In most of dedication Post#183844, she was evading to answer the questions like most others were doing in the exception of Alchemy. I do admire Alchemy's honesty and not being afraid to answer those hard questions. I'm sorry to put you all in that hard spot, but it was necessary so you would see by under which of the 2 covenants you actually believe and live by.
However, dedication did answer the hard question in the last 3 paragraphs of her post. I will reply to these 3 last paragraphs so hopefully I can make my point clear & briefly enough.
However, by your questions, it seems you are trying to derail this thread and turn it into an "everyone will be saved" thread -- you already know I do not believe in that.
I'm not trying to derail the thread...but addressing the underlying problem why while the clouds cover the "light"(or His presence or His glory) ... why we feel God has left us.
Basically, it's because we do not have the assurance of salvation. Nor do we understand correctly the process of salvation that is illustrated in 3 steps & explained in the 3 feasts:Passover(justification), Pentecost(sanctification), & Tabernacle(glorification).
That's a major problem for any Christians when most of our life we will have to deal with some clouds that is always there covering His presence.
Jesus does not FAIL if people choose to reject His offer of salvation. And yes, He has provided everything for our salvation. If we reject Him, we've rejected salvation.
Thank you for your admission dedication...there it is. I'm not trying to condescend dedication or anyone else for having this belief ... because this is a typical belief when we (or a young church like the Israelites were when they got out of Egypt) are young in the faith. Often, this is also the only teachings we get in all denominations including SDAs. In our SDA Church we still debate the meaning of "righteousness by faith" because the very first step(of the 3) is still not understood.
So putting this in Paul's word....we have been taught this "other gospel" that Paul tried to teach us to keep away from and to enter into the New Covenant (the only gospel message) while progressing into the 2nd step of our spiritual growth as the Church at Pentecost has moved into in the upper room.
But shortly after Pentecost, the Church started to regress back into that old "other gospel" belief which is based on the
Old covenant oath that depends on YOU to keep your part of the oath (Ex 19:8 "
All that the LORD hath spoken we will do."). Since that "other gospel" depend on Man to continue "choosing" salvation and when things goes very wrong or we see that we fell into sin again...well we reason that it is our fault for we didn't "accept" all that Jesus provided for our salvation. So you somehow didn't "choose life".... and it becomes your failure and not Jesus.
This is not the same gospel that is based on the
New Covenant where God alone makes the oath that He will make us His people(Deut 29:10-13) by writing His laws in our hearts(Jer 31:34). If His laws are written in our heart....then His laws will become natural for us to keep. Then no more coercement is needed to keep us into obedience any more.
But when these laws still exist outside of our heart [whether written on tablets of stones or on paper in our Bible] ....then obeying these laws are un-natural to us and we will always fail in some level to hit that perfect target (katah == missing, sin).
Let's examine a little closer what Deut. 29:12, 13 says regarding the New covenant oath God is making with us. It says that all of these people listed in the first part of v.12...has entered this New covenant on account of God’s oath and not on account of their own oath. Verse 12 say they entered “
into His oath, which the Lord your God is making with you.” Verse 13 says God Himself made this oath in order to fulfill His promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
So we further read in Gen 15:12 that God put Abraham into a “
deep sleep” and then made the covenant by Himself. This is basically an unconditional covenant that God is making with us.
If it would be possible to break this covenant; then it would require God :
a) to violate His own words, or
b)to being incapable of keeping His oath.
But if God does either a) or b), that would mean He has failed. But all of us agreed that God will not fail; thus in essence He won't fail in keeping his unconditional oath either.
So the oath God made in Deut 29:12, 13 is a restatement of that “promise” that God gave earlier to Abraham. This New Covenant oath is yet to be fulfilled(via the illustration of the 3 Feasts) as it is a long-term promise until He succeeds to subdue all things under Jesus feet.
This New Covenant(Gen 15, Deut 29, Jer 31, and etc...) is conditional on God's ability to fulfill His promise to us. Whereas the Exodus 19:5-8 covenant is conditional on the people's ability to keep their promise to God.
This distinction between the two covenants are important for us to understand. Jeremiah 31 makes an association between the two covenant. First in verse 32 it says the Israelites were not capable of keeping that covenant that required the people to keep their words-vow :"
not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke…". So another covenant was required to bring salvation to men where God would do on our behalf. So we read in verse, 33" “
I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.”
In another words, God vowed to take responsibility to make it happen. He did so, first by His death and resurrection, then second by sending the Holy Spirit so to start the process of writing His laws on our hearts as illustrated at Pentecost.
But by presenting your false doctrine that everyone will eventually be saved, you may cause a lot of people to fail of obtaining eternal life by thinking they can push Christ out of their lives now and indulge in the destructive pleasures of sin, for they think they will be saved anyway.
hmmm. Are you saying it is because you want to "obtain eternal life" that is the reason you have "chosen" to follow Jesus and have refrain from "the pleasures of sin"??? So if there's no
literal Hell fire after the Millennium and your salvation is guaranteed... well you wouldn't of followed Him and you would of continued in "the pleasures of sin"?
If we reject Him, we've rejected salvation.
Well if you still live under the Old covenant...yea...you still thinks it depends on you to keep your part of the oath. But scriptures shows us clearly that the Israelites failed to keep their part. Why do you think you can still succeed or anyone else?
But it is not the condition expressed by God when He made the [New-unconditional-one way] covenant to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and to all of us.