If you make baseless assertions, I suppose I am difficult, because I'll keep asking for evidence and quotes.



You just keep doing over and over and over again the very thing I'm asking you not to do, which is to make accusations with no evidence. Where I have challeneged the whole concept of the subsituationary death of Christ?

I've affirmed several times that I agree with the substitutionary death of Christ. I quoted Fundamental Belief #9, which affirms this, and said I agree with it. I quoted the following from "The Desire of Ages."



I don't understand why you think it's OK to assert I'm saying things that are the exact opposite of what I myself am asserting. Can you please explain that to me?

I also don't understand why, when I keep asking you not to make baseless accusations, but to actually quote things that I've said, that you continue to do the very thing I'm asking you not to do. Don't you think asking someone to provide evidence for what they are asserting is reasonable? Would you like it if I did to you what you're doing to me?

i have come to understand ellen white to use "forgive", in these cases, the same as cleanse.

In Scripture, "forgiveness" has the idea of bearing away. The concept appears here in the SOP:

A long post --
To meet Tom's demands why I believe he denies the substitutionary death and blood of Christ.

My earlier posts explained:

Upon Christ as our substitute and surety was laid the iniquity of us all. He was counted a transgressor, that He might redeem us from the condemnation of the law.
The law -- God's moral law -- demands the death of the transgressor.
Without the shed blood of Christ, the law is only an instrument declaring that we deserve death, for we have transgressed that law.

Jesus' blood is the central theme of the entire Word of God, from the blood of Abel's slain lamb to the blood of the Lamb (Jesus) in Revelation 7:14. Hebrews 9:22 declares that there is NO remission of sins without the shedding of Christ's blood. The blood of Jesus is the ONLY way for our sins to be forgiven...
"When we accept Christ and join Him in baptism, we die inwardly to this sinful kingdom. Yet that death depends entirely on Christ's sacrificial death upon the cross as Christ takes upon Himself our "old man of sin" and it is nailed on the cross with Him.

Our connection to Christ and His sacrifice is so real that it carries "our old man" to the very cross of Christ in a spiritual crucifixion that kills our old selfish self and we are BORN AGAIN, raised to newness of life WITH CHRIST!
Let's look at a text from 1 Peter 2:24 [Christ] Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.

What does all this mean?

Christ took OUR SIN, OUR SINFUL NATURE, upon Himself, upon His sinless nature, and died. What does that mean to us?
Brothers and sisters - it means because HE died to our sin, we died to sin. Therefore it is apparent that our dying to sin is not something we do, but something Christ has done, and is something that is accounted to all who are united with Him!

6:11 Likewise reckon (or account) ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

We are indeed to reckon-- consider -- ourselves dead to sin and alive in Christ.”

"We being enemies"
this shows the rebellious nature of sin, and
echoes Paul's former phrase. "while we were yet sinners"
Our natural enmity toward God's law and righteousness, our sin, our ungodliness placed us in a position where we deserved nothing but wrath -- God owed us nothing.
But Christ taking our sins upon Himself, and dying in our place changed our status.



God didn’t need reconciliation as in CHANGING His status He loved mankind.
But without the cross we were lost, out of favor with God, deserving only death.
His “loving us” is not the same as us “being in favor” or “being justified”.
He had to do something in the legal sense to effect the legal justification.

By constantly lifting this portion out of it's context gave it the wrong meaning.

But --
Are you dead to sin?
If we must wait till there is absolutely no pull of sin in our lives before we can "reckon ourselves dead to sin" we will drown in the mire of despondancy of Romans 7.

Obviously you are having trouble understanding the substitutionary death of Christ that enables us to “reckon or count ourselves as dead to sin” and as cleansed and justified and renewed to live a new life in Christ. Reread the first part as see HOW it is we die to sin – for yes, we die to sin THROUGH Christ.


See, you are simply NOT reading what I wrote, yet you complain that I misunderstand you???

What kind of answer was that – definitely not agreeing that Christ took the penalty for our sins and died in our place. It’s greatly muddying the waters with evasion on what “substituting death” means.

Because you don’t see Christ’s death to our sins as our death to sin which enables us to be alive in Christ, you don’t see the two points Colin made.
1. Justification for our sin (as in taking our penalty for sin—the legal aspect)
2. Justification to our sin (as in dying our death TO sin, which is the cleansing and renewal we experience in Him by faith and allows us to reckon ourselves dead to sin and alive in Christ to live for Him)

Still no acknowledgement that Christ took our sins, our sinful human nature upon His sinless nature and died in our place, taking our punishment that we might be freed from the penalty of death, which no amount of following the law could save us from.
The Ty Gibson quote (which I won’t reproduce here) does say Christ is our substitute but only in that he suffered the results of sin, -- (i.e sin naturally leads to death) not the penalty of sin. Which again, in my understanding places even the “substitution” concept into the realm of “a demonstration” rather than an actual taking our penalty so His blood could cover our sins.

This is a clear denial that Christ’s blood is needed to cover our sins.
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:
All sins forgiven prior to the cross rested totally upon the promise of Christ's sacrificial death in the future.
Then came several posts in which Tom tried to demonstrate that Lucifer, if he repented and submitted to God, won’t need any atonement made for him but would merely be “forgiven”. I pointed out that was building an argument on silence.
And that is another assumption. The sacrificial system clearly portrayed the need of a perfect substitute to take the sins and be killed. I quoted several texts to show this.
I didn’t say they did. I said the sacrificial system clearly portrayed the need of a perfect substitute to take the sins of the sinner and be killed.
Also your constant referral to Anselm is doing what you get very upset about when people do to you. Why should I show anything as Anselm understood it?

God’s wrath against sin does need to be understood. But as I said earlier, His wrath is not like human wrath – yet people who disagree with the substitutional death of Christ (as in taking our sins and suffering the punishment -- not just natural results) tend to attribute HUMAN type of wrath to God and then dismiss it as not warranted.

one of the problems is our ignorance of just how the penal-substitute view is seen by churches that believe in an eternally burning hell. to some degree, depending on the person, it is also in the adventist church. i know because ive heard them talk about it. at one time i also saw God as a pretty hateful Person, just waiting to punish for whatever reason.



when we really understand this, that people do see God as angry with them, that people feel far from God, then we can understand better the writings of some of our brethern that we are now finding issue with.

I didn't say it was not to be taken literally, I said don't go to extreme literal interpretations.

Christ's blood covers our sins. It is the blood of Christ that stands between the wrath against sin and the contrite sinner.

What? I don't understand you.

You said that dying to sin is not something we do. The SOP says:



So dying to sin is something we do.

We've been through all this.

I think you said basically you weren't denying this (what the SOP says above, that we must die to sin), that you were talking about something else. I dropped this a long time ago. I don't know why it keeps coming back up.

If you wish to insist that dying to sin is not something that we do, I'll disagree with that, as clearly it is something we do. If you explain that you weren't talking about this in the sense that the SOP is here is this quote, then fine, that ends the discussion of this issue.

Colin was taking me to task because I inserted the words "need to" in quoting you, a slip on my part, but one which I don't see that changes anything an iota. If you wish to assert that dying to sin is not something we do, or dying to sin is not something we need to do, I'll disagree to both these statements, and for the same reason. It is both something we do, and something we need to do.

Now it should be obvious that my asserting this is not denying Christ's substitutionary death, as Ellen White asserts the same thing.

I'm not understanding the difficulty here.



Did you notice the underlined part? You see that all along I have been affirming Christ's substitutionary death. You've going to have a real hard time "proving" I don't believe in something I believe in, and which I've been asserting all along.

Regarding what kind of question it is, there were some things I had questions about, which I pointed out, and which questions were not addressed. Asking questions about something that is not understood shouldn't be twisted into making some sort of pronouncement. If you'll look at what I said, it was that certain things didn't make sense to me.



I don't think you understand Colin's position on this, and if you did, I don't think you would agree with it. I could be wrong, but I doubt it. Ask him to explain how he understands Romans 5:12-18, and see if you agree. Let's settle this first before you start taking me to task for questioning something you don't even agree with.

If I'm wrong about this, I'll be the first to admit it. Even so, this is in no way me denying Christ's substitutionary death, but is me simply trying to clarify a sentence by Colin that didn't make sense to me.

It seems like you're trying to be a mind-reader. Trying to guess why I'm asking questions is no way to prove a point.

If you want to demonstrate that I don't believe in the substitutionary death of Christ, find some direct statement I've written saying that. So far all you've presented is me asking clarifying questions regarding statements that I wasn't understanding.



You're trying to show I don't believe in the substitutionary death of Christ. To do so, you need to show some statement I made to that effect. The fact that I didn't say something doesn't demonstrate anything. I could just as easily claim you believe the moon is made of green cheese because you didn't say it wasn't.

I've said a couple of times now that I agree completely with Fundamental Belief #9, which I quoted. Is this not sufficient?



Nothing of what you're saying in the least bit demonstrates that I don't believe in the substitutionary death of Christ. I've asserted I do, I've quoted Fundamental Beliefs #9, which speaks to the subsitutionary death of Christ, and said I agree with it, and I've quoted from "The Desire of Ages" which speaks to this theme, and said I agree with that too. I don't understand why you don't think this is sufficient.



This has me completely baffled. It is in no way a denial that Christ's blood is needed to cover our sins. The only way you could jump to a conclusion like this is to make the assumption that "Christ blood is needed to cover our sins" means "God needs blood to be able to pardon." But the fact that you make such an assumption does not mean *I'm* making that assumption. The fact that the phrase "Christ blood is need to cover our sins" means something specific to you does not mean it must mean that thing for every other person on Planet Earth. It certainly doesn't mean that to me.

That I disagree with you as to the meaning of a phrase doesn't mean I disagree with the phrase. If you wish to assert, "This is a clear denial of what Dedication understands 'Christ's blood is needed to cover our sins,' to mean " I could be convinced of that, but what you're asserting, as I understand that phrase, is 100% false.

I believe, absolutely, that Christ's blood is needed to cover our sins. If you will recall, *Colin* claimed it was unBiblical to assert that Christ (or Christ's blood, I don't remember the exact wording) is an atonement for sin. I was arguing against Colin on this point, and quoted the SOP to support my position that "atonement for sin" was Biblical, and pointed out that Fundamental Beliefs #5 uses the same language.

I've also suggested "covering" as the meaning for the word "hilasmos" in 1 John 2:2.

So, to be clear, I believe that Christ's blood is needed to cover our sins, and, far from denying this, I affirm it.

Regarding your understanding of Galatians 3:13, I think you're off base. I agree with Waggoner's interpretation. In reading Luther's commentary on Galatians, it appears, on a quick reading, that I agree with him as well. Actually, what Luther wrote on this (Gal. 3:13) seems very similar to what Waggoner wrote.

What Waggoner wrote can be seen here: http://www.crcbermuda.com/bible/righteou...sing-of-abraham



First of all, this isn't the point I was disputing. The point I'm disputing is the idea that the sacrifice was necessary in order for God to be able to pardon sin.

Secondly, it's not an assumption. It's historical fact. This is what scholars have ascertained who have studied Paul's time and culture (see, for example, "In Search of Paul"). If you wish to dispute this historical finding, you can do so by producing some statement by someone in some culture at the time of Paul who has the understanding of sacrifice that it was necessary in order for God to be able to pardon. Quoting scripture and reading into it your own understanding of sacrifice doesn't count. Any contemporary statement (contemporary to Paul) by a Jew, or anyone else in the world, will do, however.



Because this is the point of disagreement! What I'm disagreeing with is the assertion that God cannot pardon sin without a sacrifice. Anselm developed this idea. That this is the case can be seen in the fact that the Eastern Orthodox church does not have this point of view. They don't have this point of view because they split from the Roman Catholic church before Anselm developed it.

They (the Eastern Orthodox church) have argued this point for centuries. They argue that if if the church fathers had had this understanding regarding the death of Christ, that they would have had it too. But they don't have it because it was developed by Anselm.



This is another example of an accusation with no evidence. Actually, there's two accusations here with no evidence. First of all, you speak of those who "disagree with the substitutional death of Christ." Please provide some evidence that that those you are referring to actually disagree with what you're claiming to disagree.

Secondly you claim these people tend to attribute human type of wrath to God, and then dismiss it. Please provide some evidence that this is the case.


In your whole entire post there is not one shred of evidence that I deny the substitutionary death and blood of Christ. Indeed, you presented evidence that I *don't* deny it by quoting me affirming I believe it.

So, once again, please stop making this accusation.

Either a thing is literal or it's not. "Literal" means "adhering to fact or to the ordinary construction or primary meaning of a term or expression."

I take it you disagree with the idea that Christ's blood literally covers our sins.



Which means what? Since you don't mean this literally, an explanation should be provided. I keep asking for one, but you just keep repeating the same thing with no explanation.



Which means what? This statement makes no more sense taken literally than the others you've been asserting.

Please say something which has meaning that doesn't have to be divined.

I agree that grave misunderstandings are in popular circulation. Especially the doctrine of eternal hell is a devilish slander against God.

I also agree that this picture of God just waiting to condemn is totally wrong -- He is long-suffering and patient "not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." 2 Peter 3:9 All heaven is interested in our salvation.

But too often we, in our humanness, tend to swing too far the other way when combating error.

God is just, and fair,
This is seen in who is actually to be our judge?

John 5:22 For the Father judges no man, but has committed all judgment unto the Son:
5:27 And has given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man.
5:28 Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice,
5:29 And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.

Jesus goes on to explain that He and the Father are in perfect agreement on this judgment. and He states, " my judgment is just;" 5:30

So the "Lamb that was slain" and Who is declared "worthy" to take the scroll because He was slain and redeemed us to God by His blood in Rev. 5, is also the One to execute judgment.

Romans 14:10 we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.
14:11 For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.
14:12 So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.

The same one Who died to save mankind, will execute judgment.

It's true that misconcepts have caused a lot of people to think that justice and love are opposites, but God's love perfectly combines justice and love.

Tom, I'm going to refrain from discussing anything with you.
It is totally counterproductive.

All you did above was reiterate what you said before. Which to me is denying what you say you don't deny by changing the meaning of the terms, then saying you believe them, even though in the next key stroke you deny them, but still maintain you believe them.

Sure you say you believe "in the substitutionary death" but your comments show you don't really. If you did you won't be making such strange remarks like "Jesus with a pot of blood" which to me is a mockery of Christ's substitutionary death and the blood shed for the forgiveness of our sins.

If you really believed in the substitutional death of Christ you would understand what Romans 6 has to say about Christ dying to sin for us that we might reckon ourselves dead to sin and alive in Christ. But no...



While being extremely demanding for your own honor, you continually misrepresent what I was trying to share. While demanding that you not be linked with any "theory" etc. you continually accuse me of following some Anselm or hellenistic thought. Then turn around and say Paul didn't mean what he said because some historians said such and such. And then ask questions that don't even make sense, because you won't accept Christ's substitutionary death and blood that was shed to cover our sins so we won't have to die because of them. Telling me the mere concept is "not communicating" anything. And then turn around and insist you do believe when everything you said before shows you don't.





Anyway -- I won't address you again.
The Bible tells us not to get involved with this type of contention. It does not edify anyone.

I started this thread hoping for a meaningful discussion on justification and how we can live a victorious Christian life in Christ by grace, but that was not to be.