Well said! Justification has its legal aspect, and its paperwork accounting on our record in heaven. Unless it incorporates the new birth in its remit, so we are "made righteous", any paperwork doesn't match the reality, does it?

We agree on both occurring, but they are not generally understood or taught in our church - so it appears anyway, as being the same faith event. I've heard and read all over the place and from all manner of church leaders that sanctification, if only be default but not just, is the location of the new birth. Let's spread the word of truth on this, hey?

As I stated, I don't know what you mean by this, and since you've simply repeated it, rather than explaining your meaning, I can't comment beyond this.



I've stated I agree with what Waggoner wrote on Romans. The posts I write are already detailed. It's not possible to cover every possible point in every post.

I quoted what Ellen White wrote in the Desire of Ages in the chapter "Nicodemus." It seems to me what I quoted covers these points.



I believe it's impossible that I did this, as I cannot conceive that this is language I would have used. Please quote what I actually said, Colin.



Again, Colin, it seems to me that the passage that I quoted from the chapter "Nicodemus" covers this. If you see this as somehow lacking, please explain how.

All you're saying here seems like nonsense to me, Colin. As you've pointed out yourself, you and I agree regarding the corporate aspects of Christ's work. We also agree that justification by faith involves the making righteous of the one who believes, making effective individually what Christ first effected corporately. The things you're taking me to task on here are not things regarding which we disagree.



Again, doesn't the passage I quoted from Nicodemus cover this, Colin? I find it "alarming" that you don't understand this!

I think justification and forgiveness are one and the same thing.



Unless you wish to argue that "pardon" is not the same thing as "forgiveness," the above quote establishes my point.

This can also be seen from Scripture, in Romans 4, where Paul presents David as an example of rightouesness by faith:



Waggoner discusses this point in "Christ and His Righteousness"

As I understand it, justification involves God covering our past sins and our present sins of ignorance with the blood and righteousness of Jesus. It is the grace and goodness of God that motivated Him to live and die as a man so that He can pardon and save penitent sinners. Such love is what motivates some sinners to repent and to love and obey God.

1. The relationship between justification and sanctification is two sides of the same coin. We can't have one without the other. First we are justified and then we are sanctified. Justification deals with the problem of sin, whereas sanctification deals with righteousness, with those aspects of salvation that enable justified sinners to be like Jesus, to mature daily in the fruits of the Spirit.

2. Without the grace and goodness and compassion of God, the human race would have ended with the immediate death of A&E. But because of these righteous attributes of God penitent sinners can repent and live righteously.

3. It relates to each and every one of us in that none of us would be here now if God hadn't implemented the plan of salvation. Also, none of us would be able to repent and be like Jesus.

God doesn't need blood in order to be able to forgive. It is we who need the blood, not God.



When Jesus met the paralytic, He forgave his sins. He didn't need blood to be able to do so.

2. and 3. are good points.

Here is where the failure to understand seems to be located.
Do you believe God can forgive sin without the "blood" of Christ?

No, He can't!
Because if He did, He would not absorb the demands of the law Himself. The demands of the law would not be meet.
To forgive without the blood would be set aside the law.
So yes, God needs the blood in order to forgive and maintain the law.

I read through the Ty Gibson post and saw that he swung from one extreme to the other.
His two options were -- 1) God is angry and needs to be appeased by blood.
2) God is love and simply draws people by demonstrations of what sin is and what His love is.

He totally missed the truth as Paul writes it.

That the LAW demands death of the transgressor.

Without that demand being met, any forgiveness means setting aside the law, which God could NOT do.
To do so would be to concede that Lucifer was right, that created beings were smart and "holy" enough to know what was good and right to do without God's law.



Romans 4:23 Now it was not written for his (Abraham's) sake alone, that it was imputed (reckoned, put on his account) to him;
4:24 But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed (reckoned,put on our account), if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead;
4:25 Who was delivered for our transgressions, and was raised again for our justification.


"Blood" not merely "death" means sacrificially shed blood.
"Delivered up" means as a sacrifice for our transgressions, our offences.

The Jewish nation, as a nation rejected this, because they thought their own righteousness and works (even their misconception of the temple rituals as their works) could bring them forgiveness. They had lost the promise of "Lamb of God". All the modern descendants of moralists (which Paul was combating in his writings -- Paul was NOT combating obedience to God's law, but he was strongly combating the moralist view that denied the need of the blood, so prevalent in his day.)

Christ was delivered for OUR TRANSGRESSIONS. They are not called merely sins, but transgressions. This puts it into the "legal" realm -- we transgress against God's law -- a law that demands death if transgressed. Transgression cannot be forgiven without setting aside the law.

Galatians 3:13 Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us:





Yes, He did need the blood.
And that's where the other thread comes in.

All sins forgiven prior to the cross rested totally upon the promise of Christ's sacrificial death in the future.


Gal. 3:23 But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed.
4:4 But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law,
4:5 To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.
4:6 And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.

Before faith came = before Christ came for it was Christ to be revealed. Abraham certainly had faith, so this is speaking of Christ the fulfilment of that faith. Before Christ came all the forgiveness and justifying granted to transgressors, existed only in promise and was embraced by faith as the sure promise of God. Then Christ fulfilled the promise by His death and resurrection. THE FAITH. The law could not bring justification to the sinner. The law held no hope for the transgressor outside of the promise that Christ would come and fulfil that promise.

This is from "The Great Controversy"



The condition of forgiveness was repentance and submission. Blood is not something God needs, but we do. Satan didn't need the blood to repent, so no blood was necessary in his case.



Why is it that God was willing to forgive Lucifer without blood, but blood was needed in man's case? Because the blood was necessary for man's to *receive* God's forgiveness, whereas for man it wasn't necessary. As eloquently stated by George Fifield:



If, as you are asserting, the law demanded blood in order for God to pardon, He couldn't have pardoned Lucifer, as the law would have required it just as much for him as for man.

There's a lot more evidence that this way of understanding Paul is incorrect. I'll mention two historical points. First of all, the idea of sacrifice you are suggesting simply did not exist in the time of Christ. It's another example of reading into the writings of Scripture ideas which didn't exist at the time they were written (i.e., like reading in Hellenistic ideas regarding the future being determined/God's foreknowledge). Paul explains the meaning of sacrifice here:



This is the understanding that the cultures of Paul's time had of sacrifice. The idea that blood was necessary in order for God to forgive wasn't developed until many centuries later.

Here's evidence of the truth of this point. The Eastern Orthodox church, to this day, does not hold to this idea of Christ's sacrifice. Why not? Because they broke off from the Roman Catholic church before Anselm developed the idea in the 11th century. If the idea had been developed before that time, it would have been a part of the Eastern Orthodox tradition, just as it's a part of the Roman Catholic tradition.

Another point to consider, which is what Ty Gibson was really getting at, but either was missed, or its importance not seen, is in regards to the problem of sin. What is the problem that sin causes?



Given this sin is deadly to us, it behooves God to save us from it. Thus we see, in the DA quote above, God was willing to do whatever it took to bring man back to Himself, so man could be freed from sin, which would destroy him. If we perceive the deadliness of sin, everything else falls logically from that.

Regarding your analysis of Galatians, that before faith comes = before Christ comes, I'll quote from Waggoner:



Both "The Glad Tidings" and "The Gospel in Galatians" by Waggoner are wonderful for understanding Galatians. I think I've read just about every Commentary there is on Galatians (at least in English) and none comes close to Waggoner's works in terms of bringing Galatians to light. The "most precious message" which God gave to us through he and Jones is precious indeed.

It is because law and justice require death for sin that Jesus lived and died for us. Death must happen in consequence of sin. The death penalty cannot be disregarded. The honor and integrity of law and justice depend on God upholding the death penalty. So does the security of the Universe. Ellen wrote:

Fallen man, because of his guilt, could no longer come directly before God with his supplications; for his transgression of the divine law had placed an impassable barrier between the holy God and the transgressor. But a plan was devised that the sentence of death should rest upon a Substitute. In the plan of redemption there must be the shedding of blood, for death must come in consequence of man's sin. The beasts for sacrificial offerings were to prefigure Christ. In the slain victim, man was to see the fulfillment for the time being of God's word, "Thou shalt surely die." And the flowing of the blood from the victim would also signify an atonement. There was no virtue in the blood of animals; but the shedding of the blood of beasts was to point forward to a Redeemer who would one day come to the world and die for the sins of men. And thus Christ would fully vindicate His Father's law. {Con 21.3}


Jesus is "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." He was able to forgive sinners because His blood has been efficacious since the fall of A&E.

Your conclusion is nothing more than an assumption.
True Lucifiers condition for forgiveness was repentance and submission.
But the rest of your argument is simply an argument on silence. No information is given as to HOW God would reinstate Lucifer, because it didn't happen.

Building an argument on NOTHING is pretty shaky ground, don't you agree?