of God seeking out His children, of whatever race. Your view of exclusivity seems to me mirroring that of the Pharisees, but this was not God's view. Witness how Christ in His ministry visited the despised Samaritans and other Gentiles. Jesus demonstrated the heart of God clearly.
The same things that Jesus taught can be seen in the OT (after all, that's where Christ got His teachings from), but why not look to Christ first? Once you see the truth as it is in Jesus, then you can view the OT through "Jesus glasses" and have some chance of understanding it correctly.
Jesus did not demonstrate any of the exclusivity you are suggesting. He considered of all humanity God's children; not the Jews only, and the others enemies. That was the Jews' idea, not Christ.3. If your child rejects you, do you cease to think of him/her as a child?
No. In the cases of some elses children it's a different matter.
All of God's children are His children, which includes everyone, even those who reject Him.4. Will you rejoice if your child is among the wicked and gets destroyed?
I cannot imagine it now but I believe my response will harmonize with that of the holy angels. If I were Hitler's father I suspect I would rejoice with the holy angels.
5. Assuming you would weep for your lost child, do you think God would weep less than you?
Is it possible to weep and rejoice at the same time? I think so.
Good observation. The righteous will weep for God's children who are lost, and especially for their loved ones and friends. They will rejoice that sin is coming to an end.6. Consider how Jesus wept for Jerusalem.
And yet Jesus do not restrain the Romans from executing His will, right?
It wasn't God's will that was executed, but Satan's: quote:
The Jews had forged their own fetters; they had filled for themselves the cup of vengeance. In the utter destruction that befell them as a nation, and in all the woes that followed them in their dispersion, they were but reaping the harvest which their own hands had sown. Says the prophet: "O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself;" "for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity." Hosea 13:9; 14:1. Their sufferings are often represented as a punishment visited upon them by the direct decree of God. It is thus that the great deceiver seeks to conceal his own work.
I wish the deceiver were less successful.
Posted By: Joy
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/04/06 04:06 AM
Folks,
How do you see this text and EGW passage fitting into your beliefs and this discussion?
Isa 53:4 - Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted. (NASB)
The SDA commentary writes about that:
quote:
Smitten of God. The enemy made it appear that the sufferings of Jesus were punishment inflicted upon Him by a vengeful God because He was a sinner (see DA 471). If that were true, He could not be the world's Redeemer.
DA 471 reads:
quote:
It was generally believed by the Jews that sin is punished in this life. Every afflication was regarded as the penalty of some wrongdoing, either of the sufferer himself or of his parents. It is true that all suffering results from the transgression of God's law, but this truth had become perverted. Satan, the author of sin and all its results, had led men to look upon disease and death as proceeding from God, -- as punishment arbitrarily inflicted on account of sin. Hence one upon whom some great affliction or calamity had fallen had the additional burden of being regarded as a great sinner.
Thus the way was prepared for the Jews to reject Jesus."
Posted By: Mountain Man
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/04/06 06:24 AM
Tom, are you suggesting that Satan urged on the Romans against the direct decree of Jesus not to?
Joy, what do you think?
Posted By: Tom
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/04/06 07:03 AM
Welcome to the thread Joy! You've hit upon a key verse, one which points out the wrong way of looking at things (God did this to Him; the way we saw things) and the right way (we did this to God).
Here's something George Fifield said about this:
quote:
This is the at-one-ment; this is why He bore our griefs and carried our sorrows, that He might do that for us by breaking down all those things which separate hearts from hearts, both human and divine. Notwishstanding this, we did esteem Him striken smitten of God, and afflicted. That was what we thought about it. We said, God is doing all this; God is killing Him, punishing Him, to satisfy His wrath, in order to let us off. That is the pagan conception of sacrifice. The Christian idea of sacrifice is this. Let us not the contrast. "God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." That is the Christian idea. Yes, sir. Indifference keeps, hatred keeps, selfishness keeps, or gives, if at all, but grudgingly, counting the cost, and figuring on some larger return at some future time. But love, and love only, sacrifices, gives freely, gives itself, gives without counting the cost; gives because it is love. That is sacrifice, whether it is the sacrifice of bulls and goats, or of Him who is the Lamb of God. It is the sacrifice that is revealed throughout the entire Bible. But the pagan idea of sacrifice is just the opposite. It is that god is always offended, always angry, and His wrath must be propitiated in some way....
I pray that God will let the sunlight of His truth shine into my heart, and into all of our hearts. Surely He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows that He might bring us to Him; but we esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. That is what we thought; that is what we esteemed; not what was, but what we thought was. Now, every text in the Bible that speaks of reconciliation, makes God the one who makes the reconciliation,-- God in Christ. Every text in the Bible that speaks of the atonement, when we get it right, makes God the one who makes the atonement in Christ; not Christ simply, but God in Christ; just as God in Christ creates, redeems, reconciles, He makes the atonement. And every time the atonement, reconciliation, or propitiation are mentioned, it leads us right back to the character of God.(1897 GCB)
Posted By: Tom
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/04/06 07:08 AM
I'm suggesting what I wrote:It wasn't God's will that was executed, but Satan's:
quote:
The Jews had forged their own fetters; they had filled for themselves the cup of vengeance. In the utter destruction that befell them as a nation, and in all the woes that followed them in their dispersion, they were but reaping the harvest which their own hands had sown. Says the prophet: "O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself;" "for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity." Hosea 13:9; 14:1. Their sufferings are often represented as a punishment visited upon them by the direct decree of God. It is thus that the great deceiver seeks to conceal his own work.
I wish the deceiver were less successful.
The principles are right here, MM. Just read the paragraph point by point and you've got it. Bear in mind that it is Satan who presents their destruction as a direct decree of God.
Posted By: Mountain Man
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/04/06 04:53 PM
Tom, this insight tells me that the Jews destroyed themselves. If I were to take it literally I would be forced to rewrite history. The fact is, though, the Romans destroyed the Jews.
The question I must ask myself is did the Romans destroy the Jews against the will of God? Did Jesus sit back and allow the Devil to use the Romans to destroy the Jews against the will of God? In other words, did Satan get away with something that our heavenly Father didn't want to happen?
The answers to these questions are obvious to me. Jesus gave the Devil permission to use the Romans to destroy the Jews because the Jews refused to cooperate with God to fulfill their destiny as His chosen people and nation. Sad but true.
The Devil is NOT free to wreak havoc in this world without the express permission of God Almighty. God is on control. Always has been - alway will be.
GC 614
A single angel destroyed all the first-born of the Egyptians and filled the land with mourning. When David offended against God by numbering the people, one angel caused that terrible destruction by which his sin was punished. The same destructive power exercised by holy angels when God commands, will be exercised by evil angels when He permits. There are forces now ready, and only waiting the divine permission, to spread desolation everywhere. {GC 614.2}
Posted By: Tom
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/05/06 05:25 AM
Why should one insist on looking at things in such a way as to put God in as negative light as possible? God is not looking to destroy anybody. He was not using Satan to carry out His will.
God's will is that none should perish, but that all should be saved. God's will is only the well being and happiness of all His children. Always and without exception.
But happiness can only be found by following the principles of God's government. Not because God has arbitrarily decreed such, but because His principles are the principles of life.
When one refuses God, one refuses His protection. When one turns oneself over to the control, only bad things can happen, because, unlike God, the evil one is evil, and he does seek to destroy.
Here's the quote: quote:
The Jews had forged their own fetters; they had filled for themselves the cup of vengeance. In the utter destruction that befell them as a nation, and in all the woes that followed them in their dispersion, they were but reaping the harvest which their own hands had sown. Says the prophet: "O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself;" "for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity." Hosea 13:9; 14:1. Their sufferings are often represented as a punishment visited upon them by the direct decree of God. It is thus that the great deceiver seeks to conceal his own work. By stubborn rejection of divine love and mercy, the Jews had caused the protection of God to be withdrawn from them, and Satan was permitted to rule them according to his will. The horrible cruelties enacted in the destruction of Jerusalem are a demonstration of Satan's vindictive power over those who yield to his control.
We cannot know how much we owe to Christ for the peace and protection which we enjoy. It is the restraining power of God that prevents mankind from passing fully under the control of Satan. The disobedient and unthankful have great reason for gratitude for God's mercy and long-suffering in holding in check the cruel, malignant power of the evil one. But when men pass the limits of divine forbearance, that restraint is removed. God does not stand toward the sinner as an executioner of the sentence against transgression; but He leaves the rejectors of His mercy to themselves, to reap that which they have sown. Every ray of light rejected, every warning despised or unheeded, every passion indulged, every transgression of the law of God, is a seed sown which yields its unfailing harvest. The Spirit of God, persistently resisted, is at last withdrawn from the sinner, and then there is left no power to control the evil passions of the soul, and no protection from the malice and enmity of Satan.
Let's take a look at the principles here:
1)The Jews destroyed themselves.
2)The reaped what they sowed.
3)Their sufferings are often represented as the direct decree of God.
4)It is thus that the great deceiver conceals his work.
5)The horrible cruelties of Jerusalem show what happens to those who give themselves over to Satan's vindictive power.
6)God's restraining power protects all mankind.
7)God's mercy and power holds in check the cruel, malignant power of the evil one.
8)God does not execute sentence on the transgressor, but leaves him to reap what he has sown.
9)The Spirit of God, persistently resisted, is at last withdrawn from the sinner.
MM, this should be sufficient to see the truth.
With this foundation set, let's look at your observations and questions.
Tom, this insight tells me that the Jews destroyed themselves. If I were to take it literally I would be forced to rewrite history.
There's no need to guess how to take this quote. The meaning is clearly explained. They destroyed themselves, reaping what they had sown, by persistently resisting the Spirit of God, until at last He withdrew, leaving them under the control of Satan.
The fact is, though, the Romans destroyed the Jews.
The question I must ask myself is did the Romans destroy the Jews against the will of God?
If you're speaking of the permissive will of God, clearly God permitted these terrible things to happen. If you're speaking of God's active will, the answer is yes, the Romans destroyed the Jews against the will of God. They followed Satan's will.
What one should understand is that Satan's will is contrary to God's will. Satan is not God's puppet.
Did Jesus sit back and allow the Devil to use the Romans to destroy the Jews against the will of God? In other words, did Satan get away with something that our heavenly Father didn't want to happen?
Just read the quote, MM. It explains that happened. The Spirit of God, persistently resisted, was finally withdrawn, leaving the Jews to suffer under the vindictive power of Satan.
Posted By: Joy
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/06/06 04:08 AM
Tom: Great quotes! It makes perfect sense to me. But then I don't think of salvation occuring in a legalistic framework. It seems that when we can learn to stand back and take a look at the whole of the message of the Bible there is, sadly, an ever re-occuring theme that God's human creation consistently misreads and misjudges God and makes Him out to have the characteristics of Satan himself - vengeful, exacting and severe. That's what I believe will have to be overcome before Christ can return. The message that will be the last message on this planet will be about God and His great mercy.
MM: I was hoping to hear your interpretation of the text and how it fit in to your beliefs.
Have a Joyful and blessed week and may we all have a clearer picture of God.
Joy
Posted By: Tom
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/06/06 04:58 AM
Joy, I agree completely, and couldn't say it better!
Posted By: John Boskovic
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/06/06 06:22 AM
Mat 23:37 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!
Mat 23:38 Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.
Mat 12:43 When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none.
Mat 12:44 Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished.
Mat 12:45 Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation.
Once the house was left desolate, empty; who came in to inhabit it?
2Co 6:15 And what concord hath Christ with Belial?
Posted By: Mountain Man
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/07/06 07:21 AM
Of course it is God's desire that everyone be saved in heaven. But it was Jesus Himself who said that the majority will be lost. Jesus gives evil angels permission to destroy unsaved sinners. There are times, too, when He commands holy angels to destroy them. Either way the will of God is being served.
Posted By: Colin
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/06/06 10:02 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Joy:
Tom: Great quotes! It makes perfect sense to me. But then I don't think of salvation occuring in a legalistic framework.
You're going to have to agree to the legal framework, since legal requirements are involved (it's not legalistic, since Jesus did it!!) in salvation from sinful nature and sin, not just understanding God's truth. quote:
It seems that when we can learn to stand back and take a look at the whole of the message of the Bible there is, sadly, an ever re-occuring theme that God's human creation consistently misreads and misjudges God and makes Him out to have the characteristics of Satan himself - vengeful, exacting and severe. That's what I believe will have to be overcome before Christ can return. The message that will be the last message on this planet will be about God and His great mercy.
Have a Joyful and blessed week and may we all have a clearer picture of God.
Joy
Believing God's truth about him and us isn't what saves, while it is what helps build our righteous characters, fitting us for heaven, so that indeed unless and until those characters are fully developed Jesus wouldn't and couldn't return.
Our qualification for heaven is the new mind created as we receive the mind of Christ in justification by faith: that's only possible because we die to sin by acknowledging Christ' death as involving us by him putting us to death in our humanity in his body on the tree. Change of mind is by Christ's death, not solely by understanding God correctly: we can appreciate God only with a new mind, so dying is legally necessary for salvation.
We are not redeemed just from our naturally false impression of God, such as you have described: we are redeemed from our sinful natures, and that requires Jesus' death as us, since he bore our sinful nature to his death. The wages of sin is death, and redeeming us from that eternal fate has legal requirements, so that it was necessary for the Saviour to suffer both death and God's wrath against sin to be the Saviour.
Both having to die to self ourselves and our need to understand God's love are necessary, so you can't exclude the legal necessity of Jesus' death. Else we haven't a full picture of God!
Posted By: Tom
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/07/06 12:38 AM
quote:
Believing God's truth about him and us isn't what saves, while it is what helps build our righteous characters, fitting us for heaven, so that indeed unless and until those characters are fully developed Jesus wouldn't and couldn't return.
Here's what Ellen White wrote regarding how we are to be saved:
quote:
How, then, are we to be saved? "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness," so the Son of man has been lifted up, and everyone who has been deceived and bitten by the serpent may look and live. "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." John 1:29. The light shining from the cross reveals the love of God. His love is drawing us to Himself. If we do not resist this drawing, we shall be led to the foot of the cross in repentance for the sins that have crucified the Saviour. Then the Spirit of God through faith produces a new life in the soul. The thoughts and desires are brought into obedience to the will of Christ. The heart, the mind, are created anew in the image of Him who works in us to subdue all things to Himself. Then the law of God is written in the mind and heart, and we can say with Christ, "I delight to do Thy will, O my God." Ps. 40:8.
Ellen White again:
quote:
Christ exalted the character of God, attributing to him the praise, and giving to him the credit, of the whole purpose of his own mission on earth,--to set men right through the revelation of God. (ST 1/20/90)
Jesus:
quote:
And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. (John 17:3)
Jesus again:
quote:
22Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?
23And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity. (Matt. 7)
These texts indicate that we are saved by knowing God, which involves believing in Jesus Christ, whose purpose was to set us right by revealing God to us.
Posted By: John Boskovic
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/07/06 03:22 AM
quote:
We are not redeemed just from our naturally false impression of God, such as you have described: we are redeemed from our sinful natures,
Sinful nature is a false sight of reality and therefore the thoughts and actions are all perverse.
Joh 9:39 And Jesus said, For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind.
Joh 9:40 And some of the Pharisees which were with him heard these words, and said unto him, Are we blind also?
Joh 9:41 Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth.
Posted By: Colin
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/07/06 03:50 AM
Tom wrote
quote:
These texts indicate that we are saved by knowing God, which involves believing in Jesus Christ, whose purpose was to set us right by revealing God to us.
Thank you for that point, but no-one disagrees with that point! It is true, but it becomes a halftruth when the need for the Saviour's death is played down and/or excluded as the other half of the truth.
You and the three sisters, Liane, Tammy, and Cheri, are doing just that, while Sister White did not exclude or downplay Jesus' death as a necessary death in saving the world.
John wrote quote:
Sinful nature is a false sight of reality and therefore the thoughts and actions are all perverse.
Sorry, wrong: sinful nature suggests a false sight of reality; we choose it! Changing our choices to righteous choices takes a while - and probation shall last the distance, marking the successful change. Changing our nature is impossible, so we are redeemed from it, at the price of the life of the Son of God.
It should be well understood that redemption starts with acknowledging our death in Christ, so that the new life can start. Where does sanctification start if there is no justification, no regeneration of the mind, no death to self???
Rom 6:3-6 quote:
3Know ye not that as many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death?
4Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
5For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, so we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection,
6knowing this: that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.
True salvation starts with our eternal death in Christ and ends with Christ's eternal life in us. You're starting at the wrong end and leaving out the real beginning...(!) Where is your confession of your death in Christ??! I don't think I missed your mention of it...
Posted By: Tom
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/07/06 06:01 AM
Right here, Colin. I quote this all the time. Probably already in this thread:
quote:
How, then, are we to be saved? "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness," so the Son of man has been lifted up, and everyone who has been deceived and bitten by the serpent may look and live. "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." John 1:29. The light shining from the cross reveals the love of God. His love is drawing us to Himself. If we do not resist this drawing, we shall be led to the foot of the cross in repentance for the sins that have crucified the Saviour. Then the Spirit of God through faith produces a new life in the soul. The thoughts and desires are brought into obedience to the will of Christ. The heart, the mind, are created anew in the image of Him who works in us to subdue all things to Himself. Then the law of God is written in the mind and heart, and we can say with Christ, "I delight to do Thy will, O my God." Ps. 40:8.
What was the purpose of Christ's mission? According to Ellen White, the whole purpose of Christ's mission was to reveal God to us that we might be set right and kept right with Him. If that's the whole purpose, then it's the whole purpose. Don't know how else to say it. It's all of it, the whole thing.
The reason it's the whole purpose is because it's all that's needed. If it weren't sufficient, it wouldn't be the whole purpose. It would be a partial purpose.
Here's another statement along the same line:
quote:
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.
But even as a sinner, man was in a different position from that of Satan. Lucifer in heaven had sinned in the light of God's glory. To him as to no other created being was given a revelation of God's love. 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. But man was deceived; his mind was darkened by Satan's sophistry. The height and depth of the love of God he did not know. For him there was hope in a knowledge of God's love. By beholding His character he might be drawn back to God.
I emphasized the last sentence. Notice how this ties in with Peter's explanation of the cross:
quote:
For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God. (1 Pet. 3:18)
To bring us to God is the purpose for Christ's death. There was no need to bring God to us, because God never left. We left. We need to come back. The cross is the means by which we come back.
If the whole purpose of Christ's mission is to reveal God to us that we might be set right with God, and this revelation does indeed set us right with God, what more is necessary? If this could be done in some other way than Christ's dying, then Christ would not have died. But there was no other way.
"The height and depth of the love of God he did not know. For him there was hope in a knowledge of God's love." What is it that reveals the height and depth of the love of God? The cross. Wherein lies our hope? In the cross.
The cross reveals all truth. It reveals the truth about sin, about the devil, about ourselves, and most of all about God. That truth has the power to reconcile us, if we do not "resist this drawing."
If it weren't for Christ's death, we would be dead. He died that the love of God might constrain us to live for Him who died for us.
I confess the death of Christ as Paul did, "I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in Me, and the life I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me."
I cannot do what Christ did and be literally crucified, but I can appreciate His crucifixion by faith. The love of God, the character of God, revealed at the cross, has the power to fully reconcile me to God, and to motivate me to live a holy life.
Posted By: Colin
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/07/06 05:20 PM
Your last two paragraphs say what your Ellen White quote did not say: to agree with God we by faith actually have to join Christ in his death, so that we are able to agree.
I hope I've got Mark's support on this point, and Darius' J.D. may help as he agrees with Mark, you and me about the legal effect of the cross. The revelation of God's love in suffering our death for us and as us (he bore our sinful humanity to the tree) is attractive, but not merely because it correctly portrays agape: that is unhelpful, really, without it actually doing something for sinners. Truly making God look as good as he is doesn't help us...
Heb 2:14b & 15 say that Jesus destroyed the Devil's power over death, and released those (all, of course) who all their life were subject to bondage through fear of death.
Thus the love demonstrated by the cross is God reconciling the world to himself by releasing it from the wages of sin, eternal death. That takes agape love, but it's the action to accomplish that release which redeems sinners, not just the truth that God is love.
Posted By: Tom
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/07/06 05:39 PM
quote:
The revelation of God's love in suffering our death for us and as us (he bore our sinful humanity to the tree) is attractive, but not merely because it correctly portrays agape: that is unhelpful, really, without it actually doing something for sinners.
It reconciles us to God! Is this nothing?
quote:
But even as a sinner, man was in a different position from that of Satan. Lucifer in heaven had sinned in the light of God's glory. To him as to no other created being was given a revelation of God's love. 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. But man was deceived; his mind was darkened by Satan's sophistry. The height and depth of the love of God he did not know. For him there was hope in a knowledge of God's love. By beholding His character he might be drawn back to God.
quote:
Truly making God look as good as he is doesn't help us.
It not only helps us, it helps the universe. It's what the whole Great Controversy is all about.
quote:
At the beginning of the great controversy, the angels did not understand this. Had Satan and his host then been left to reap the full result of their sin, they would have perished; but it would not have been apparent to heavenly beings that this was the inevitable result of sin. A doubt of God's goodness would have remained in their minds as evil seed, to produce its deadly fruit of sin and woe.
But not so when the great controversy shall be ended. Then, the plan of redemption having been completed, the character of God is revealed to all created intelligences. (DA 764)
Posted By: Mountain Man
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/07/06 06:09 PM
I agree that the life and death of Jesus was necessary to atone for our sins - not sin. The potential for sinning is ours for eternity, and no atonement is necessary for it. God requires punishment and death if we sin. Jesus suffered this on our behalf so that God can save us in heaven. The legal demands of God are satisfied in the death of of Jesus.
Posted By: Tom
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/08/06 07:31 AM
God doesn't require punishment and death if we sin in any arbitrary manner, as if sin has nothing to do with death.
Sin is in its essence selfishness. Selfishness is not a process which can sustain itself. It must lead to misery, suffering, pain, and eventually death. It cannot be otherwise. There's nothing God can do about this. But He can transform selfish rebels into trusting friends. That's the miracle of the new birth.
Death is the punishment for sin. Not just death, but sorrow, suffering, misery, lonliness, every evil thing, there's no end to the list. All of these things are the result of sin, and none of them are the result of God's actions.
God has been fighting the whole time to eradicate sin as quickly as possible, and the way to do this is by making clear the principles of His government vs. the principles of the adversary's government. When all have made their choice, the inevitable result of sin will occur, and sin will be gone forever, because there remains no doubt in the minds of any of God's created beings.
Posted By: John Boskovic
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/08/06 03:41 AM
quote:
quote:
Sinful nature is a false sight of reality and therefore the thoughts and actions are all perverse.
Sorry, wrong: sinful nature suggests a false sight of reality; we choose it! Changing our choices to righteous choices takes a while - and probation shall last the distance, marking the successful change.
That depends on your definition of “Nature”. In the definition that I use it is not the physical but the spiritual Nature. Hence the sinful Nature that I speak of is the antonym of “Divine Nature” as referenced in 2Pe 1:4 Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
And that is what it is about; The Divine Nature as opposed to Sinful Nature. While there is the sinful flesh which remains till resurrection, it is otherwise a non issue in salvation. The issue of salvation is the saving of the heart and mind from the false sight of reality to truth of reality; from darkness to light.
quote:
Changing our nature is impossible, so we are redeemed from it, at the price of the life of the Son of God.
What does redemption mean to you, and what is God supposed to do with this “nature” that you are referring to?
[ March 07, 2006, 10:39 PM: Message edited by: John Boskovic ]
Posted By: Colin
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/08/06 09:17 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Tom Ewall:
[QB] [QUOTE]The revelation of God's love in suffering our death for us and as us (he bore our sinful humanity to the tree) is attractive, but not merely because it correctly portrays agape: that is unhelpful, really, without it actually doing something for sinners.
It reconciles us to God! Is this nothing?
The exhibition of agape doesn't lawfully reconcile - it communicates a truth about God, the death of Jesus lawfully reconciles (see below), and you don't allow for reconciliation by this atoning sacrifice, at least that's your constant implication.
quote:
But even as a sinner, man was in a different position from that of Satan. Lucifer in heaven had sinned in the light of God's glory. To him as to no other created being was given a revelation of God's love. 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. But man was deceived; his mind was darkened by Satan's sophistry. The height and depth of the love of God he did not know. For him there was hope in a knowledge of God's love. By beholding His character he might be drawn back to God.
quote:
Truly making God look as good as he is doesn't help us.
It not only helps us, it helps the universe. It's what the whole Great Controversy is all about.
For once I do believe you're using pre-lapsarian positions about salvation... ![[Cool]](images/icons/cool.gif)
![[Eek!]](images/icons/shocked.gif)
You can't leave it there, since that excerpt doesn't deal with justification by faith: it deals only with sanctification, or character change, which is after we participate in Christ's death. While you do not rest reconciliation with God on Jesus' death itself (Rom 5:10), the necessity of Jesus taking sinful nature to be Saviour, as Sacrifice, is no longer there; then Christ's humanity's teaching is truly DIY. Rom 5:10 and kindred texts must be in conjunction with the texts in the Gospels of paying a ransom for many - making Jesus' death the legal payment for our atonement (which atonement ministry continues today) and legal basis of reconciliation,
Agape perfectly displayed is nothing without mankind dying its condemnation under the law in the body of Christ (Rom 7:4), which redeems us from the curse he became for us. You leave this out, and are left only with a perfect clarification that God truly is agape: Christ putting our sinful humanity to death for ever in his second death experience is what redeems and reconciles us to God - a legal achievement, that reconciliation, not just his living testimony to agape's truth.
Posted By: Colin
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/08/06 09:21 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Mountain Man:
I agree that the life and death of Jesus was necessary to atone for our sins - not sin. The potential for sinning is ours for eternity, and no atonement is necessary for it. God requires punishment and death if we sin. Jesus suffered this on our behalf so that God can save us in heaven. The legal demands of God are satisfied in the death of of Jesus.
Yes, Jesus death was necessary to make an atonement, but he neither atoned for our sins nor for sin, but he atoned for u s. The Bible only speaks of God atoning for sinners, not for sins, let alone sin itself. Jesus death is indeed a legal requirement.
That we do agree on ![[Yay]](graemlins/yay.gif)
, but we still differ on God's wrath against sin, ![[Frown]](images/icons/frown.gif)
, as in how it is defined.
Posted By: Colin
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/08/06 09:51 PM
quote:
Originally posted by John Boskovic:
quote:
quote:
Sinful nature is a false sight of reality and therefore the thoughts and actions are all perverse.
Sorry, wrong: sinful nature suggests a false sight of reality; we choose it! Changing our choices to righteous choices takes a while - and probation shall last the distance, marking the successful change.
That depends on your definition of “Nature”. In the definition that I use it is not the physical but the spiritual Nature. Hence the sinful Nature that I speak of is the antonym of “Divine Nature” as referenced in 2Pe 1:4 Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
We're nearly agreed there: first the difference between our carnal mind and the mind of Christ - the former isn't spiritual but the latter is, and our partaking of the divine nature is using that mind of Christ, i.e. the Spirit of God dwelling in us, which is justification by faith in practice. Nevertheless, the carnal mind remains, and its link to the flesh makes sinful nature the sum total of mind and body. Thus, on the mind of Christ and divine characteristics of Christian character we are agreed, but not on sinful nature by itself - i.e. as an entity, it seems, as you limit that to the mind as defining the nature?
You don't agree that Jesus took sinful human nature, then?
quote:
And that is what it is about; The Divine Nature as opposed to Sinful Nature. While there is the sinful flesh which remains till resurrection, it is otherwise a non issue in salvation. The issue of salvation is the saving of the heart and mind from the false sight of reality to truth of reality; from darkness to light.
Sinful nature (note its ambit, above) is truly condemned, and we are truly redeemed from it with the hope of glory in Christ of incorruption, so the sinful heart and mind cannot be saved from itself, since it is the operative part of our sinful nature. We are given new hearts and minds to appreciate God's truth and light in Jesus, unless with "The issue of salvation is the saving of the heart and mind" you weren't proposing that the sinful heart and mind are transformed into light?
quote:
quote:
Changing our nature is impossible, so we are redeemed from it, at the price of the life of the Son of God.
What does redemption mean to you, and what is God supposed to do with this “nature” that you are referring to?
"Redemption" is surely that Jesus bought us free of the eternal death we are condemned to by our sinning. That he took our sinful nature as his own for that purpose is critical to its achievement. This "nature" is condemned to eternal death, so Christ executed its condemnation on it in his person, having taken it as his human nature in the first place.
God redeems us from our sinful nature, i.e. our sinful body, including flesh and mind. Is that clear?
Posted By: Tom
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/09/06 01:02 AM
quote:
Nevertheless, the carnal mind remains, and its link to the flesh makes sinful nature the sum total of mind and body.
This isn't how I read Paul. I don't read him as saying the mind of Christ is something added to the carnal mind, but as something which replaces it.
Regarding "sinful nature," I think John understands the term differently than you and I do. ("you" being Colin). I understand "sinful nature" to mean "sinful flesh" and I think you would to, although you can correct me if not. I don't see any difference in how Jones, Waggoner, Prescott, or Ellen White, for that matter, used these terms. What John calls "sinful nature," you and I would call "carnal nature" (I think). That is, it is a nature which implies that one has sinned, so of course, with this definition in mind, one could not say that Christ had (or even "took") this.
Well, I think I've represented all parties accurately, but if not, please chime in and clarify!
Posted By: John Boskovic
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/09/06 04:02 AM
quote:
Well, I think I've represented all parties accurately, but if not, please chime in and clarify!
Thanks Tom. While I am not keen on the label, I agree with the substance of the definition. As far as the label it is quite evident by the multitude of pages on the topic that there is much confusion; *sigh*.
Now as far as darkness being present at the same time as light; it is rather obvious that light disperses darkness.
Posted By: Colin
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/09/06 04:26 AM
Yes, the mind of Christ isn't added to the carnal mind, to be used together: rather the latter is replaced; however, the carnal mind isn't extinguished thereby, but merely displaced, to be used again at will, as I descibed yesterday.
As for carnal mind defining the nature, I'm familiar with that from an SDANet moderator, but certainly I do view sinful nature as sinful flesh with the mind that naturally goes with it, as I'm familiar with from earlier Adventist literature. Still, it is wrong to equate that definition with a sinner, given the power of the will in free choice: after all, Christians would no longer have sinful natures - since they have the mind of Christ - despite having sinful flesh, but not living by the carnal mind anymore.
The two covenants' clash is only the ready availability of the carnal mind eager to take over from the mind of Christ at any opportunity - especially to do one's own righteousness, so human nature is the combination of flesh and mind settling on the thoughts and actions.
Yes, I'd worked out that John and we disagree, here.
Posted By: Tom
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/09/06 05:31 AM
John has an original way of expressing himself, which is sometimes difficult to understand. But I find myself to be very much in agreement with his overall view of things. I think the differences I have with John are semantical. John can speak up if he disagrees.
Regarding the mind, of course the carnal mind is available to be reused at will. What would be the alternative? Once saved always saved? Instant sanctification with no possibility of reversal? The only question we have to consider is if both the carnal mind and the mind of Christ exist simultaneously, or if it's a matter of one or the other.
Posted By: John Boskovic
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/09/06 03:02 PM
quote:
so the sinful heart and mind cannot be saved from itself, since it is the operative part of our sinful nature. We are given new hearts and minds to appreciate God's truth and light in Jesus, unless with "The issue of salvation is the saving of the heart and mind" you weren't proposing that the sinful heart and mind are transformed into light?
Heart and mind of themselves do not have a nature. They espouse the master they serve; whether of sin unto death or of righteousness unto life. So when we by faith accept the mind of Christ we can’t keep another mind. Jam 1:8 A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.
Posted By: Colin
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/09/06 05:25 PM
quote:
Originally posted by John Boskovic:
quote:
so the sinful heart and mind cannot be saved from itself, since it is the operative part of our sinful nature. We are given new hearts and minds to appreciate God's truth and light in Jesus, unless with "The issue of salvation is the saving of the heart and mind" you weren't proposing that the sinful heart and mind are transformed into light?
Heart and mind of themselves do not have a nature. They espouse the master they serve; whether of sin unto death or of righteousness unto life. So when we by faith accept the mind of Christ we can’t keep another mind. Jam 1:8 A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.
Yes, faith excludes the carnal mind, but I never said or intimated that returning to the carnal mind from the mind of Christ was a good thing! Letting go of the mind of Christ is refraining from exercise faith, so results indeed in doublemindedness. That that's bad isn't in question, but the ready option of living by the carnal mind is the pivotal point.
The heart and mind do not have a nature, of course, since they are part of a nature, together with the flesh - making the body (of course), while the character is a product of the nature.
Posted By: Mountain Man
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/09/06 05:54 PM
Yes, the wages of sin is death. The human race should have ended with the punishment and death of Adam and Eve. It didn't because Jesus stepped in and took their place. He took their sin and second death upon Himself, which He will place upon Satan in the lake of fire. He also earned the right to own all sin and death.
This is obviously a legal arrangement since no man, not even God, can literally sin or die for another.
Posted By: Mountain Man
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/09/06 06:00 PM
PS - In answer to the question that makes up the title of this thread: no, we are not saved by God unleashing His pent up wrath on sin or sinners. By the time we witness it we are already saved or lost. It is too late to repent and convert by then.
On the other hand, if God were to go easy on sin and sinners in the lake of fire it would send the wrong message, which would threaten the security of the universe.
Posted By: Tom
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/09/06 06:35 PM
quote:
This is obviously a legal arrangement since no man, not even God, can literally sin or die for another.
Jesus did literally die for me. I don't know why you are asserting otherwise.
quote:
Christ was treated as we deserve, that we might be treated as He deserves. He was condemned for our sins, in which He had no share, that we might be justified by His righteousness, in which we had no share. He suffered the death which was ours, that we might receive the life which was His. "With His stripes we are healed."(DA 25)
This is all literally true.
Posted By: Tom
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/09/06 10:44 PM
"On the other hand, if God were to go easy on sin and sinners in the lake of fire it would send the wrong message, which would threaten the security of the universe."
I've been thinking about this statement. It seems to me it is as backwards as it is possible for a statement to be. I'll explain.
First of all, one must ask, what is the message that is being sent by the destruction of sin and sinners? Is it, "Do what I tell you, or I'll kill you?" That's a message which would threaten the security of the universe, not obtain it. The effect of "serving" God out of fear is seen in history of the Jews at Jesus' time. They put Him to death thinking they were honoring God. Fear leads one to "serve" while all the time hating the One being served.
What is it that does make the universe secure? It is knowledge of the truth. quote:
Through Christ's redeeming work the government of God stands justified. The Omnipotent One is made known as the God of love. Satan's charges are refuted, and his character unveiled. Rebellion can never again arise. Sin can never again enter the universe. Through eternal ages all are secure from apostasy. By love's self-sacrifice, the inhabitants of earth and heaven are bound to their Creator in bonds of indissoluble union. (DA 26)
It is not fear which secures the universe, but love. Now as to why your comment is exactly backwards, consider the following:
quote:
his is not an act of arbitrary power on the part of God. The rejecters of His mercy reap that which they have sown. God is the fountain of life; and when one chooses the service of sin, he separates from God, and thus cuts himself off from life. He is "alienated from the life of God." Christ says, "All they that hate Me love death." Eph. 4:18; Prov. 8:36. God gives them existence for a time that they may develop their character and reveal their principles. This accomplished, they receive the results of their own choice. By a life of rebellion, Satan and all who unite with him place themselves so out of harmony with God that His very presence is to them a consuming fire. The glory of Him who is love will destroy them.
At the beginning of the great controversy, the angels did not understand this. Had Satan and his host then been left to reap the full result of their sin, they would have perished; but it would not have been apparent to heavenly beings that this was the inevitable result of sin. A doubt of God's goodness would have remained in their minds as evil seed, to produce its deadly fruit of sin and woe. (DA 764)
This is from the chapter entitled, "It is Finished," which disucess the ramifications of Christ's death on the cross. One of these is the security of the universe. She spends quite a bit of time discussing this, and these paragraphs fit into this discussion.
In the first paragraph cited she points out that the destruction of the wicked is not an arbitrary act which God does, but rather the result of the choice of the wicked who separate themselves from God. The second paragraph is the one we want to hone in on.
Notice she writes, "at the beginning of the great contoversy, the angels did not understand this." What is "this"? "This" is that the death of the wicked is not due to an arbitrary act on God's part. Without the development of the presentation of the two governments, and in particular without Christ's death on the cross, this is how it would have appeared. She continues, "Had Satan and his host then been left to reap the full result of their sin, they would have perished; but it would not have been apparent to heavenly beings that this was the inevitable result of sin." Instead of appearing as what it actually is, the inevitable result of sin, it would have appeared as something it is not, an arbitrary act of power on the part of God. In order to *prevent* this misunderstanding from taking place, God permitted sin to continue.
So the irony of your suggestion is that it is precisely for the purpose that the message you are suggesting as the reason of the destruction of the wicked *not* be misunderstood as the reason for their destruction that God allowed sin to continue at all. The very reason you suggest as what secures the universe is that which would have placed it in jeapordy! God took action, very costly action, to prevent this misunderstanding from taking place. The angels and unfallen worlds have understood. Now heaven is just remaining for us.
Posted By: asygo
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/09/06 11:57 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Tom Ewall:
The only question we have to consider is if both the carnal mind and the mind of Christ exist simultaneously, or if it's a matter of one or the other.
I believe they exist simultaneously, but they cannot be satisfied simultaneously. The flesh (carnal mind) lusts against the Spirit (mind of Christ) in all things. The will - the governing power in our nature - must choose which way to go. He who is born of God always chooses the Spirit, and the carnal mind/flesh/body is put under.
Posted By: John Boskovic
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/10/06 02:38 PM
quote:
Sinful nature is a false sight of reality.
The point that I was trying to express is that the nature of sin needs to be realized in the following setting:
Heb 2:14 Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;
Heb 2:15 And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.
This “fear of death” which holds man in bondage is the “false sight of reality” or “false view of God”. This is the nature of sin.
This fear of death comes from viewing God in a way that is false, misrepresented, perverted. What Satan did was to represent God and his word with Satan’s own attributes of Character and thought. Thus he perverted what was a counsel into a threat.
How does fear of death hold someone in bondage to Satan?
Would it not normally cause one to be afraid of sinning?
But the word says that this “fear of death” kept us in bondage to Satan. This fear of death is the result of the false righteousness which Satan hatched using the law of God to establish that condemnation and death is from God.
By insinuating that God in His righteousness is the author of condemnation and death, Satan has duped man into believing that God is such and so prevents him from coming to God for salvation, forgiveness and grace. Thus man remains in bondage to condemnation; not being able to obtain forgiveness, mercy and grace which are freely available at the hand of God.
The “nature of sin” is a false view of God.
Posted By: Tom
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/10/06 05:35 PM
Amen, John!
The truth about God, when received in the heart and mind, frees us from bondage. Seeing God as He is, and seeing things as God sees them, establishes His righteousness.
Posted By: Mountain Man
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/12/06 05:24 AM
Tom, it is clear that angels praise God for punishing and destroying unsaved sinners. For reasons that may not make sense to us now Jesus will resurrect, judge, punish, and destroy them in the lake of fire.
Also, Jesus did not literally die my death. The evidence is that I'm still very much alive, and so is He. The death He died on our behalf gives Him the legal right to pardon us and to save us if we so desire and cooperate and are faithful unto the end.
Posted By: Tom
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/12/06 05:54 AM
Tom, it is clear that angels praise God for punishing and destroying unsaved sinners.
Angels will rejoice that sin will be no more. God, and angels, will be very sorry to see God's children die.For reasons that may not make sense to us now Jesus will resurrect, judge, punish, and destroy them in the lake of fire.
The reasons are not hard to understand.Also, Jesus did not literally die my death.
I don't know what you mean by this. Are you suggesting that Christ figuratively died your death?The evidence is that I'm still very much alive, and so is He.
That's no evidence He didn't literally die. He did literally die, and He was literally resurrected.The death He died on our behalf gives Him the legal right to pardon us and to save us if we so desire and cooperate and are faithful unto the end.
He has no need for a "legal right" to pardon us. God pardons us because it is His nature to pardon. Consider the following parable: quote:
23Therefore is the kingdom of heaven likened unto a certain king, which would take account of his servants.
24And when he had begun to reckon, one was brought unto him, which owed him ten thousand talents.
25But forasmuch as he had not to pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, and his wife, and children, and all that he had, and payment to be made.
26The servant therefore fell down, and worshipped him, saying, Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay thee all.
27Then the lord of that servant was moved with compassion, and loosed him, and forgave him the debt. (Matt. 18)
This describes the mechanism of God's forgiveness. He is moved by compassion.
The parable of the prodigal son presents the same truth. God freely forgives because He loves us and is moved by compassion.
If it were true that Christ died in order to give God the legal right to forgive us, then in the thousands of words we have of Christ, would we not expect Him to have brought out this idea at least once?
But can you bring out *even once* the idea from Christ's teachings that He died for the purpose of giving God the legal right to forgive us?
Posted By: John Boskovic
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/12/06 08:19 AM
MM, please explain how Satan is able to keep man in bondage throught "fear of death".
Posted By: Colin
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/13/06 05:50 AM
quote:
Originally posted by Tom Ewall:
The death He died on our behalf gives Him the legal right to pardon us and to save us if we so desire and cooperate and are faithful unto the end.
He has no need for a "legal right" to pardon us. God pardons us because it is His nature to pardon.
I have to be direct, Tom: you've just described anarchy, on God's part. Should God act toward us in any way without the authority of his law, he is operating outside his law - illegally & unconstitutionally, acting contrary to his nature: he cannot restore us to his law by forgiveness and justification without a legal basis for his mercy, else he has nullified his law in the wages of sin not being paid (Rom 6:23). quote:
Consider the following parable:
quote:
23Therefore is the kingdom of heaven likened unto a certain king, which would take account of his servants.
24And when he had begun to reckon, one was brought unto him, which owed him ten thousand talents.
25But forasmuch as he had not to pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, and his wife, and children, and all that he had, and payment to be made.
26The servant therefore fell down, and worshipped him, saying, Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay thee all.
27Then the lord of that servant was moved with compassion, and loosed him, and forgave him the debt. (Matt. 18)
This describes the mechanism of God's forgiveness. He is moved by compassion.
The parable of the prodigal son presents the same truth. God freely forgives because He loves us and is moved by compassion.
If it were true that Christ died in order to give God the legal right to forgive us, then in the thousands of words we have of Christ, would we not expect Him to have brought out this idea at least once?
But can you bring out *even once* the idea from Christ's teachings that He died for the purpose of giving God the legal right to forgive us?
Tom, you and I are definitely at odds here, for God's need for the right to forgive isn't based on Jesus' teaching, but on the sanctuary service, which was common knowledge in Jesus' day, but he himself did say: quote:
For even the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give His life as a ransom for many. Mark 10:45
That ransom wasn't paid to the devil (classic ransom theory), but was a payment under God's law as the wage for our sins (satisfaction theory).
God's compassion toward his people is an expression of his love, which no-one should be questioning!!! The sacrificial lamb served no legal requirement of the sinner giving a life for his own life (Rom 6:23) to atone for himself and receive forgiveness??...While the Lamb of God demonstrated agape for all to see, the symbolic sacrificial system pointing to that promised sacrifice was only a shadow of such a demonstration? - what of God's law???
Sinning is breaking the law, and that has legal penalties of death, and being saved from that penalty takes a legal solution, indeed a lawful solution. That's not a r b i t r a r y, that's justice & mercy.
Posted By: John Boskovic
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/13/06 07:05 AM
It is funny how something can be thought so important in salvation and yet it never once be mentioned in the bible; for example "legal".
Check your concordance!
Posted By: Tom
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/13/06 08:20 AM
Colin, I didn't see any statements of Jesus suggesting that He needed to die to give God a legal right to forgive. You suggest this is implicit in the sanctuary service, but evidently it's not something important to understand, as Jesus never mentioned it. One would think if it were important, Jesus would have mentioned it somewhere.
Regarding Jesus' being a ransom for many, He did explain this:
quote:
And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:14-16)
God offered to restore Satan on the condition of repentance and submission. Yet there is no mention of Christ's dying. If you were correct, wouldn't God have been acting unlawfully?
quote:
(Satan) was not immediately dethroned when he first ventured to indulge the spirit of discontent and insubordination, nor even when he began to present his false claim and lying representations before the loyal angels. Long was he retained in Heaven. Again and again was he offered pardon on condition of repentance and submission. (4SP 319)
Posted By: Mountain Man
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/13/06 06:30 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Tom Ewall:
Tom, it is clear that angels praise God for punishing and destroying unsaved sinners.
1.
Angels will rejoice that sin will be no more. God, and angels, will be very sorry to see God's children die.
For reasons that may not make sense to us now Jesus will resurrect, judge, punish, and destroy them in the lake of fire.
The reasons are not hard to understand.
Also, Jesus did not literally die my death.
2.
I don't know what you mean by this. Are you suggesting that Christ figuratively died your death?
The evidence is that I'm still very much alive, and so is He.
That's no evidence He didn't literally die. He did literally die, and He was literally resurrected.
The death He died on our behalf gives Him the legal right to pardon us and to save us if we so desire and cooperate and are faithful unto the end.
3.
He has no need for a "legal right" to pardon us. God pardons us because it is His nature to pardon. Consider the following parable:
The parable of the prodigal son presents the same truth. God freely forgives because He loves us and is moved by compassion.
If it were true that Christ died in order to give God the legal right to forgive us, then in the thousands of words we have of Christ, would we not expect Him to have brought out this idea at least once?
But can you bring out *even once* the idea from Christ's teachings that He died for the purpose of giving God the legal right to forgive us?
1. That may be true, I don't know, because that's not how the Bible or the SOP describes their feelings. God is, no doubt, sorry they did not repent, but He will not be sorry when they receive their reward because they are "worthy".
2. I mean Jesus is not me. I did not die when He died. He died, not me. He died on my behalf, but I did not literally die when He died. I wasn't even born yet.
3. Yes, it is in the heart of God to pardon, but it is also in the heart of God to punish and destroy sinners. God cannot pardon sinners without just cause. He is justified in justifying sinners because our sin debt was paid on the cross.
Were it not for the substitutionary death of Jesus God would have had no option but to punish and destroy Adam and Eve the instant they sinned. Pardon is impossible without the death and righteousness of Jesus.
Pardon would not have entered God's mind had Jesus not offered His blood and righteousness as an atonement. God is a jealous God and will by no means clear or justify the guilty, unrepentant sinner.
Posted By: John Boskovic
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/14/06 07:52 AM
quote:
Pardon would not have entered God's mind had Jesus not offered His blood and righteousness as an atonement. God is a jealous God and will by no means clear or justify the guilty, unrepentant sinner.
That is a fact whether Jesus died or not.
Christ's death never changed that. It can't.
Posted By: Tom
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/13/06 10:16 PM
Angels will rejoice that sin will be no more. God, and angels, will be very sorry to see God's children die.1. That may be true, I don't know, because that's not how the Bible or the SOP describes their feelings. God is, no doubt, sorry they did not repent, but He will not be sorry when they receive their reward because they are "worthy".
I don't see how anyone who knows God at all could not know that this is true. There are many places in both Scripture and the Spirit of Prophecy where God's describes His feelings. Remember that God will wipe away every tear. This indicates that there has been weeping. Here is a reference from Scripture and the SOP revealing God's heart: Hos. 11:1-8; Ed. 263. More can be provided if desired.3. Yes, it is in the heart of God to pardon, but it is also in the heart of God to punish and destroy sinners.
According to Jesus, destroying is not in God's heart: quote:
And when his disciples James and John saw this, they said, Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them, even as Elias did?
But he turned, and rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of.
For the Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them. (Luke 9:54-56)
It's amazing how often Jesus said something similar: The Son of Man came not to destroy, but to save. The Son of Man came not to condemn, but to save. The Son of Man does not judge. He saves. Jesus gave this message in many different ways, at many different times, but we seem not to want to hear, or believe, the Good News that God does not wish to destroy us, but rather to save us. He takes no delight in the death of the wicked. He is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to the knowledge of the truth. There is joy in heaven when one sinner repents. One wonders how God could more clearly communicate this truth than what He has done.
God cannot pardon sinners without just cause. He is justified in justifying sinners because our sin debt was paid on the cross. Were it not for the substitutionary death of Jesus God would have had no option but to punish and destroy Adam and Eve the instant they sinned. Pardon is impossible without the death and righteousness of Jesus.
It looks like you've the cart before the horse here. Here's the reason the death of Christ makes pardon possible:
quote:
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. But man was deceived; his mind was darkened by Satan's sophistry. The height and depth of the love of God he did not know. For him there was hope in a knowledge of God's love. By beholding His character he might be drawn back to God.(DA 762)
From Scripture:
quote:
For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God. (1 Pet. 3:18)
Pardon would not have entered God's mind had Jesus not offered His blood and righteousness as an atonement.
Do you really mean to suggest that God only thought of pardoning us because Jesus offered His blood on our behalf? God was thinking, "I'm going to destroy man, because of His sin." and Jesus said, "Wait! I offer My blood." and God said, "Oh! Ok, then. Never mind."
God is a jealous God and will by no means clear or justify the guilty, unrepentant sinner.
Here is an excellent explanation as to the character of God's pardon from George Fifield:
quote:
Any pardon and any forgiveness that would not take away the effect of sin, but that would lead us more and more into sin, and into the misery that comes from sin, would be worth nothing. If the law of God was an arbitrary thing, that did not have any penalty attached to it, the Lord could say, I will pardon you. But when you transgress the law, it is death; and when you keep the law, it is life and joy and peace....
If God had not been wise, He might have pardoned our sins in an imprudent way. Now, brethren, every father in this world knows what it is to want to let his children do things which they would enjoy doing, and he has to restrain that which would bring present pleasure, restrain that love, because of the evil effects it would have.
Was sin ever less repentant than at the foot of the cross? There you have the thing. There was God revealing Himself in Christ on the cross, and there was sin unrepentant, hatred and mocking at the foot of the cross. How did God feel toward those unrepentant sinners? -- "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." That is how Christ felt, and that is how God felt. He did not have any grudge against them. He would like to forgive everybody. But why could He not do it? -- It would annul His law, if it was an arbitrary law; but if it were not, it would lead men to go into sin, and sin and death would result. It would be God simply taking the place of the imprudent father and spoiling his child. And therefore, because He could not do that, He set forth Christ to be, not the propitiation of God's wrath, but the propitiation of our sin, that God might be just, and still the justifier of them who believe in Jesus; because He would take the sins away from them if they believed in Him, and then He could set them free, and be just in doing it, for He would not lead anybody else into sin in doing it.
O, I am so glad that we have a God whose very nature and disposition is to pardon sin; that we have a Father who is not holding any grudge against us, but instead of that is giving His own life, in His Son, that He my so manifest His love as to bring us back to Him, and so give us the life power as to live His life. It was needed that His life should be revealed, and His divine life imparted, that we might live that life on earth; and that is what He did in Christ. O, I am so glad we have such a God as that, who gives His own life to win us back to Him! The love of God is the one changing thing in a universe of change. (1897 GCB, I think)
The fact is that sin causes pain, suffering, misery and death. There's nothing God can do about this. God can, however, transform selfish rebels who hate Him and the principles of His government into loving subjects who admire Him, the attributes of His character, and the principles of His government. By beholding we become changed.
Posted By: Colin
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/14/06 03:29 AM
You well portray the fuel for sanctification, with this change of outlook regarding God's character of love. You have not properly presented the basis for justification of the mind, that the attitude of the sinner be changed away from hostility to God. You may profess your death in Christ's cross, but your explanations exclude such a meaning for his death, let alone that it should include you.
quote:
And therefore, because He could not do that, He set forth Christ to be, not the propitiation of God's wrath, but the propitiation of our sin, that God might be just, and still the justifier of them who believe in Jesus; because He would take the sins away from them if they believed in Him, and then He could set them free, and be just in doing it, for He would not lead anybody else into sin in doing it. (Fifield)
This is contrary to Rom 3:25; 5:9. Propitiation is the Biblical appeasing of God's wrath against sin, in the death of Jesus: it never atones for sin. Jesus saves us from the wrath of God.
Your drive for God's character to be clearly revealed isn't the problem, but your exclusion of propitiation is.
Posted By: Tom
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/14/06 07:09 AM
Colin, we're sort of having a one way conversation here. If you want to have a dialog, you need to respond to me, as I've been responding to you. I asked you a question in my previous post to you. Please answer it.
You haven't produced any statements by Jesus to support the legal arguments you have been suggesting, so I trust you agree with me that He didn't teach it. I'm still curious as to how such an important idea as the reason for His death is something He would never have touched on.
Regarding Romans 3:25, this simply says Christ was the propitiation for our sins. It doesn't say who was propitiated. I'm not sure where you stand on R. J. Wieland's writings, but he says that it was not God who was propitiated, but we. And he's right! God has no need to be propitiated because God was never angry at us. God so loved the world that He gave His Son.
As Fifield points out:
quote:
God in Christ. Every text in the Bible that speaks of the atonement, when we get it right, makes God the one who makes the atonement in Christ; not Christ simply, but God in Christ; just as God in Christ creates, redeems, reconciles, He makes the atonement. And every time the atonement, reconciliation, or propitiation are mentioned, it leads us right back to the character of God. (GCB 1897; Fifield)
God had no need to be reconciled to us, no need for propitiation, because He was not at odds with us. We were the ones who needed to be reconciled!
Now if you want to establish a point of view, it's not enough to simply state it. You have one view of Romans 3:25; I have another (as do the others I mentioned). The time honored principle for interpreting Scripture is to interpret controverted texts with uncontroverted ones. Consider the following text:
quote:
For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit. (1 Pet. 3:18)
There's no doubt this is saying that Christ died to bring us to God.
Romans 5:8-10 reads:
quote:
8But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
9Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.
10For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.
Verse 10 brings out that we are reconciled to God by the death of His Son, which is exactly the point I've been making. Verse 9 says we are justified (set right) by His blood, which is a point I've also been making.
The reason I assume you quoted Romans 5:9 is the last part of the verse which says "we shall be saved from wrath through him." I assume you think that the "wrath" being spoken of here is God's wrath.
Once again, I don't know your feelings on R. J. Wieland's writings. I'm taking an educated guess that you may be in harmony with them because you have professed an appreciation of the 1888 message, and of course RJW has been a chief proponent of the same. RJW understands the "wrath" being spoken of here is not God's wrath. And I believe he's right again! Many others take this same view.
The two texts you have suggested do not proove anything. Please present some form of an argument.
Here's my argument:
a)Because of sin, man began to view God in a way He is not. Man became estranged from God. (Gen 3)
b)God so loved the world He gave His Son that we might look at live. By beholding the cross, we are brought back to God. (John 3:14-16;1 Pet. 3:18)
c)The cross reconciles us, and not only us, but the entire universe by revealing the character of God, thus winning the Great Controversy. (Col 1:14-20)
d)One can find many verses which speak of the cross revealing the love of God, and bringing us into harmony with God. (some that come immediately to mind are John 3:14-16; Rom. 5:10; 2 Cor. 5:19; 1 Pet. 3:18; 1 Pet. 2:22-24). However one can find no verses which present Christ's death as providing God a legal right to forgive us. The closest one can come is by misinterpreting Rom. 3:18-25. However, this is a controverted passage. I contend, for example, that this passage means precisely the following:
quote:
The earth was dark through misapprehension of God. That the gloomy shadows might be lightened, that the world might be brought back to God, Satan's deceptive power was to be broken. This could not be done by force. The exercise of force is contrary to the principles of God's government; He desires only the service of love; and love cannot be commanded; it cannot be won by force or authority. Only by love is love awakened. To know God is to love Him; His character must be manifested in contrast to the character of Satan. This work only one Being in all the universe could do. Only He who knew the height and depth of the love of God could make it known. Upon the world's dark night the Sun of Righteousness must rise, "with healing in His wings." Mal. 4:2. (DA 22)
and I have sound exegetical reasons for believing such. But again, controverted passages should be interpreted by uncontroverted ones. It's not sufficient to have a preconceived idea in mind, take it to some passage, and then declare that the passage agrees with the preconcieved notion.
As John pointed out, the word "legal" doesn't even appear.
e)In addition to the Scriptures I've mentioned in the epistles, there are the words and teachings of Jesus. Many of Jesus' words are exactly in harmony with the ideas I have been presenting. Many parables teach these ideas. I've already mentioned the parable of the servant forgiven the 10,000 talents and the parable of the prodigal son. There is also the parable of the two worshipers. There is John 12:32. I could mention many more, but this should suffice.
Christ's teachings were pregnant with the idea that God wins us to Himself by revealing His character through His Son. The entire book of John is dedicated to this theme (indeed, the whole Bible, but John is particularly clear that this is his purpose).
There is not even one statement of Jesus which suggests that God gave Christ to us for the purpose of obtaining a legal right to forgive us.
Much more could be added, but I've probably already been too long, so I will abruptly end.
Posted By: Mountain Man
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/14/06 04:33 PM
Tom, can I assume we agree on the 3 points I made in my last post?
Posted By: Tom
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/14/06 05:47 PM
Did you see my response three posts above this last one you just now posted?
Posted By: Colin
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/14/06 08:36 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Tom Ewall:
Colin, we're sort of having a one way conversation here. If you want to have a dialog, you need to respond to me, as I've been responding to you. I asked you a question in my previous post to you. Please answer it.
You haven't produced any statements by Jesus to support the legal arguments you have been suggesting, so I trust you agree with me that He didn't teach it. I'm still curious as to how such an important idea as the reason for His death is something He would never have touched on.
Regarding Romans 3:25, this simply says Christ was the propitiation for our sins. It doesn't say who was propitiated. I'm not sure where you stand on R. J. Wieland's writings, but he says that it was not God who was propitiated, but we. And he's right! God has no need to be propitiated because God was never angry at us. God so loved the world that He gave His Son.
Where does one start...? - at the sanctuary service, since you've just decimated it. The sacrifice of lambs as individual sin offerings fulfilled the requirement of atonement - only by the shedding of blood. Blood was shed for propitiation since the life of the animal was in the blood, and a life was to be sacrificed as the penalty for sin. This was done in faith of the coming Lamb of God.
Christ fulfilled the sanctuary service by giving his life in shedding his blood. Exhibiting agape is an extra, since Rom 6:23 is the gift of a life given to save us from death - not primarily helping us to understand agape. No-one objects to Christ's visible agape being attractive: excluding his sacrifice as a payment for the death penalty due us as sinners is what one disagrees with, since that is the connection both between his death and our death and his humanity and our humanity. Those connections I picked up from Wieland - yes, and what wrath do you think he attributes Rom 5:9 to? Or is it the wrath you object to, and not the death due sinners?
How do you deal with Rom 1:18, then, for it identifies "the wrath of God against...all unrighteousness"? quote:
As Fifield points out:
quote:
God in Christ. Every text in the Bible that speaks of the atonement, when we get it right, makes God the one who makes the atonement in Christ; not Christ simply, but God in Christ; just as God in Christ creates, redeems, reconciles, He makes the atonement. And every time the atonement, reconciliation, or propitiation are mentioned, it leads us right back to the character of God. (GCB 1897; Fifield)
God had no need to be reconciled to us, no need for propitiation, because He was not at odds with us. We were the ones who needed to be reconciled!
Now if you want to establish a point of view, it's not enough to simply state it. You have one view of Romans 3:25; I have another (as do the others I mentioned). The time honored principle for interpreting Scripture is to interpret controverted texts with uncontroverted ones.
Now just bear in mind that you differ here with the SDA Church's position, so I don't need to enunciate my position, so much as to take the church's position as given. On this topic it is accurate. quote:
Consider the following text:
quote:
For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit. (1 Pet. 3:18)
There's no doubt this is saying that Christ died to bring us to God.
Romans 5:8-10 reads:
quote:
8But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
9Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.
10For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.
Verse 10 brings out that we are reconciled to God by the death of His Son, which is exactly the point I've been making. Verse 9 says we are justified (set right) by His blood, which is a point I've also been making.
The reason I assume you quoted Romans 5:9 is the last part of the verse which says "we shall be saved from wrath through him." I assume you think that the "wrath" being spoken of here is God's wrath.
Once again, I don't know your feelings on R. J. Wieland's writings. I'm taking an educated guess that you may be in harmony with them because you have professed an appreciation of the 1888 message, and of course RJW has been a chief proponent of the same. RJW understands the "wrath" being spoken of here is not God's wrath. And I believe he's right again! Many others take this same view.
The two texts you have suggested do not proove anything. Please present some form of an argument.
Here's my argument:
a)Because of sin, man began to view God in a way He is not. Man became estranged from God. (Gen 3)
b)God so loved the world He gave His Son that we might look at live. By beholding the cross, we are brought back to God. (John 3:14-16;1 Pet. 3:18)
c)The cross reconciles us, and not only us, but the entire universe by revealing the character of God, thus winning the Great Controversy. (Col 1:14-20)
d)One can find many verses which speak of the cross revealing the love of God, and bringing us into harmony with God. (some that come immediately to mind are John 3:14-16; Rom. 5:10; 2 Cor. 5:19; 1 Pet. 3:18; 1 Pet. 2:22-24). However one can find no verses which present Christ's death as providing God a legal right to forgive us. The closest one can come is by misinterpreting Rom. 3:18-25. However, this is a controverted passage. I contend, for example, that this passage means precisely the following:
quote:
The earth was dark through misapprehension of God. That the gloomy shadows might be lightened, that the world might be brought back to God, Satan's deceptive power was to be broken. This could not be done by force. The exercise of force is contrary to the principles of God's government; He desires only the service of love; and love cannot be commanded; it cannot be won by force or authority. Only by love is love awakened. To know God is to love Him; His character must be manifested in contrast to the character of Satan. This work only one Being in all the universe could do. Only He who knew the height and depth of the love of God could make it known. Upon the world's dark night the Sun of Righteousness must rise, "with healing in His wings." Mal. 4:2. (DA 22)
and I have sound exegetical reasons for believing such. But again, controverted passages should be interpreted by uncontroverted ones. It's not sufficient to have a preconceived idea in mind, take it to some passage, and then declare that the passage agrees with the preconcieved notion.
As John pointed out, the word "legal" doesn't even appear.
e)In addition to the Scriptures I've mentioned in the epistles, there are the words and teachings of Jesus. Many of Jesus' words are exactly in harmony with the ideas I have been presenting. Many parables teach these ideas. I've already mentioned the parable of the servant forgiven the 10,000 talents and the parable of the prodigal son. There is also the parable of the two worshipers. There is John 12:32. I could mention many more, but this should suffice.
Christ's teachings were pregnant with the idea that God wins us to Himself by revealing His character through His Son. The entire book of John is dedicated to this theme (indeed, the whole Bible, but John is particularly clear that this is his purpose).
There is not even one statement of Jesus which suggests that God gave Christ to us for the purpose of obtaining a legal right to forgive us.
Much more could be added, but I've probably already been too long, so I will abruptly end.
What did God does in Christ, in the name of love??! The first 3 chapters of Romans contrast God's righteousness and holiness, with man's unrighteousness and sin, producing the judgement of God against sin which is accompanied by his wrath against sin. Yet, he loves the sinner. Vol.12 of our Bible Commentary, p.178-180, settles the wrath or no wrath Christian debate in favour of wrath, since the Bible doesn't allow for getting rid of it by Rom 3:25 after its introduction in Rom 1:18.
Without sacrifice there can be no forgiveness, since "without shedding of blood there is no remission" (Heb 9:22). "I have given it for you upon the alter to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement, by reason of the life." (Lev 17:11) God's holiness requires sin to be punished, but his love ensures that sinners can be atoned for.
Sin carries a penalty (Rom 6:23), but, since God is love he provides the lamb for suffering the penalty (Gen 22:8; Jn 3:16). Mark 10:45 has "give his life a ransom for many", which payment was to the law of God for the penalty it exacted of sinners. Also 'ransom for' obviously means paying for another, and the law of God demands the death of the wrong doer; yet, God in Christ suffered that penalty to satisfy Rom 6:23's death sentence on all sinners.
God's wrath isn't against sinners, but against sin. You clearly haven't allowed for that till now: do you actually?? It's based on his holiness, so that he is a consuming fire. His wrath expresses his justice, after his law has been broken, and his death in his Son expresses his love to turn his wrath away from us when his Son suffered for us.
If you're going to emphasise God's character, to re-assert it as the neglected target of our knowledge of God, don't abandon the actions of his love in saving us from our death penalty as sinners, or you'll neglect to tell the whole truth.
Posted By: Tom
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/14/06 08:52 PM
Thanks very much Colin for your detailed response. I'll read it carefully and get back to you.
Posted By: Tom
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/14/06 09:21 PM
Where does one start...? - at the sanctuary service, since you've just decimated it.
I'm not seeing this. I think every single thing I suggest is demonstrated by the Sanctuary service, you would agree with. The difference in our view is that you would say my list is not sufficient. However, I could produce a health list of things the sanctuary service demonstrates, so I don't see how this could possibly be described as "decimated" (unless you have the technical meaning of the word in mind, rather than the colloquial one)The sacrifice of lambs as individual sin offerings fulfilled the requirement of atonement - only by the shedding of blood. Blood was shed for propitiation since the life of the animal was in the blood, and a life was to be sacrificed as the penalty for sin. This was done in faith of the coming Lamb of God.
Christ fulfilled the sanctuary service by giving his life in shedding his blood. Exhibiting agape is an extra, since Rom 6:23 is the gift of a life given to save us from death - not primarily helping us to understand agape. No-one objects to Christ's visible agape being attractive: excluding his sacrifice as a payment for the death penalty due us as sinners is what one disagrees with, since that is the connection both between his death and our death and his humanity and our humanity. Those connections I picked up from Wieland - yes, and what wrath do you think he attributes Rom 5:9 to? Or is it the wrath you object to, and not the death due sinners?
Wieland ascribes the wrath to us in Romans 5:9. He uses the same arguments I am. Exactly. We are the ones that need to be propitiated. We are the ones who need to be reconciled. He talks about propitiation in his book "Grace on Trial." I can't recall where he talks about "wrath" in Romans 5:9.
I don't disagree with the idea that Christ paid the death penalty due us as sinners. This just means something different to me than it does to you.
I'd say where the biggest difference between us lies is in your statement that "Exhibiting agape is an extra." It was exhibiting agape that saves us, and also secures the universe. This is precisely what was needed. Following are some SOP statements that bring this out.
I'll mention the points they bring out, and end this post with these quotes, since this post will already be quite long. I'll consider the rest of your points in subsequent posts.
She points out in these quotes that in order to bring man back to God, God's love needed to be revealed. She points out the the cross was the greatest revelation of that love. She points out that it is not only for man that this revelation accomplishes a reconciliation, but the entire unfallen universe is secured by this revelation of love.
quote:
The earth was dark through misapprehension of God. That the gloomy shadows might be lightened, that the world might be brought back to God, Satan's deceptive power was to be broken. This could not be done by force. The exercise of force is contrary to the principles of God's government; He desires only the service of love; and love cannot be commanded; it cannot be won by force or authority. Only by love is love awakened. To know God is to love Him; His character must be manifested in contrast to the character of Satan. This work only one Being in all the universe could do. Only He who knew the height and depth of the love of God could make it known. Upon the world's dark night the Sun of Righteousness must rise, "with healing in His wings." Mal. 4:2. (DA 22)
quote:
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. But man was deceived; his mind was darkened by Satan's sophistry. The height and depth of the love of God he did not know. For him there was hope in a knowledge of God's love. By beholding His character he might be drawn back to God. (GC 763)
quote:
The death of Christ upon the cross made sure the destruction of him who has the power of death, who was the originator of sin. When Satan is destroyed, there will be none to tempt to evil; the atonement will never need to be repeated; and there will be no danger of another rebellion in the universe of God. That which alone can effectually restrain from sin in this world of darkness, will prevent sin in heaven. The significance of the death of Christ will be seen by saints and angels. Fallen men could not have a home in the paradise of God without the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Shall we not then exalt the cross of Christ? The angels ascribe honor and glory to Christ, for even they are not secure except by looking to the sufferings of the Son of God. It is through the efficacy of the cross that the angels of heaven are guarded from apostasy. Without the cross they would be no more secure against evil than were the angels before the fall of Satan. Angelic perfection failed in heaven. Human perfection failed in Eden, the paradise of bliss. All who wish for security in earth or heaven must look to the Lamb of God. The plan of salvation, making manifest the justice and love of God, provides an eternal safeguard against defection in unfallen worlds, as well as among those who shall be redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. Our only hope is perfect trust in the blood of Him who can save to the uttermost all that come unto God by Him. The death of Christ on the cross of Calvary is our only hope in this world, and it will be our theme in the world to come. Oh, we do not comprehend the value of the atonement! If we did, we would talk more about it. The gift of God in his beloved Son was the expression of an incomprehensible love. It was the utmost that God could do to preserve the honor of his law, and still save the transgressor. Why should man not study the theme of redemption? It is the greatest subject that can engage the human mind. If men would contemplate the love of Christ, displayed in the cross, their faith would be strengthened to appropriate the merits of his shed blood, and they would be cleansed and saved from sin. (ST 12/30/89)
Posted By: Tom
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/14/06 11:04 PM
How do you deal with Rom 1:18, then, for it identifies "the wrath of God against...all unrighteousness"?
God hates sin. If you look at Romans 1:18-25 it identifies what God's wrath is, which is His "giving up" those who have rebelled against Him to the results of their choices. This merits a thread of its own, if you are interested in pursuing this topic.
Now just bear in mind that you differ here with the SDA Church's position, so I don't need to enunciate my position, so much as to take the church's position as given. On this topic it is accurate.
I think this is both untrue and beside the point. The church does not hold to your view as to what Christ accomplished at the cross. Please correct me if I misrepresent your position, but you believe that Christ's death on the cross accomplished a legal justification for the entire human race. This isn't the official position.
Given that your idea on this issue (on other issues even more so) is so different that the church's official position, I don't know why you would even bring this up.
Also I'm not sure what you have in mind by the SDA Church's position. If you are talking about the Fundamental Beliefs, I agree with all of them, to the best of my knowledge, which is something I don't think you can say.
The first 3 chapters of Romans contrast God's righteousness and holiness, with man's unrighteousness and sin, producing the judgement of God against sin which is accompanied by his wrath against sin. Yet, he loves the sinner. Vol.12 of our Bible Commentary, p.178-180, settles the wrath or no wrath Christian debate in favour of wrath, since the Bible doesn't allow for getting rid of it by Rom 3:25 after its introduction in Rom 1:18.
I asked you to develop an argument. This doesn't seem like an argument to me. Do you think it is? You also didn't attempt to respond to my argument, as far as I can tell.
How you characterize the first three chapters of Romans is fine by me. I think you're missing the main point, but I don't disagree with what you assert up to "His wrath against sin." The first thing I would object to is the word "yet". This word suggests there is some contradiction between what you wrote up to this point and what follows. But there isn't. There's no "yet" in Paul's argument. It's all "because."
I don't know what your referring to regarding Vol. 12 of our Bible Commentary. I don't have it. If you wish to discuss God's wrath, I'd be happy to do so.
Why would you refer to our Bible Commentary in order to establish some question of Scripture? Should I refer to the Bible Commentary to disprove your ideas about the Holy Spirit and Christ's divinity?
Regarding Romans 3:25 it appears to me you completely disregarded what I wrote, which was that controverted portions of Scripture should be settled by uncontroverted portions. There are many ideas as to what Romans 3:25 means. Many, many, many. This is a very popular topic for doctoral dissertations, and many ideas have been suggested. If you are familiar with Luke Timonthy Johnson's work on this, or Robert Hays, I think they both bring out strong arguments as to how Romans 3:18-25 should be interpreted. Mostly I agree with Robert Wieland's interpretation, which is not an exegetically based interpretation, but one which I believe is fundamentally sound.
At any rate, controverted texts should be settled by uncontroverted ones. I asked you to produce some argument, based on uncontroverted texts, to substantiate your view. You haven't attempted to do this. You have reasserted your viewpoint, and appealed to sources of authority you yourself don't even recognize when the viewpoints of these sources don't agree with yours in other areas.
Please develop an argument along the lines of mine. That is, outline your points, and offer some reason as to why they point applies, with supporting Scripture. If you wish to use Rom. 3:18-25 in your argument, please us some uncontroverted Scripture to establish your interpretation, or I have no reason to prefer your interpretation to Luke Timothy Johnson, or Robert Hays (who do offer arguments and uncontroverted Scripture for their interpretations) or that of anyone else.
I hope the tone of this response is not too sharp. It's an unfortunate trait of internet conversations that prose comes across stronger than a face to face conversation would, where one has the advantages of tone of voice and body language. I appreciate your responses and contributions. This is a very important area to understand, and I'm glad to be able to try to reason this out with you.
Posted By: Colin
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/15/06 05:10 AM
Sure, let's keep this simple. You object to Jesus suffering the wrath of God against sin when he died on Golgotha - or would that be wrath...against sinners(?), but you don't object to Jesus dying the sinner's death due under the law of God as a result of sinning?
Tom originally posted
quote:
Here's my argument:
a)Because of sin, man began to view God in a way He is not. Man became estranged from God. (Gen 3)
b)God so loved the world He gave His Son that we might look at live. By beholding the cross, we are brought back to God. (John 3:14-16;1 Pet. 3:18)
c)The cross reconciles us, and not only us, but the entire universe by revealing the character of God, thus winning the Great Controversy. (Col 1:14-20)
d)One can find many verses which speak of the cross revealing the love of God, and bringing us into harmony with God. (some that come immediately to mind are John 3:14-16; Rom. 5:10; 2 Cor. 5:19; 1 Pet. 3:18; 1 Pet. 2:22-24). However one can find no verses which present Christ's death as providing God a legal right to forgive us. The closest one can come is by misinterpreting Rom. 3:18-25. However, this is a controverted passage.
Your basic argument's only flaw is that it's but half the story of redemption.
What happened to the ransom payment by Christ for all sinners??! Now, the fact that we agree the world was corporately justified by Christ's death shows that the cross established God's right to justify sinners and be just. Rom 4:25 says that Christ's death and resurrection give God the right listed in Rom 5:19 to justify and make us righteous based on Christ's acceptable sacrifice.
When Adam & Eve sinned, a sacrifice of atonement for them was necessary, and the Messiah was promised to provide such (Gen 3). Obviously the wages of sin is death (Rom 6:23), and equally clearly the sin offering enabled forgiveness by faith in the promised Messiah (Heb 9:22). Inasmuch as the law of God was transgressed (1 Jn 3:4), reconciliation was only possible with the penalty due for that transgression being carried out (Rom 8:3b,4) - in us on Christ's body: forgiveness is at the price of the life of the Son of God, not just at the display of agape (1 Cor 6:20).
That's it for now.
Posted By: Mountain Man
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/16/06 07:51 AM
quote:
Originally posted by Tom Ewall:
Did you see my response three posts above this last one you just now posted?
TE - I don't see how anyone who knows God at all could not know that this is true.
MM – So, do you agree with me that God is not sorry that the unsaved sinners receive their reward in the lake of fire because they are “worthy”?
TE - It looks like you've the cart before the horse here.
MM – I disagree. The blood and righteousness of Jesus is what makes pardon possible.
TE - Do you really mean to suggest that God only thought of pardoning us because Jesus offered His blood on our behalf?
MM – Without the blood and righteousness of Jesus pardon was not an option. Without the shedding of blood there is no pardon.
TE - The fact is that sin causes pain, suffering, misery and death. There's nothing God can do about this.
MM – God said, In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. Were it not for the plan of salvation the human race would have ended with the instant death of our first parents. No offspring would have been born to experience pain, suffering, sickness, disease, etc. These things are a part of our reality because God grants us probationary time. It is we who assume the consequences of sinning are evil. In truth, they are controlled by God for our good. They remind us that God loves us, and that He is in control of the outcome of the great controversy.
TE - God can, however, transform selfish rebels who hate Him and the principles of His government into loving subjects who admire Him, the attributes of His character, and the principles of His government. By beholding we become changed.
MM – Amen!
Posted By: Tom
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/15/06 08:23 PM
Thanks for the response. I liked the argument you developed (not in the sense of agreeing with it, but I liked the form of it, which facilitates our dialog).Sure, let's keep this simple. You object to Jesus suffering the wrath of God against sin when he died on Golgotha - or would that be wrath...against sinners(?), but you don't object to Jesus dying the sinner's death due under the law of God as a result of sinning?
No, I don't object to either. I object to the idea that Jesus' suffering was for the purpose of obtaining the legal right for God to forgive us, or for the purpose of solving some legal problem, or for appeasing God's wrath.Tom originally posted
quote: Here's my argument:
a)Because of sin, man began to view God in a way He is not. Man became estranged from God. (Gen 3)
b)God so loved the world He gave His Son that we might look at live. By beholding the cross, we are brought back to God. (John 3:14-16;1 Pet. 3:18)
c)The cross reconciles us, and not only us, but the entire universe by revealing the character of God, thus winning the Great Controversy. (Col 1:14-20)
d)One can find many verses which speak of the cross revealing the love of God, and bringing us into harmony with God. (some that come immediately to mind are John 3:14-16; Rom. 5:10; 2 Cor. 5:19; 1 Pet. 3:18; 1 Pet. 2:22-24). However one can find no verses which present Christ's death as providing God a legal right to forgive us. The closest one can come is by misinterpreting Rom. 3:18-25. However, this is a controverted passage.
Your basic argument's only flaw is that it's but half the story of redemption.
What happened to the ransom payment by Christ for all sinners??!
Christ died on the cross.Now, the fact that we agree the world was corporately justified by Christ's death shows that the cross established God's right to justify sinners and be just.
God's right to justify sinners was never an issue.Rom 4:25 says that Christ's death and resurrection give God the right listed in Rom 5:19 to justify and make us righteous based on Christ's acceptable sacrifice.
No it doesn't. It says quote:
5Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.
This says nothing about giving God any rights.
When Adam & Eve sinned, a sacrifice of atonement for them was necessary, and the Messiah was promised to provide such (Gen 3). Obviously the wages of sin is death (Rom 6:23), and equally clearly the sin offering enabled forgiveness by faith in the promised Messiah (Heb 9:22). Inasmuch as the law of God was transgressed (1 Jn 3:4), reconciliation was only possible with the penalty due for that transgression being carried out (Rom 8:3b,4) - in us on Christ's body: forgiveness is at the price of the life of the Son of God, not just at the display of agape (1 Cor 6:20).
That's it for now.
Romans 8:3b, 4 doesn't say anything about a penalty. It says:
quote:
God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:
4That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
There's nothing in here about a penalty.
Here's how I understand the verses you quoted:
a.When Adam & Eve sinned, a sacrifice of atonement was needed, as per Gen. 3. Why? The following SOP quote explains why:
quote:
(M)an was deceived; his mind was darkened by Satan's sophistry. The height and depth of the love of God he did not know. For him there was hope in a knowledge of God's love. By beholding His character he might be drawn back to God. (DA 762)
b.The wages of sin is death. This means the same thing as saying "the soul that sins shall die." Or, sin results in death. Or as EGW refers to it (death): "the inevitable result of sin."
c.The forgivenss enabled is entirely on our end. God forgave us immediately. That's what got the plan of salvation going. If God had not forgiven Adam, the human race would have perished then and there. It was because God forgave us that He gave His Son. We are the ones who need Christ to be forgiven. God does not need Christ to forgive. There's no statement in either Scripture or the Spirit of Prophecy which says this (that God needs Christ in order to forgive us).
d.Reconciliation is only possible when the love of God is seen. It is the love of God which reconciles us.
e.The price of the life of the Son of God was needed because it was only the revelation of truth that could reconcile us. This truth also secures the unfallen universe. God didn't need the price to be paid. We did.
What I see happening is that you are filtering certain Scriptures according to the paradigm you have. Of course, we all do that. The question is if Scripture really support our paradigm. I can produce texts which support every statement I make. OTOH some statements do not have the Scriptures saying what you are saying they say. For example, Rom. 4:25 says nothing about giving God a legal right; Romans 3:3, 4 says nothing about a penalty. These are things you are reading into the texts.
I suggest you read Waggoner's articles on Romans. (I'm suggesting this because I think you have an appreciation for his writings). Here's what he says regarding Romans 3:25
quote:
A Propitiation. A propitiation is a sacrifice. The statement then is simply that Christ is set forth to be a sacrifice for the remission of our sins. "Once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." Heb. 9:26. Of course the idea of a propitiation or sacrifice is that there is wrath to be appeased. But take particular notice that it is we who require the sacrifice, and not God. He provides the sacrifice. The idea that God's wrath has to be propitiated in order that we may have forgiveness finds no warrant in the Bible.(emphasis mine)
Waggoner is right!
I'd also suggest you look at his comments in the other sections of Romans you are quoting as well.
Posted By: Colin
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/16/06 05:42 AM
quote:
Sure, let's keep this simple. You object to Jesus suffering the wrath of God against sin when he died on Golgotha - or would that be wrath...against sinners(?), but you don't object to Jesus dying the sinner's death due under the law of God as a result of sinning?
No, I don't object to either. I object to the idea that Jesus' suffering was for the purpose of obtaining the legal right for God to forgive us, or for the purpose of solving some legal problem, or for appeasing God's wrath.
No, you do object to the first scenario - Jesus suffering God's wrath, as well as the legal problem, but not the second scenario. quote:
What happened to the ransom payment by Christ for all sinners??!
Christ died on the cross.
Okay, what was the ransom payment for? quote:
c.The forgivenss enabled is entirely on our end. God forgave us immediately. That's what got the plan of salvation going. If God had not forgiven Adam, the human race would have perished then and there. It was because God forgave us that He gave His Son. We are the ones who need Christ to be forgiven. God does not need Christ to forgive. There's no statement in either Scripture or the Spirit of Prophecy which says this (that God needs Christ in order to forgive us).
Heb 9:22 sums up the sacrificial purpose: no remission or forgiveness without shedding of blood - giving of a pure life, the promised Lamb of God. Because you have failed to realise the legal basis of salvation - starting with forgiveness/pardon, your focus on reconciliation merely by realising the truth of agape appears to be the moral influence theory, by definition.
Now, do you have the cart before the horse, or a cart but no horse?
So, you don't link the legal context & meaning of the word "justification", which happens to us, with a legal purpose in Christ's obedience to the law, in life and in death? Yes, educating our spiritual minds with agape's truth is vital to living faith (i.e. sancification), but how are our minds spiritually awakened or justified without Christ's crucifixion of our sinful minds legally enabling justification, i.e. pardon? - our justification is excluded if Jesus did not fulfil the just requirements of the law by his death and resurrection (Rom 4:25) - dying our death & establishing merit for our pardon.
Jesus emptying the cup of the wrath of God against our sin on our behalf - the results of sin indeed (yes, you only agree with the 'death of sin'), wasn't the requirement of God's law for believing sinners to be forgiven the guilt of the alienation of sin we suffer? You don't recognise the negative demands of God's law: the just and lawful execution of sin's results before alienation's guilt (which we bear partially) can be forgiven in the name of the Substitute?
On re-examining Rom 3:24-26, those verses are clarity inspired, and no need for other texts to confirm this, or several atonement theories to arise from them. With guilt established for all sinners under the law (v.19), justification is only by the righteousness of Jesus through faith in his blood, which was offered as our propitiation (v.24,25a): true, we are atoned for; no-one here ever intimated that God needed atoning for - he does the atoning. The middle of v.25 is crystal clear. quote:
...to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past,...
As Hebrews 9:22 states equally succinctly, Christ's life given for our life is the basis or declaration on which remission of sins is achieved. v.26 reiterates remission based on Christ's death, as the lawful or just permission for God to forgive or remit our sins, which is the basic legal nature of justification (Rom 5:18,19).
Forgiveness of guilt is only possible after the death due the sinning which incurred that guilt has been suffered (Rom 8:3b; 1 Jn 1:7b,9 - these "works" (3b) are listed in Rom 8:29,30) - hence the usefulness (speaking reverently) of a substitutionary death for all sin (Rom 8:3b), instead of forgiveness being inapplicable, ie. without a recipient, once the sinner has died forever, should there be no saviour...
Death from sin is eternal separation from God at the day of judgement ("condemnation" in Jn 3:18,19)- fully suffering God's wrath (the cup which Christ drained between Gethsemane and expiring on the cross) before being mercifully annihilated, but without Christ that would have happened to Adam and Eve 'in a day'.
Jesus is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, because the plan of salvation was established before this world was created (Heb 4:3c; 9:26a)): God forgave Adam because of the contract already made with his divine Son (Adam also being a "son of God"!) to redeem fallen mankind (Heb 4:3; 9:16 - that divine contract enables inheritance of the promise to Abraham). God is forgiving by nature, but without the shedding of the blood of a substitutionary Saviour there can be no forgiveness (Heb 9:22).
That is such a basic legal issue, it doesn't need repeating throughout Scripture, until someone refuses to accept it, ever since the 12th century AD. So, we break God's law, and death is the result, but probationary time is facilitated by a promised Saviour, whose death bears the penalty of 'our' sinning; without that substitutionary death, we remain bound by the law to face eternal death (Rom 7:2 - husband is sinful nature, its law being sin's fate, thus the wife being condemned to death unless released from that fate), rather instantly, though. Deprived of a Saviour - hypthetically, of course, neither forgiveness nor eternal life is available, since God can only gift either in the name of Jesus (Jn 14:13).
Posted By: Tom
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/16/06 05:57 AM
quote:
No, you do object to the first scenario - Jesus suffering God's wrath, as well as the legal problem, but not the second scenario.
It seems a tad pretentious to me for you to decide what I object to. I should know what I do and don't object to. As I said, I do not object to the idea that Jesus suffered God's wrath.
Posted By: Tom
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/16/06 06:57 AM
Okay, what was the ransom payment for?
quote:
When Adam fell, God's attributes of holiness, justice, and truth could not be changed. And yet He desired to reconcile man with heaven's immutable law. Yearning to save fallen humanity, He sought to devise a plan whereby the sinner need not perish, but might gain everlasting life. Christ, the Eternal Truth, the Light, the Life, the Sovereign of heaven, offered to clothe His divinity with humanity, and give His life as a ransom for the fallen race. God in His wisdom accepted the plan proposed by Christ for the accomplishment of His purpose. (ST 5/14/02)
Christ gave His life a ransom for the accomplishment of God's purpose. What was God's purpose? To reconcile us. Here's how Peter puts it:
quote:
For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: (1 Pet. 3:18)
The ransom was paid to "bring us to God." Perhaps Jesus put it best when He said, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." The ransom was paid that we might have eternal life by believing in Christ.
quote: c.The forgivenss enabled is entirely on our end. God forgave us immediately. That's what got the plan of salvation going. If God had not forgiven Adam, the human race would have perished then and there. It was because God forgave us that He gave His Son. We are the ones who need Christ to be forgiven. God does not need Christ to forgive. There's no statement in either Scripture or the Spirit of Prophecy which says this (that God needs Christ in order to forgive us).
Heb 9:22 sums up the sacrificial purpose: no remission or forgiveness without shedding of blood - giving of a pure life, the promised Lamb of God. Because you have failed to realise the legal basis of salvation - starting with forgiveness/pardon, your focus on reconciliation merely by realising the truth of agape appears to be the moral influence theory, by definition.
No, this is a mischaracterization. The moral influence theory has to do with our being saved by imitating Christ's example. We are saved by faith in Jesus Christ. There's a big difference here.
It's true that there is no forgiveness without the shedding of blood, but the question is why not? You are once again assuming your conclusion. There's nothing in Hebrews 9, or Hebrews anywhere, that says it was to solve a legal problem.
God offered to forgive Satan without the shedding of blood; solely on the basis of repentance and submission. This point is worth careful consideration. Why would God forgive Satan without blood, but not man? Understanding the answer to this question will help to understand the purpose of the cross.
Now, do you have the cart before the horse, or a cart but no horse?
So, you don't link the legal context & meaning of the word "justification", which happens to us, with a legal purpose in Christ's obedience to the law, in life and in death? Yes, educating our spiritual minds with agape's truth is vital to living faith (i.e. sancification),
Pardon my interupting here. I thought from previous statements of yours that you were familiar with Jones and Waggoner's writings, and agreed with what they taught. It is justification by faith that's at issue here. I could quote reams upon reams of Jones and Waggoner to establish this point, especially Waggoner. Here's one example:
quote:
The life of Christ is divine power. In the time of temptation the victory is won beforehand. When Christ is abiding in us, we are justified by faith, and we have His life abiding in us. But in that life He gained the victory over all sin, so the victory is ours before the temptation comes. When Satan comes with his temptation, he has no power, for we have the life of Christ, and that in us wards him off every time. Oh, the glory of the thought, that there is life in Christ, and that we may have it!
The just shall live by faith, because Christ lives in them. "I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me." Gal. 2:20. ("Life in Christ" Present Truth)
but how are our minds spiritually awakened or justified without Christ's crucifixion of our sinful minds legally enabling justification, i.e. pardon? - our justification is excluded if Jesus did not fulfil the just requirements of the law by his death and resurrection (Rom 4:25) - dying our death & establishing merit for our pardon.
Romans 4:25 doesn't say anything about Christ establishing merit for our pardon. You're reading that in there. There's no reference to "merit" or "legal rights" or anything of the sort. The verse says He was delivered for offenses and raised for our justification.
Jesus emptying the cup of the wrath of God against our sin on our behalf - the results of sin indeed (yes, you only agree with the 'death of sin'), wasn't the requirement of God's law for believing sinners to be forgiven the guilt of the alienation of sin we suffer? You don't recognise the negative demands of God's law: the just and lawful execution of sin's results before alienation's guilt (which we bear partially) can be forgiven in the name of the Substitute?
I don't understand you questions here.
On re-examining Rom 3:24-26, those verses are clarity inspired, and no need for other texts to confirm this, or several atonement theories to arise from them. With guilt established for all sinners under the law (v.19), justification is only by the righteousness of Jesus through faith in his blood, which was offered as our propitiation (v.24,25a): true, we are atoned for; no-one here ever intimated that God needed atoning for - he does the atoning. The middle of v.25 is crystal clear.
I'll quote Waggoner again:
quote:
A Propitiation. A propitiation is a sacrifice. The statement then is simply that Christ is set forth to be a sacrifice for the remission of our sins. "Once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." Heb. 9:26. Of course the idea of a propitiation or sacrifice is that there is wrath to be appeased. But take particular notice that it is we who require the sacrifice, and not God. He provides the sacrifice. The idea that God's wrath has to be propitiated in order that we may have forgiveness finds no warrant in the Bible.
It is the height of absurdity to say that God is so angry with men that he will not forgive them unless something is provided to appease his wrath, and that therefore he himself offers the gift to himself, by which he is appeased. "And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death." Col. 1:21, 22. (Waggoner on Romans, chapter 3)
I agree with Waggoner. The idea that God's wrath has to be propitiated in order that we may have forgiveness finds no warrant in the Bible.
quote:...to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past,...
As Hebrews 9:22 states equally succinctly, Christ's life given for our life is the basis or declaration on which remission of sins is achieved. v.26 reiterates remission based on Christ's death, as the lawful or just permission for God to forgive or remit our sins, which is the basic legal nature of justification (Rom 5:18,19).
There's not a word in any of these verses about there being a legal issue involved. Nothing about permission. Once again, Waggoner's point stands.
Forgiveness of guilt is only possible after the death due the sinning which incurred that guilt has been suffered
This is true.
(Rom 8:3b; 1 Jn 1:7b,9 - these "works" (3b) are listed in Rom 8:29,30) - hence the usefulness (speaking reverently) of a substitutionary death for all sin (Rom 8:3b), instead of forgiveness being inapplicable, ie. without a recipient, once the sinner has died forever, should there be no saviour...
Not really sure what you're saying here, but it looks OK.
Death from sin is eternal separation from God at the day of judgement ("condemnation" in Jn 3:18,19)- fully suffering God's wrath (the cup which Christ drained between Gethsemane and expiring on the cross) before being mercifully annihilated, but without Christ that would have happened to Adam and Eve 'in a day'.
Agreed.
Jesus is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, because the plan of salvation was established before this world was created (Heb 4:3c; 9:26a)): God forgave Adam because of the contract already made with his divine Son (Adam also being a "son of God"!) to redeem fallen mankind (Heb 4:3; 9:16 - that divine contract enables inheritance of the promise to Abraham).
God did not forgive Adam because of an already made contract made with Christ. God forgave Adam because it is His nature to forgive. God is love. Because God is love, and it is His nature to forgive, He made the contract with His Son that should man fall, Christ would redeem man.
God is forgiving by nature, but without the shedding of the blood of a substitutionary Saviour there can be no forgiveness (Heb 9:22).
True, but why is blood necessary? That's the question. No one is denying that blood was necessary. But penal substition or satisfaction is not the only theory as to why. Simply assuming your conclusion and reasserting it does not constitute any sort of proof or argument.
You are assuming that the blood was necessary to solve a legal problem. But there's no hint anywhere in the vicinity of Heb 9:22 that there is a legal issue involved.
That is such a basic legal issue, it doesn't need repeating throughout Scripture, until someone refuses to accept it, ever since the 12th century AD.
Are you stating here that not until the 12th century did anyone suggest there was a legal issue? If that's what you're saying, I agree (except that it was more like the 11th century). Before that, the legal theory was unknown, which includes the New Testament authors.
Consider that Jesus never even hinted that there was a legal reason for His death. Paul's teachings were based on Jesus' teachings, as well as on the Old Testament Scriptures. There's no hint in the Old Testament that there's a legal issue which the sacrifice for sins accomplished. The Hebrews didn't have this idea.
So, we break God's law, and death is the result, but probationary time is facilitated by a promised Saviour, whose death bears the penalty of 'our' sinning; without that substitutionary death, we remain bound by the law to face eternal death (Rom 7:2 - husband is sinful nature, its law being sin's fate, thus the wife being condemned to death unless released from that fate), rather instantly, though. Deprived of a Saviour - hypthetically, of course, neither forgiveness nor eternal life is available, since God can only gift either in the name of Jesus (Jn 14:13).
This looks right.
Posted By: John Boskovic
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/16/06 07:00 AM
quote:
Okay, what was the ransom payment for?
So, we break God's law, and death is the result, but probationary time is facilitated by a promised Saviour, … (Rom 7:2 - husband is sinful nature, its law being sin's fate, thus the wife being condemned to death unless released from that fate), rather instantly, though. Deprived of a Saviour - hypothetically, of course, neither forgiveness nor eternal life is available, since God can only gift either in the name of Jesus (Jn 14:13).
So where is the short coming?
The Father and the son are willing and ready to give and have given, in order that we would be ransomed from the “husband”; the husband that cannot accept forgiveness nor be set free from condemnation, but abides in the fear of death.
- Rom 7:3 So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man.
Rom 7:4 Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.
Since there is no other love that can save from such a husband but the love of God; God could not give us anything less to save us from sin.
Yes, sin is so mean and depriving of life; condemning in all its ways. Nothing less then the very blood of Christ needed to be shed abroad on us, to flow through us, so that we could be dead to sin and alive unto God.. The blood of Christ is his life which he gave unto us that we might live
- 1Jo 4:9 In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.
Gal 1:4 Who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father:
But not all see and understand this; instead they use Christ to save themselves from God.
- 2Co 4:4 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
Posted By: John Boskovic
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/16/06 07:08 AM
- 2Co 1:9 But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead:
Posted By: Tom
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/16/06 07:46 AM
quote:
But not all see and understand this (that Christ gave Himself for our sins); instead they use Christ to save themselves from God.
Bingo!
Posted By: Colin
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/16/06 09:02 AM
Originally posted by Tom
quote:
Romans 4:25 doesn't say anything about Christ establishing merit for our pardon. You're reading that in there. There's no reference to "merit" or "legal rights" or anything of the sort. The verse says He was delivered for offenses and raised for our justification.
No, justification, established by the resurrection, is our justification in Christ since he possesses the merits of salvation by definition, and our justification is a legal solution or matter, after all. Forgiveness involves replacing guilt with righteousness, and that righteousness was only available with Jesus' resurrection (Rom 3:25). I'm not reading anything into the text. quote:
God did not forgive Adam because of an already made contract made with Christ. God forgave Adam because it is His nature to forgive. God is love. Because God is love, and it is His nature to forgive, He made the contract with His Son that should man fall, Christ would redeem man.
quote:
God is forgiving by nature, but without the shedding of the blood of a substitutionary Saviour there can be no forgiveness (Heb 9:22).
True, but why is blood necessary? That's the question. No one is denying that blood was necessary. But penal substition or satisfaction is not the only theory as to why. Simply assuming your conclusion and reasserting it does not constitute any sort of proof or argument.
Isn't sinning a crime??! Crimes carry punishment, and only a lawful substitute (hence the truth of Christ's humanity is critical to the ethical, lawful gospel) can save us 'criminals' from that punishment.
quote:
quote:
...to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past,...
As Hebrews 9:22 states equally succinctly, Christ's life given for our life is the basis or declaration on which remission of sins is achieved. v.26 reiterates remission based on Christ's death, as the lawful or just permission for God to forgive or remit our sins, which is the basic legal nature of justification (Rom 5:18,19).
There's not a word in any of these verses about there being a legal issue involved. Nothing about permission. Once again, Waggoner's point stands.
No, Waggoner's point is a straw man, here, completely irrelevant: he gives to propitiation the incorrect understanding of those who mistake God's wrath to exclude God's love, and brushes with the same stroke the understanding that God's mercy and wrath are harmonious in his holiness, as believed by those who find the Saviour's propitiatory suffering of God's wrath in Scripture....You just don't think so. Your loss.
quote:
You are assuming that the blood was necessary to solve a legal problem. But there's no hint anywhere in the vicinity of Heb 9:22 that there is a legal issue involved.
What do you understand a covenant and a testament to be (v.15,16? I'm having to force myself to be diplomatic here... ![[Roll Eyes]](images/icons/rolleyes.gif)
Are they not documents with legal content & issues for us and God, and applied throughout Heb 9?
quote:
quote:
That is such a basic legal issue, it doesn't need repeating throughout Scripture, until someone refuses to accept it, ever since the 12th century AD.
Are you stating here that not until the 12th century did anyone suggest there was a legal issue? If that's what you're saying, I agree (except that it was more like the 11th century). Before that, the legal theory was unknown, which includes the New Testament authors.
Consider that Jesus never even hinted that there was a legal reason for His death. Paul's teachings were based on Jesus' teachings, as well as on the Old Testament Scriptures. There's no hint in the Old Testament that there's a legal issue which the sacrifice for sins accomplished. The Hebrews didn't have this idea.
No: nice try, but you can't turn my words completely around like that.
The history of atonement teachings had an error from the church fathers until the 11th century, with the ransom theory involving the devil being paid the ransom - he supposedly having a ransom demand for death's release...whereas it was God's justice which had a legal demand of death, and the ransom was payable to God! The 11th century corrected that mistake with that satisfaction of justice, and the 12th century, moral influence theory, started ignoring God's law's justice altogether, hence your disagreement with our church for her recognition of divine justice in the atonement.
This fits in here nicely, I think quote:
quote:
Jesus emptying the cup of the wrath of God against our sin on our behalf - the results of sin indeed (yes, you only agree with the 'death of sin'), wasn't the requirement of God's law for believing sinners to be forgiven the guilt of the alienation of sin we suffer? You don't recognise the negative demands of God's law: the just and lawful execution of sin's results before alienation's guilt (which we bear partially) can be forgiven in the name of the Substitute?
I don't understand you questions here.
The positive requirement of the law for Jesus to be Saviour of the world was his meritorious righteousness; the negative requirement was everything to do with his faithful death: suffering God's wrath against sin and his humanity possessing our justification in the resurrection. That justification in him enables pardon for us who believe, supplying the righteousness which pardons.
quote:
Okay, what was the ransom payment for?
quote:
[quote]When Adam fell, God's attributes of holiness, justice, and truth could not be changed. And yet He desired to reconcile man with heaven's immutable law. Yearning to save fallen humanity, He sought to devise a plan whereby the sinner need not perish, but might gain everlasting life. Christ, the Eternal Truth, the Light, the Life, the Sovereign of heaven, offered to clothe His divinity with humanity, and give His life as a ransom for the fallen race. God in His wisdom accepted the plan proposed by Christ for the accomplishment of His purpose. (ST 5/14/02)
Christ gave His life a ransom for the accomplishment of God's purpose. What was God's purpose? To reconcile us. Here's how Peter puts it
This deserved to come last, since you only quote one side of Sister White and thereby consistently misrepresent her, sadly; so, do you share her stance on the Bible?
You're reason for not being a moral influence theorist, on the other 'wrath of God, etc.' thread is that those theorists only imitate Christ(?): they also reject the satisfaction theory of the atonement! - and discards Christ's death as a necessity for salvation (here you illogically differ), retaining only appreciation of agape as shown in the cross for the means of reconciliation with and restoration to God. They don't really deal with experiential justification by faith at all, and dwell almost solely on appreciating agape in the cross.
Thus you hold to almost all that they do...and
Here's the other side of Sister White: note how she deals with the issue Waggoner overcooked, about God's wrath: quote:
"But this great sacrifice was not made in order to induce God to love those whom he otherwise hated; it was not made to produce a love that was not in existence; but it was made as a manifestation of the love that was already in God's heart. . . . We are not to entertain the idea that God loves us because Christ has died for us. . . . The death of Christ was expedient in order that mercy might reach us with its full pardoning power, and at the same time that justice might be satisfied in the righteous substitute." (ST May 30, 1895).
You've received a copy already of Wieland's comments on this excerpt. (He expressly "eschewed" the moral influence theory.) I'll paraphrase his statement, for others here who didn't get a copy: the sentence with "that mercy might reach us with its pardoning power", if kept and the rest of the sentence omitted would constitute the moral influence theory. Wieland's emphasis on "mercy" and agape should never imply that he denies the "justice" clause of that sentence: he combines God's justice with God's mercy, mentioning both and linking them, as Sister White did here. You do deny the second clause, while he clearly starts with it and incorporates it into the "mercy" clause.
I hope we can come to an agreement on this issue, but there's not been much success with that yet.
Posted By: Colin
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/16/06 09:05 AM
John, on first reading, I agree with your comments at the top of this page.
Posted By: Mountain Man
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/17/06 07:38 AM
quote:
Originally posted by Tom Ewall:
quote:
But not all see and understand this (that Christ gave Himself for our sins); instead they use Christ to save themselves from God.
Bingo!
I have never met such a person in my entire life. I have never met anyone who believes Jesus saves us from God. Please quote one person who believes such a thing. Thank you.
Posted By: Tom
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/16/06 08:32 PM
I took out some things to keep the length down. I tried to keep the salient points going, but if I took out something you thought important, or didn't answer a question you wanted me to, please repost.
Also I sent you a PM.Colin:Forgiveness involves replacing guilt with righteousness, and that righteousness was only available with Jesus' resurrection (Rom 3:25). I'm not reading anything into the text.
This doesn't agree with Waggoner's theology. As he pointed out, Christ has always been a present savior. The righteousness that Abraham received was real righteousness, present rightouesness. That righteousness was always present. It was not created at the cross, or at the resurrection. It was revealed there, but not created there. The righteousness is in Christ. Abraham received the righteousness when he received Christ. quote:
The sin is against God, and if he is willing to forgive it, he has the right to do so. No unbeliever would deny the right of a man to overlook a trespass against him. But God does not simply overlook the trespass; he gives his life as a forfeit. Thus he upholds the majesty of the law, and is just in declaring that man righteous who was before a sinner. Sin is remitted sent away from the sinner, because sin and righteousness can not exist together, and God puts his own righteous life into the believer. (Waggoner on Romans, ch. 3)
Do you see that this is not a legal matter that Waggoner is describing? Sin is remitted by God's putting His own righteous life into the believer. This happened as much before the cross as after.
Tom:True, but why is blood necessary? That's the question. No one is denying that blood was necessary. But penal substition or satisfaction is not the only theory as to why. Simply assuming your conclusion and reasserting it does not constitute any sort of proof or argument.
Colin:Isn't sinning a crime??! Crimes carry punishment, and only a lawful substitute (hence the truth of Christ's humanity is critical to the ethical, lawful gospel) can save us 'criminals' from that punishment.
It's true that crimes carry punishment, and in our realm these punishments must of necessity be arbitrary. But it God's government, this is not so. (This is also Waggoner, by the way; Glad Tidings, chapter 3). The punishment for sin is death. The fact that men live, even though they are sinners, is evidence of the efficacy of God's grace.
Your statement makes the tacit assumption that the punishment that results from sin is an arbitrary, or imposed, one, and not a real one. But sin really and truly does result in death. There's no arbitrary requirement that sin must be punished, but rather it's a law (or principle or rule) that sin results in death. The death that results from sin is the punishment.
The only way to save the sinner from death is to save him from sin, and the only way to do that was through Christ's life, death and resurrection.
Old Colin:...to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past,...
As Hebrews 9:22 states equally succinctly, Christ's life given for our life is the basis or declaration on which remission of sins is achieved. v.26 reiterates remission based on Christ's death, as the lawful or just permission for God to forgive or remit our sins, which is the basic legal nature of justification (Rom 5:18,19).
Tom:There's not a word in any of these verses about there being a legal issue involved. Nothing about permission. Once again, Waggoner's point stands.
Colin:No, Waggoner's point is a straw man, here, completely irrelevant: he gives to propitiation the incorrect understanding of those who mistake God's wrath to exclude God's love, and brushes with the same stroke the understanding that God's mercy and wrath are harmonious in his holiness, as believed by those who find the Saviour's propitiatory suffering of God's wrath in Scripture.
You write Waggoner's point is a straw man, completely irrelevant. This must be referring to Waggoner's point that nowhere does Scripture speak of propotiation having to do with giving God the right to forgive us, or of it being for the purpose of appeasing God's wrath. However, this is exactly what you are asserting. Waggoner is asserting the opposite. How is this not relevant?
I'll stop here, and ask you to rewrite the rest, as the sentence you wrote is very difficult to parse.
quote:You are assuming that the blood was necessary to solve a legal problem. But there's no hint anywhere in the vicinity of Heb 9:22 that there is a legal issue involved.
Colin:What do you understand a covenant and a testament to be (v.15,16? I'm having to force myself to be diplomatic here... [Eek!] [Roll Eyes] Are they not documents with legal content & issues for us and God, and applied throughout Heb 9?
Have you read "The Glad Tidings"? I think it's page 70 in Wieland's edition. Waggoner talks about what the covenant is. Around page 100 he goes into more detail on the subject. I agree with Waggoner's explanation.
quote:That is such a basic legal issue, it doesn't need repeating throughout Scripture, until someone refuses to accept it, ever since the 12th century AD.
Are you stating here that not until the 12th century did anyone suggest there was a legal issue? If that's what you're saying, I agree (except that it was more like the 11th century). Before that, the legal theory was unknown, which includes the New Testament authors.
Consider that Jesus never even hinted that there was a legal reason for His death. Paul's teachings were based on Jesus' teachings, as well as on the Old Testament Scriptures. There's no hint in the Old Testament that there's a legal issue which the sacrifice for sins accomplished. The Hebrews didn't have this idea.
Colin:No: nice try, but you can't turn my words completely around like that.
Our conversation would be much more pleasant for me if you would refrain from sarcasm and accusation. You will notice I have treated you and your ideas with respect. I have not impugned your motive. I believe you are sincere in your beliefs, and following God to the best of your ability.
I'm not trying to turn your words. Your prose is very difficult to understand. I'm doing my best. I asked you a question for clarification. I asked, "Are you stating? ..." Then I continued "IF that's what you're saying ..."
Everything I'm writing here indicates I'm unclear as to what you're trying to say. I'm not trying to twist or turn your words -- just understand what you're saying.
The history of atonement teachings had an error from the church fathers until the 11th century, with the ransom theory involving the devil being paid the ransom - he supposedly having a ransom demand for death's release...whereas it was God's justice which had a legal demand of death, and the ransom was payable to God! The 11th century corrected that mistake with that satisfaction of justice, and the 12th century, moral influence theory, started ignoring God's law's justice altogether, hence your disagreement with our church for her recognition of divine justice in the atonement.
I disagree. You've skipped the Christus Victor theory. This theory existed in the first centuries, before Romanism took over. The theory you are suggesting as truth was invented in the height of the papacy, the "midnight of the world" as Ellen White puts it. It is based on appeasing God's wrath, an idea which was rejected by Waggoner and other SDA colleagues of his. It's a theory entrenched in Roman Catholic theology.
Take a look at http://www.sharktacos.com/God/cross_intro.shtml. This has a nice discussion of the Christus Victor theory.
quote:Okay, what was the ransom payment for?
Tom:Christ gave His life a ransom for the accomplishment of God's purpose. What was God's purpose? To reconcile us.
Colin:This deserved to come last, since you only quote one side of Sister White and thereby consistently misrepresent her, sadly; so, do you share her stance on the Bible?
Colin, there's no need to make statements like "consistently misrepresent her, sadly." They don't add anything to the discussion.
You asked me a question, which is what was the need for the ransom. My answer was that it is for the purpose of reconciling us. I understand this to be the consistent teaching of Scripture, as well as the Spirit of Prophecy. For example:
quote:
Christ exalted the character of God, attributing to him the praise, and giving to him the credit, of the whole purpose of his own mission on earth,--to set men right through the revelation of God. (ST 1/20/90)
If the whole purpose of Christ's mission was to set us right through the revelation of God, and Christ's death was a part of His mission, then it follows that the purpose of Christ's death was to set us right through the revelation of God. This is in perfect harmony with Scripture.
You're reason for not being a moral influence theorist, on the other 'wrath of God, etc.' thread is that those theorists only imitate Christ(?): they also reject the satisfaction theory of the atonement!
This isn't relevant. The fact that the Moral Influence Theory may have something right doesn't mean the whole thing is right. I'm surprised you would write this. Surely you see the fallacy in your logic here. I can elaborate if you wish.
- and discards Christ's death as a necessity for salvation (here you illogically differ), retaining only appreciation of agape as shown in the cross for the means of reconciliation with and restoration to God. They don't really deal with experiential justification by faith at all, and dwell almost solely on appreciating agape in the cross.
Thus you hold to almost all that they do...and
If you want to pigeon-hole the ideas I've been sharing, they are closer to Christus Victor than the Moral Influence theory. If you're familiar with Gustaf Aulen's book, that describes the Christus Victor idea well. I also gave you a web link to look at.
However, these authors are not aware of the Great Controversy theme. That's how I would characterize it myself. I think Fifield presented the idea very well, and quoted several paragraphs from him. If you read, and understand, what he wrote, you will see that it is very different than the Moral Influence theory.
This tactic of wanting to label me according to some theory you hold in low esteem is not a helpful tactic. It is as unhelpful as my labeling you an Arianist would be (which I've never done). Instead of labeling, it would be better to consider the issues involved.
Here's the other side of Sister White: note how she deals with the issue Waggoner overcooked, about God's wrath:
quote:"But this great sacrifice was not made in order to induce God to love those whom he otherwise hated; it was not made to produce a love that was not in existence; but it was made as a manifestation of the love that was already in God's heart. . . . We are not to entertain the idea that God loves us because Christ has died for us. . . . The death of Christ was expedient in order that mercy might reach us with its full pardoning power, and at the same time that justice might be satisfied in the righteous substitute." (ST May 30, 1895).
There's no "other side" here. It says what I've been saying. "This great sacrifice was not made in order to induce God to love those whom he otherwise hated; it was not made to produce a love that was not in existence..." That's been my point! There's nothing in here about wrath.
Colin:I hope we can come to an agreement on this issue, but there's not been much success with that yet.
I hope so too. It may be possible, but it will require patience, and an improvement in tone. There's no reason to get angry or frustrated here. Don't you enjoy talking about these things? I do. I love trying understand more clearly the science of salvation, and appreciate the opportunity to dialog with you. I'm happy to continue as long as you wish, but ask that the tone be kept pleasant.
We have different paradigms. I understand your paradigm very well Colin, because I have had it in the past (or something close to it; of course, no two people think exactly alike). However, you've never had my paradigm. You don't understand it. It will take time to get there.
I'll give an anology. I've never had your paradigm regarding the Holy Spirit/Christ's pre-existence. So I've been very careful to not leap to conclusions as to what you think, and have asked many questions for clarification. I'm open to invesitigate truth. If I get to a certain point that I can't agree with (e.g. the Holy Spirit is capable of independent thought and has an independent will) I want to make sure that I'm disagreeing with something you actually believe.
It's not easy to understand the paradigm of someone else when you've never had that paradigm.
Posted By: John Boskovic
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/17/06 02:50 AM
quote:
MM said: I have never met such a person in my entire life. I have never met anyone who believes Jesus saves us from God. Please quote one person who believes such a thing. Thank you.
The one who holds the concept that Jesus died to appease God’s wrath and to enable God to forgive is just such a person.
Posted By: Colin
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/17/06 04:02 AM
quote:
Originally posted by John Boskovic:
quote:
MM said: I have never met such a person in my entire life. I have never met anyone who believes Jesus saves us from God. Please quote one person who believes such a thing. Thank you.
The one who holds the concept that Jesus died to appease God’s wrath and to enable God to forgive is just such a person.
I shan't say, "If you say so," but rather that that's not what I said: I perceive you're referring to my posts.
Saved from the condemnation of the law of God, which human nature is inextricably tied to, never involved being saved from God. God's mercy has its meaning because of God's just requirements: that both agape and divine wrath feature in salvation is expressed with "justice and mercy kissed" at the cross.
Thanks for highlighting the topic of your bemusement.
Posted By: Tom
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/17/06 05:35 AM
quote:
I shan't say, "If you say so," but rather that that's not what I said: I perceive you're referring to my posts.
This wasn't about you, Colin. John B. was just making observations. I can say this with conviction because I've been here long enough to know this is what John was doing.
Posted By: Colin
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/17/06 05:54 AM
Granted you've not attached any theological labels to me other than very tentatively re 1888, but I was tentative, too, actually. You disown the moral influence theory, but since you look so similar to a well known general position, how many who've studied Adventism's present truth should be aware of a rather if not completely unknown but similar theory to the one you distance yourself from?
![[Wink]](images/icons/wink.gif)
Yes, we are principlly at loggerheads on what the atoning sacrifice involved, so, while your basic point is becoming clear to me and mine is nearly clear to you, there is after all little room for manoeuvre.
The point in the EGW quote I posted wasn't for reiterating the obvious point found in Jn 3:16 about God's love expressed in grace rather than being created by grace. You keep repeating this point as if to persuade, while all around you never disagreed: you thought I had lost the point, let alone missing it?
The second half of the EGW paragraph has "that justice might be satisfied in the righteous substitute", as the expedition of mercy (same sentence). That is 'satisfaction of justice', or do you think she didn't support the satisfaction definition of atonement? You've said on the thread of 'God's misrepresentation' that you disagree with
that atonement, or do you only disagree that that satisfaction didn't involve the Substitute suffering wrath? I've read both views, from you. First you disagreed that Jesus' suffering included God's wrath against sin, then you actually agreed that that "wrath" is true (plainly) and that jesus suffered it, but that Jesus didn't attain any legal permissions for God to forgive us. So, you do agree with the wrath issue, but not the legal permission bit?
As for Waggoner, it is indeed error that God's love had to be bought by appeasing his wrath. That the Adventist church doesn't hold this view is printed in our increasingly detailed explanations of our beliefs, including the wrath issue: agape and wrath are harmoniously rooted in God's holiness.
Death following from sin - as natural consequence - isn't the legal aspect of Christ's work that I was stating as fundamental. The legal part of Christ's death was
satisfaction of the law in giving a substitutionary life for the sinner's life (2 Cor 5:14b). Now, the result of sin isn't merely natural but also itself a point of law: it is legally obligated, as Rom 5 generally shows, positively and negatively. We are justified by faith (v.1), through the righteousness of the one (v.19), and are saved from wrath through him (v.9). The law condemns all sinners in Adam (v.12, 18) and the righteous act of the Second Adam acquits all those who are in Adam (v.18): a legal proceeding by which death was replaced by life, according to law.
You wrote
quote:
The only way to save the sinner from death is to save him from sin, and the only way to do that was through Christ's life, death and resurrection.
but the apparent meaning of this is that sanctification of faith displaces justification by faith, while of course both belong in the basket. "Save him from sin" sounds like the result of the heavenly sanctuary cleansed - that is our characters rid of sinful traits by cooperating with our great High Priest, and is the perfect finishing of sanctification. Justification by faith in Christ's life, death and resurrection does what?? - since it neither touches our sinful flesh (glorification) nor sinful character traits (sanctification). How is sin conquerable or removable (sanctification) if Jesus didn't save us from death itself to start with, according to your statement above?
That other point you made re Rom 3:25 and the ever present Saviour isn't in dispute. quote:
Colin:Forgiveness involves replacing guilt with righteousness, and that righteousness was only available with Jesus' resurrection (Rom 3:25). I'm not reading anything into the text.
This doesn't agree with Waggoner's theology. As he pointed out, Christ has always been a present savior. The righteousness that Abraham received was real righteousness, present rightouesness. That righteousness was always present. It was not created at the cross, or at the resurrection. It was revealed there, but not created there. The righteousness is in Christ. Abraham received the righteousness when he received Christ.
Inasmuch as Rev 13:8 refers to the promise also alluded to in Heb 9:26, also Abraham's righteousness by faith was by believing the promise of God to bless all peoples through him. The righteousness of our salvation was created during Christ's life and perfected by his death, since it is human righteousness. It wasn't divine righteousness gifted to the patriarchs and all saints since then, but that human righteousness wrought out by Christ. The promise of the Saviour in the future didn't involve righteousness already produced, but faith in that promise that it would be.
Posted By: Tom
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/17/06 07:08 AM
Granted you've not attached any theological labels to me other than very tentatively re 1888, but I was tentative, too, actually. You disown the moral influence theory, but since you look so similar to a well known general position, how many who've studied Adventism's present truth should be aware of a rather if not completely unknown but similar theory to the one you distance yourself from?
My position is not really any more similar to the Moral Influence Theory than yours. For some reason people like to apply the label to denigrate, but most people have no idea what the theory is. The theory is that Christ influences us to behave morally by His example. There's an element of truth to this, but this is not justification by faith. I don't believe this any more than you do.Yes, we are principlly at loggerheads on what the atoning sacrifice involved, so, while your basic point is becoming clear to me and mine is nearly clear to you, there is after all little room for manoeuvre.
Your position has always been clear to me. I used to think similarly to you. I went through a paradigm shift when I realized that the familiar phrases I had been using "the just requirements of the law" "pay the penalty of sin" "pay the debt we owed" and so forth without considering what they really meant. One day the meaning dawned on me. They weren't mystical phrases which spoke of some arbitrary requiment of God or God's law, but were speaking of the truth of John 3:16, of 1 Pet. 3:18. By seeing Christ crucified, we are justified by faith; we are brought back to God. It's simple. There's no need for more than this.The second half of the EGW paragraph has "that justice might be satisfied in the righteous substitute", as the expedition of mercy (same sentence). That is 'satisfaction of justice', or do you think she didn't support the satisfaction definition of atonement?
No, not in the sense you understand it. Not at all. I searched through her writings and could not find a single instance where she spoke of God's wrath being appeased. I also searched looking for her use of the word "propitiation" and saw that she is in agreement with Waggoner. She does not apply it to God, as if He were the One propitiated, but to us. For example: quote:
For thirty-three years the Only Begotten of God dwelt among the children of men. He represented the Father, the One full of goodness, mercy, and truth, the One touched ever by human woe. During these years Christ finished the great work that He came to accomplish. He became the propitiation for the sins of every one who believes on Him.
Justice and mercy were reconciled by Christ's sacrifice. At the cross, Mercy and Truth met together; Righteousness and Peace embraced each other. Through the sacrifice of Christ, Mercy is reaching out, offering to cleanse man from his unrighteousness. Thus is fulfilled the everlasting purpose of God. Man may accept the great gift of redemption, and co-operate with God, his own will being conformed to God's will.
(ST 5/14/02)
Note she says that the propitiation is for all who believe. This makes it clear that it's not something that has to do with God, but with us. If it had to do with God, she would not have said it is for every one who believes in Christ.
Note the next paragraph where she makes the application of what the propitiation accomplishes. It's all about what it does for man. She sounds like Waggoner. She's making the same points.
Something I miss about not being at Andrews is the inability to search things out there. In thinking about these things I became interested in when the idea that God's wrath is propitiated first entered into Adventist thought. Ellen White didn't teach it. Waggoner denied it. We've seen Fifield's statements on it. I'm sure Jones didn't teach it. Nor Prescott. It would be interesting to find out when it first came in the chruch. Perhaps it was the same time the idea that Christ took the unfallen nature of Adam came in. Much or our modern teachings have come in due to outside influences. Perhaps this is another one.
OTOH perhaps there were some earlier Adventists who had this idea; perhaps some who resisted the 1888 message. I don't know. I wish I had the opportunity to find out. Maybe one day I will.
You've said on the thread of 'God's misrepresentation' that you disagree with that atonement, or do you only disagree that that satisfaction didn't involve the Substitute suffering wrath?
Are you talking about the Moral Influence Theory here? I don't know what you're asking.
I've read both views, from you. First you disagreed that Jesus' suffering included God's wrath against sin,
I don't disagree with this. I doubt I said what you are suggesting I said. If I did, it was by mistake. You'd have to quote something from me to convince me that I said this, and if you did, I'd have to take it back. But I think you're mistaken here.
then you actually agreed that that "wrath" is true (plainly) and that jesus suffered it, but that Jesus didn't attain any legal permissions for God to forgive us.
You're making it sound like I changed my mind or changed positions or something. But I know what I think. I've been consistent the whole time.
So, you do agree with the wrath issue, but not the legal permission bit?
Yes. However, I'm quite certain my understanding of God's wrath is different than yours. You may recall I've offered to discuss this with you several times.
As for Waggoner, it is indeed error that God's love had to be bought by appeasing his wrath.
That's not what Waggoner said. This is what he said:
quote:
Of course the idea of a propitiation or sacrifice is that there is wrath to be appeased. But take particular notice that it is we who require the sacrifice, and not God. He provides the sacrifice. The idea that God's wrath has to be propitiated in order that we may have forgiveness finds no warrant in the Bible.
He didn't say God's love had to be bought by appeasing God's love, but that the idea that God's wrath had to be propitiated in order that we may have forgiveness finds no warrant in the Bible. He is right.
That the Adventist church doesn't hold this view is printed in our increasingly detailed explanations of our beliefs, including the wrath issue: agape and wrath are harmoniously rooted in God's holiness.
You have to be clearer as to what you are referring to. I read our fundamental beliefs, and don't have a problem with what they say. If you're referring to something else, you'll have to say what it is for me to comment. If you're referring to the BRI, there's a lot they say that you don't agree with, probably more than me, so I don't know why you'd suggest them as a source. Actually I doubt there's any source you could suggest of Adventist doctrine which would have you more in harmony with it than me. Not that this proves anything, because it doesn't, but I find it odd that you would bring this up. It has no weight. It reminds me of this:
quote:
Therefore, no matter by whom anybody first hears the truth, he is to receive it as coming direct from heaven. The Holy Spirit enables those who wish to do God's will to tell what is truth as soon as they see or hear it, and they accept it, not on the authority of the man through whom it came to them, but on the authority of the God of truth. We may be as sure of the truth which we hold and teach as the apostle Paul was. But whenever anybody cites the name of some highly-esteemed preacher or doctor of divinity, to justify his belief, or to give it more weight with some person whom he would convince, you may be sure that he himself does not know the truth of what he professes. It may be the truth, but he does not know for himself that it is true. It is everybody's privilege to know the truth (John 8:31,32); and when one holds a truth directly from God, ten thousand times ten thousand great names in its favor do not add a feather's weight to its authority; nor is his confidence in the least shaken if every great man on earth should oppose it. It is a grand thing to be built on the Rock. (The Glad Tidings)
In closing, I appreciate the tone of your last post. Thank you. I hope we can continue discussing things amicably.
Posted By: John Boskovic
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/17/06 07:28 AM
quote:
I shan't say, "If you say so," but rather that that's not what I said: I perceive you're referring to my posts.
Sorry Colin, Tom is right; I did not have you on my mind when writing that.
But now, since you brought up a point, let’s look at it closer.
quote:
Saved from the condemnation of the law of God, which human nature is inextricably tied to, never involved being saved from God.
God’s law never condemned anyone. In fact it could not. It was never given for that. If the law would have condemned anything, it would have condemned sin and not the sinner; but it could not do that either.
- Rom 8:3 For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:
But I wonder if you are referring to sin’s condemnation, for sin uses the law of God unlawfully, to condemn and kill.
- Rom 7:11 For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me.
Rom 7:13 Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.
You see, sin creates an idea of “justice” that condemns and kills. This is why God said in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. Because sin uses the law to work wrath, condemnation, and death. Sin uses the law to create an idea of “justice” that condemns and kills. God’s “justice” on the other hand, relieves the oppressed and sets the captives free. God’s justice is kissed with mercy. With sinful man, justice works contrary to mercy. With God justice is in harmony with mercy. They love each other.
quote:
God's mercy has its meaning because of God's just requirements: that both agape and divine wrath feature in salvation is expressed with "justice and mercy kissed" at the cross.
That indeed would be saving us from God, or from a God that was! But it is not so, you see God did not need to save us from his own just requirements or his own wrath; he needed to save us from sin’s unjust requirements.
God needed to save us from “sin’s justice” to His justice which is kissed with mercy. Or differently said God needed to save us from our righteousness to his righteousness; not because our righteousness was “not good enough”, but because our righteousness is deadly; full of condemnation and wrath. Why; because sin took occasion by the law to work death in me by that which is good. So by sin, man’s judgment was turned to condemnation. From this our judgment (which is condemnation) Christ came to save us from.
This is why Christ said:
- Mat 7:1,2 Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
So that which fallen nature is tied to is the condemnation of sin which uses the law of God to work wrath.
God’s mercy has its meaning because it is life; the opposite of fallen man’s justice which is wrath and death. His mercy redeems us to God’s justice which is life. God does not want us to remain in sin’s justice because we will be judged by our own judgment. Therefore he offers us his judgment, his justice; his righteousness; his mercy; that we might be filled with his spirit; and have the mind of Christ. All of which are life; eternal life.
Posted By: Mountain Man
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/17/06 09:08 PM
quote:
Originally posted by John Boskovic:
quote:
MM said: I have never met such a person in my entire life. I have never met anyone who believes Jesus saves us from God. Please quote one person who believes such a thing. Thank you.
The one who holds the concept that Jesus died to appease God’s wrath and to enable God to forgive is just such a person.
John, who believes this distorted idea? I have never met anyone who believes such a thing. I have met lots of people who believe that the death of Jesus releases us from having to obey the law. And, I have met people who believe Jesus saved everyone with eternal life in heaven. But I have never met anyone who believes what you posted. Have you? If so, can you quote them?
Posted By: Mountain Man
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/17/06 09:18 PM
Sin is the transgression of the law. It is not a person or a god that can condemn sinners. Without the law sin would cease to be sin. Sin is only a sin because the law forbids sinning. But the law is not a person or a god. The law is a transcript of God's character, therefore, it is God who condemns sinning, not the law. Sinning is not person. Therefore, it is God who condemns sinners. It also God who pardons and saves sinners, not the law.
Posted By: Tom
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/18/06 12:02 AM
quote:
Originally posted by John Boskovic:
quote: MM said: I have never met such a person in my entire life. I have never met anyone who believes Jesus saves us from God. Please quote one person who believes such a thing. Thank you.
The one who holds the concept that Jesus died to appease God’s wrath and to enable God to forgive is just such a person.
John, who believes this distorted idea? I have never met anyone who believes such a thing. I have met lots of people who believe that the death of Jesus releases us from having to obey the law. And, I have met people who believe Jesus saved everyone with eternal life in heaven. But I have never met anyone who believes what you posted. Have you? If so, can you quote them?
Just read John's post. It's all explained there.
Posted By: Mountain Man
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/18/06 06:28 PM
Tom, are you implying that John believes Colin is guilty of believing such a thing?
Posted By: John Boskovic
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/19/06 01:17 AM
MM, your questions plainly indicate that you have not read my post. My first line in the last post answered your last question. The rest of the post answer your other questions.
Would you please read it and deal with the content of my post.
Posted By: Mountain Man
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/19/06 03:56 AM
Actually, John, I did read your post, but I was wondering what Tom was thinking when he told me that you had already provided me with quotes from people who believe Jesus saves us from the Father. He must not have been addressing that part of my request of you. Who knows?
Posted By: Tom
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/19/06 06:25 AM
quote:
Tom, are you implying that John believes Colin is guilty of believing such a thing?
This is pretty funny. Person A asks B if he thinks C believes D is guilty of believing something.
I have no opinion on this. If you want to know what John thinks, ask him.
Posted By: Tom
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/19/06 06:27 AM
quote:
Actually, John, I did read your post, but I was wondering what Tom was thinking when he told me that you had already provided me with quotes from people who believe Jesus saves us from the Father. He must not have been addressing that part of my request of you. Who knows?
I'm saying that the answers to your questions are in John's post. If you read the post, slowly, you should be able to discern this.
Don't look for quotes, however. Look for principles. The answer to your questions are provided in the principles John explains in his post.
Posted By: Mountain Man
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/19/06 08:01 PM
JB – The one who holds the concept that Jesus died to appease God’s wrath and to enable God to forgive is just such a person.
MM - John, who believes this distorted idea? … I have never met anyone who believes what you posted. Have you? If so, can you quote them?
TE - Just read John's post. It's all explained there.
MM – Tom, are you implying that John believes Colin is guilty of believing such a thing?
TE - I have no opinion on this. If you want to know what John thinks, ask him.
MM – I did. But I’m still waiting for an answer from him.
TE - I'm saying that the answers to your questions are in John's post. If you read the post, slowly, you should be able to discern this. Don't look for quotes, however. Look for principles. The answer to your questions are provided in the principles John explains in his post.
MM – Thank you for your counsel and advice, Tom, but that’s not the answers I’m looking for. Perhaps it would be best if we allowed John to speak for himself, to answer the questions I addressed to him.
MM - John, who believes this distorted idea? … I have never met anyone who believes what you posted. Have you? If so, can you quote them?
Posted By: Tom
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/19/06 10:06 PM
quote:
MM - John, who believes this distorted idea? … I have never met anyone who believes what you posted. Have you? If so, can you quote them?
Sure, John can speak for himself. But he already has, and he answered the same way I did.
The answer is to read his post, carefully. Look for principles. The answer to your quesitons is in his post.
Posted By: John Boskovic
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/19/06 11:11 PM
MM, this is very much like salvation.
Just like asking: "Who will be saved?"
You don't get names, labels or quotes, but the answer is in the qualifying conditions or principles.
Everyone can read and find where they stand, and question accordingly.
Posted By: Mountain Man
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/22/06 06:46 AM
Tom and John, it's one thing to say, "Anyone who believes this is guilty of that", but it's quite another thing to quote someone who actually believes it. If you cannot produce proof I am left with no other option but to conclude such an idea is merely hypothetical.
Posted By: Tom
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/22/06 07:22 AM
quote:
Tom and John, it's one thing to say, "Anyone who believes this is guilty of that", but it's quite another thing to quote someone who actually believes it.
What difference would quoting someone make? If one doesn't understand the principles, one wouldn't believe if someone were quoted anyone anyway. If one does understand the principles, quoting someone is unnecessary. So in neither case would quoting someone accomplish anything. The important thing is to understand the principles.
Here's a question to consider. Do you believe that God tells us, "Do what I say or I'll kill you"?
Posted By: Mountain Man
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/23/06 07:46 AM
Tom, I understand exactly what John is saying. I understand the principles perfectly. The problem is that I doubt anyone is guilty of believing it. Do you know of anyone who does? If so, please quote them. If not, then it is pointless to argue against it.
Do I believe Jesus warned - Obey and live, disobey and die? Yes, of course. Don´t you? Do I believe He said - My Father really wants to kill you because He loves killing sinners, but I´m going to satisfy His desire to kill by allowing Him to kill me instead? No, of course not.
Posted By: Tom
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/22/06 08:45 PM
Tom, I understand exactly what John is saying. I understand the principles perfectly.
Would you please state the principles John presented in your own words? This should be easy for you to do, given you understand the principles perfectly. This will help me in answering your question. Thanks.
Do I believe Jesus warned - Obey and live, disobey and die?
This wasn't the question I asked you.
Yes, of course. Don´t you?
You know I've been maintaining all along that sin results in death.
Do I believe He said - My Father really wants to kill you because He loves killing sinners, but I´m going to satisfy His desire to kill by allowing Him to kill me instead? No, of course not.
Thank you for clarifying that. I'm glad you don't believe He loves killing sinners. However what my question was is if God's warning was, "Do what I say or I'll kill you?"
Is that how you understand God's warning?
Posted By: Mountain Man
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/23/06 06:07 AM
Did Jesus say - "Do what I say or I´ll kill you"? I do not know of such a quote. Do you? On the other hand, I do believe Jesus has promised life and death based on obedience and disobedience.
I believe He will resurrect the unsaved and rain down fire upon them, and that they will suffer in accordance with their sinfulness. I do not agree with you that the fire Jesus promised to rain on them is symbolic of His glory.
In essence Jesus said - Obey Me or I´ll be forced to punish you with fire at the end of time. I would rather save you, but I will not force you to obey Me. If you refuse to obey Me the best thing I can do you and the loyal subjects of My kingdom is to punish you according to your thoughts, words, and deeds, and then allow the flames to finally kill you.
Posted By: Tom
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/23/06 06:35 AM
Did Jesus say - "Do what I say or I´ll kill you"? I do not know of such a quote. Do you?
I'm not asking you if you know of some quote. I'm asking how you think of this. Do you perceive God as saying, "Do what I say or I'll kill you?"On the other hand, I do believe Jesus has promised life and death based on obedience and disobedience.
I believe He will resurrect the unsaved and rain down fire upon them, and that they will suffer in accordance with their sinfulness. I do not agree with you that the fire Jesus promised to rain on them is symbolic of His glory.
Do you believe the following? quote:
To sin, wherever found, "our God is a consuming fire." Heb. 12:29. In all who submit to His power the Spirit of God will consume sin. But if men cling to sin, they become identified with it. Then the glory of God, which destroys sin, must destroy them....The light of the glory of God, which imparts life to the righteous, will slay the wicked. (DA 106)
How do you explain that the same thing which gives life to the righteous destroys the wicked?
In essence Jesus said - Obey Me or I´ll be forced to punish you with fire at the end of time. I would rather save you, but I will not force you to obey Me. If you refuse to obey Me the best thing I can do you and the loyal subjects of My kingdom is to punish you according to your thoughts, words, and deeds, and then allow the flames to finally kill you.
This is better than hatred, anger, vengeance and blood-thirsty -- A step in the right direction!
Posted By: Mountain Man
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/23/06 05:52 PM
Tom, it's no step at all. I have always believed it. I also believe Jesus hates sin, that sinning makes Him angry, and that He is blood-thirsty in the sense He is looking forward to day when sin and sinners are no more, which means He will be happy when sin and sinners perish in the lake of fire.
When Paradise is restored then He will be satisfied, then His wrath will be appeased. Such display of wrath will make us feel secure for eternity, it will remind us that sinning is wrong, that it makes Jesus sad and mad, and that it will be punished with suffering and death.
Throughout eternity we will choose not to sin because it makes Jesus sad and mad. We will love Him too much to do anything that will require Him to punish us with fire and death. We will also choose not to sin because sinning is unfun, it leaves us feeling empty and unhappy, it robs us of the peace of mind we enjoy so much.
Posted By: Tom
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/23/06 08:09 PM
Tom, it's no step at all. I have always believed it.
You've not stated it. So that's a step.
I also believe Jesus hates sin, that sinning makes Him angry, and that He is blood-thirsty in the sense He is looking forward to day when sin and sinners are no more, which means He will be happy when sin and sinners perish in the lake of fire.
"Blood-thirsty" means "eager for or marked by the shedding of blood, violence, or killing." That anyone would characterize Jesus as "blood-thristy" is mind-boggling to me. Jesus was the least blood-thristy person who ever lived.
When Paradise is restored then He will be satisfied, then His wrath will be appeased.
His wrath will never be appeased. He will always hate sin.
Such display of wrath will make us feel secure for eternity
The security comes from the cross. Inspiration reveals this in great detail. There's nothing that states that the display of wrath at the end will make us feel secure.
, it will remind us that sinning is wrong, that it makes Jesus sad and mad, and that it will be punished with suffering and death.
Those who have seen and perceived the meaning of the cross need no reminding.
Throughout eternity we will choose not to sin because it makes Jesus sad and mad.
We will choose not to sin because it is wrong, contrary to the principles of God's governement, contrary to what God Himself is like, as revealed in Christ.
Posted By: John Boskovic
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/27/06 07:58 AM
MM, since you are so surprised that anyone should believe such a thing, does that mean that you agree with the following:?
God’s law never condemned anyone. In fact it could not. It was never given for that. If the law would have condemned anything, it would have condemned sin and not the sinner; but it could not do that either.
- Rom 8:3 For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:
But I wonder if we understand sin’s condemnation, for sin uses the law of God unlawfully, to condemn and kill.
- Rom 7:11 For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me.
Rom 7:13 Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.
You see, sin creates an idea of “justice” that condemns and kills. This is why God said in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. Because sin uses the law to work wrath, condemnation, and death. Sin uses the law to create an idea of “justice” that condemns and kills. God’s “justice” on the other hand, relieves the oppressed and sets the captives free. God’s justice is kissed with mercy. With sinful man, justice works contrary to mercy. With God justice is in harmony with mercy. They love each other.
God did not need to save us from his own just requirements or his own wrath; he needed to save us from sin’s unjust requirements.
God needed to save us from “sin’s justice” to His justice which is kissed with mercy. Or differently said God needed to save us from our righteousness to his righteousness; not because our righteousness was “not good enough”, but because our righteousness is deadly; full of condemnation and wrath. Why; because sin took occasion by the law to work death in me by that which is good. So by sin, man’s judgment was turned to condemnation. From this our judgment (which is condemnation) Christ came to save us from.
This is why Christ said:
- Mat 7:1,2 Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
So that which fallen nature is tied to is the condemnation of sin which uses the law of God to work wrath.
God’s mercy has its meaning because it is life; the opposite of fallen man’s justice which is wrath and death. His mercy redeems us to God’s justice which is life. God does not want us to remain in sin’s justice because we will be judged by our own judgment. Therefore he offers us his judgment, his justice; his righteousness; his mercy; that we might be filled with his spirit; and have the mind of Christ. All of which are life; eternal life.
Posted By: John Boskovic
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/26/06 08:11 PM
quote:
MM, you said: Sin is the transgression of the law. It is not a person or a god that can condemn sinners.
Sin is not a person or a god anymore than love is not a person or a god. But love is personified in God and his children and sin is personified in Satan and his followers.
Just as love has an effect on the heart and mind, thoughts and actions of its owner; so likewise sin has an effect on the heart and mind, thoughts and actions of its owner. Just as love brings forth kind thoughts and goodwill to its owner; even so sin produces condemnation and ill-will in the mind and heart of its owner. This is a law that God established in each free moral being.
quote:
Without the law sin would cease to be sin. Sin is only a sin because the law forbids sinning.
Rom 5:13 (For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law.
Rom 5:14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses,
The word tells us that sin existed before the spoken law. Without the spoken law sin would not be known. The spoken law does not make sin; it only makes us aware of sin and it’s working in our being; revealing the need for salvation. It is not an arbitrary law that defines sin. It is the law of his and our being. Sin is sin because God has a law within his being and has placed that same law in those created in his image. Having so created us he did not keep us in ignorance but well informed us of it.
quote:
But the law is not a person or a god. The law is a transcript of God's character, therefore, it is God who condemns sinning, not the law.
No the law is not a person or a god, but it is the law of his and our being. Neither is love a person or a god; but God is love (love personified) and the law of love is but a transcript of his character. Just as love affects the thoughts and heart of its owner unto justification and life, even so sin affects the thoughts and heart of its owner unto condemnation and death. Therefore it is God that justifies, who is it that condemns?
quote:
It is also God who pardons and saves sinners, not the law.
Yes indeed, it is God that pardons and brings forgiveness; the spoken law only made us aware of the workings of sin. But it is God that pardons and brings forgiveness; but it is of no value to us until we receive it into our heart in faith. It is the love of God entering into our heart that sets us free from sin. This is why we need his judgment, his justice; his righteousness; his mercy; that we might be filled with his spirit; and have the mind of Christ. All of which are life; eternal life. In that way the law of the spirit of life in Christ has set me free from the law of sin and death.
Posted By: Tom
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/26/06 09:02 PM
quote:
Without the law sin would cease to be sin. Sin is only a sin because the law forbids sinning.
I didn't notice this before, I don't think.
This is backwards. The law doesn't cause sin to be sin. Sin is sin because it is contrary to the principles by which God runs His government. The law is a transcript of God's character. God's character is what it is, regardless of whether or not a law is written about it.
If a law exists or does not exist, God's character is what it is, and any doings contrary to God's character must of necessity be sin. The law did not create sin, or anything at all. There was no more righteousness or sin before the law than after, except in the sense that the law made things known to the hearts and minds of men, which is where the problem is.
God's purpose is to reconcile man, who is alientated in his heart and mind. God gave the law for the sake of man, to help him be reconciled. The law helps to reconcile man by making known his need for a Savior.
Posted By: Mountain Man
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/27/06 06:36 PM
Tom, in the following quote Sister White wrote: "The law of God existed before the creation of man or else Adam could not have sinned."
1SM 230
The law of God existed before the creation of man or else Adam could not have sinned. After the transgression of Adam the principles of the law were not changed, but were definitely arranged and expressed to meet man in his fallen condition. Christ, in counsel with His Father, instituted the system of sacrificial offerings; that death, instead of being immediately visited upon the transgressor, should be transferred to a victim which should prefigure the great and perfect offering of the Son of God. {1SM 230.1}
Posted By: Tom
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/27/06 08:10 PM
I think it would be good to consider what Ellen White meant when she wrote what she wrote. Ellen White was arguing for the perpetuity of the law. Her argument was that if the law was something that didn't exist before Adam and Eve sinned, then Adam and Eve would not have been guilty of sin, since sin is the transgression of the law. However, the law is a transcript of God's character, so for the law to not exist would imply something about God's character not existing, which is impossible. The law is as eternal as God is.
Do you see anything incorrect in my previous post? If so, please point out what you disagree with.
What I was taking issue with of your statement is that it seems to imply that the law creates sin. It doesn't. It makes sin known.
Posted By: Tom
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/27/06 08:17 PM
We've gotten a bit off the subject of the thread, which is fine, but I'd like to bring it back a bit.
It has been suggested that we are saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath. Also it has been suggested that God's outpouring of hatred and blood-thirsty vengeance at the destruction of the wicked will secure the universe against sin for eternity.
It seems to me that it is the love of God revealed at the cross that saves us, not His hate, vengeance, or blood-thristiness. Similarly what secures the universe for eternity is the revelation of God's character through Jesus Christ. God is not arbitrary, harsh, sever, unforgiving, or selfish, as the enemy has portrayed Him to be. Instead God is kind and patience, eager to forgive, not imputing our trespasses against us. God is not willing that any one of us should perish, so much so He was willing to send His Son at infinite cost, as the risk of failure and eternal loss, to prevent this from happening.
When we consider that for just one of us, each individual me, God would have taken this risk, would have given this sacrifice, such a revelation of love cannot help but have an effect on us, reconciling us to Himself, if we don't resist it.
Unfallen angels and worlds are also amazed at such love. Thus the "blood of the cross" which reveals the length and height and breadth and depth of God's love, reconciles "things in heaven" as well as "things on earth" (i.e. heavenly beings and unfallen worlds, as well as we ourselves).
Posted By: Mountain Man
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/28/06 07:08 AM
Tom, I believe - “The law of God existed before the creation of man or else Adam could not have sinned.” - means exactly what it says, namely, without the law sin would cease to be sin. Yes, the law is a transcript of God’s character, but without the spoken or written law sin would be God’s word against the sinners. That would be arbitrary, right?
Back to the topic. I agree that the forgiveness and mercy of God is part of the plan of salvation, part of securing the future security of the universe, but so was the wrath and anger that He displayed against sin (i.e., Jesus) on the Cross. Please refer to the first post on page 1 for the context of this insight. Thank you.
Posted By: Tom
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/28/06 08:01 AM
“The law of God existed before the creation of man or else Adam could not have sinned.” - means exactly what it says, namely, without the law sin would cease to be sin.
It doesn't say with the law sin would cease to be sin. Where do you get that from? Does this even make any sense?
Stealing is a sin because it is morally wrong. It is contrary to God's character, His nature. When Moses broke the tables of stone, stealing didn't become any less wrong than before he broke the tablets. The law does not create righteousness. It is a description of God's character. It is God's character that defines sin.Yes, the law is a transcript of God’s character, but without the spoken or written law sin would be God’s word against the sinners. That would be arbitrary, right?
It would be arbitrary for God to prohibit something id the only reason it was wrong was because there was something written down saying it was wrong. The law says what is right and wrong because these things are so. That is, the law says not to steal because stealing is wrong. Stealing is not wrong because the law says it is.Back to the topic. I agree that the forgiveness and mercy of God is part of the plan of salvation, part of securing the future security of the universe, but so was the wrath and anger that He displayed against sin (i.e., Jesus) on the Cross. Please refer to the first post on page 1 for the context of this insight. Thank you.
What I'm taking issue with is the notion that we are saved, or the universe is secured, by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath. I contend it is by a demonstration of God's love. quote:
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. But man was deceived; his mind was darkened by Satan's sophistry. The height and depth of the love of God he did not know. For him there was hope in a knowledge of God's love. By beholding His character he might be drawn back to God. (DA 762)
Also please note the following statement:
quote:
Christ exalted the character of God, attributing to him the praise, and giving to him the credit, of the whole purpose of his own mission on earth,--to set men right through the revelation of God. (ST 1/20/90)
Please note that the whole purpose of Christ's mission on earth was to set men right through the revealtion of God. In other words, everything Christ did was to reveal God. This wasn't just a part of what Christ did, but was the whole purpose of Christ's mission.
Posted By: John Boskovic
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/28/06 03:51 PM
quote:
MM: I agree that the forgiveness and mercy of God is part of the plan of salvation, part of securing the future security of the universe,
The Love of God is the Law of Life. This is why we need his judgment, his justice; his righteousness; his mercy; that we might be filled with his spirit; and have the mind of Christ. All of which are life; eternal life.
quote:
but so was the wrath and anger that He displayed against sin (i.e., Jesus) on the Cross.
- Joh 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
It says here that God so Loved us that he gave us his Son (and we crucified him).
It does not say: “God so hated sin and was angry at sin that he put his Son up on the cross to display his wrath”.
Posted By: Mountain Man
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/28/06 06:45 PM
TE – It doesn't say with the law sin would cease to be sin. Where do you get that from? Does this even make any sense?
MM – Where? “The law of God existed before the creation of man or else Adam could not have sinned.” Without the law Adam could not have sinned! Period. Why not? Because the law defines sin. Without the law sin would be matter of opinion, God’s word against the sinner’s word. True, sinning contradicts the character of God – but says who? God? Well, in light of the GC, more is required. The proof is in the pudding – not just God’s word alone. The law is an unbiased witness.
TE – What I'm taking issue with is the notion that we are saved, or the universe is secured, by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath. I contend it is by a demonstration of God's love.
MM – And I contend it is all of the above – and more. For example, if Jesus chose to ignore sin and sinners, to do nothing about it, then He runs the risk of sending the wrong message, namely, that sinning isn’t a big deal, that it is excusable. Such a message would be seed for future rebellion. But by resurrecting and punishing and destroying sinners Jesus makes it clear that He will by no means clear the guilty. This form of love, along with His other forms of love, will serve to motivate us forever not to rebel.
Posted By: Mountain Man
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/28/06 06:51 PM
John, I couldn't help but noticing that you didn't bold "should not perish" when you quoted Jesus above. You see, I believe both mercy and wrath are required to restore Paradise. I perceive the wrath of God as love, not as something evil. In justice and judgment there is security and peace. I know Jesus will not tolerate sin in the New Earth. I know how He feels about it. Jesus hates sin and sinning to much to allow it to go unpunished. That makes me feel good about the future. I don't have to worry that if it happens again Jesus will simply ignore it, or that He will expect me to just put up with it. Of course, I know it will not happen again - because He said so.
Posted By: John Boskovic
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/28/06 08:25 PM
quote:
MM: Without the law sin would be matter of opinion, God’s word against the sinner’s word.
MM, That is what you are proposing it is! You require God to exercise destruction arbitrarily in order to vindicate the law.
But what we are saying is that sin in itself is destruction, while God is life.
- Rom 5:14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses
There is no question of that reality; therefore God wants to save us from sin and destruction. God is currently overriding the full effect of sin by his love, in order to make salvation possible. When he ceases to do so, sin will have its full sway of destruction. The point is that this reality is contended by sinners and Satan; and Satan’s original contention that sin does not bring death is perpetuated.
[ March 28, 2006, 07:55 PM: Message edited by: John Boskovic ]
Posted By: Tom
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/28/06 09:16 PM
TE – It doesn't say with the law sin would cease to be sin. Where do you get that from? Does this even make any sense?
MM – Where? “The law of God existed before the creation of man or else Adam could not have sinned.” Without the law Adam could not have sinned! Period. Why not? Because the law defines sin. Without the law sin would be matter of opinion, God’s word against the sinner’s word.
So you're suggesting that the law is more valueable than God's word? Does this make any sense? That if the law didn't exist, then sin wouldn't be sin, because it would just be God's word against the sinner's. But if God takes the very thing that He's saying, but writes it down some place, then that causes sin to exist? What is the law anyway if it is not God's word?True, sinning contradicts the character of God – but says who? God? Well, in light of the GC, more is required. The proof is in the pudding – not just God’s word alone. The law is an unbiased witness.
How is the law unbiased? You are speaking as if the law were somehow independent of God, or greater than God. If God is biased, then the law is biased. The law is no more biased or unbiased than God is.TE – What I'm taking issue with is the notion that we are saved, or the universe is secured, by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath. I contend it is by a demonstration of God's love.
MM – And I contend it is all of the above – and more. For example, if Jesus chose to ignore sin and sinners, to do nothing about it, then He runs the risk of sending the wrong message, namely, that sinning isn’t a big deal, that it is excusable.
Sin is dangerous. It destroys. It causes death. God could not just ignore it. If your child got a disease, would you just ignore it?
In order for people not to get the wrong idea about sin, what was necessary was for sentient beings to see sin for what it is. This is precisely what the cross accomplished.Such a message would be seed for future rebellion. But by resurrecting and punishing and destroying sinners Jesus makes it clear that He will by no means clear the guilty. This form of love, along with His other forms of love, will serve to motivate us forever not to rebel.
MM, where do you get this idea from? Here's what I read from the Spirit of Prophecy: quote:
The earth was dark through misapprehension of God. That the gloomy shadows might be lightened, that the world might be brought back to God, Satan's deceptive power was to be broken. This could not be done by force. The exercise of force is contrary to the principles of God's government; He desires only the service of love; and love cannot be commanded; it cannot be won by force or authority. Only by love is love awakened. To know God is to love Him; His character must be manifested in contrast to the character of Satan. This work only one Being in all the universe could do. Only He who knew the height and depth of the love of God could make it known. Upon the world's dark night the Sun of Righteousness must rise, "with healing in His wings." Mal. 4:2. (DA 22)
This tells us that it was necessary for God's character to be revealed in contrast to Satan's. Only Christ could do this work. This was necessary for our healing.
quote:
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. But man was deceived; his mind was darkened by Satan's sophistry. The height and depth of the love of God he did not know. For him there was hope in a knowledge of God's love. By beholding His character he might be drawn back to God.(DA 762)
This tells us that there was hope for man in knowing God's love, by beholding His character. The cross was for this purpose.
quote:
This is not an act of arbitrary power on the part of God. The rejecters of His mercy reap that which they have sown. God is the fountain of life; and when one chooses the service of sin, he separates from God, and thus cuts himself off from life. He is "alienated from the life of God." Christ says, "All they that hate Me love death." Eph. 4:18; Prov. 8:36. God gives them existence for a time that they may develop their character and reveal their principles. This accomplished, they receive the results of their own choice. By a life of rebellion, Satan and all who unite with him place themselves so out of harmony with God that His very presence is to them a consuming fire. The glory of Him who is love will destroy them.
At the beginning of the great controversy, the angels did not understand this. Had Satan and his host then been left to reap the full result of their sin, they would have perished; but it would not have been apparent to heavenly beings that this was the inevitable result of sin. A doubt of God's goodness would have remained in their minds as evil seed, to produce its deadly fruit of sin and woe. (DA 764)
This tells us that the wicked die because of their own choice, not because of something God arbitrarily does to them. If God had allow Satan to experience the inevitable result of sin, which is death, *that* would have caused an evil seed of doubt to arise. Satan's death would have been misunderstood as God's killing them.
It seems to me I often quote these things and you ignore them. That is, you make no comment. I would appreciate your comment on the ideas express by the SOP here. I'm interesting in your thinking regarding the points she is making here. They do not in any way appear to me to be saying anything at all along the lines of what you are suggesting.
I'm looking for something more than, "Yes this is true, but it is also true that ..." It should be clear that you and I are looking at this from completely different paradigms.
The chapter "It Is Finished" discussed in detail the purpose for Christ's death. I don't see the ideas you are suggesting mentioned there (or anywhere else). Can you provide some evidence for the ideas you are suggesting?
Thank you.
Posted By: John Boskovic
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/29/06 03:13 AM
quote:
MM: John, I couldn't help but noticing that you didn't bold "should not perish"
Yes, I was stressing what God was doing. You see, the perishing part is not of God, it is what God is saving us from; He does not want it to happen, much less that he is causing it. If God were the cause of perishing, then Christ’s death saved us from God, or from God’s righteousness; or otherwise God changed.
Posted By: Mountain Man
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/29/06 07:48 AM
Tom, the last 4 chapters of the GC says clearly, to me, that Jesus will punish and destroy unsaved sinners. We disagree regarding how it will happen. I totally agree with the quotes you have posted. But I disagree that they represent everything there is to know about God's wrath. Nor do I think her views contradict what I believe she wrote about the wrath of God in the GC chapters I mentioned.
John, I disagree that God has nothing to do with punishing and destroying the unsaved. That is exactly what will happen if we refuse to be saved in His appointed way.
Posted By: Tom
Re: Are we saved by a demonstration of God's pent up wrath? - 03/29/06 10:41 PM
quote:
The destruction of Jerusalem is a fearful and solemn warning to all who are trifling with the offers of divine grace and resisting the pleadings of divine mercy. Never was there given a more decisive testimony to God's hatred of sin and to the certain punishment that will fall upon the guilty. (GC 36)
Yes, God will punish and destroy. This statement points out that the destruction of Jerusalem (which she compares to the destruction of the plagues) gives the most decisive testimony of God's hatred of sin, and of the certain punishment that comes upon the wicked. What is the mechanism for this most decisive testimony?
quote:
The Jews had forged their own fetters; they had filled for themselves the cup of vengeance. In the utter destruction that befell them as a nation, and in all the woes that followed them in their dispersion, they were but reaping the harvest which their own hands had sown. Says the prophet: "O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself;" "for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity." Hosea 13:9; 14:1. Their sufferings are often represented as a punishment visited upon them by the direct decree of God. It is thus that the great deceiver seeks to conceal his own work. By stubborn rejection of divine love and mercy, the Jews had caused the protection of God to be withdrawn from them, and Satan was permitted to rule them according to his will. The horrible cruelties enacted in the destruction of Jerusalem are a demonstration of Satan's vindictive power over those who yield to his control.
We cannot know how much we owe to Christ for the peace and protection which we enjoy. It is the restraining power of God that prevents mankind from passing fully under the control of Satan. The disobedient and unthankful have great reason for gratitude for God's mercy and long-suffering in holding in check the cruel, malignant power of the evil one. But when men pass the limits of divine forbearance, that restraint is removed. God does not stand toward the sinner as an executioner of the sentence against transgression; but He leaves the rejectors of His mercy to themselves, to reap that which they have sown. (GC 35, 36)