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Should I Tempt You to Read the Book of Numbers?
This particular Sabbath School Lesson triggered all kinds of memories for me. It focuses on two major incidents: A) The idolatrous and adulterous orgy at Shittim (Num. 25) that resulted in 23,000 deaths by plague; B) the slaughter of the Midianite women and young boys (Num. 31).
My problem is that when it comes to readers of the Old Testament – and I am speaking first of all of believers – I see at least four different reactions. How many of them can I satisfactorily address in one Spectrum article?
1. Avoidance. I suspect this may be the most popular approach. I continue to be startled by how many thoughtful Adventists have tried to go back to the Old Testament in recent years, only to discover that they are horrified by what they find. Many no longer find the Bible meaningful devotionally. It has become simply “literature.”
2. Idealize. Some of the Old Testament stories are so horrific that I can scarcely imagine how they could be idealized. Surprise! It can be done. Check out The Clear Word (an English adaptation, rather than translation, of the Bible) and compare it with any standard Bible translation. If avoidance is the preferred approach, idealizing is the dominant practice.
3. Idolize. A small but vocal minority of believers revel in the powerful God of the Old Testament. For them, the Old Testament God is the real God who will smash his enemies and punish all sinners. They have plenty of key texts to make their case.
4. Realism. I rather arrogantly describe my approach as the “realistic” one, telling it like it is. Why should reading of the Bible be like attending a wedding or a funeral, events at which everyone “knows” things that are left unsaid?
Let me suggest a quick summary response to all four approaches, but with an eye on the last one, in particular. The hard truth is –– and it is a truth we need to say more loudly and more clearly –– that for many, reading Scripture devotionally is a far cry from studying it analytically. It is like the difference between the pain of taking a loved one to the doctor and the delight of a moonlight stroll. Those experiences are worlds apart; if the pleasure is to continue, however, the pain may also be essential.
But here again our responses to Scripture, to religion, to devotional practices, will differ radically. The pietistic side of me resonates with this turn of the century quote from P. T. Forsyth:
I do not believe in verbal inspiration. I am with the critics in principle. But the true minister ought to find the words and phrases of the Bible so full of spiritual food and felicity that he has some difficulty in not believing in verbal inspiration. [P. T. Forsyth, Positive Preaching and the Modern Mind (1907), 38; Eerdmans reprint, 26.]
One of my colleagues recently commented about my book Inspiration, “The problem with your book,” he said, “is that you cite too many examples.” That is a brave statement for an academic to express, for it sounds so unscholarly. Yet my devotional side knows that he is exactly right. The vast majority of people who want to be in touch with God don’t focus on the “problems” in Scripture.
If, however, you want to change the paradigm –– and that was certainly my goal with Inspiration –– then you multiply examples to show that the old model doesn’t work. But that can be risky; a doctor bringing an unwanted diagnosis can trigger anger instead of gratitude. So one looks for another doctor, rejecting the messenger instead of listening to the message.
But academics are academics because they revel in analysis, even when they are also devout believers. C. S. Lewis’ devotional preferences are revealing in that respect. One biography describes his reaction when he came across a copy of Brother Lawrence's Practice of the Presence of God as he was cleaning out his father’s home: “It is full of truth,” he wrote to a friend, “but somehow I didn't like it: it seemed to me a little unctuous. That sort of stuff, when it is not splendid beyond words, is terribly repulsive.” (Roger Lancelyn Green and Walter Hooper, C. S. Lewis: A Biography, 114).
That 1930 comment came within a year of Lewis’ conversion. Green and Hooper’s summary of Lewis’ settled view on devotional reading is worth noting:
The truth is that Lewis never got on well with purely devotional books. What he infinitely preferred were solid works of theology that he had to work at to understand. His attitude towards the two kinds of books is summed up in a preface he wrote some years later [1944] for a translation of St. Athanasius's The Incarnation of the Word of God: “For my own part, I tend to find the doctrinal books often more helpful in devotion than the devotional books, and I rather suspect that the same experience may await others. I believe that many who find that ‘nothing happens’ when they sit down, or kneel down, to a book of devotion, would find that the heart sings unbidden while they are working their way through a tough bit of theology with a pipe in their teeth and a pencil in their hand.” (Green and Hooper, 115.)
Given that wide diversity of reactions, can I reach all four categories with this one article? Only if I can convince them that not everyone has to view the Old Testament in the same way. Ellen White to the rescue! She argues that the variety of writers represented in the Bible matches the variety of minds in our world. “The minds of people differ” she exclaims (Counsels to Parents and Teachers, 432). And again, “Our understanding of truth, our ideas in regard to the conduct of life are not in all respects the same.... The duties that one finds light are to another most difficult and perplexing” (The Ministry of Healing, 483).
And when I ponder how to approach this diversity, another sobering Ellen White quote comes to mind: “You need to educate yourself, that you may have wisdom to deal with minds,” she counsels one brother. “You should with some have compassion, making a difference, while others you may save with fear, pulling them out of the fire [Jude 22-23]. Our heavenly Father frequently leaves us in uncertainty in regard to our efforts” (3 Testimonies, 420 [1875]).
In short, the decision is mine, but with moderation, since “The Lord frequently leaves us in uncertainty...”; this leaves the door open for my brothers and sisters in Christ to disagree with my decision.
So now let’s take a crack at moving the three other positions toward realism. At the outset, I will be right up front with my approach to the violence attributed to God in the Old Testament. And with equal fervor I will contrast my approach with the traditional “theocracy” explanation.
* * *
As I see it, the violence attributed to God in the Old Testament is not so much a testimony to the power of God as it is a revelation of the violent attitudes of the people he wishes to meet, people whose attitudes toward authority have been horribly twisted by sin. With such an approach, contrary to first appearances, the Old Testament God is not a God with a short fuse, but is incredibly patient –– like Jesus.
Such an approach assumes that God desires to win the hearts of his people, not just frighten them into submission. He does indeed frighten them, for that is the only way he could win their respect initially. “All Israel shall hear and fear,” declares the book of Deuteronomy again and again (e.g. 13:11; 17:13; 19:20; 21:21; 31:13). God will win them with methods they can understand. The footprints of this all-powerful God are everywhere present in the psalms. “The voice of the LORD breaks the cedars.... He makes Lebanon skip like a calf, and Sirion like a young wild ox” (Ps. 29:5-6, NRSV). When it comes to being tough, Yahweh is a more than a match for any other warrior.
By contrast, the “theocracy” argument seeks to protect divine sovereignty by not questioning any aspect of divine activity. God was violent in the Old Testament because he was directly responsible for Israel.
If God does it, it must be right....
The Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it....
In the traditional theocracy argument, all divine activity is given absolute status rather than seeing it as an adaptation to twisted human circumstances. I agree with theocracy supporters in affirming the conviction that the Lord does not “change” (Mal. 3:6). But where I part company with them is in my understanding of how God relates to human beings who certainly do change.
Shouldn’t an unchanging God seek to meet the needs of those who have fallen away from him? That’s why –– in the KJV Old Testament –– God “repents” far more often than humans do, but he does not repent as a mortal repents, for God never does anything wrong. When humans change for better or for worse, however, an unchanging God responds to their new position –– repents, as in the KJV –– or “changes his mind” in the NRSV.
In this connection, the juxtaposition of two verses in 1 Samuel 15 is striking, especially in the KJV. When Saul begs Samuel for a reconsideration of the judgment against him for failing to carry out the mandate against the Amalekites, Samuel responds: “The Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent: for he is not a man, that he should repent” (1 Sam. 15:29, KJV). But the same chapter concludes just a few verses later with this striking statement: “The LORD repented that he had made Saul king over Israel” (1 Sam. 15:35, KJV).
NUMBERS 25 AND 31
Now let’s turn directly to the troublesome chapters and sort out what is clear and what is not; what is troubling and what is helpful; what is enduring and what is shaped by culture.
Clarity #1: Sexual immorality is a dangerous departure from God’s will and often leads directly to religious apostasy.
Clarity #2: Both God and His human leaders must condemn rebellion against God’s law, and, as a last resort, separate the rebels from the faithful.
In some Christian circles today, both of these clarities would be questioned, even by those who claim a high view of Scripture. We shall return to that point. But first we must address the issue of culture, and here I make my own judgments based on a variety of sources and reasons.
Culture #1: The violent punishments meted out for religious and civil disobedience were shaped by a violent culture, a culture by no means unique to Israel.
Culture #2: Attitudes toward women, treating them as subservient to men, were shaped by a male-dominated culture, the inevitable result of sin.
Culture #3: Attitudes toward marriage were twisted as a result of sin, obscuring the purity of the ideal affirmed elsewhere in Scripture.
I continue to marvel at how the violent, self-centered nature of sin allows current cultural deviations to shape Christian thinking about God and Scripture, even overturning some of the clearest teachings of Jesus. By contrast, those inclined to idealize Scripture, often seek to impose on the biblical narratives greater clarity, greater purity than the narratives actually support. Ironically, some of the most significant departures from the teachings of Jesus come from those who claim to be supporters of a “high” view of Scripture. We are so easily blinded by our own views. The ideal of Acts 15:28 should always be our goal, so that every decision will seem “good to the Holy Spirit and to us.”
ADAPTING TO HUMAN CULTURE: Learning from Archaeology and Ellen White
While the well-intentioned purpose of the theocracy argument has been to preserve God’s sovereignty, it has led to justifying all kinds of evil in the name of God, including ethnic cleansing. In this connection one nineteenth-century archeological discovery towers above all others in illuminating the violent side of the Old Testament. Discovered in 1868, the Moabite Stone (Mesha Stele) celebrates the victory over Israel of King Mesha of Moab (in ca. 850 BCE) and his “dedication to destruction” of a whole Israelite town in honor of his god, Chemosh.
The key word is cherem. It refers to the total (sacred) destruction of a town or a people. It lies behind at least three of the most jarring stories in the Old Testament:
A. Jericho and Achan in Joshua 7. Jericho had been “dedicated to destruction” [cherem]; all the booty was dedicated for sacred purpose; but Achan broke the rules, leading to the defeat of the whole community; the matter was only put right when Achan and his entire family were stoned to death. “Then the LORD turned away from his burning anger” (Josh 7:26, NRSV). H. Wheeler Robinson articulated the idea of “corporate personality” as a way of explaining ancient way of corporate thinking, a sharp contrast with our individualism. Typically we attempt to give an individualist reading to the story, justifying the killing of the children because they were in on the secret. Read Joshua 7. Even the animals were killed. Individualism is nowhere in sight. If you were part of the community you lived and died with the community.
B. Jabesh-Gilead in Judges 21. The wild narrative of the dismembered concubine in Judges 19-21 is what I have called the worst story in the Old Testament (see chapter 6 in Who’s Afraid of the Old Testament God?). Cherem plays a key role in the story when Israel “discovered” that they needed wives for the surviving Benjamites after Israel had avenged the death of the concubine. To supply the need, Israel dedicated the whole town of Jabesh-Gilead to destruction because it had not responded to the call to arms. But the virgins were spared from the cherem for sacred purpose, namely, to become wives of the Benjamites. Thus they satisfied the desperate need triggered by Israel’s rash oath not to provide wives to the Benjamites.
C. Amalekites in 1 Samuel 15. Through Samuel, God commanded Saul to wipe out the Amalekites entirely. The CEV is vivid enough: “Go and attack the Amalekites! Destroy them and all their possessions. Don’t have any pity. Kill their men, women, children, and even their babies. Slaughter their cattle, sheep, camels and donkeys” (1 Sam. 15:3). Just to add frosting to this grim cake, Samuel with his own sword atoned for Saul’s neglect: “And Samuel hewed Agag in pieces before the LORD in Gilgal” (1 Sam. 15:33, NRSV).
And this is where my vivid memories kick in, for when I was reading through the Bible in the Contemporary English Version I discovered that I had forgotten how violent Numbers 31 actually was. When I read about Moses’ angry command to kill the non-virgin women along with all the baby boys, I picked up The Clear Word to see how it handled the verse.
Now whenever I check The Clear Word, I do so with certain pangs of guilt, for, as I understand it, Dr. Blanco originally wrote The Clear Word as a devotional exercise over a period of some ten years, never intending to publish it. He was, so he told one of my colleagues, simply seeking to re-tell the Bible story as Jesus would tell it. I don’t want to criticize him for something that was not intended to be an accurate translation. But The Clear Word, which has become massively popular among Adventists, illustrates what happens when we are not clear about the difference between devotion and analysis.
In short, instead mandating the death of all the baby boys (“kill every male among the little ones,” NRSV), The Clear Word has Moses commanding the army to “execute every adult male that’s left.” I checked the original and several other standard translations. None of them comes close to suggesting that Moses commanded the death of adult males. Then I slipped over to 1 Samuel 15 to see how Dr. Blanco dealt with the Amalekite cherem. There he drops out the babies and adds another category of animals! In a later revision he added the babies back in 1 Samuel 15, but apparently was still unwilling to have Moses kill the baby boys in Numbers 31.
The official study guide struggles mightily with this narrative, attempting to justify the death of the non-virgins. But it says not a word about the command to kill the baby boys. It does point us to “the revelation we have of God as revealed to us through Jesus Christ” (comments for Thursday, December 10). Amen. It also says that we simply must “accept that there are things we don’t understand from our perspective, things not revealed to us” (ibid). True enough.
But one thing that should be perfectly clear is that the standards of justice in the Old Testament have been horribly twisted as a result of sin and God must work within that framework. The Moabite Stone tells us that cherem was not God’s idea at all. It was part of that culture within which God had to work. That’s not a mystery. That’s perfectly clear.
But now let’s look at how Ellen White deals with the issue of divine “adaptation.” I only know of one clear passage in her writings where she strongly affirms that God must work within the understanding of the people in their own day. It is found in Patriarchs and Prophets, 515, where she interprets God’s purpose in establishing the cities of refuge (cf. Numbers 35). Behind the plan for the cities of refuge lurks the violent custom of private vengeance, a custom which flies in the face of virtually every principle of our modern understanding of justice. Here is the crucial quote, with the key lines highlighted.
The appointment of these cities had been commanded by Moses, “that the slayer may flee thither, which killeth any person at unawares. And they shall be unto you cities for refuge,” he said, “that the manslayer die not, until he stand before the congregation in judgment.” [Num. 35:11-12] This merciful provision was rendered necessary by the ancient custom of private vengeance, by which the punishment of the murderer devolved on the nearest relative or the next heir of the deceased. In cases where guilt was clearly evident, it was not necessary to wait for a trial by the magistrates. The avenger might pursue the criminal anywhere, and put him to death wherever he should be found. The Lord did not see fit to abolish this custom at that time; but he made provision to insure the safety of those who should take life unintentionally. (Patriarchs and Prophets, 515)
Ellen White is arguing that God was willing to work within the bounds of a horrific custom, being incredibly patient, allowing his people to advance step by step until they could see more clearly the goodness of God as more fully revealed in Jesus.
However, Ellen White’s decision to argue for such “adaptation” did not come quickly or easily for her. The 1890 quotation in Patriarchs and Prophets is the first and only such quotation that I know of. In most cases she simply skips the really tough stories of the Old Testament. The story of the dismembered concubine in Judges 19-21, for example, and the story of blood guilt for Saul in 2 Samuel 21 are two almost uncanny examples. If one visually scans the Scripture index of the old 3-volume Ellen White index, one finds no serious discussion of Judges 19-21. And every single chapter in 1 and 2 Samuel is represented –– except 2 Samuel 21, the story of bloodguilt for Saul. She simply skips it
In connection with that principle of patient adaptation, nowhere is it more clearly laid out than in this remarkable quotation in the context of health reform as she cautioned those who wanted to move more quickly than the group itself could move:
We must go no faster than we can take those with us whose consciences and intellects are convinced of the truths we advocate. We must meet the people where they are. Some of us have been many years in arriving at our present position in health reform. It is slow work to obtain a reform in diet. We have powerful appetites to meet; for the world is given to gluttony. If we should allow the people as much time as we have required to come up to the present advanced state in reform, we would be very patient with them, and allow them to advance [21] step by step, as we have done, until their feet are firmly established upon the health reform platform. But we should be very cautious not to advance too fast, lest we be obliged to retrace our steps. In reforms we would better come one step short of the mark than to go one step beyond it. And if there is error at all, let it be on the side next to the people. – Testimonies 3:20-21 [1872]
CONCLUSION
Finally, we must note some of the astonishing effects of modern culture on the wonderful ideals taught by Jesus. I will cite three.
1. Evangelicals and Sexual Standards. One of my colleagues has taught the class “Introduction to Adventism” for the School of Pharmacy at Loma Linda University. It is designed to meet the needs of those who are not familiar with Adventism. Many of these students come from independent evangelical congregations in Southern California and are not afraid to express their convictions. Thus they were critical of my colleague as a “dangerous” liberal when he explained the Adventist understanding of the non-immortality of the soul –– no eternally burning hell –– and the Adventist conviction that heathen who have never heard the name of Christ can still be saved (cf. Desire of Ages, chapter 70). But he was stunned when he explained the Adventist understanding of the biblical position on sexuality. All of a sudden he was the old fogey. “You can’t apply those standards today,” they said. In other words, they had completely bought into the modern secular view of sex as entertainment.
2. Forgiving your enemies. As I was preparing this commentary, a member of my Sabbath School class pointed me to the existence of a “conservative” movement of lay Bible translators (http://conservapedia.com/Conservative_Bible_Project). They argue that Jesus’ cry on the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34, NRSV) is a “liberal” insertion into our Bible and that it does not belong in the Gospel. The textual evidence, is somewhat mixed to be sure. But this is an astonishing development. Strident religious attitudes, reinforced by the Taliban and other Moslem extremists, have tempted some Christians to react in kind and to overlook some of the most powerful aspects of Jesus’ teaching. In this case, Jesus’ saying simply illustrates and reinforces his teaching in the Sermon on the Mount. How would this “conservative” movement deal with “Love your enemies” (Matt. 5:44)? I don’t know, but I would like to find out.
3. Killing your enemies. Some months ago I was in conversation with a former Adventist who now identifies with the ex-Adventist movement spearheaded by Dale Ratzlaff’s Proclamation. This former Adventist was pressing me about the “truth” of Ellen White’s comments on the ministers who rejected the 1844 message. I noted that given the alternatives at the time, I could see how she would take such a stance.
“That’s not what I said,” he replied firmly. “Is her statement true?”
My response was to try to turn the tables with a biblical example, asking about the cherem pronounced against the Amalekites. Scripture is clear: kill “men, women, children, even the babies” (1 Sam. 15:4, CEV). “Is that story true?” I asked.
“I have an answer that works for me,” he replied.
“And that is? I returned.
“Given the emphasis on jihad in Islamic circles today,” he said. “God may find it necessary once again to command the death of men, women, children, even the babies.”
I could scarcely believe my ears. A Christian who claims a high view of Scripture is saying that the Christian response to Islamic jihad would be a Christian jihad? It would correlate with the statement in national media by the Southern California fundamentalist, John MacArthur, who announced to the world: “God commanded Saul to kill the Amalekites, let’s go get the Iraqis.”
* * *
The Old Testament story is thoroughly immersed in a culture that was contrary to God’s will. But so is our story. Just as ancient Israel was powerfully tempted to capitulate to their culture, so we are tempted to capitulate to ours.
The solution? Focus on the story of Jesus and meet together as the believers did in Acts 15 until our conclusions seem “clear to the Holy Spirit and to us” (Acts 15:28). We look forward to God’s new world, where no one hurts anyone and where no babies will ever be killed, certainly not at God’s command.
That new world lies ahead of us. By God’s grace, let’s do everything in our power to make this world as much like that world as we possibly can.
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Alden Thompson:
But one thing that should be perfectly clear is that the standards of justice in the Old Testament have been horribly twisted as a result of sin and God must work within that framework.
Alden, bottom line, I think better of God.
>>> Check out The Clear Word (an English adaptation, rather than translation, of the Bible)
>>> Now whenever I check The Clear Word, I do so with certain pangs of guilt, for, as I understand it, Dr. Blanco originally wrote The Clear Word as a devotional exercise over a period of some ten years, never intending to publish it. He was, so he told one of my colleagues, simply seeking to re-tell the Bible story as Jesus would tell it
and what a disaster it is
The problems are that (a) Blanco changes the clear explicit meaning of verses to match SDA/EGW teachings. Not just the ambiguous ones, but simple passages. (b) He inserted SDA teachings into texts that did not have them to start with.
This is not adaption - it is mutation and invention.
Look up the stories of Moses's rod turning to a snake, and Saul and the Witch of Endor. Blanco replaces explicit clear statements with 'corrections'. The Egyptian's rods no longer become snakes, and it is no longer Samuel who is seen.
And yet it is still marketed and sold today as a Bible!
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0970011156/?tag=googhydr-20&hvadid=4242294789&r...
http://www.squidoo.com/clear-word-bible
http://www.sdanet.org/atissue/clearword/clearword.html
Which, of course, leads to discussion and controversy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Clear_Word
http://www.watchman.org/reltop/clearwordbible.htm
/Bevin
Going back to the original topic
Propaganda and myth are often more explicit, more violent, and more black-and-white than real life.
The sooner we stop treating these very old oral histories as literal, the better off we will be.
/Bevin
The sooner we stop treating these very old oral histories as literal, the better off we will be.
I agree, Bevin. These very old oral histories, taken literally, play out in very modern social situations that are very destructive, IMO.
We're all responsible for the God we're willing to worship.
A God I am willing to worship is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and loving, and therefore doesn't get into jams, such as having to commit or commission atrocities, simply because people are misbehaving.
I think we do a great disservice to the divine when we try to shoehorn the great Creator of this majestic universe into ancient stories filled with atrocities attributed to God, not to mention the disservice we do to our own minds, families and culture.
I have great respect and admiration for Alden Thompson, and I realize that, in his position, he has to gently ease us into a more commodious position, creating as little alarm as possible, but, as I said before, I think better of God.
It is hard to believe it has been 30 years since I sat in the back of Dr Thompson's "Introduction to the Old Testament" class at WWC.
The one comment that has continued to stick with me over all these years, was his often used phrase.....those were "wild and wholly times" back then. Ironically, much the same as our hairstyles in 1979....Dr Thompson's included.
The God as described in the Old Testament, and as detailed in the above piece, is for me, a difficult God to identify with, to love, to respect, to want to serve, or to find redeeming as a father figure.
What is justice?.....it certainly doesn't seem like there was justice from a loving God to those innocences who died in the multiple God directed genocides of the Old Testament.
And people wonder why some folks tend toward becoming Agnostics....
I understand the whole "Great Controversy" scenario, but in my simple mind, there had to have been a better, more humane plan that could have been conceived, from a God who we consider all powerful, all knowing, knows the end from the beginning...than the one described in the Bible.
Much more could be said, but to what end
I think Alden's commentary is the best one could hope for if one is still trying to insist that God is described accurately in the OT.
However, I'm with you Maggie.
is this the answer,Dr Thompson?
...<"The solution? ....
Focus on the story of Jesus">...
and try to forget/overlook/deny the violent stories of the old Test...???
why not explore the probability that the worst of those stories either may not have really happened, or if they did, they were merely human and natural interactions, not caused or commanded by any God.
Why is this the best choice for the WORST STORY OF THE OT??
...<"the dismembered concubine in Judges 19-21 is what I have called the worst story in the Old Testament">...
why pick stories where insignificant amounts of people were killed ....and killed by people!!!
why not pick the story with the greatest amount of personal victims....all killed by our Loving heavenly Father Himself!!! and for no good philosophical reason!!!
why not pick the improbable if not impossible tale of Noah's flood? mega-more people died, God showed his impatience and violence, even killed innocent children and animals in the process, and the reason? the hot women were hooking up (amalgamating?) with space aliens!!!
Then throw in the fact that there is no good evidence that it even happened...either in geology, geography, oceanography, paleontology, history, archeology, or any other "ology", plus there is no good philosophical reason for it!!!
here's the worst story in the Bible:
(CEV) Genesis 6:1 More and more people were born, until finally they spread all over the earth. Some of their daughters were so beautiful that supernatural beings came down and married the ones they wanted. 3 Then the LORD said, "I won't let my life-giving breath remain in anyone forever. No one will live for more than one hundred twenty years." 4 The children of the supernatural beings who had married these women became famous heroes and warriors. They were called Nephilim and lived on the earth at that time and even later. 5 The LORD saw how bad the people on earth were and that everything they thought and planned was evil. 6 He was very sorry that he had made them, 7 and he said,
"I'll destroy every living creature on earth! I'll wipe out people, animals, birds, and reptiles. I'm sorry I ever made them."
end quote of the worst story in the Bible.
what we need to realize is that this story is so horrendous, so undocumented, and so philosophically unsupportable, that the only exculpation possible for an alleged Loving God is to realize that maybe it didn't actually happen!!!
maybe the tale resulted from ancient illiterate peoples remembrances of legends told around the campfire of dramatic sea level rise due to Al Gores global warming and the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles
inundating entire villages along oceanic estuaries, told and retold around campfires until finally written down by a small tribe of nomads searching for a homeland and trying to prove to their kids if not the world that they mattered.
the literal Garden of Eden may actually have been found!!!!
http://ldolphin.org/eden/
and once these nomads set on their way back to the land they had abandoned 400 or so yrs earlier (because their God would not or could not help them overcome the drought???)
the culture of the day allowed them to attack and kill the inhabitants of the land they wanted to ethnically cleanse...just like Christian Serbs tried a few yrs back...
and to justify the slaughter, rape, mayhem and saving of the virgins (to use)?
...they trotted out the old wives tale that the Moabites were the SOB descendants of Lots incestuous romp in the cave, thereby without direct, legal lineage back to Olde Abe, the Moabites were unable according to Hebrew Law to inherit the land they were squatting on....
...now throw in the Nuremberg excuse: we only did what we were told (by their God)
...plus Moses promise that the soldiers could keep anything they wanted...
and you have quite a motivation for unlimited war and slaughter.
but you have zero proof that God either commanded it, or participated...you only have the word of the people who expected to benefit from the ethnic cleansing.
If God had been both omniscient and omnipowerful, why didn't he overcome the drought which forced their ancestors to migrate away from the dry, dusty hills of Judea in the first place?
Even more interesting, with alleged fore knowledge at his command, why did God "call" Olde Abe to leave Harren, next to a major river which meant there have never been problems with a drought there....
And with all His purported love and caring for his self described chosen people, why did God take 400 yrs to think about liberating them?
And why Did God have to abort Egypts innocent firstborn kids when water-boarding the Pharaoh personally might have been equally effective, less bloody, and better accepted by the Christian Right?
there still remain too many questions, Dr Thompson....
you haven't begun to explain how we can be expected to love and worship a God who would work so hard, if you believe His Hebrew biographers, to be among the worlds 3 greatest mass killers, up there with Stalin and Hitler....
http://dwindlinginunbelief.blogspot.com/2007/01/how-many-has-god-killed-...
in Dr Thompson's analysis above, he lists a number of ways to "understand" (ie, justify? forgive? ) some of God's worst purported actions, without considering that many of the stories we once took as literal fact may have been written by superstitious, scientifically ignorant people, who ascribed everything that happened to them as being sent by God... manna when they were good, poisonous snakes when they were not. The sun standing still when they needed more time to kill more people....yet the earth opening up and swallowing their own people and fire coming down from heaven to burn up tribesmen who had merely tried to offer incense without going thru the hired-arky of priests.
isn't there another way to "understand" all the violence, mayhem, and killing in the Old Test?
1) maybe it didn't always happen precisely as written....
and/or
2) maybe there was a lot of poetic license involved (exaggeration and compilation, borrowing and expansion..)
3) maybe the people who wrote the worst of the stories (as in Numb 31) were the participants, and protagonists, and not necessarily commanded by any Loving God, tho that's what they usually believed and claimed under the Nuremberg Excuse:
hummmm along with Andy Williams from the movie, the Exodus:
This land is mine
God gave this land to me
This brave and ancient land to me
And when the morning sun
Reveals her hills and plains
Then I see a land
Where children can run free
So take my hand
And walk this land with me
A nd walk this lovely land with me
*Tho'I am just a man
When you are by my side
With the help of God
I know I can be strong
To make this land our home
If I must fight, I'll fight
To make this land our own
Until I die, this land is mine ",
Is it possible that what we once read as inspired by God may actually have been the biography of a small tribe of scientifically ignorant nomads in the search for meaning and a homeland?
just in the command to "save" the virgins we see that both the people AND God either didn't know, or God didn't care to warn his chosen people that in planting their "seed" in foreign virgins, they would be diluting their Hebrew uniqueness!!! since they didn't know about a womans part in conception other than being an oven to hatch a man's seed.
do you think God actually helped Jacob cheat his uncle Laban by overcoming His own laws of genetics to increase the number of speckled offspring by having the animals breed while staring at striped sticks? or is that another bedtime story told to kids about their great ancestors, and how their tribe got their start? by cheating and subterfuge!!!
all with God's help!!!
Did God actually stand by and watch while the Olde Debil KILLED Lot's kids in a cosmic game of one-ups-manship? Like the Wolf in Red Riding Hood? Should we warn our kids that God will encourage the Debil to huff, puff, and blow your house down. or is this another of the "parables" which are supposed to convey meaning?
and the meaning is? we're on our own!!!
God could choose at any time to allow the Olde Debil to kill us!!! He apparently is not always the Loving, Heavenly Father we once thought before delving into the Old Test.
Dr Thompson, I fear this so far unfulfilled promise may not be reachable:
...<"Now let’s turn directly to the troublesome chapters and sort out what is clear and what is not; what is troubling and what is helpful; what is enduring and what is shaped by culture">...
if your solution is:
...<"<"The solution?
Focus on the story of Jesus">...
does that mean you are asking us to overlook, deny, or forgive the Old Test?
my conclusion? any study of the Book of Numbers as literal, inerrant, and divinely inspired may lose more (literal) believers than it could possibly gain!!! the only ones it will "save" are the intellectual, educational, and emotional "virgins"...
the only possible answer if you want to exculpate a Loving God from all the violence, mayhem, and killing???
... reinterpret the OT as the self serving work of uneducated, superstitious peoples, who wanted stuff, land, security and virgins and NOT as divine commands or intervention.
John writes: "Is it possible that what we once read as inspired by God may actually have been the biography of a small tribe of scientifically ignorant nomads in the search for meaning and a homeland?"
This implies the two are mutually incompatible - but surely they're not. And that, I think, is part of Alden Thompson's point - that the Israelites were unsophisticated nomads, who God worked with as best He could, and this is reflected in the stories.
This point, or something like it, has been made in response to you in several posts over the last three lessons. It's fine that you disagree - but your posts have started to be all simply repeating, at VERY great length, that you feel the stories must be false, and do not convey "divine commands or intervention". But I think everybody gets that now!
However, John, eventually just disagreeing, and repeating your same basic point, especially in posts of such immense length, doesn't take the online conversation any further forward.
Dr. Thompson is a dedicated and sincere Christian; but sincerity does not define truth, only one man's opinion of the truth, and his "explanation" of the atrocities of the OT is a valiant attempt to show, somehow, that in spite of all the terrible events attributed to God, we poor humans should worship such a god.
It is so much easier to read the Bible just as we do literature of that period. How many believe the Gilgamesh Epic, the Atrahasis Flood Story, the Sumerian Flood story, and Sargon's magical escape in a reed basket? Not to mention the many stories of gods, goddesses and virginal births and even resurrections from the dead?
All these stories, including the later Greek poems dating from the actual finalization of the Hebrew Bible, are so similar that only the Bible must be believed as literally true. The circular reasoning in the Bible is frequently referred to as sufficient evidence for its inspiration: a fallacy from the beginning.
I agree with Maggie and others who are unable to worship or even love such a capricious and murderous god. There can be no rationalization, no justification for the worship of a god who is not only implicated in these acts, but the originator. Might as well worship Hitler and Stalin. Agnosticism is so much simpler: Live and let live and cease the futile attempts to give any valid reason for a god who is so destructive of human life.
The biblical image of God is a paradox because the nature of God is paradoxical. Justice and mercy can not be harmonized by carnal reasoning.
Nothing written in the bible is written in a vaccuum. In our day and age, we have a "whole" bible and can more readily "see" both the parallel and contrast in justice and mercy.
For myself personally, I love God because I see that He is absolutely just. He exercises His authority as any just judge would do. He is not some wimply sissy God that many if not most people visualize today.
I suspect it is because they are aware of their sin and sinfulness and hope somehow they can feel good about a God who will not punish wickedness and evil.
Such, have little or no respect for the atonement, nor do they preceive its true value and meaning. Again, for myself personally, I appreciate grace because of my love for justice. Those who oppose justice and hope to avoid any penalty for sin by way of judgment will never love a just and righteous God.
When we see the reality that all have committed the "unpardonable sin" and have no grounds for any hope of forgiveness, then the atonement takes on a dynamic meaning. Men like Luther preceived this reality and were overwhelmed by the true meaning of the atonement.
Only when we see, like Luther, "There is no way out" can "the way" reach its full dynamic.
Like Paul the apostle, I truly feel sorry for those who do not see the cross. They resist its meaning and hope that its true meaning is not really necessary. And because of this, repentance is impossible. How can you repent, if you think you are not accountable? or, if you think God is too harsh?
In no way is God too harsh in His actions against sin, either in the OT or the new.
If we see each action as an "end of the world" event, like the flood, or Sodom or other measures we consider extreme, we see the righteous action of God against sin and Satan.
As I have said in the past, God does not "punish" ignorance. He does punish rebellion. And only when we are willing to confront our rebellion, will we truly appreciate God's justice and the scripture, "If we confess our sin He is faithful and just to forgive us our sin........"
Notice the word, "just". The atonement is God's justice revealed. Rebellion is unpardonable. But God has provided the means whereby rebellion can be forgiven. Not because justice has been set aside, but because God has poured out His righteous wrath against sin upon His only Son.
David committed the unpardonable sin with Bathsheba and killed her husband. But hear the words of Nathan the prophet, "Never the less, God has put away your sin."
David fell on his face before the Lord in relief and repentance. His heart was totally won over by such an act of grace that goes beyond human comprehension. And only when we see that we have committed the unpardonable sin and yet in Christ alone we receive mercy beyond reason will we begin to repent and appreciate what God has done.
Every saint knows this reality on some level. Some know it better than others. Many of the bible writers experienced this kind of forgiveness and we see it expressed in scripture.
Yes, I love God's justice. Mercy is extended because of it.
If you have any faith, keep it.
Bill Sorensen
If we look at the world around us today, we see lots of people claiming that God has inspired them to do various acts and writing books about it and starting religious groups doing them. We also have people writing complete fabrications and passing them off as true.
It is simply impossible to believe such people did not exist in Jesus time - we know that they did.
It is simply impossible to believe such people did not exist in Isaiah's time - we know that they did.
We have not found a lot of evidence showing that the events described in the Bible from Adam to Solomon are accurately described, and instead the evidence shows that the older the story is the less it matches what we find on the ground.
It is the same conundrum we see in the Gospels. There is no reason to believe that modern psych illnesses did not occur in Jesus day - but where is the person diagnosed with schizophrenia or bipolar or OCD in the Gospels? They are there - but they are misdiagnosed as demon possessed.
/Bevin
doesn't the sometime confusion surrounding interpretation of ancient writings also suggest a possible conclusion we never wanted to admit?
...<"This particular Sabbath School Lesson triggered all kinds of memories for me. It focuses on two major incidents: A) The idolatrous and adulterous orgy at Shittim (Num. 25) that resulted in 23,000 deaths by plague;">...
how innocently put...."resulted in the deaths of 23,000 "...
but didn't the original author believe that God SENT the plague that killed all those real, individual people!!!
killed by their loving God? possibly randomly...since there is no indication that only the guilty were plagued by God.
or was it 24,000????
Numb 25:
The LORD immediately stopped punishing Israel with a deadly disease, 9 but twenty-four thousand Israelites had already died.
worse, the Lord is claimed to have said that He actually wanted to kill even more!!! except the Lord's anger was appeased by the murder of a couple caught in the act...
Numb 25:10 The LORD said to Moses,
11 "In my anger, I would have wiped out the Israelites if Phinehas had not been faithful to me.
Alternatively, should we believe the author of 1 Cor 10 that the number killed by God's plague was not 24,000 as claimed by the Book of Numbers, it was 23,000 as Paul and Dr Thompson write, and that all these divine killings were to warn us in the last days?
1 cor 10:8 Some of those people did shameful things, and in a single day about twenty-three thousand of them died. Don't do shameful things as they did. 9 And don't try to test Christ, as some of them did and were later bitten by poisonous snakes. 10 Don't even grumble, as some of them did and were killed by the destroying angel. 11 These things happened to them as a warning to us. All this was written in the Scriptures to teach us who live in these last days.
...<"David committed the unpardonable sin with Bathsheba and killed her husband. But hear the words of Nathan the prophet, "Never the less, God has put away your sin.
"Yes, I love God's justice. Mercy is extended because of it.">...
and the Paul Harvey "rest of the story"?????
God forgives King David, but here is Samuel chastising him:
You murdered Uriah the Hittite by having the Ammonites kill him, so you could take his wife. 10 "Because you wouldn't obey me and took Uriah's wife for yourself, your family will never live in peace. 11 Someone from your own family will cause you a lot of trouble, and I will take your wives and give them to another man before your very eyes. He will go to bed with them while everyone looks on. 12 What you did was in secret, but I will do this in the open for everyone in Israel to see." 13 14 David said, "I have disobeyed the LORD." "Yes, you have!" Nathan answered. "You showed you didn't care what the LORD wanted.
He has forgiven you, and you won't die. But your newborn son will."
15 Then Nathan went back home.
The LORD made David's young son very sick.
16 So David went without eating to show his sorrow, and he begged God to make the boy well. David would not sleep on his bed, but spent each night lying on the floor. 17 His officials stood beside him and tried to talk him into getting up. But he would not get up or eat with them. 18
After the child had been sick for seven days, he died,
so as part of Gods justice and mercy, instead of punishing King David, God kills the innocent baby? after the numerically mathemagical number "7" days. so, is God a baby killer again? like all dead the Egyptian kids? and all the kids in the "flood"? and the 42 kids (thats 3 perfect sets of a twice perfect 7, mathemagically speaking, same "42" Matt mistakenly uses to prove Jesus geneology as the Messiah) mauled by bears sent by God to prove to Elisha that he had the prophetic power with him?
are we sure we want to believe all that?
literally?
divinely inspired?
or should we suppose that the baby got sick, and died of natural causes..like a lot of infants used to do before modern medicine..but the ancients (superstitiously) believed it was God's punishment for Davids sin...
and that's how it got written down later.
and that's how we were told to believe it..
...literally.
John,
Perhaps Thompson is referring to the traditional view of the scribes as expoused by Kiel that 1000 were by hanging and 23,000 by plague...Likewise Paul?
While "about"- Gk. "osei" is not used here in 1 Cor.10:8 it is used in LK.9:14 concerning the 5000 it shows that numerical precision is not the "final important word" of the day. Why are you so concerned about precise "literalism" here?
regards,
pat
"But hear the words of Nathan the prophet, "Never the less, God has put away your sin." "
But still God supposively killed their innocent newborn baby to punish David even after claiming to put away the sin. Nice.
There is nothing just about that, sorry. And I could never love a God who purposefully kills babies in order to punish the sins of the parents. That is sick, no matter what the time period.
Isn't it more likely that the baby died and those observing this made the connection? If you think everything that happens to you is a direct result of God and if something bad happens to you, wouldn't you assume that it is because God is unhappy with you? Wouldn't you assume God killed your baby?
But why in the world do we have to think that they were correct just so we can desperately cling to the idea that every story that talks about God is accurate? God had to kill David's baby because in that time period, there was no other way to deal appropriately with his sin? That kind of spin puts Karl Rove to shame.
Maybe God still kills babies to punish parents. No reason why not is there?
Beth
Why wonder about killing babies vis-a-vis your willingness to worship God?
You believe Abraham and Issac dont you? Just because he was older its still killing somebodies baby isn't it?
Its funny how people characterize God in one situation like they couldn't love him if he was that way when they already know and I assume believe other bible stories where it is clear their fears are valid.
Consider a couple of things. If God was as you fear, would he still be God? That is to say, an all powerful being that has all the "omni's"? Would his ways still be beyond your comprehension? Would your estimation of his morality be like a gnat writing a thesis on the deregulation of the taxi market in outer Mongolia?
Michael
If God is morally incomprehensible, Michael, then how can we be expected to love Him?
Likewise, if God is morally repugnant, how can we be expected to love Him?
We can be bullied into any number of responses, but not bullied into love.
Love must flower on its own.
Thank you, Dr. Thompson, for tackling such difficult texts. I yearn for more of this type of conversation and struggle as "Texts of Terror" are overwhelmingly avoided in the church. If Christians don't acknowledge and face and resist the violence and brutality in the Bible, I can't see how we will ever be able to do so in our present world. Turning to Jesus as our guide on this issue is not always so clear, either, given verses like Matt 10:34, "Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword," and Jesus' subversive teachings against the unjust religious-political-economic realities of his day. For myself, I don't believe we have to make every word of the Bible cohere to our already pre-conditioned images of God. I see the Bible as a complex documentation of human nature through which God seeks to be known and to break through our pre-conditioned thinking. Thanks again for your thoughts.
Totally off-topic, but does anyone know of any "progressive" SS classes around Southern Adventist University? Who teaches them/where do they meet/when? Thanks.
Also, does SAU have a Forum chapter? Who could I contact for more info?
Of course the belief that God kills innocents to punish sinners is exactly why society passes and enforces laws against sinning -
"I don't care what you do, except that God will punish me and mine for it, so you sinning is endangering my kid, so I'm going to stop you from doing it..."
Jesus put a much better view on the issue when asked "who sinned, this man or his parents?".
/Bevin
Of course, some of you assume those who God destroyed in the past had no moral culpability for their actions. This is a false conclusion.
God has left no stone unturned to reveal Himself both today and in the past. To assume people were somehow totally ignorant of God and therefore not responsible for their actions is faulty reasoning.
As for babies, none of us know exactly how God will deal with them in the final end. The bible doesn't tell us, so we don't need to know. We do know that for the true believer, all will see that God has and will act in a totally just manner in all things.
You can reason from doubt, skepticism, and unbelief to eternal damnation. Or, you can reason from faith, hope, assurance and belief to life eternal.
We are aware how most of the human family will end up. But in the end, the wicked will realize they fooled no one but themselves. And "every knee will bow".
"Rebellion is as the sin of witch craft."
That is, it fools us into thinking we are somehow justified in our rebellion and hope we can somehow escape the wrath to come by "judging" God and His word.
As Luther said, "You can't fool God." Yet many people seem to think so because they "fool" themselves.
So God will "have them in derision" for their self deception.
What a wicked place this old world is, and so called Christians often lead out in sin and unbelief and rebellion.
Sad indeed.
Bill Sorensen
In answering the question of how Ellen White dealt with difficult passages that put God in a bad light, Alden Thompson says, “ In most cases she simply skips the really tough stories of the Old Testament. “ I would like to point out that she was only following Jesus’ example. He, too, skipped or ignored those passages where his Father was not seen in a favorable light.
When Jesus began his public ministry he chose for his key text, Is 61:1,2, which he read from the scroll given him… word for word… until he comes to the part of the sentence that says, “and the day of vengeance of our God” and Jesus skips it “and he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant…”
Later when defending his actions on the Sabbath, Jesus chose the story of what happened “when Abiathar was the High Priest. According to our Law only the priest may eat this bread- but David ate it and even gave it to men.” (Mt 2:25,26) Jesus then skips over the part of this story in 1 Sam 22 where the high priest is punished for this action. Put to the sword that day were 85 additional priests including women, children and infants, oxen, donkeys and sheep.
If you check out this story in Samuel you will also note that Jesus got the name of the High Priest wrong as well – the High Priest ‘s name was Ahimelech not Abiathar.
We have much to learn and much to unlearn, so she said.
The bible doesn't tell us, so we don't need to know...Bill S.
taking that quote a wee bit out of context, and expanding on the idea..ggg...
I'm gonna try to remember that excuse the next time gravity hurls me onto some of God's metamorphic rocks as I slip on the devils black ice in my driveway...."I didn't know that could happen...the good book failed to tell me!!!"
or better, the next time the State Police pull me over for speeding...."gee, officer, I didn't know that sign saying 95 was the interstate, not the speed limit..how can you hold that against me, 'cause it didn't say...so I didn't think I needed to know"
or best: what the Bible DOES tell, we DO NEED TO KNOW:
eg: the next time I catch leprosy, or my house becomes infected with mold, I will remember to rely on the Bibles revealed way of curing that:
...first you catch two birds, then wring their necks, then dip a hyssop branch in their blood, and sprinkle on the affected parts....then ask the local priest/witch doctor to come over and bless the whole concoction, and presto, changeo, its cured. the old fashioned way.
sorry, Bill...I still think there's a lot we need to know that the ancients either did not know, or did not tell us...
as well as a bunch of unprovable, sometimes wrong stuff we should unlearn from what they misunderstood and we were told was always true.
We all live under the Pall of Orthodoxy. No one should invite anyone to read the Book of Numbers until they are sure they first have read the Gospel story of the the Walk on the Road to Emmaus. Jesus begins with Moses and then unfolds the Old Testment in the light of His birth, life, ministry, trial, crucifixtion, death, and resurrection. A firm understanding of the Letter to the Hebrews expands that hour long conversation.
Dr. Alden Thompson is an excellent leader to retrace that walk.
Without the illumination of the Christ Event, the Old Testament is one horror story after another.
That strange passage in Genesus cited above shows clearly why this earth is under a total quaratine from the rest of the Universe.
There are a lot of questions and few answers. The one question that prevails is: Was the Christ event necessary and was it sufficient for man's salvation? The second is like the first: Do you accept that event as necessary and sufficient for your personal redemption?
Even so come, Lord Jesus. Tom
Without the story of the earthly life of Jesus and its meaning as it expanded into the Christ event, we would not be concerned with the Old Testament and its systems and depiction of God. It would belong to the Jews exclusively. However, it is precisely because of the story of Jesus, as He was born a Jew, living under the Hebrew religious system and its culture, that we are concerned with the Old Testament at all. If it wasn't for Jesus ancestry and cultural context, we would find the Old Testament depictions of God as brutal and unacceptable.
Jesus came to his own first, with enlightenment and he revised their brutality into forgiveness - 70x7 in fact. He also changed the meaning of the commandments, both the Decalogue, the civil, and, by his death, the ceremonial. (ie: Sermon on the Mount). For his own people, then, Jesus changed their world view of themselves and their relationships to their neighbors, whom, heretofore they easily trampled and killed in God's name.
The precepts taught by Jesus, by his life and his death, extend beyond the Hebrew culture to include the citizens of the world, who, according to Paul, have no need to first become Jews, governed by their laws, rituals or their paradigms that give God a voice in their brutality.
For Christians, Jesus trumps anything written in the Old Testament. Jesus defines the Old Testament for the Jews and He negates it for the Christian as a picture of God's dealings with man, relegating it to a historical account of a people who created their own manifest destiny and pronounced God's blessings on it.s
Consider a couple of things. If God was as you fear, would he still be God? That is to say, an all powerful being that has all the "omni's"? Would his ways still be beyond your comprehension? Would your estimation of his morality be like a gnat writing a thesis on the deregulation of the taxi market in outer Mongolia?
**************************************************************
Michael...
This is the same tack taken at the end of Job. God asks Job the "Where were you?" questions. In that context I can understand your point. I understand God to be telling Job that the explanation for Job's suffering is far beyond his comprehension. IOW...if you can't understand my physical universe, how, Job, can you understand all the issues of my moral universe?
That's ok as far as it goes and in that immediate context. But, Maggie brings up very crucial issues. How can someone who is totally inscrutable or morally repugnant to us also be loved by us? If the killing of babies, women and children, and the use of the remaining virgins for the Israelite army in the name of God was done today, we would consider that view of God incredibly barbaric and warped. Yet, when we encounter these OT accounts as Christians, our typical answer is, God saidit or did it, therefore it's right. How can such a view of God ever engender the love response that we also say that God wants freely from us? The response that we say he views as the highest form of being truly human?
I'm coming more and more to the conclusion that the OT stories are highly culturally conditioned, with a highly conditioned view of actions done by people in God's name. Somehow, God is still at work behind all of the violence and atrocities that took place...but I'm not totally convinced anymore that he literally ordered all of it.
That's why Hebrews 1:1-4 is so crucial. It basically tells us that God spoke in fragmented form, through types and shadows and history and OT haggadah...but the ultimate picture of what God is really like is found clearly in Jesus. And much of what Jesus taught and did, overturned the self perceptions and focus of OT history. It's about him, and how God promised him through the line of Israel... not about their conquests and brutality done in his name for the sake of blood, tribal identity, and land...which was the exact same motivation of all the other nations.
Without such recognition, there is to me, a hopeless contradiction between the God that orders the killings and atrocities we encounter in the OT, and the one who allows himself to be killed on a cross and says beforehand, "...if my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight."
Thanks...
Frank
"sorry, Bill...I still think there's a lot we need to know that the ancients either did not know, or did not tell us..."
Everything we need to know about salvation is clearly presented in the bible, John.
God left nothing out. And what is presented is exactly as God intended. Nothing needs to be changed to patronize unbelievers. Neither does it need to be said some other way.
Do you challenge God for sending His angels to meet out justice? I don't. And neither do I challenge God for useing His people in the past to do the same thing.
Who pours out the vials of wrath in the book of Revelation? God's angels. They do God's bidding.
Yet you chide God for useing His people to do simular things in history. Neither were they "getting even" when they did God's will.
The bible is clear enough for those who want to know and understand the mind of God concerning salvation. Obviously, we can't and don't know everything here and now. We don't need to.
There is more than sufficient evidence to trust God's actions and if you choose to ignore the evidence and demand clearer evidence, you will never know the truth.
"Spiritual things, are spiritually discerned."
Bill Sorensen
Bill
This probably is not the correct thread but I can assure you that Bob Brinsmead was not the ghost writer for The Shaking of Adventism. That it was ghost written there is no doubt.
The most Bob had to do with the project was to introduce the ghost writer and Paxton and to use Bob's publishing connections.
Bob never had the research skills or writing ability to carry it off. The best he accomplished is to make the issue of Original Sin a critical issue in Adventism. Herbie Douglass is against it and Edward Heppenstall was for it. It was the great divide in the controvery over the book Answers to Questions on Doctrine. All others were minor players. Tom
...<"I'm coming more and more to the conclusion that the OT stories are highly culturally conditioned, with a highly conditioned view of actions done by people in God's name">....Frank.
that makes at least two of us...so we can hold our annual meeting in a telephone booth. and imho, its the ONLY answer to continuing belief in a "loving God".
How/why would a loving God "inspire" his fave tribe of illiterate nomads to tell such horrible stories about Himself around the campfire..and eventually write them down as tho God had commanded or performed all the horror personally?
seems like God needed a better PR firm than Moses and Company.
Wouldn't it do wonders for belief if God would just come on "Larry King, almost alive"..or even Oprah, or Judge Judy, and say...
..."I never did those horrible things!!! they did them on their own and blamed me....I'm really a nice guy/lady.
And Now, if the ushers will pass the plates among you, we'll take up a collection to advance the "work"...you know, TV air time is not cheap!!!"
Tom said of Brinsmead about "The Shaking of Adventism."
"Bob never had the research skills or writing ability to carry it off."
Well, Tom, I don't agree. RDB had more than the ability and writing skills as well as research to do the book.
Whether he did or not, I don't know. But I do know he could have.
Bill Sorensen
Bill
Just compare Bob's early work on The Soul Temple, etc. and then read The Shaking of Adventism, and the series: The Pattern of Redemptive History, Covenant, Sanctification, Righteousness by Faith, Justification--they are a totally different idiom.
You might take a peek at The Everlasting Gospel by Peter C Jarnes. Also out of Fallbrook. And there were others.
That at the time Bob was in full agreement with those writings is a given.
Tom
If God is morally incomprehensible, Michael, then how can we be expected to love Him?
Likewise, if God is morally repugnant, how can we be expected to love Him?
We can be bullied into any number of responses, but not bullied into love.
Love must flower on its own.
Posted by: Maggie | 07 December 2009 at 5:28
Love must flower on its own?
How many movies have you seen where a man does something heroic for a woman with the understanding that she must never know and at the time she holds him in disfavor. Later she finds out he is the one that saved her sister or any number of other actions to where, when she finds that out she melts like butter and apologizes for not understanding and thinking the worst of him often basically begging to bear his children.
I can think of many Examples, the latest of which concern a Mr. Darcy in pride and prejudice my daughter was watching.
Does Elizabeth make her opinion of Mr Darcy in possession of all the facts? NO. Does she make her opinion based on knowing the motivations of Mr Darcy? NO. Does she make it in any way useful or even helpful? NO.
Does any of her conclusion jumping, lack of information, isight or knowledge stop her from having a strong dislike for Mr Darcy? NO.
When she grasps the true nature of Mr Darcy does her opinion change? Yes.
It is my perception that in your questions one uses their own feelings and perceptions as the ultimate arbiter or all that is just and moral just as Elizabeth did.
I would suggest that what the bible terms problems of the heart are actually problems of the mind and that the best arbiter of what is moral and just is often beyond our comprehension or the facts that we possess at the time. The verse below specifically states that God tests the mind. How?
Jeremiah 17 (New King James Version)
5 Thus says the LORD:
“ Cursed is the man who trusts in man
And makes flesh his strength,
Whose heart departs from the LORD.
6 For he shall be like a shrub in the desert,
And shall not see when good comes,
But shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness,
In a salt land which is not inhabited.
7 “ Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD,
And whose hope is the LORD.
8 For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters,
Which spreads out its roots by the river,
And will not fear[b] when heat comes;
But its leaf will be green,
And will not be anxious in the year of drought,
Nor will cease from yielding fruit.
9 “ The heart is deceitful above all things,
And desperately wicked;
Who can know it?
10 I, the LORD, search the heart,
I test the mind,
Even to give every man according to his ways,
According to the fruit of his doings.
11 “ As a partridge that broods but does not hatch,
So is he who gets riches, but not by right;
It will leave him in the midst of his days,
And at his end he will be a fool.”
12 A glorious high throne from the beginning
Is the place of our sanctuary.
13 O LORD, the hope of Israel,
All who forsake You shall be ashamed.
“ Those who depart from Me
Shall be written in the earth,
Because they have forsaken the LORD,
The fountain of living waters.”
Michael
We love Him because He first loved us.
Amidst us our Belov’d stands,
And bids us view His pierc’d hands;
Points to His wounded feet and side,
Blest emblems of the Crucified.
What food luxurious loads the board,
When at His table sits the Lord!
The wine how rich, the bread how sweet,
When Jesus deigns the guests to meet!
If now with eyes defiled and dim,
We see the signs but see not Him,
Oh, may His love the scales displace,
And bid us see Him face to face!
Our former transports we recount,
When with Him in the holy mount,
These cause our souls to thirst anew,
His marr’d but lovely face to view.
Thou glorious Bridegroom of our hearts,
Thy present smile a heaven imparts:
Oh lift the veil, if veil there be,
Let every saint Thy beauties see!
--Charles Spurgeon
John,
You probably did not see my comment to the last lesson,in where you also inferred that the Bible numbers are inconsistent, in that Paul states in I Cor 10:7-8 "The people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in pagan revelry. We should not commit sexual immorality, as some of them did - and in one day twenty-three thousand of them died" while in Numbers 25:9 both the Hebrew and LXX state that 24,000 died.
The simple (and eminently reasonable explanation) is that instead of blazoning this as proof of unreliability that one considers Paul to have referred NOT to Baal-Peor but rather to the experience with the golden calf,and in fact, he is quoting precisely from Exodus 32:6 "Afterwards they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry."
The Exodus account does not give a precise number for those who died; in addition to the levites executing 3,000 (Exodus 32:28) there was a plague (Exodus 32:35) which does not state how many also died.
Not remaining honest or responsible with the facts, does cast doubt on the sincerity of one's critical comments.
Sincerely,
Izak
...<"The Exodus account does not give a precise number for those who died; in addition to the levites executing 3,000 (Exodus 32:28) there was a plague (Exodus 32:35) which does not state how many also died">...
Lets suppose that is the probable answer...but it raises the question, Izak:
if Exodus does not give the number killed in the golden
calf episode, what is the eminently reasonable explanation for how Paul knows the precise number?
either way, whether or not the Bible numbers are inconsistent, if one believes the stories literally, they all add to the death toll attributed to our loving God....and in both stories...by plague?
plagues kill folks somewhat randomly...so how does God use a random plague to target those guilty individuals who need His divine killing? does God direct the minuscule, individual pathogens to kill only the guilty? or do you suppose that maybe some innocent people were also killed by this divine action?
and earlier, when God wanted to kill off almost every living human because the hot women were amalgamating with space aliens, producing Nephilim and Giants of old, and God had become sorry He had made people...
.....why did He miraculously engineer a flood which also killed innocent animals? but left behind no good scientific evidence. why didn't he use his plague weapon and only direct it at humans, leaving nature and geography ready for Noah's descendants to enjoy?
isn't it soooo much easier to accept that the ancients were superstitious? and ascribed to their God everything which happened to them? including random plagues? and rising sea levels...due to melting glaciers, caused by global warming, caused by millions of Hebrews lost in the desert for as many years as two uneducated shepherd boys could count on their combined fingers and toes ("40") producing excess human caused CO2 with all those millions of campfires without leaving behind any evidence of such firepits.
but I bet there are eminently reasonable explanations for all that too.
"What is the eminently reasonable explanation...?"
John,
you may want to look into the fascinating field of epistemology, which asks how or what gives us certainty about any conviction or belief. Why would we elevate as idol our own ability to explain (again, to that measure of an inner sense of satisfaction) any and all of the aspects of the accounts in Scripture?
This is in effect saying that "Unless one can invoke some logical, reasonable, physically demonstrated mechanism, then the account is fictitious."
With such arrogance, why stop with the insult to the number of 40; why not also denigrate and deny the account of the empty tomb close to Calvary?
This attitude is totally and rabidly committed to reject the relevance of the reasons for these events to our lives. Fine, you must choose what you accept and believe. Some of us are convinced (?superstitious) that the Word has relevance and valid application even today, and that while discussion about the HOW is sometimes interesting, the real emphasis should fall on the WHY.
Let me again state: Free and full expression of one's point of view is part of this forum, but let's realize that we are finite, mortal, and have limited comprehension, but that there is indeed an infinite, omnipotent, and, yes, eminently reasonable and benevolent bigger reality that ought to be respected and uplifted, with a due sense of awe, humility, and yes, contrition.
I have no problem with people saying "I choose to believe this myth, even though it is contrary to the strong currently available evidence". It is common for humans to believe things contrary to their own experience, because of some psychological need.
But that is not what many YEC Christians say. Instead they say "I know that the following ancient story is what happened, and any evidence that seems to contradict it is wrong because ... Furthermore people who don't believe this story are playing for the other team."
Where is the understanding of "finite, mortal, and have limited comprehension" in such statements?
/Bevin
...<"why stop with the insult to the number of 40">...
possibly the most used figurative number in the Bible...other than "7"
are there other numbers we might suspect of representing more than a mathematical concept?
are there really 4 corners to (a presumed back then ) flat earth?..from which we get the "four winds of strife"? seeming that the number 4 may represent humanity? and the ancients knew about four parts of the earth..Europe, Africa, Asia, and far flung islands..... are those the "4 corners", or does this refer to the 4 cardinal directions?
is it coincidence that we believe in the trinity...being the divine number, three?
so god plus man = 3 + 4 =7
and god times man = 3 x 4 = 12
do we really believe that Moses survived on top of a desert mountain for "40" days without eating or drinking?
or should we understand the number to simply mean..."many".... as in Jesus fasted for many days.
Moses lived for three different periods in his life, for "many" years in each period. The Israelites spent "many" years in the Sinai, waiting to build up their forces to retake the land they might never have have been forced to leave in the first place if only their God had helped them overcome or learn to live with the drought that the people who remained were able to do....and which the Israelites in returning, claimed that their God told them to massacre.
40 = two "score"... or the total that two illiterate desert nomads wearing sandals could count to on their combined fingers and toes. from which we inherited the concept of multiples of 20...such as 60 seconds, 60 minutes, 360 degrees, or the french way of counting to 80 (quatre vinght...4 x 20). Or Lincoln's "three score" yrs ago....The Aztecs and Incas also counted by 20, going barefoot.
But since in their far flung empire sometimes Roman soldiers wore boots, they only counted on their ten fingers, leaving us the decimal system to inherit. Roman numeral 3 = three fingers!!! RN 5 equals a full hand, held as a "v"...etc. 10 = two "v"s, as an "x". one thousand, can be demonstrated by holding down both hands, showing 10 knuckles., while with one hand you can demonstrate an "L", or a "C"....
the number "7" is said to have come from early astrologers and shepherds looking at the night sky, and seeing 7 "wanderers" moving differently than the background of stars which appeared to be fixed holes in the dome beyond which shone the light of heaven. These "wanderers" (planeta, in greek, like the planeria worm which wanders out of your microscope slide, or the planetary gear in your differential which allows the outside wheel in a turn to "wander" faster than the inside wheel) included 5 planets visible to the naked eye, plus the sun and moon....giving us the 7 days of the week....from which it is likely that all the other sevens became of magical if not divine importance to the ancients. Even Jesus used the numerology of 7 when he said to forgive 7 x 70, using the magic divine perfection of the number 7 believed by the Jews, times the Roman decimal system indicating it was for all the empire, then multiplying again for good and perfect measure, by another 7....
doubling the number 7 gets us to 14... the years Olde Jake had to work for his two brides....
then tripling 14 gets us to the mathemagical "42", the number of kids killed by bears sent by God to prove that Elisha had the prophetic force with him... and lets not forget that Matt seems to have gerrymandered his list of Jesus ancestors (different from Luke) to come us with three perfect sets of 14, or 42 ancestors for Jesus (but he messes up in the last set, and only lists 13!!!)
Jesus also sent out 70 disciples to the non Jews...again using the Jewish 7 and multiplying times the Roman system, possibly indicating that His message was not just for Jews, but for his ministry to the Jews, he employed the complete number, 12....
that's because the number 12 is the most "complete" number....
not just because it is the product of 3 (God's trinity) times man's 4 (corners of the earth), but also because it is the number of hours in the night...the number of star patterns in the astrological signs going overhead every night used by a shepherd to fantasize away the hours till daybreak, til his relief, and his being able to "break his nighttime "fast" with breakfast.
so nothing is complete until it totals twelve. to make things really complete, you add one, and make it a "baker's dozen". to make anything superstitiously INcomplete, you take one away and make it 11 (as when Judas either hung himself, or he split open, depending on which gospel you want to believe, but which reduced the 12 apostles to 11, such a bad number that they sequestered themselves for quite some time to elect a replacement).
No list of apostles would be complete without a full complement of 12. No family of a great patriarch would be complete without 12 sons, which may be why an elderly Jacob may have had to resort to a "helping hand" (presumably his own)to impregnate his wife for the twelfth son, Benjamin (which name literally means, "son of my right hand"!!!), and possibly being the reason Ole Jake may have loved little Ben the 12th son so much.....
and from there we get 12 tribes....then 12 gates in the Holy city....(why do we need gates and walls if we can fly?), and finally, 12 x `12 x the largest number then known in the Roman world, 1,000, which combines to make the most figurative number in the Bible, the famous l44k....which because of its figurative nature must mean....
a complete group of a full complement (of the mythical 12)....
then multiplied again times a full complement (of 12)...
then multiplied times the biggest number in the then scientific Roman universe, l,000;
and voila, the figurative number 144,000 means that "heaven" will harbor** a full complement of saved folks...times 12 ... times 1000....
or the largest number you could imagine using both ancient myth and (then) current science. And unfortunately for EGW's math, she couldn't calculate the square root of 144,000 and left us wondering how 144 virgin guys can stand in a perfect square, which thanks to my Casio I can see would be 379.4733 guys per side.
**PS: the word "heaven" itself comes from the German word for "Harbor" (hafen), where we reach safe harbor after crossing the stormy seas of life with Christ as our Captain calming the storm, in a church shaped live a nave (as in naval ship) and helping us make it safely to the far shore, the "Golden Strand" (which means the "beach" --as in "stranded" meaning stuck high and dry up on the beach after a storm or after the tide goes out)
So it's not just numbers which add myth and meaning to our heritage... it's also words and symbols which add up to become a package of beliefs passed down to us.
and while some still choose to take the number "40" literally, it hardly seems an "insult" to consider alternate, rational ways of understanding imho.
Like Bevin, I have no problem, either, of people believing in ancient myths: Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, or aliens landing in UFOs.
Whatever one believes, as long as he does not seek to "educate" or insist that others must also have such illusions to be one of the "faithful." There is freedom of conscience and thus no one's private thoughts can, or should be judged.
It is only the continual attempt to insist that the impossible really, truly happened; although there is no one willing to testify having seen such a contemporary miraculous event, that it becomes a little preposterous. Supernatural events, by their very name exist outside the natural world and cannot be replicated or proven, and as such, they are only beliefs and never facts. Just as one who claims to have dreams or visions, there can be no substantiation of a very subjective impression.
RT1,
Since I live in California I do not know the answer to your question about a good SS class near Southern Adventist University; however I do know that there is AF chapter there under the direction of Lisa Diller Clark in the History Department.
RT1, Tim Jennings has a good SS class. Also see his website comeandreason.com.
RT1, I noticed your question re: a "progressive" SS class in or near Southern Adventist University. Glad a couple other people have now replied, since I was only going to comment that I think you are "buried" in the depths of rightwing Christianity. It scares me a little bit, actually [although I myself attended that school in the deep dark ages many decades ago]. To believe that being a "good SDA" means you have to be a rightwing Republican has turned me upside down. Some of the things the rightwing "conservatives" have been doing recently are not Christian, nor are they right.
My only suggestion would be [if you're a student] for you to transfer to another one of the SDA colleges/universities, where it's okay to *think*. The college years are years in which you should learn to explore theories and beliefs other than that with which you've been raised, in order to build for yourself your own true belief system for life. My own preference would be Andrews University [which has a much stronger religion dept. than does SAU, though it doesn't advertise as loudly as SAU does], or Walla Walla, or La Sierra.
There's a whole world out there. There are dedicated, thoughtful, solid religion teachers at all those schools who won't mind if you ask questions and won't accuse you of heresy if your belief turns out to be different from theirs.
John,
Your very imaginative explanation of the numerology of the Bible is impressive, and no doubt would make some folks (of the ilk of Richard Dawkins) quite happy.
Why would someone want to take as much pleasure in ridiculing things that could be explained as having other, more profound meaning, and which many quite rational people revere?
This week's lesson focuses on the sin of lewdness, promiscuity and immorality: Perhaps as seductive a temptation is false sophistication, profanity, or irreverence.
It may be useful to quote the statement (in the EGWhite notes for this week) and replace "licentious" with "sacrilege":
In the judgments that followed Israel's sin, we may see with what abhorrence God looks upon worldliness, idolatry and sacrilege. The same dangers exist today that threatened the prosperity, and even the existence, of his ancient people. Temptations to sacrilege have been steadily increasing from that time to the present, and similar scenes are constantly enacted, with similar efforts at concealment. A bewitching power is brought to bear on every soul not fortified by firm principle. Warnings from father and mothers and of God's ambassadors are all unheard. The affections which should be centered upon God are given to the idolatry of unworthy objects. Signs of the Times, Dec 30, 1880.
Certainly there is an obligation to clear thinking and of considering alternative opinions and points of view. The problem is that ridicule and disrespect, to say nothing of reviling execration, should never be part of a discussion on religious issues.
What, after all, is blasphemy? Surely we can do better!
John
If, by remote chance, you have never read Philo, you simply must.
The Works of Philo: New Updated Edition, Complete and Unabridged in One volume, Translated by C.D. Yonge, Hendrickson Publishers, Inc. ISBN 0-943575-93-1.
The first chapter alone, dealing with the creation, is just full of numerology. Actually, some of it is quite elegant . . . Philo, being schooled in the Greek classics, had a heck of an imagination.
Enjoy.
Kenneth James
This has beem an amazing string and friend Alden is probably wondering if he was the cause or effect. Dr. Thompson gave us his best understanding of this chapter in Numbers and I congratulate him on clarity and willingness to be vulverable as he expressed his best judgments. Tom reached back into a little history in pointing to THE SHAKING OF ADVENTISM by Paxton. You will remember the responses that SPECTRUM requested from me and Hans LaRondelle. Truly, the book was hastily written by Paxton or someone else who barely scraped the dust off Reformation facts. Luther was a mighty man whom we all want to see on the other side. But his writing career left many avenues that now seem difficult to reconcile. As modern Lutheran scholars attest. As was said above, the main issue in all theological or philosophical discussion is the nature of sin. On that key subject rests all the divisions within Christianity today. And especially in our own church. IMO. Cheers, Herb
Posted by: Herb Douglass | 09 December 2009 at 10:35
The main issue in all theological or philosophical discussion is the nature of sin. On that key subject rests all the divisions within Christianity today.
I completely agree, Herb.
I submit that if we made it our heart quest and our study to understand the nature of God's unconditional love, all our divisions would dissipate like the night mist before the morning sun.
Yes, Christianity needs sin for it to have any place at the table of ideas. But can't we agree that the constant emphasis on sins throughout the entire Judeo-Christian era has given man the reason to pummel and denigrate and yes, to kill, simply because of his definition of sin.
Reading the Torah, the various sacrifices and punishments--even capital--were either instigated or ordered by a "loving" god. Is there any reason why people have not feared such a god? The entire history of Christianity was so focused on sins and the dread of hell, that there were flagellants, forced conversions, even auto de fe, all done in the name of saving from sin. Yet we today, claim to worship the god who practiced such monstrous evil.
There are other religions, Buddhism comes to mind, that do not strongly emphasize sin, but a way to live. How and why don't Christians emphasize much more the Golden Rule as the only way to live? When all is said and done (and much more of the former than latter has kept us busy), it will not be one's correct belief but
her behavior toward her fellowmen that will be judged. Matt. 25:46.
Elaine,
Therefore we are "saved" by our works. Correct?
regards,
pat
"Saved" is a potent term in Christianity, i.e.: "have you been born again?" "are you saved?" "once saved, always saved."
If the ultimate goal of Christianity is for one to be saved, then it is working toward that one goal.
However, if the goal is to help everyone we can to have a better life in the here-and-now, salvation is too far away from most; especially those who are starving, naked, illiterate, and with no future. To those, their future is one day at a time and too often Christians have so emphasized "being saved" while their foremost concern should be for the necessities of life. Did Jesus inquire of everyone's surety of salvation before offering them healing?
We get the cart before the horse. Only when we have helped someone fulfill his immediate needs, we may offer a religious belief; but ONLY when he has inquired.
I once recall a pastor who said he wished everyone could tug at his jacket and ask to be baptized, rather than the usual way to get as many dunked as possible to add to the record of those "saved."
BTW, are only Christians to inhabit heaven? Why, then, the urge to have everyone conform?
I agree, Elaine, one cannot focus on "being saved" (from being BURNED ALIVE) *and* on meeting the needs of the world at the same time.
When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.
--Dr. Samuel Johnson
[Note to self: read Alden Thompson's Escape From the Flames.]
Elaine,
>>"Why, then, the urge to have everyone conform?"
Most don't anymore. After all they are saved in "their truth"...or by the merits of the RCchurch praying for them.
Elaine, Christ is both savior,dying for forgiveness of sins... and example of proper deeds and attitude. Either point with out consideration of the other is to deconstruct and remake a Christianity unknow to the NT scriptures.
Regards,
pat
If we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged.
--I Corinthians 11
For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
--Matthew 7:2
For the Father judges no one, but has committed all judgment to the Son.
--John 5:22
For God did not send His Son into the world to judge the world; but that the world should be saved through him.
--John 3:17
And if any man hear my sayings, and keep them not, I judge him not: for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.
--John 12:47
Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
--Psalm. 85:10
Maggie,
It is the "Word of Christ" and scripture that "judge" not you or me!
"For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through Him. 18 He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 19 “And this is the judgment, that the light is come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light; for their deeds were evil. 20 “For everyone who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. 21 “But he who practices the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.” Jn.3:17-21.
Who is that Light?... Christ! The light of the world.
"When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” Jn.8:12.
"Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God." 1 Jn.5:5.
regards,
pat
It is a deep subject, Pat.
I agree Maggie...but consider..
For this commandment which I command you today is NOT too difficult for you, nor is it out of reach. 12 “It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will GO UP to heaven for us to get it for us and make us HEAR it, that we may OBSERVE it?’ 13 “Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will cross the sea for us to get it for us and make us hear it, that we may observe it?’ 14 “But the WORD is very NEAR you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may observe it.
Dt.30:11-14.
"The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things REVEALED belong to us and to our sons forever, that we may observe all the WORDS of this law." Dt.29:29.
It always comes back to "Inspiration and the Bible"...and WORDS... as our final authority for faith and practice...as Christians.
Regards,
pat
Alden Thomson:
Who knows how many more surprises there may be in the Bible, surprises I have read over many times, but have never "heard"?
--Escape From the Flames, p. 87
Yes, indeed, Pat, that's what it always comes back to... the final authority...
Donna you have expressed you admination of EGW.
What think you of this of your mentor?
"How often are these quotes exalted by those who "honor" EGW on this site? How often will this be discussed in the LLU present study on EGW- “Ellen White in a New Key – LLU” ?
"The Bible, and the Bible alone, is the rule of faith and practice. Justification by faith in Christ will be made manifest (result in-added) in transformation of character. This is the sign to the world of the truth of the doctrines we profess. The daily evidence that we are a living church is seen in the fact that we are practicing the word. A living testimony goes forth to the world in consistent Christian action. It declares to a world apostatized that there is a people who believe that our safety is in clinging to the Bible. This testimony is in unmistakable distinction from that of the great apostate church, which adopts human wisdom and authority in place of the wisdom and authority of God. {1888 1533.1}
E,G, White 1888 Materials Chap. 179 - To O. A. May 22, 1896
--------------------------
"The sins of men were charged to Christ, and, innocent though he was, he engaged to suffer for the guilty, that through faith in him the world might be saved. "We were reconciled to God by the death of his Son." Christ reconciled the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them. O, what compassion and love are here revealed! How is humanity exalted through the merits of Christ! His sacrifice was ample and complete. The Holy One died instead of the unholy. He clothed himself in our filthy garments, that we might wear the spotless robe of his righteousness, which was woven in the loom of heaven. He paid the whole debt for all who would believe in him as their personal Saviour. His blood cleanseth from all sin and purifieth from all unrighteousness. In him, through him alone, we have forgiveness of sins. Through faith in his blood we have justification in the sight of God." {ST, May 30, 1895 par. 4}
The biggest problem is the lack of continual clarity in her writings and “new light.” Some of her writings are quite good as are those of many dedicated Christian writers.
PS. I think all should always attempt to be intellectually honest and not practice "bait and switch."
regards,
pat
Pat: Always refreshing to see your thoughts in print. My earlier emphasis on "sin" being the core problem in all churchy theologies was meant to highlight this simple question: Are we sinners by choice or by nature? Show me anywhere in the Bible that we are born sinner? Always, sin is a choice. We are responsible beings (able to respond). Temptation is not sin, not even for Jesus who was tempted in every way that we are. Born sinners is a Platonic/Augustinian notion that permeated the Catholic church and hence most of Protestantism. Sure makes sense when Jesus says that the redeemed will be overcomers, even as He was. Cheers,Herb
Pat, I'm just one person with no special authority to pronounce what is a "healthy view of scripture," but I believe that if our belief system is producing a dysfunctional social system, then it is our sacred responsibility to look at that head-on and do something about it, because the children are completely dependent on us to provide for their physical, spiritual, emotional, social and cognitive needs.
The effect a belief system has on children is the plumb line that tells us of the health of disease of our belief system.
It is becoming increasingly possible to look at religion in this light.
I think we have a lot of creative work to do. It can be fun.
How about this for starters Herb,
"And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, 2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. 3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus"
Perhaps also Herb we differ in assuming "sin" is only an act not an attitude and inclination.
Eph.2:1-6
PS. See that Gane shares your view of Justification in the Ministry Mag.!
Regards,
pat
Maggie,
The healthy understanding of scripture is that should cause us to "look to Christ"...who delivers us from being children of wrath and whom reckons us complete in Himself..
regards,
pat
...<"Show me anywhere in the Bible that we are born sinner? Always, sin is a choice">...
http://bible.cc/romans/5-12.htm
but is it fair that we all must die because one guy "sinned"???
is it fair that the Nazi's shoot everybody in the village if one guy joins the maquis? ...effective, maybe, but fair?
and don't we expect more from a "loving Heavenly Father" than that?
it may be of interest to note that no matter the translation in Romans above, Eve is not accused of any guilt
....maybe since she was merely "deceived",
....whereas Adam allegedly made a "choice".
John,
Your Rom.5:12 is a valid and "objective" addition to offer to Herb.
Regards,
pat
Romans 5:14 is much better since it captures the essence of sin that is important to God.
"Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come."
5:12 only documents the effects of sin, being death that all must suffer because of the removal of access to the tree of life.
This is proved by Romans 6:23
For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
And,
Ezekiel 18:20
The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.
That being said, we can learn about attributation of sin in the stories of Enoch and Elijah.
By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God.
Hebrews 11:5
2 Kings 2 1, 11
1And it came to pass, when the LORD would take up Elijah into heaven by a whirlwind, that Elijah went with Elisha from Gilgal.
11And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.
We are all partakers in the effects of sin not in actions.
It is important to distinguish between the two.
If all were sinners, after the similitude of Adam's transgression by virtue of birth, how could Enoch or Elijah be translated without seeing death?
Michael
"Show me anywhere in the Bible that we are born sinner."
Ps. 51:5 "You know I was born guilty, a sinner from the moment of conception."
How can one "get around" the concept of "Original Sin"?
Michael,
>>"how could Enoch or Elijah be translated without seeing death?"
It's called unmerited grace. The same way "we" can be translated without seeing death or a "state of realized perfection"
-------------------------
Elaine,
>>Ps. 51:5 "You know I was born guilty, a sinner from the moment of conception."
How can one "get around" the concept of "Original Sin"?
Thanks for your objectivity of the "document" even though you may doubt it's validity and inspiration. That's what I call an "attempt at intellectual honesty" and first give an accurate portrayal of a presenter or opinion THEN why one disagrees and how.
Regards,
pat
Pat, I'm just one person, with no special authority to pronounce on what is a "healthy view of scripture."
But I believe that if our belief system is producing a dysfunctional social system, then it is our sacred responsibility to look at that head-on and do something about it, because the children are completely dependent on us to provide for their physical, spiritual, emotional, cognitive and social needs.
The effect a belief system has on children is the plumb line that tells us of the health or disease of our belief system.
It is becoming increasingly possible to look at religion in this light.
I think we have a lot of creative work to do.
It can be fun!
Hi Maggie,
>>"I believe that if our belief system is producing a dysfunctional social system
Who is "our."
I prefer a "realistic" assessment. I believe mankind is not as bad as it could poosibly be or as good as it is oftened portrayed. A "now faint reflection" of our Creator remains but HIS FULLNESS also is "not yet realized"
It can be fun...realize your full potentials possibly within the parameters and awareness of Solomon's thought."in conclusion, when all has been heard, is: fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person. 14 For God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil." Eccl.12:13,14.
Then praise God that Christ took our judgment for "those believing."
regards,
pat
The fact that Jesus uses the imagery of being born from above, the fact that John portrays the incarnation of Messiah in his gospel prologue as a new genesis for the entire human race, the fact that Paul speaks of walking in newness of life, or living a brand new life, all indicate that the problem of sin transcends our personal moral choices and failures and reaches to the very root of our humanity. While not excluding our choice, the problem, is thus far deeper than that. We are in an intrinsic dilemma that we cannot simply choose to choose our way out of. Someone had to do it for us. Praise God that he did!! That's good news!! And he offers the benefits of all he has done, has and is, as a free gift to us. This is where it becomes our choice.
Those of us who choose that gift, can now begin to learn to live in obedient gratitude for what he has already accomplished, and in joyful hope for what he has promised. The gift of his Spirit empowers us to do this. This is his work in us.
The story of Israel's enslavement is a cogent parallel. How in the world could they ever choose their way out, how could they ever free themselve?. They were born into their dilemma, and were destined to die in it...until God reached down and delivered them. Their part...put the blood on the doorposts and eat the lamb...faith!
Thanks...
Frank
Frank,
>>"Those of us who choose that gift, can now begin to learn to live in obedient gratitude for what he has already accomplished, and in joyful hope for what he has promised. The gift of his Spirit empowers us to do this. This is his work in us."
This is true,Having been justified (received the gift) we are correspondingly called to holiness of life and that IS our character not accomplished without our input and action through the indwelling spirit in warfare with the "flesh" that remains in us. The "degree" to which it is ultimately accomplished prior to the second coming is the "dispute" with SDA "perfectionism."
Both Calvin and Luther deny "perfectionism"...that's my point. A point that Herb and Gane (as I understand the latter) avoids in describing to us the "Reformers view" on "Justification" and describing our "inherent realized holiness."
It is true that we are to "perceive Christ living in us through the Spirit" which gives us the assurance that we are "reckoned righteous as He is while yet being sinners."
regards,
pat
To RT1: In rsponse to your question about a progressive SS class around SAU. Dr. Tim Jennings does a very good one. You can also go to his web site, comeandreason.com
Susanne Reiswig
...<"we can learn about attributation of sin in the stories of Enoch and Elijah">...
By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God.
Hebrews 11:5
2 Kings 2 1, 11
1And it came to pass, when the LORD would take up Elijah into heaven by a whirlwind, that Elijah went with Elisha from Gilgal.
11And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.
so at least two guys went up to Heaven before Jesus.
but how can that be, if we are also to accept the Apostle John 's witness?
John 3:10 and here John quotes Jesus talking:
Jesus replied: How can you be a teacher of Israel and not know these things? 11 I tell you for certain that we know what we are talking about because we have seen it ourselves. But none of you will accept what we say. 12 If you don't believe when I talk to you about things on earth, how can you possibly believe if I talk to you about things in heaven?
...13 No one has gone up to heaven except the Son of Man, who came down from there...
end John's quote of Jesus explanation
and there is even a question whether or not Enoch died before being "taken" up to heaven....
Genesis 5:24 doesn't prove one way or another:
And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; For God took him.
while Hebrews 11:13 says he died first, then went to heaven,
These [Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah] all died...
but Hebrews 11:5 , supposedly written by the same author of the above Heb 11:13 text, claims that Enoch went to heaven BEFORE seeing death.
Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him
so whom to believe? Moses? Paul? or John?
**********************************
and what of this?
...<"The story of Israel's enslavement is a cogent parallel. How in the world could they ever choose their way out, how could they ever free themselve?. They were born into their dilemma, and were destined to die in it...until God reached down and delivered them. Their part...put the blood on the doorposts">...
the Hebrews were in Egypt, if one believes their family bio literally, because their God would not or could not overcome the drought in the dry, dusty hills of Judea where He had led them....isn't that why they were forced to leave their homeland to become slaves in Egypt? to live near a year round supply of water, the Nile? but way before, God had called Olde Abe to leave another well watered area along the Euphrates..Harren in present day Turkey....and to go to the dry dusty hills of Judea, where drought later would force them to leave.
good planning? or what?
Their "delivery" from slavery raises several "cogent" questions:
1) why did God wait 400 or so years before "liberating" them?
and
2) why did God choose to kill innocent Egyptian kids to impress the Pharaoh? instead of torturing him personally?
and
3) why is there no outside corroboration of this event?
especially since it is claimed that ALL Pharaoh's army was destroyed!!!
Thoroughly enjoyed this analysis. The understanding that God has to deal with different people, different times and circumstances, different levels of knowledge, cultures, communities speaks the world to me regarding the personal level He would go to get His message to me.
Admittedly coming a little late to this conversation ...
Not only is it more helpful, it is also more authentic to see scripture as the story of how people deal with God, rather than how God deals with people.
In the case of Israel, when things went well in their continuing contest with neighboring cultures, and they prevailed so completely as to have destroyed every living creature, they attributed their success to having followed the explicit will of the Almighty.
Conversely, when things went horribly wrong, they attributed the disaster to failing to follow the will of the Almighty and launching off on their own, or worse, willfully being outside the will of the Almighty. The battle of Ai comes to mind.
In neither case do we learn much about the Almighty, which may be the point.
Bill Garber
Bill Garber
Thanks to those that responded with suggestions on SS class and information about AAF chapter at SAU!
If I live on a hilltop village with all my relatives in distant times where there is no such thing as police, court, prison, complaint service, medical etc,etc...And I (together with all that I hold dear) happened to be attacked every harvest time by the villagers from the neighboring hilltop- what do I do? Go and throw a stone and provoke even more violence- or if I go and undertake this risky business and deal with these abusers- will I not make sure, then, to sort my problem thoroughly by committing total cherem against my neighbors?- just in case there is no one left to return the 'favor' back to me and my family (in the absence of law and its structures).
Conveniently, will I not keep myself out of the camp several days to condition myself back to normality after having to deal with what I have just done to those innocent babies few hours earlier- and hopefully unload my burden of guilt on my local deity?
...This is why the Ten Commandments are not only of religious importance- but also historical and social one. Just like Magna Carta (and other similar charters in local national histories) they mark the beginning of departure from the literally 'lawless' societies and total and thorough violence as a way of dealing with their social tensions.
These events recorded in Numbers are an ancient eyewitness account of those violent times that gives us an insight in the times which often, unfortunately, resonate from time to time in societies throughout the centuries- be it in 'final solution', 'conquistador's conquest' of the new world, etc.
My view is that God is sponsor of none of these events, but He is always there to be with the weak ones (as in the case of Leah) even if these very ones will abuse His reputation and put terrible things in His mouth to justify their violent habits.
Answers to whether God kills and or is HE the God represented in the book of Numbers.
All that may be known about God is throiugh the culture of man.
Truth will stand any investigation".
"Are we truth seekers or truth protectors."
"Life is a perception"
"life is an expereince to be lived not a problem to be solved". Knowledge is a product of this expereince and life ( eternal life ) choices come at the end of the expereince NOT at the age of 12 or 30!
"The JOY is in the journey not in the arrival"
Here is a new or different defintion of Justice that comes from Peter Gabel as expressed on the Tikkun site.
"Justice is the healing of the broken trust relationship between God and ALL his creatures"
Here is A quote from: "Behold your God by F.T. Wright-
"There are three facts common to all men.
The first is that we have, either conciously or subconciously, a definite opinion about the character of god. Even though little thought may have been given to the topic, it is true nontheless.
The second is that our attitude toward God, our treatment of others, and our receptivity of truth are determined by these opnions.
The third is that all of us were born predispostioned to have a false concept of God ( born in sin ) which in turn has been confirmed and extended by environmental educational influences. Unless delivered from this and initiated into a true knowledge of God , it will be impossible to enter into a full and joyful christian expereince-----."
In point of fact isn't this what the Great Controvesy is all about?
John 17: 3 says "eternal life is to know God and verses 5-6 say that is why Jesus came--- to reveal God to us.
Sin is by biblical defintion seperation from God. 1st John says "sin is the transgression of the law ( the law is the very Character of God . Transgression means to move away from something ( IE seperation ) from his loving character
Jeremiah 2:13 " My people have commited two sins, They have forsaken ( seperated themselves ) from me ------."
In the garden of Eden Adam and Eve fled from God in fear based on the lies of satan ( or their own perceptions )- ( IE seperated themselves from God )
Man has been fleeing from a LOVING God ever since because they misundertood his method of dealing with sin as separation.
Here is a quote from Eckhart Tolle:
"Exclusive emphasis in a society on LAW ENFORCEMNT rather than on a sensible balance of remedial action and enforcement tends to lead to a decaying cycle in which resistence grows and becomes ever more violent."
"Forced obedience leads to the character of a rebel"
" violence begats more violence"
"By Beholding we become changed". 2nd corinthians 3:18 says " And we who with unveiled faces (clear minds ) all reflect the glory of the Lord ( Glory is character Exodus 39:19 ) are being transformed ( changed ) into his likeness with ever increasing glory ( good character ) which comes from the lord----."
"By behilding we are changed"
1st Corinthians 34 Says" come back to your senses as you ought, and stop sinning: ( seperating yourselves from God ) for there are some who are ignorant of GOD, I say this to your shame.
The ONLY cure for SIN is to reconcile and be reconciled.
If God through the revelation of himself in and through Jesus the Christ cannot reconcile ALL his children he fails and SEPARATION which is sin then wins.
"LOVE never fails" Will GOD fail in his revelation of himself and thus fail to SAVE all HUMANKIND?
Heavy stuff moving from the MILK of the word to the MEAT of the word.
Hebrews 4:16 "Says Let us approach the throne of God with BOLDNESS so that we may recieve mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
Hebrews 6:1 Therefore lets us leave behind the basic teachings about Christ and move on to MATURITY , not laying again the foundations of repentance ( changeing ones mind about the Charater of God )From acts that lead to death ( seperation from GOD ) and of faith ( trust in his Character of love to heal ALL humnakinds minds ) ------- "
And then there is the chapter in desire of ages tht says it quite clearly and I don't quote White here because I think God whispered or shouted it into her ear but because what she says is in harmony whith what christ came to do.
Desire of Ages Pg 22
Chapter 1
"God With Us"
"His name shall be called Immanuel, . . . God with us." "The light of the knowledge of the glory of God" is seen "in the face of Jesus Christ." From the days of eternity the Lord Jesus Christ was one with the Father; He was "the image of God," the image of His greatness and majesty, "the outshining of His glory." It was to manifest this glory that He came to our world. To this sin-darkened earth He came to reveal the light of God's love,--to be "God with us." Therefore it was prophesied of Him, "His name shall be called Immanuel."
By coming to dwell with us, Jesus was to reveal God both to men AND TO ANGELS. He was the Word of God,--God's thought made audible. In His prayer for His disciples He says, "I have declared unto them Thy name,"--"merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth,"--"that the love wherewith Thou hast loved Me may be in them, and I in them." But not alone for His earthborn children was this revelation given. Our little world is the lesson book of the universe. God's wonderful purpose of grace, the mystery of redeeming love, is the theme into which "angels desire to look," and it will be their study throughout endless ages. Both the redeemed Page 20 and the unfallen beings will find in the cross of Christ their science and their song. It will be seen that the glory shining in the face of Jesus is the glory of self-sacrificing love. In the light from Calvary it will be seen that the law of self-renouncing love is the law of life for earth and heaven; that the love which "seeketh not her own" has its source in the heart of God; and that in the meek and lowly One is manifested the character of Him who dwelleth in the light which no man can approach unto.
In the beginning, God was revealed in all the works of creation. It was Christ that spread the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth. It was His hand that hung the worlds in space, and fashioned the flowers of the field. "His strength setteth fast the mountains." "The sea is His, and He made it." Ps. 65:6; 95:5. It was He that filled the earth with beauty, and the air with song. And upon all things in earth, and air, and sky, He wrote the message of the Father's love.
Now sin has marred God's perfect work, yet that handwriting remains. Even now all created things declare the glory of His excellence. There is nothing, save the selfish heart of man, that lives unto itself. No bird that cleaves the air, no animal that moves upon the ground, but ministers to some other life. There is no leaf of the forest, or lowly blade of grass, but has its ministry. Every tree and shrub and leaf pours forth that element of life without which neither man nor animal could live; and man and animal, in turn, minister to the life of tree and shrub and leaf. The flowers breathe fragrance and unfold their beauty in blessing
Page 21
to the world. The sun sheds its light to gladden a thousand worlds. The ocean, itself the source of all our springs and fountains, receives the streams from every land, but takes to give. The mists ascending from its bosom fall in showers to water the earth, that it may bring forth and bud.
The angels of glory find their joy in giving,--giving love and tireless watchcare to souls that are fallen and unholy. Heavenly beings woo the hearts of men; they bring to this dark world light from the courts above; by gentle and patient ministry they move upon the human spirit, to bring the lost into a fellowship with Christ which is even closer than they themselves can know.
But turning from all lesser representations, we behold God in Jesus. Looking unto Jesus we see that it is the glory of our God to give. "I do nothing of Myself," said Christ; "the living Father hath sent Me, and I live by the Father." "I seek not Mine own glory," but the glory of Him that sent Me. John 8:28; 6:57; 8:50; 7:18. In these words is set forth the great principle which is the law of life for the universe. All things Christ received from God, but He took to give. So in the heavenly courts, in His ministry for ALL created beings: through the beloved Son, the Father's life flows out to all; through the Son it returns, in praise and joyous service, a tide of love, to the great Source of all. And thus through Christ the circuit of beneficence is complete, representing the character of the great Giver, the law of life.
In heaven itself this law was broken. Sin originated in self-seeking. Lucifer, the covering cherub, desired to be first in heaven. He sought to gain control of heavenly beings, to draw them AWAY from their creator, and to win their homage to himself. Therefore he misrepresented God,
Page 22
attributing to Him the desire for self-exaltation. With his own evil characteristics he sought to invest the loving Creator. Thus he deceived angels. Thus he deceived men. He led them to doubt the word of God, and to distrust His goodness. Because God is a God of justice ( " Justice is the healing of the broken trust relationship between GOD and ALL his creatures") and terrible majesty, Satan caused them to look upon Him as severe and unforgiving. Thus he drew men to join him in rebellion against God, and the night of woe settled down upon the world.
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.
The plan for our redemption was not an afterthought, a plan formulated after the fall of Adam. It was a revelation of "the mystery which hath been kept in silence through times eternal." Rom. 16:25, R. V. It was an unfolding of the principles that from eternal ages have been the foundation of God's throne. From the beginning, God and Christ knew of the apostasy of Satan, and of the fall of man through the deceptive power of the apostate. God did not ordain that sin should exist, but He foresaw its existence, and made provision to meet the terrible emergency. So great was His love for the world, that He covenanted to give His only-begotten Son, "that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." John 3:16.
Lucifer had said, "I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; . . . I will be like the Most High." Isa. 14:13, 14. But Christ, "being in the form of God, counted it not a thing to be grasped to be on an equality with God, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men." Phil. 2:6, 7, R. V., margin.
This was a voluntary sacrifice. Jesus might have remained at the Father's side. He might have retained the glory of heaven, and the homage of the angels. But He chose to give back the scepter into HIS hands."
At this time in my 55 years of adventist study, growth and experience it is clear to me what the problem was and what the solutions is.
I will no longer live under that umbrella of FEAR that paralyzes our minds or robs us of health and JOY and stunts our growth because I more clearly see that the God of my past is gone and I have a new vision that motivates me because HE is LOVE and LOVE never fails.
HE can do it and so can we if we learn to trust HIM.
Sincerely
Jay Rasco
Jay: this posting is very long. We will be monitoring length for awhile and encouraging people to make their comments shorter. Long posts inhibit conversation and people frequently skip them. At some point we may delete posts that are excessively long. FYI for now. - website editor
Posted by: Jay Rasco | 11 December 2009 at 12:36
If God through the revelation of himself in and through Jesus the Christ cannot reconcile ALL his children, he fails and SEPARATION which is sin, then wins.
"LOVE never fails"
Will GOD fail in his revelation of himself and thus fail to SAVE all HUMANKIND?
God cannot fail.
...<"God cannot fail">...
Maggie, I usually agree with you, but shouldn't we defer to the innerrant texts when they disagree with you?
what happens when the enemy has chariots of iron?
http://bible.cc/judges/1-19.htm
***********************************
Here is the official SS lessons explanation of the righteousness and mercy of God commanding the Israelites to kill all their neighbors, including little boys, and women who had had sex: because they were reaping the punishment for their sins!!!
and, by the way, it is apparently incredibly merciful to "save" the virgins like the Serbian Christians did to Bosnian women until the Bilster sent in the USAF to stop those ungodly, ah, er, UnChristian acts.
is this the official, required way to believe things???!!!!
http://www.ssnet.org/qrtrly/eng/09d/less11.html
...<"Killing all the people, even the children, is hard enough for us to understand. We just have to ....
....trust...
in the revelation we have of God as revealed to us through Jesus Christ, and
... accept...
that there are things we don’t understand from our perspective, things not revealed to us.
Many find Numbers 31:13–18 particularly disturbing, and understandably so. But we should keep a few things in mind. Many of these Midianite women were the ones directly involved in the deception that led to thousands upon thousands of deaths; hence, they were reaping the punishment for their sins. But what about the young girls, the virgins, who probably had done nothing?
Suppose the Lord said to just leave them be? These helpless young women would be left alone, with all their parents dead, their whole social structure destroyed. What could happen to them in the harsh and dangerous world at that time? This way, by being taken into the Israelite camp, these women not only would be protected from whatever dangers they would have faced had they been left alone; they also would be treated well by the Israelites. After all, Israelite law demanded that.
end quote
so why leave poor, innocent, helpless virgins alone amid the smouldering ruins of their homes, villages, and dead relatives.....what a Godsend that these helpless virgins would be "protected" from danger by the Israelites!!!!
who had just slaughtered their brothers, mothers, fathers, uncles, grandparents??
who writes this stuff?
some Clintonesque graduate of the school of Pentagoneese?
a link to P&P offers more revealing news which is not found in my bible....It is just wonderful that EGW was able to so completely fill in so many miniscule details which the Bible may have missed.
She claims Balaam conspired with the King of Moab to ruin the Israelites!!!
http://www.ssnet.org/qrtrly/eng/09d/helps/lesshp11.html#pp453
quote from P&P:
... At Balaam's suggestion, ...
a grand festival in honor of their gods was appointed by the king of Moab, and it was secretly arranged that Balaam should induce the Israelites to attend. He was regarded by them as a prophet of God, and hence had little difficulty in accomplishing his purpose. Great numbers of the people joined him in witnessing the festivities. They ventured upon the forbidden ground, and were entangled in the snare of Satan. Beguiled with music and dancing, and allured by the beauty of heathen vestals, they cast off their fealty to Jehovah. As they united in mirth and feasting, indulgence in wine beclouded their senses and broke down the barriers of self-control. Passion had full sway; and having defiled their consciences by lewdness, they were persuaded to bow down to idols. They offered sacrifice upon heathen altars and participated in the most degrading rites. {PP 454.3}
the actual biblical tale of Balaam does not suggest that he, Balaam conspired...mof, he told the king of Moab over and over...in Numb 23-24
7 Balaam said: "King Balak of Moab brought me from the hills of Syria to curse Israel and announce its doom. 8 But I can't go against God! He did not curse or condemn Israel. 9 "From the mountain peaks, I look down and see Israel, the obedient people of God. 10 They are living alone in peace. And though they are many, they don't bother the other nations. "I hope to obey God for as long as I live and to die in such peace." 11 Balak said, "What are you doing? I asked you to come and place a curse on my enemies. But you have blessed them instead!" 12 Balaam answered, "I can say only what the LORD tells me."
multiple problems here between Exodus and Numbers need to be explained if we are going to inculcate our kids in the "truth". How do we explain all this?
God kills Egpts innocent kids to get his self claimed favorite tribe released ....after a "short" 400 or so year period of their enslavement!!! why so long????
God allows the wandering tribe lost in the desert for "40" yrs to die off, killing off all the generation which had been born in Egypt and had continually complained!!! the divine method: poisonous snakes, earthquakes, plague, internecine fighting, drought, bad quail...etc.
God tells the new generation of Israelites to kill their neighbors, take their land and stuff.
the very land which the Israelites ancestors had left earlier because of a drought which their God had not helped them overcome.
the massacre is to be of everybody, including men, little boys, and any women who had had sex.... because why would any self respecting patriarch want to raise another guys seed?
but using Dr Mengele's future inspection techniques, they could "save" the virgins, to use to expand their tribe, with their own seed, without realizing how this would dilute their genetic uniqueness.
the Bible says Balaam was called by the King of Moab... and he did NOT curse Israel...and was faithful to God
but EGW says Balaam conspired with the King of Moab, and led their downfall into Tiger Woods/Wilt the Stilt style depravity.
and God started killing people by sending a random plague, killing the guilty and probably the innocent as well.
and God only withdraws his plague and stops killing people randomly after a guy sneaks up behind and murders a couple caught in ..in...the act.
and according to EGW, they had been drinking!!! wine!!! what more reason to dispatch them!!!
question:
how do we reconcile all this? and still believe in a loving, all powerful God who "cannot fail".
heres a neat way to illustrate this story for your youngest, impressionable kids at SS class, using leggo people and no real blood.
and no real people were killed in the following demonstration...like really happened to real, live people, killed by the Hebrews Loving God.....if we believe their version of the story literally.
http://www.thebricktestament.com//the_wilderness/god_kills_24000_israeli...
John: this posting is very long. We will be monitoring length for awhile and encouraging people to make their comments shorter. Long posts inhibit conversation and people frequently skip them. At some point we may delete posts that are excessively long. FYI for now. - website editor
To the person looking for a special ss class. Arlington SDA has a class taught by a former head of divinity at SWAU and a former SDA pastor, you have to get there early as it fills up fast.
And Christians still maintain that the Bible is for everyone, including children?
How do you parents of young children explain much of these Bible stories if they ask questions? If they don't aren't you worried that they will decide the god they discover in the Pentateuch is not one to either be admired or worshiped?
I knew I wasinviting the theologians to challenge the concept that sin is a choice, not something we are born with. I appreciate the "help" I was getting from those who offered biblical texts that, for them, say otherwise. This is not the place to evaluate each text but some thoughts anyhow.
Ezekiel 18:20 explodes the novel thinking of Federal Calvinistic theology that we all, at birth, are imputed guilt because Adam sinned. Then that interesting Ps 51:5 that is used often--but was David describing his mother as an adultress? For more of David's musings on this subject, see Pas 22:9; Ps 71:5,6, and the reader gets another picture.
One of the chief problems involved in "born-sinners syndrome" lies in the mistranslation of Romans 5:15 in KJV. Correct translationn: "death spread to all men because all men sinned."
The consistent biblical picture lies in the texts that I mentioned above in my earlier contribution. Should we not thank God that he is not judging us for sins that would be automatic for just being born? No, the responsibility rests with us as to what we want to do with our lives. Yes, everyone has a sorry genetic stream and so did Jesus. That's why He came the way He did--to be our Friend and Saviour. Thus, His words to us become far more meaningful and hopeful and reassuring. Cheers, Herb
Elaine,
your last question is one you have asked more than once before during this quarter, on Numbers (e.g. in response to Laurence Turner's comment on Lesson 1) - and it has also been answered more than once, in different though similar terms. You clearly don't like the answers, or agree with them, but they have been advanced, and there's only so many times the same answer can be given to the same question.
Herb,
I admire your scholarship in general, but as an historian of the church, I have to say that going against original sin isn't just arguing with Calvinist "federal theology" - it goes against Christian doctrine since the early church! And it also is at odds with a very clear line of Adventist interpreters thro'out our denominational history. These are not positions to be given away. On this I must agree to disagree with you.
DAVID
Thank You Dr. Thompson!
I don't know what is wrong with simply reading what the Bible has to say and thinking of the things I can understand and not worrying about the things I can't and still seeing the God portrayed in the Old and New as the same. Who am I to say He shouldn't or couldn't be angry or violent? His ways are past inding out, yet He calls me to come and reason together after the fire and wind. Dr. Thompson's PP 515 quote showing that God deals with folks in ways perhaps new to them and seemingly different only reinforces to me how He doesn't. The explanation for the cities of refuge reminds me of mark put on Cain to protect him from being killed in vengeance. God enforces free choice, made by any living being, sometimes He protects those who believe in and honor Him and sometimes He doesn't, what's that to me? Job's experience led him to state that "though He slay me yet will I trust Him." Why shouldn't I be able to have a similar experience resulting in a similar faith? And why couldn't I live to read the Bible and encourage others in the same understanding and experience? No one, not Mohammed, Buddah, Krishna, et. al. has come up with anything better, or more real or more hope inspiring. I know this by experience, not just by memorizing from it or having devotions in it or studying what's written in it. And I know other fellow humans who have experienced the same searching and longing for Truth. It is written "when He, the Spirit of Truth is come He will guide you into all Truth" I look forward to that and let the rest be what it is.
David: You are so respectful as a trained scholar. But I too, must respectfully disagree. Everything you said is precisely correct and you made my point. Christian history is impregnated with the immortal soul notion--shall we bow before this Grecian error via Augustine, etc.? Your reference to Adventist "interpreters" is not the strongest argument. In this instance, such "interpreters" are simply lock-step with those who keep quoting someone else ahead of them. My only plea is twofold: What does the Bible say beneath the crust of many Christian interpreters and What does Bible logic say in telling the story of the Great Controversy and how the fullness of righteousness by faith plays out. Internal consistency seems to be a test of a theological system. If I am not clear, help me out. Cheers, Herb
Elaine wrote:
--
"Show me anywhere in the Bible that we are born sinner."
Ps. 51:5 "You know I was born guilty, a sinner from the moment of conception."
How can one "get around" the concept of "Original Sin"?
--
Actually it is pretty easy. The secret is found in not taking poetry as literal. Shocking isn't it. We know not to take poetry as literal in modern poetry, we even have a name for the practice of exaggeration in poetry and prose we call it poetic license. In the same piece of poetry the author, apparently David says that it is only against God that he has sinned. Apparently not counting married woman he took to his bed nor her husband who he effectively had killed.
But oh dear conceived in sin, a sinner from conception. That must be the literal truth. Why so many Christians leave their minds at the door amazes me. To take a text like that an make it the pretext for a doctrine shows how deeply flawed our thinking can become.
Ron
Adventist Media and Conversation Blog
R.C., I do understand poetry. However, the question regarding the concept of original sin evolved only in some early Christian's mind?
Why is there still confusion in the Christian beliefs? What has the Adventist church taught on this? Even some of us as children were taught that we were sinners, and must be baptized to "wash away our past sins." Confused? Yes.
From Wikipedia on Seventh-day Adventist Beliefs:
"Original sin
The Adventist understanding of original sin has evolved over time. Early Adventists (such as George Storrs and Uriah Smith) tended to de-emphasise the corrupt nature inherited from Adam, while stressing the importance of actual, personal sins committed by the individual. They thought of the "sinful nature" in terms of physical mortality rather than moral depravity.[64] Later Adventists adopted a more mainstream view of original sin, which believes in humanity's inherently corrupt nature and spiritual separation from God. Original sin is thus conceived as a state into which all humans are born, and which we cannot escape without the grace of God. As one Adventist writer has put it, "Original sin is not per se wrong doing, but wrong being."[65]
"Although the majority of Adventists now believe that all human beings inherit a depraved nature from Adam, they generally stop short of a full blown Augustinian conception of original sin, according to which mankind inherits not only Adam's depraved nature but also the actual guilt of his transgression.[64] Additionally, there remain some within the church (such as Dennis E. Priebe[7]), who continue to argue that sin should only be defined in terms of wilful transgressions, not an inherited corrupt nature."
Doesn't this reflect a confusion of beliefs?
It is amazing how few SDA and other Christians think that there is nothing to us other than our physical beings.
My personal belief is that I am nothing more than complex biochemistry - there is nothing else to be immortal
/Bevin
..."How can one "get around" the concept of ........?
Actually it is pretty easy."The secret is found in not taking (ancient writings or?) poetry as literal...
We know not to take poetry as literal in modern poetry, we even have a name for the practice of exaggeration in poetry and prose we call it poetic license"...
could that interesting concept also potentially apply to:
...the sun going backwards or standing still? so that Gods fave people could kill more of their neighbors and take their land, stuff and virgins?
...fiat lux creation happening in precisely 144 earth hours?
complete with daylight before the invention of the sun...and no rain or rainbow for thousands of yrs,until the flood?
...starting with the dome to separate the waters above...
...God watching the olde Debil kill Jobs kids, and do nothing?
...God sending bears to maul precisely 42 kids to encourage a new prophet to believe that bald is beautiful and that he had the force? after his master had disappeared on a UFO.
..."40" daze of rain could easily cover Mt Everest? and lay down all those marine fossils 5+ miles above sea level
..."40" days Moses survived on top of Mt Sinai..with no food,
NO WATER!!! no internet. presumably he had his hygienic shovel and a few fig leaves.
...Baby Moses rafting the Nile in a reed basket waterproofed with pine pitch, just like Sargon had done a thousand yrs earlier on the Euphrates waterproofed with bitumen...keeping the tales consistant with local materials.
...Olde Jake using the genetically advanced striped stick process to get rich and cheat uncle Laban...WITH GOD'S HELP.
...a divinely inspired bronze snake-on-a-pole can cure snakebite? from snakes deliberately sent by God.
...bird blood sprinkled on an in/affected part can cure mold and leprosy, but requires a "priests" final approval.
...butchering your pet lamb can cure you of sin (presumably by making you so sorry the lamb had to die, that you will try harder next time?)
...Jesus allowing Himself to be tempted while standing on a mountain so high He could see "all the kingdoms of the world"
...and don't complain about anything, cause the earth might open up and swallow you AND your innocent family.
With the new concept of poetic license, how many of the above might be better explained as "story" instead of "history"?
Elaine: You are so right regarding "a confusion of beliefs." Whoever wrote that Wikipedia article surely is part of the confusion. After reading that piece, how can it be summed up in one sentence or with any biblical bases? Those who believe the Bible is consistent and God's protected Word, show me one text that teaches that we are born with anything more than inherited weaknesses due to the sins of our genealogical line? But these passions, inclinations, propensities are all "weaknesses of the flesh"--what we do with them is what God wants to help us overcome. After all, those passions, etc., were God-given to Adam and Eve and the rest of the human family. Unfortunately, we have learned how to misuse these desires for food, comfort, appreciation of and for the opposite sex, and to reach for the highest level of our abilities. Cheers, Herb
Herb,
Also good to hear from you.
From your mentor-
"The words of John came forcibly to my mind: 'If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.' I was shown that those who triumph, and claim that they are sinless, show in this very boasting that they are far from being without the taint of sin. The more clearly fallen man comprehends the character of Christ, the more distrustful will he be of himself, and the more imperfect will his works appear to him in contrast with those which marked the life of the spotless Redeemer. But those who are at a great distance from Jesus, whose spiritual senses are so clouded by error that they cannot comprehend the divine character of the great Exemplar, conceive of him as altogether such an one as themselves, and talk of their own perfection of holiness with a high degree of satisfaction. They really know little of themselves, and less of Christ. They are far from God. {LS80 211.2}
-----------------
" Avoid every question in relation to the humanity of Christ which is liable to be misunderstood. Truth lies close to the track of presumption. In treating upon the humanity of Christ, you need to guard strenuously every assertion, lest your words be taken to mean more than they imply, and thus you lose or dim the clear perceptions of His humanity as combined with divinity. His birth was a miracle of God. . . . Never, in any way, leave the slightest impression upon human minds that a taint of, or inclination to, corruption rested upon Christ, or that He in any way yielded to corruption. He was tempted in all points like as man is tempted, yet He is called "that holy thing." It is a mystery that is left unexplained to mortals that Christ could be tempted in all points like as we are, and yet be without sin. The incarnation of Christ has ever been, and will ever remain, a mystery. That which is revealed, is for us and for our children, but let every human being be warned from the ground of making Christ altogether human, such an one as ourselves; for it cannot be.--The SDA Bible Commentary, vol. 5, pp. 1128, 1129. {7ABC 448.2}
regards,
pat
Herb,
Thank you for your careful, courteous and thoughtful comments.
However, it *does* seem to me that what the "Bible say[s] beneath the crust of many Christian interpreters" really is original sin. I don't think it just comes in with Augustine. It is a constant of Christian theology. And the fall is referred to by Ellen White in ways that shows she believes it (including the quotation above), and e.g. Paul and John (1 John) make it clear that we are always sinning and link it to the fall of Adam. We read these texts differently, I guess, so I think here we must agree to disagree.
That said - I completely agree with you that sin is *always* a choice. Although I don't believe we can achieve perfection, I do believe that we can live *better* lives (even if not the best), and that in striving to live according to the model urged in the NT (not least by Paul and John) we make life better, for ourselves and those around us. It is our choice to try to live a Christ-like life, even if we periodically fail, or simply to wallow (as it were) in our carnality.
So I don't believe that Original Sin removes either our free will or our moral responsibility. We have both - perhaps we can agree to agree on those points?
DAVID
Pat and all: You good people can not be blamed for the confusion in the Christian church regarding the sin issue. Notd all of Babylon has been worked out of interpretations of the nature of sin. Every text that is produced above simply states that all are sinnes. The issue is: when does one become a sinner. The following exits are starters--we don't need spiritual gymnastis to figure them out: James 417; John 9:41; 15:22 for starters. As I said before, when EGW uses words such as passions, inclinations,and propensities, she uses them as both good and bad. We all are born with inherited weaknesses in these areas--all of which Jesus has promised that we can overcome with His help--Rev 3:21. What am I missing? Help me out. Cheers, Herb
Try this one on for size Pat,
Some few in every generation from Adam resisted his every artifice and stood forth as noble representatives of what it was in the power of man to do and to be--Christ working with human efforts, helping man in overcoming the power of Satan. Enoch and Elijah are the correct representatives of what the race might be through faith in Jesus Christ if they chose to be. Satan was greatly disturbed because these noble, holy men stood untainted amid the moral pollution surrounding them, perfected righteous characters, and were accounted worthy for translation to Heaven. As they had stood forth in moral power in noble uprightness, overcoming Satan's temptations, he could not bring them under the dominion of death. He triumphed that he had power to overcome Moses with his temptations, and that he could mar his illustrious character and lead him to the sin of taking glory to himself before the people which belonged to God. {RH, March 3, 1874 par. 12}
The language and context of the 2 quotes you provided speak more to attitude and boastfulness than the issue of inherent sin. Also the language of this quote is at odds with your assertion that Enoch and Elijah were translated due to unmerited grace alone.
I would say further that the concept of unmerited grace alone making translation possible is unfounded because since it is unmerited and grace is not grace unless it is equally applicable to all, why translate only Enoch and Elijah?
Translating me would be through unmerited grace as well, yet I am not betting the farm on it.
Michael
Michael...
Elijah's perfection was not so perfect. When Jezebel threatened...he ran. He lost faith. So did Peter when he felt threatened. In these cases, Satan triumphed...just as he had at Meribah over Moses. In NUmbers, God says to Moses about the incident, "...because you and Aaron didn't trust me." IOW, at the root of Moses' failure was a lapse of faith, just like Elijah's.
If one means that the trend of Elijah's life was towards God, that maks more sense to me. But, so was the trend of Moses' life. So was Elisha's. We can name many more. Which tells me that Elijah was translated not because of superior character to Moses, but because God is gracious, and because Elijah identified himself with God, whether in triumph or in difficulty.
It will be the same for all of us, whether resurrected or translated. We won't get there because of our sterling life records. We'll be there because God is gracious, and because we have trusted in and identified ourselves with him, in triumph and in difficulty.
I agree, that the quality and fruitfulness of our lives should and will bear witness to such genuine faith in his grace. God calls for fruitfulness....not as an option.
Thanks...
Frank
Michael,
This is what I call one of the inconsistent comments of EGW. Her comments improved as she matured and after 1888 on the subject of JBF.( I openly state I do not accept all of EGW's statements including IJ and Christ not entering the MHP till 1844...which I contend as others is not supported by scripture)
By Grace are ye saved through faith. The human faith "response" in the promises is always the "conditional" aspect of salvation. We trust in the "unmerited grace" provided for us in Christ. It is true that the grace that justifies is also the grace that instructs us that we are to live soberly righteously and holy lives in the present age. It is also true that the indwelling Spirit that brings us to repentance and Christ also guides and assists in that growth in holiness. The "debate" is over weather we shall be like Christ "before He appears" inherently holy as He is holy. 1 Jn.3:2. The Reformers and the scriptures, I suggest, say no.
In the present age, "There is none righteous no not one."
"What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather, discovered in this matter? 2 If, in fact, Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about—but not before God. 3 What does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”
4 Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation. 5 However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness. 6 David says the same thing when he speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works:
7 “Blessed are they
whose transgressions are forgiven,
whose sins are covered.
8 Blessed is the man
whose sin the Lord will never count against him.” Rom.4:1-8.
The OT sacrifices anticipated the antitype Christ, the lamb slain from the foundation of the world. By His death and resurrection God/Christ is shown to be "just and the justifier" of those trusting in Christ. By faith, we as Abraham, David, Enoch, Elijah and the saints of all ages are "considered/reckoned" righteous while yet being sinners not completely mirroring our Savior but remaining incomplete reflections...and that, I suggest is yet unrighteousness and imperfection. At "minimum" it is a sin of ommision of not possesing all the attitudes and fruits of the spirit we should possess.
If it is not grace Michael, shall you be saved by the merit of your works? But No, says the "perfectionist", it is Christ through the Spirit working in me, and not me, that will create the works/character necessary for meriting salvation...and by the way say some ,we will vindicate God. In this way justification in the merits of Christ alone (the basis upon which we are "reckoned" righteous) and OUR Sanctification/my character and growth in holiness are confused.
If you choose it, ok. It is not however the doctrine of JBF "alone" so clearly taught by Luther. GC p.253...or Calvin. It remains but "disguised works" of ours that merit salvation. Sanctification (Not in the sense of being "set apart" but actual "growth in holiness") is not achieved by "mystical union passive" or quietism.
By one sacrifice He has perfected those who are "being made holy."
This is what I mean by "bait and switch." Claim the Protestant Reformation heritage by denying it's primary substance in reality.
Michael, can you honestly say you hope Christ will come tomorrow? Are you ready or must you die?
Christ saves all the saints the same way...by reckoning them righteous in Christ, who covers the saints iniquity with His own blood...yesterday, today, tomorrow and forever.
Regards and blessings,
pat
Dr. Douglas,
This sin exchange you launched has been stimulating reading ... it is obviously not the first time you've entertained bright minds, deep thinkers, and accomplished biblical scholars in such a conversation ...
I'm hopeful now that you'll be willing to take this conversation to the next level and share your 'elevator-pitch' version of Christian salvation. That is, on what basis does the Almighty admit any one of us to eternal life and on what basis does the Almighty consign any one of us to the fires of hell?
Bill Garber
Bill Garber
Pat and Frank
I would suggest that combining being saved, and being translated sufficiently confuses the issue to make both aspects less than sharp.
For example Pat said, By Grace are ye saved through faith.
While it is true, one cannot simply say one is translated through faith can they?
The part you must deal with and separate are the concepts of the methodology of being saved with what kind of life one has to live in order to be translated.
You cannot mix the translation issues in a big stew pot with all the things we know and say about grace. Nor can we just throw it in with all that we know about being saved.
Translation is one of the most specific events ever recorded in the bible. It deals with everything else we know about sin.
The bible says with clarity in Ezekiel 18:4 God said, "Behold all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die". The soul that dies is the soul that sins. Therefore, in order for a soul to die, sin would have to occur by that soul. The apostle John stated it much clearer in 1John 3:4. "Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law". Sin is something that you do, not something that you inherit. According to John, you have to transgress the law (God's law), to be a sinner.
We know these things. Now we must realize the implications of translation in light of them. If God says, the soul that sinneth, it shall die and then he translates Elijah what would you conclude?
Franks part about Elijah not being perfect can be valid although,(and here is the crux of the issue) not in a way that affects his salvation or his being translated.
Just as it blows the average humans mind that Moses killed someone and still was translated after seeing death for a short time. When the devil contended for Moses soul he never even presented Moses murder as part of his case.
What do you think about the actions of Phinehas, the future High Priest in Numbers 25? Does this sound like the right thing to do, or does this sound like the Taliban?
Numbers 25:7 And when Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose up from among the congregation, and took a javelin in his hand;
25:8 And he went after the man of Israel into the tent, and thrust both of them through, the man of Israel, and the woman through her belly. So the plague was stayed from the children of Israel.
25:9 And those that died in the plague were twenty and four thousand.
25:10 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, (25:10-13)
"Phinehas ... hath turned my wrath away from the children of Israel."
25:11 Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, hath turned my wrath away from the children of Israel, while he was zealous for my sake among them, that I consumed not the children of Israel in my jealousy.
25:12 Wherefore say, Behold, I give unto him my covenant of peace:
25:13 And he shall have it, and his seed after him, even the covenant of an everlasting priesthood; because he was zealous for his God, and made an atonement for the children of Israel.
Even David later commented on the act.
Psalm 106:30-31 (New International Version)
30 But Phinehas stood up and intervened,
and the plague was checked.
31 This was credited to him as righteousness
for endless generations to come.
No mention of unmerited grace. It was counted as righteousness.
Michael
Michael,
So then, Phinehas will be save by his works? Or did his work show evidence of his faith?
Our works as in James 2 are evidential of our faith. No where are our works meritorious of salvation or are they attributed to a "sinless" state. Now secondly are Phinehas "righteous" works His are were they accomplished entirely of the Spirit apart from him thrusting the spear? Thus no "passive" growth in holiness. This was his recorded as his character and holiness of action.
If the righteousness of faith alone in Christ could come by works it is no more of Grace. "David says the same thing when he speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works" Rom.4:6.
regards,
pat
God saves me while I'm not perfect. That is sufficient for me.
How can we pretend to know exactly how God judges? We don't have God's wisdom, or understand the depth of His grace and mercy.
I'm glad that He is the Judge, and not us. What else matters?
Pat
I wouldnt reframe the issue as works vs faith. The issue as I am discussing it is concerning translation and sin and that God defines sin in ways seemingly illogical to us.
I'll ask the question again.
If God says, the soul that sinneth, it shall die and then he translates Elijah what would you conclude?
Also, I wouldnt say Phinehas handeling iniquity was works. It was what he was supposed to do.
If your son was supposed to make his bed every morning and he did it would you give him some sort of special recognition? I think not. The concept of works is, If I do this I will gain heaven. Sort of like cheapening things into fee for service.
Do you believe Phinehas made a calculated decision where he deduced that if he only speared those 2 people he could be high priest? Neither do I, hence no works.
Michael
Michael,
>>If God says, the soul that sinneth, it shall die and then he translates Elijah what would you conclude?
He(Elijah) did "die"...in the person of Christ the sacrificial "antitype"/lamb on the cross in whom he was reckoned righteous. God was merciful and just regarding Elijah.
Michael, Isn't that suppose to be the crux of the "great controversy"...how God can forgive sinners and be just and not make void His Law?
"God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— 26 he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus."Rom.3:25,26.
In the past it seemed God had passed over "if you sin you shall die."
>>Also, I wouldnt say Phinehas handeling iniquity was works
I am sorry, I do not see how thoughts/deeds/acts can be classed as evil or righteous if they are not "works."
Any act/deed or thought we do is not "neutral."
For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. 13 Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.
Heb.4;12,13.
You seem to be placing your own terms on who can be translated. Is it not true you see things as one must be inherently without sin?
If not "sinless" then...one must die before and not be translated.
I praise God/Christ that because I am "reckoned righteous" in Christ I can be translated "justly" if He so pleases.
regards,
pat
Pat
I dont know every aspect of translation but it brings up interesting puzzles.
I would say that your interpretation is a bit convoluted in the sense that one must take every clear statement we have on sin and translation and squint at it in just the right light to make it plausible in a grace only format. One would have to take many clear statements of God as prose lacking a secret element found elsewhere. Even from Gods perspective, why all the talk about sin and first and second deaths if none of it mattered anyway since grace neutered it all anyway?
Second, Why translate in the first place if it was only because of Gods grace and Christs sacrifice, which BTW hadent even happened yet in Enoch and Elijahs case? God takes credit cards? If what God says about sin not being able to stay in his presence is true, how could they be translated when their sin had not been exponged by the cross yet?
I think your theory doesnt explain many biblical statements and concepts.
As to Phinehas. Works as we usually use the term or phrase has a pre calculated aspect to it. The pharisees thought of it and practiced it in that precalculated way.
Job did works too. Were his pre calculated so he could be Gods favorite? Or did he have a relationship with God and the thought of what he could do to earn his own way, didn't occur to him? There is no power in actions, only motivations. It is in that way that Moses can kill an egyptian and Phinehas can kill a couple having sex and not have it counted as sin.
Action Derives Quality From Motive.--Every action derives its quality from the motive which prompts it, and if the motives are not high and pure and unselfish, the mind and character will never become well balanced. --YI, Apr 7, 1898. (SD 171.) {1MCP 347.2}
Motives Give Character to Acts.--It is the motive that gives character to our acts, stamping them with ignominy or with high moral worth. Not the great things which every eye sees and every tongue praises does God account most precious. The little duties cheerfully done, the little gifts which make no show, and which to human eyes may appear worthless, often stand highest in His sight. A heart of faith and love is dearer to God than the most costly gift.--DA 615
Michael
Michael...
It sounds like you're building a theology of translation around one text, and EGW's wrings about Elijah and Enoch...the latter of whom the bible says relatively little.
However, Paul says a bit about the translation of living believers at the parousia in 1 Thess. 4 and 1 Cor. 15. Nowhere does he talk about a standard or condition of total sinlessness that is required from them, that differs from the condition of those whom God resurrects.
For sure, Paul speaks of aiming for perfection/maturity as a goal for all believers. But he also writes of salvation at Jesus coming, whether of the living or the dead, based on God's gracious promise, the downpayment of the Holy Spirit as the guarantee of the promise, and as the power we need to persevere to the end. Ephesians 1 is a good place to begin.
In such an eschatological framework he never differentiates between those who are alive and those who have fallen asleep. (Incidentally, in 1 Thess.4 he speaks of those who have died in Christ as being asleep...never as dead. This seems to upend your usage of the text from Ezekiel...which you seem to be applying out of context anyway.)
Paul speaks in a much more egalitarian way...we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. Why the need for change?Because no one/no flesh and blood, whether still alive or resurrected at the Lord's coming, can inherit the kingdom without such. What I understand from Paul is that the ground is level at not only at the foot of the cross, but at his coming as well.
Thanks...
Frank
Michael,
What is sad to me is the things I have said don't make sense to you. It is, I suggest, an indictment of lack of understanding of "reformation theology" (you know, that group we profess to be carrying on) and the church teaching process.
I have in no way negated sin. I have merely pointed out that when one accepts Christ he is reckoned as righteous and then led of the Spirit to grow. God judges if one has been presumptuous with the gift of Christ. I believe in growth in holiness. I fear most "perfectionist" simply do not appreciate the "holiness" of God compared to theirs. So in reality "their God" is not Holy enough.
You are in my view in a paradigm that sees the necessity of "sinless perfection" for translation. If that is what you want I hope to see you after the resurrection. However, I fear you are focused on works rather than the lovliness of Christ and His benefits.
Salvation/righteousness by works is this...Whatever deed,work,or thought one has ever performed (with or without the HS)IF thought of as producing any merit deserving eternal life OR "translation."
Enoch, David, Elijah, and all the saints before and afterwards are saved by grace alone "without the merit of the works of law or any other action."
That does not negate that saints are to grow in holiness.
I am willing to carry on this conversation as long as you please but I respectfully suggest you are stuck in "final generation" theology.
Regards & blessings in Christ
pat
Frank
Translation is diffeent than death (sleep) and eventual resurrection. It is also different that those who are alive at Christs second coming.
I Thess 4 context is those living at the second coming not BC. At the time mentioned in 1 Thess 4. Christ has obviously already made the atoning sacrifice that allows his grace to cover those who have accepted him. This was not so of Enoch or Elijah.
1 Cor 15 speaks of the ressurection of the dead not the translation of the living pre atoning sacrifice.
I would be interested in your thoughts on that.
Pat
I have not said my position on this subject nor have I argued to a final resolution of it.
I recognize the puzzle as I said. I asked what others view was. First I recieved a premise that it was unmerited grace that allowed it. Then it was faith verses works and now its about being perfect? I think we might be jumping the gun a bit.
How about answering some of the interesting points specifically like how someone can be translated to heaven before Christ ever came and made the modality of the atoning sacrifice a possibility? We cant just skip the interesting realities and move directly onto classifying my personal theologies.
One can recognize and talk about this interesting aspect without mixing works and final generation theology into it cant we?
Michael
When one speaks of either translation or resurrection, it should be remembered that the writer of Hebrews wrote:
"Some came back to their wives from the death, by resurrection" (13:35)
Anyone care to identify who these individuals might have been?
Christ has obviously already made the atoning sacrifice that allows his grace to cover those who have accepted him. This was not so of Enoch or Elijah.
**************************************************************
Michael...
You have totally devalued the power and the scope of the cross. You have set up an arrangement where the cross of Christ, and the grace that God has demonstrated and made available through it, applies to those who only live post cross as opposed to those who lived in the OT period?? This borders on a dispensationalist theology that sees the Old Covenant as one based on works vs. the New as one of grace. And it seems that this is all in the effort to prove that Elijah and Enoch were translated because of their moral character...i.e. their works... as opposed to those translated at the parousia who need covering grace?
I find huge problems with such theology. It makes God inconsistent...requiring works as the basis of translation during one period, and grace for those who happened to be born later.
Secondly, it ignores the reality of "the lamb that was slain from the foundation of the world." IOW...Christ's sacrifice and its benefits are not bound by time, as you assert. It is all as infinite as God is and so are its benefits. It applies to all who have ever lived, BCE or CE, alive or dead, resurrected or translated. Romans 3:25 speaks of the same idea...that the Messiah's sacrifice was sufficient to forgive sins commited during the first covenant that God in his forbearance had left unpunished...that includes Enoch's and Elijah's.
Elijah and Enoch are ultimately saved for the same reason as you and me....Christ died for them. They lived looking forward to that. Otherwise, Hebrews take on the types and shadows of the temple system is nonsensical... that the sacrificing of animals in the whole OT period was a statement of faith in what the Messiah would come to do for every person that presented such sacrifices. Or does that not count for Elijah and Enoch?
The only difference I see is that they looked forward in faith to the grace that God had promised. We look back... and forward. We are called to live responsibly and gratefully in that reality and its assurance.
I would also suggest that Elijah and Moses apperance at Jesus' transfiguration, at which they stood representing not only the law and the prophets, but also, as EGW says, all who would be resurrected or translated, was to testify to the supremacy of Christ and of what he was about to accomplish. Luke says that they were there speaking with Christ of his coming departure...literally in Greek, his exodus. IOW, they were speaking with the ultimate Passover lamb who was about to be sacrificed.
Could it be that they realized that the fate of the entire cosmos, and indeed of their own existence in the presence of God as well as of all who ever looked forward to such a reality, would hinge on Christ's work and his work alone?
Amazing grace...how sweet the sound!
Thanks...
Frank
Michael,
One trained in "Reformed Theology" can smell an Arminian and a "perfectionist" a 100 miles off. No harm intended nor the view that all anyone teaches or believes is 100% correct including myself and our beloved SDA church. :~)
>>How about answering some of the interesting points specifically like how someone can be translated to heaven before Christ ever came and made the modality of the atoning sacrifice a possibility?
44 He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.”
45 Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. 46 He told them, “This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, 47 and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things. Lk.24:44-47.
" And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head,
and you will strike his heel.” Gen.3:15
(Doesn't seem to be a maybe)
I believe when Enoch and Elijah "walked with God" it was properly explained all that was needful to them concerning that "their" Messiah would come for the "forgiveness of sins."
They believed the promises (faith) and it was reckoned to them for righteousness. They both were ready for heaven though the "promised reality" was far off.
"For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” 16 So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy." Rom.9:15,16.
Michael, the problem of, "there is none righteous no not one", and the cure have "never changed." It has always been of Grace.
Now if you choose to believe Christ could have failed then Satan would have a just claim on Moses,Enoch,and Elijah for it is certain they did not "merit" heaven. It was the gift of God. He did not fail and God/Christ/HS because of their love demonstrated that God can be just and the justifier of those that trust in Christ. Messiah was succesful and Satan was judged along with all his lies, disputes and accusations and thrown out of access to heaven at the "cross-resurrection" of Christ. Rev.12:9-11. We do not vindicate God. God vindicated Himself.
I am sorry if I have been in anyway "puffed up or rash" with you as Christ is always to be used in OUR hands "to build up."
Yet, we are always to speak the truth in love.
Regards and Blessings in Christ,
pat
" And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head,
and you will strike his heel.” Gen.3:15"
This was never written nor read by the Hebrews as the "Fall" of Man"; the book of Genesis says nothing of the kind; it is not to be found in the Genesis story, nor is there any mention of sinless existence in Eden, nor is the serpent identified in the story as the devil (he is just a talking snake). All these familiar elements are actually the creation of ancient interpreters.
We must be diligently careful not to read "into" the Scripture. Just like the Fall of Man, and Noah the preacher, these ideas appear to have been wholly the creation of the ancient interpreters; i.e., there is not a single verse in the book of Genesis actually says that Abraham believed in the existence of only one God; nor is there a hint, even in the Bible's much later depiction of him, that Abraham's beliefs differed IN KIND from those of the people he encountered or even that this was ever a subject of discussion. Neither in the Hebrew Bible, is sin something that can be inherited. While Genesis 2-3 has long been associated with a doctrine of fall or original sin, it is never to be found in the Genesis story.
Elaine,
I am assuming the text is true as in NIVIHEOT and is in the best Hebrew textual apparatus we have availiable. You have no basis other than some "higher criticism scholars" for your position.
You certainly did not arrive at it by your personal understanding of the ancient text. Am I wrong concerning your understanding of the ancient languages?
regards,
pat
Pat, my authority is James L. Kugel, professor of Hebrew at Harvard, "How to Read The Bible: A Guide to Scripture, Then and Now."
What texts do you offer in refutation of the statements I posted?
While the text is, as quoted, the interpretation as the "Fall" is not in Genesis, nor are the other assumptions and interpretations that have long been taught by the Christian community.
It aids in furthering any discussion if documented refutations are given, rather than simply disagreeing.
Elaine,
My source for believing the fall is in Genesis is Bruce K. Waltke.
http://www.rts.edu/faculty/StaffDetails.aspx?id=29
Now in regards to the conversation I was having with Michael, not you, I suggest he also would believe in the reliability of the scriptural witness. We were speaking on that platform.
Feel free to believe as you wish.
Regards,
pat
Pat, as this is an open forum, the moderator has not decided that only individuals could reply to one person, but we all have commented on either the article or on other's posts.
I was never questioning one's belief, nor yours. My only contention was that the Genesis quotation given does not say that it was the "Fall of Man." Such an expression cannot be found in the Genesis story. While others may have designated the meaning of this text, it has no foundation in the quotation but was a later interpretation.
Anyone is free to interpret biblical texts as he wishes, but the Bible, when quoted, should be consistent with the text. Otherwise, anyone is free to interpret for herself, but should not be confused with the actual text.
Elaine,
Are you simply saying the words "fall of man" is not there or the story representing the fall? I am refering to the latter.
Also there is the protoevangelium and the crushing of the serpents head, likely alluded to by Paul in Rom.16.20.
"Trinity" is not used either but scripture presents Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Is that your issue?
regards,
pat
The Bible has been edited, redacted, rewritten and interpreted since it was first put to writing.
The "Fall of Man" was never mentioned in the entire Torah. When was Gen. 3:15 interpreted to mean either Original Sin or the Fall?
Yes, the Trinity, and many "beliefs" were developed long after the canon was closed. So what makes them a biblical doctrine, rather than man's tradition? If tradition, that can always be decided by humans, and continues to be human doctrine. To say that it is "The Bible and the Bible Only" that is the basis for Christian doctrine, is not true, is it?
Elaine,
It is true that some terminology develops that is not in scripture. It is used so that the issues do not have to be developed at every discourse.
This does not mean the story and thought were not exegeted out to develop the terminology nor does it mean that it is invalid.
Gen.3:15 is describing the victory of the woman's seed understood in progression of the entire inspired Canon to be none other than Christ.
He lives.
regards,
pat
You have totally devalued the power and the scope of the cross. You have set up an arrangement where the cross of Christ, and the grace that God has demonstrated and made available through it, applies to those who only live post cross as opposed to those who lived in the OT period??
Posted by: frank7 (not verified) | 14 December 2009 at 8:29
I would have to say that I havent devalued anything. I agree that Jesus sacrifice did all you and Pat suggest. Once done the sacrifice covered all. Perhaps I havent made it clear that it is the timing that I consider and ponder.
We all know the text that says without the shedding of blood there is no remission for sin.
If the blood that provided Enoch and Elijahs remission of sin hadnt been spilt yet what made it possible?
The question is not that it wouldnt eventually cover it when Christ died on the cross, the question is how sin that hadnt been covered by Christs blood YET AT THAT TIME allowed unwashed sinners to be translated to heaven without seeing death.
The only salient text supplied so far on the issue might be the one Pat provided. Rom.9:15,16
God may bend his own rules at his discression. We may not ever know exactally how and through what methods God allowed Jesus sacrifice on credit at the time.
You spoke of dispensationalist theology that sees the Old Covenant as one based on works vs. the New as one of grace.
This is of course obserd theology. All the people in the old testament died and are saved the same way that people in the new testament that are also dead are saved. Also the same way all the people living when Christ comes will be saved. That includes everyone on earth except those translated prior to the cross.
The only atypical "salvation" that ever occured was those who were translated, based on what the bible says about sinning and the first death.
That is the specific part I am considering.
Now there are proof texts such as Romans 3:10 but they do not have the final and/or complete perspective any more than Job 1:8 does. Certainly Romans 3:10 does not negate Romans 6:23. And yet you would suggest it has in the case of Enoch and Elijah.
Michael
Michael,
I went back and read EGW’s , PP, and I thought you might appreciate this as I feel you consider her a mentor.
"Enoch was a man of strong and highly cultivated mind and extensive knowledge; he was honored with special revelations from God; yet being in constant communion with Heaven, with a sense of the divine greatness and perfection ever before him, he was one of the humblest of men. The CLOSER the connection with God, the deeper was the sense of his own weakness and IMPERFECTION.…
Through holy angels God revealed to Enoch His purpose to destroy the world by a flood, and He also opened more fully to him the PLAN of redemption … In prophetic vision he was instructed concerning the death of Christ, and was shown His coming in glory, attended by all the holy angels, to ransom His people from the grave. He also saw the corrupt state of the world when Christ should appear the second time--that there would be a boastful, presumptuous, self-willed generation, denying the only God and the Lord Jesus Christ, trampling upon the law, and DESPISING the ATONEMENT. He saw the righteous crowned with glory and honor, and the wicked banished from the presence of the Lord, and DESTROYED by fire. Enoch became a preacher of righteousness, making known to the people what God had revealed to him. PP. 85,86.
Compare that thought of imperfection to “No deep-seated love for Jesus can dwell in the heart that does not realize its own sinfulness. The soul that is transformed by the grace of Christ will admire His divine character; but if we do not see our own moral deformity, it is unmistakable evidence that we have not had a view of the beauty and excellence of Christ.” {SC 65.1}
Michael my friend, It has always been about grace and salvation through the (anticipated and achieved) atoning blood of Christ received by faith on the part of His saints.
regards,
pat
How would Adventists properly understand the Bible without EGW's aid?
Elaine,
I suggest all that is needed for salvation is the self revealing scriptures. When they are read by the Spirit led seeker one is led to Christ who is: wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption.
"For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; 27 but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, 28 and the base things of the world and the despised, God has chosen, the things that are not, that He might nullify the things that are, 29 that no man should boast before God. 30 But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, 31 that, just as it is written, “Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
1 Cor.1 :26-31.
regards,
pat
Pat, it seems for many the scriptures are insufficient; otherwise why would there be a need to add fictionalized account of Enoch that cannot be found in the Bible? Where is there anything in the story of Enoch that hints of his being instructed about Christ? It is the conflation of the Bible with EGW that has resulted in so many in the SDA church who are confused on what is biblically written and what EGW has added.
Have you never heard an SDA speak of Noah's 120 years of preaching? Or the numerous additions to the Bible that were added by the person identified as the Spirit of Prophecy? It reminds me of what a former pastor and conference president said about this conflation: "It's in the book 'Ellen White Says.'"
Elaine,
The problem as I see it is not that Christian writers/teachers/pastors can offer insight. That is also what commentaries etc. are about.
The danger, to me, is when what "they/all" wrote incuding Ellen becomes inseparable in their minds to scripture.
That tendency to me is a big issue in the SDA church and the Clear Word "bible"/"paraphrase" in reality commentary.
You are correct there are no glosses to Enoch. I was attempting to point out that the Bible teaches "By grace apart from works" you are saved through faith. no exceptions
regards,
pat
Pat, I believe we are in agreement: Commentaries are very helpful, but when they are given almost exclusive extrabilical authority, as is EGW in the SDA Bible Commentaires and in all the SS quarterlies, is it ineveitable that it results in confusing the members: where did I learn it: from the Bible or SOP? Surely, there should be a clear definitive line between the Bible and any commentary.
I dont see how it would make any differeence to you Elaine.
You think the bible is just an ancient Hebrew book of propaganda. Your commentary on EGW is a bit hollow knowing how you view the bible.
Pat,
It would seem like the best discription of how translation worked prior to Christs sacrifice is Romans 9, 15-16.
Enoch and Elijah got an exception but Moses didnt. Two didnt have to see death but one did before being translated prior to Christs sacrifice.
Is it just me that finds these differences interesting?
Am only I interested in the ramifications and possible meanings of these events?
All three were translated prior to the cross. What are we to conclude? That Moses was a significantly worse sinner than Enoch and Elijah? That the unmerited grace that Enoch and Elijah recieved was only available to Moses AFTER he died? Why? You have suffiently proved that Enoch and Elijah werent any less sinful than Moses, and yet there is that difference isnt there?
What about Job who was the God designated guinea pig, passed everything Satan could throw at him and still didnt get translated?
I find all this facinating! Dont you? Do you have any specific answers for these differences?
Michael
Michael,
>>I find all this facinating! Dont you? Do you have any specific answers for these differences?
No I don't have any answers and I am not "that fascinated" but we are all different. We could speculate but that is all it would be. I believe where the Bible is silent in regards to issues of faith it is likely best that we are. I can not explain the choice of Job either for certain.
The things He has made known are for us to know. The "hidden things" for Him.
There are some things simply of God's choosing that we don't understand.
regards,
pat
Pat
I think you have commented spot on target with my points of interest. I hope you will see that considering these issues have nothing to do with works or perfection theology as I said.
Also, I would say that the bible is NOT silent on the issue because of the many texts from all authors and God concerning sin and death and their inextricable relationship.
It is however quite silent on how translation works in light of them. Romans 9 may be as far as we get in our understanding of it on this earth, but there is definitly something interesting there.
Michael
Michael,
A few closing thoughts. Are you suggesting that Elijah and Enoch lived their entire life without sin. If only one sin would not death be required by "the wages of sin is death?" How in your perspective was atonement made for that sin in your paradigm of "before Christ?" Can the blood of bulls and goats forgive sin except in anticipation of Christ death on the cross? If He failed does that not leave us in the same place?
Regards and peace in Christ,
pat
Elaine wrote
"'Show me anywhere in the Bible that we are born sinner.'
Ps. 51:5 'You know I was born guilty, a sinner from the moment of conception.'
How can one 'get around' the concept of 'Original Sin'?"
I am surprised you have never considered that David (or at least the author of the Psalm) was the son of a prostitute or other illicit affair. Or considers himself to be as bad as such a person.
Martin
Martin,
It is suggested that David's two sisters were of a former marriage of his mother in 2 Sam. 17:25.
Any basis for stating it was illicit as far as Jesse's marriage.
Or, are you referring to Judah and Tamar?
Seems to be a non sequitur to me.
God is recorded as choosing David and the blessing of Jacob was on Judah as the royal line. Gen.49:10.
Would Christ, whose mother and "father" were of the line of David be "conceived of sin?"
Must Mary be sinless for Christ to be "without sin?"
regards,
pat
Wasn't David writing poetry rather than a sermon?
Regardless, either we believe in "Original Sin" and that we are evil and sinners at conception, or that sin is an act of will. Which is it? Is "sin" a verb, an adjective (sinful person) or a noun, or all three? Are we rather ambiguous when we speak of sin if we are not even clear on its meaning?
Is "Original Sin" a fundamental belief of all Christians? Is it in the Apostle's Creed and do Adventists include Original Sin in the 28 Fundamentals?
Pat...
I think that Michael doesn't fully grasp what his proposed basis of Elijah and Enoch's translation implies for the overarching primacy of grace, and the consistency of God and his dealings with all of us...whether alive, asleep, resurrected, or translated. I took the liberty to reprint what I stated earlier about this in this thread. I think it is pertinent to where the discussion is now:
"I find huge problems with such theology. It makes God inconsistent...requiring works as the basis of translation during one period, and grace for those who happened to be born later.
Secondly, it ignores the reality of "the lamb that was slain from the foundation of the world." IOW...Christ's sacrifice and its benefits are not bound by time. It is all as infinite as God is and so are its benefits. It applies to all who have ever lived, BCE or CE, alive or dead, resurrected or translated. Romans 3:25 speaks of the same idea...that the Messiah's sacrifice was sufficient to forgive sins commited during the first covenant that God in his forbearance had left unpunished...that includes Enoch's and Elijah's.
Elijah and Enoch are ultimately saved for the same reason as you and me....Christ died for them. They lived looking forward to that. Otherwise, Hebrews take on the types and shadows of the temple system is nonsensical... that the sacrificing of animals in the whole OT period was a statement of faith in what the Messiah would come to do for every person that presented such sacrifices. Or does that not count for Elijah and Enoch?
The only difference I see is that they looked forward in faith to the grace that God had promised. We look back... and forward. We are called to live responsibly and gratefully in that reality and its assurance.
I would also suggest that Elijah and Moses apperance at Jesus' transfiguration, at which they stood representing not only the law and the prophets, but also, as EGW says, all who would be resurrected or translated, was to testify to the supremacy of Christ and of what he was about to accomplish. Luke says that they were there speaking with Christ of his coming departure...literally in Greek, his exodus. IOW, they were speaking with the ultimate Passover lamb who was about to be sacrificed.
Could it be that they realized that the fate of the entire cosmos, and indeed of their own existence in the presence of God as well as of all who ever looked forward to such a reality, would hinge on Christ's work and his work alone?
Amazing grace...how sweet the sound!"
Thanks...
Frank
Frank,
Thanks, well said.
regards,
pat
Frank
Perhaps you could explain why Enoch and Elijah were translated without seeing death and Moses had to die first and then be translated all prior to Christs sacrifice.
Short of that you might give some insight to all the texts in the bible regarding sin and death being interlinked in an undissolvable way and how they have no meaning where translation is involved.
I did not write any part of the bible so none of this is my interpretation. It is not "my theology". It is not "my proposal." To say, How does this and this fit together is not a private interpretation.
You say, "Romans 3:25 speaks of the same idea...that the Messiah's sacrifice was sufficient to forgive sins committed during the first covenant that God in his forbearance had left unpunished...that includes Enoch's and Elijah's."
Of course it is sufficient, but that is not the issue nor pertinent to my area of inquiry. The question was What made God able to accept it "on credit"? We have lots of texts about sin or things unsanctified or unholy existing in his presence. Texts of the consuming fire of the presence of God. Think Moses and the burning bush for example.
And yet prior to the atoning sacrifice which cleansed the sin of Enoch and Elijah, they are translated. We have the same situation with Moses yet somehow it was important that he actually die first.
Generalities about how Christs sacrifice saves everyone do not answer the specific questions concerning the translation of these three men.
Michael
Michael,
You may have overlooked my last post to you, so...
Do you infer from scripture that Enoch and Elijah were without any sin all there lives?
Why are they not praised on that basis of a "sinless life?" My assumption since they are not praised on that basis they are saved by "unmerited grace" just like the rest of us. And, we "sinners" can likewise be translated.
You can not build a theology on an "explicit" understanding of "translation" priviledge because it does not exist.
regards,
pat
Michael...
I find that the scriptures are just not clear concerning your inquiry. All I'm saying is that the surmising that they somehow were translated on a different basis than the grace that saves us all...whether by resurrection or translation...goes against the whole tenor of the salvation story.
All this ends up being, then, is supposition. In the end, I don't find it very personally relevant for our own present day walks with God. Maybe that's why the scriptures are just not clear about it.
Thanks...
Frank
Pat
"Why are they not praised on that basis of a "sinless life?" My assumption since they are not praised on that basis they are saved by "unmerited grace" just like the rest of us."
From their own mouth or Gods?
From Gods mouth you can start with, Job 1:8
And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?
Shall we discuss how Gods discription could not possibly be understood as relating to Jobs life and sin? Shall we ponder why Satan would even be interested in afflicting Job in an attempt to get him to sin, when Job was already an average sinner like we are? Shall we consider why God would suggest Job as a subject for testing if he was an average sinner like the rest of us?
Certainly these are questions worthy of attempting to understand if you would like answers to your own questions. Many have tried to gloss over such questions by saying the book of Job is all allegorical. It that your understanding as well? I cant say if it is or not from my own knowledge or research. Can you?
From their own mouth, you know you will not find any person in scripture who is living the life God intends saying, I've done it! I'm perfect." People who's lives are of that caliber do not even think in those terms. You can consider Job again.
Job 42:6Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.
Why is Job so down on himself? Is it because he failed Satans tests? No. He was not aware of the wager God and Satan were having and in his dispare he questioned why God didnt support him or come to his aid. It is his even questioning God that he is repentant of.
Matthew Henry Commentary ends it comments on verses 1-6 like this.
Self-loathing is ever the companion of true repentance. The Lord will bring those whom he loveth, to adore him in self-abasement; while true grace will always lead them to confess their sins without self-justifying.
Paul also has this characteristic. 1 Corinthians 15:9
So the proof you have asked for will never exist, at least from their own mouths.
I agree with both of you that to infer to much is only speculation. I would only point out that in the case of translation your explanations concerning grace have not shed any light on these topics. I also agree that scripture is not clear on the differences.
I would however not classify it as a trivial subject or one that has no relevance as you have.
Michael
Michael,
I was not suggesting from their own mouths but other witnesses of His "sinlessness." Perfect means "mature" not "without any fault."
>>"Matthew Henry Commentary ends it comments on verses 1-6 like this.
Self-loathing is ever the companion of true repentance. The Lord will bring those whom he loveth, to adore him in self-abasement; while true grace will always lead them to confess their sins without self-justifying.">>
This is good Michael and lends to our discussion.
Consider God talking to Job: “Would you discredit my justice?
Would you condemn me to justify yourself?" Job 40:8.
I suggest Job's "incompleteness" was that he was apparently more interested in justifying himself than God's justice. Of this he repented not out of false piety but true recognition in Job 42:1-6. When he saw the purity, justice,wisdom of God compared to himself what else could he do?
In short he had a self righteous attitude he came to realize. Unfortunately some at minimum exist in all of us.
How might that relate to the audacity that "man vindicates God" by his obedience. Shall man "justify" God might be a good question for the "final generation" today?
It might be good to read and consider 1 Kgs.8:46; Ps.130:3,4; Eccl.7:20; Ps.143:1,2.
regards,
pat
"I find that the scriptures are just not clear ...
All this ends up being, then, is .....supposition.
In the end, I don't find it very personally relevant for our own present day walks with God. Maybe that's why the scriptures are just not clear about it."
huh?
does this give God the right to burn us to death later if we don't understand the scriptures which either
...He inspired? but left "just not clear"..
or
...which He left up to fallible men to write out, and they left it "just not clear"?
how can we keep telling people they are gonna die..
be killed by our loving God...
BBQ'ed in an EGW threatened Lake-o-fire if they do not accept our interpretations of what fallible men wrote about what they believed their God had inspired them to think....?
especially when we place so much emphasis on:
...the unbelievable....
talking snakes, reasoning donkeys, floating axe heads, the sun standing still if not backing up, a guy ascending "up" to heaven in a flaming UFO, bears divinely devouring precisely "42" kids...even Jesus got mixed up in the question of whether its all literal or figurative when He allowed the devil to teleport Him to a mountain so high that even on a round earth He could see "all the kingdoms of the world", either before (or after?) surviving for "40" daze with no food, and NO WATER"???
...the unscientific...
after the flood, the waters "went down", when the opposite is proven by all of nature, science, archeology, oceanography, glaciology, climatology, Cosquers Cave
http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/archeosm/en/fr-cosqu1.htm
and even Al Gore who only reluctantly admits the waters have been coming up for thousands of years...even before the invention of the infernal combustion machine and the scam to raise our electric rates by depriving us of the use of God's coal...buried just for us by Noah's flood or erosion of the Rocky Mts covering mega acres of peat out in Wyoming mega years ago.
and
...bad philosophy
bordering on horrible morality...
such as the divine massacre of Egypts innocent kids to motivate the Pharaoh instead of water boarding him personally the compassionate conservative Christian right(eous) way.
Far above in this thread it was mentioned how great a guy Lot was...to keep taking it on the chin...
houses destroyed..flocks killed..servants killed...and finally, God stands by and watches as the devil kills Jobs kids? as part of a divine, cosmic game?
isn't this another perfect example of what we need to do with many of the Bibles stories?
did God really send poisonous snakes to randomly kill people in Numbers? or was this belief the natural reaction by scientifically ignorant superstitious people, who had recently escaped civilization and were now overwhelmed by the rigors of their rustic camping trip lost in the desert for "40" (many, many) years, and having to learn how to use their personal shovel to bury their own waste.... punished because they felt that maybe they had not served their god perfectly?
tho later, they would rejoice at a victory over their neighbors, and thank God for a bit of extra daylight to finish the job..killing more people and finding more virgins to "save"...celebrated later by putting on the Epic Play of Jassur about how the "sun had stood still" for them....
Wouldn't a "naturalistic" reinterpretation of many of these stories help exculpate the Loving god we all grew up with from many of the distasteful, hateful, violent things attributed to Him by His ancient biographers?
such as potentially a coupla hundred thousand killings just in the Book of Numbers?
http://dwindlinginunbelief.blogspot.com/2009/01/how-many-has-god-killed-...
Many readers here simply dismiss John's continuing questions as either irrelevant to the "essential truths" of Scripture, or call it sarcasm. However, as the masters of sarcasm: Jonathan Swift, H.L. Mencken, and others have beautifully illustrated, it is often the one most illustrative method of demonstrating that the emperor has no clothes.
True Believers continue to conjure all sorts of reasons why the Bible doesn't REALLY mean what it says, and that there are alternate explanations, plus many stories of love. True. But how can one consistently ignore that multiple accounts of God killing and eliminating entire tribes and families, even all the occupants of the earth: in a long-ago flood, and threatening the entire future populations to be burned alive in the end? And the only possible escape is to accept this treacherously-described god?
How many earnest and sincere Christians such as Dr. Thompson, have written volumes protesting that "it ain't necessarily so" but in the end, these stories cannot be denied. Shouldn't we trust our own native intuition that the ancient Golden Rule, adopted by dozens of cultures, is far superior to all the Scriptures, and refuse to accept a god as described in the Bible?
Christians consistently explain that the description of Jesus in the NT is not like the OT god, but then in a strange and twisted sort of illogic, adopt the idea of the Trinity, where they both equal the identical personality of each and that it was Jesus who was Creator in the beginning! Believers must abandon all rules of logic and park their brains at the church door to accept this doctrine.
Agreed, Elaine, trying to harmonize the picture of God in the two testaments is an exercise in futility. The doctrine of the trinity however need not lock us in to trying synthesize a brutal God and a compassionate God.
Recognizing that the Scriptures are an honest record of people seeking a God to meet their human needs and the written journey of the quest of these people is a good place to start. The Israelites had a horrible and pagan picture of God - but they grew and developed in their understanding. The Scriptures testify to this growth curve. From many gods they gradually came to an understanding of One God. This One God then had to accepted responsibility for all that is.
Just as they grew - so must we. To see the Bible as a univocal document can lead one to schizophrenic thinking. Even the picture of God that Jesus gave us is one that he himself said would be expanded by His Spirit.
The ugly picture of God in the Bible is real. It is an honest record of the thinking of the "holy men" of that day and time. It should not be sweep under the rug nor should it be "explained" away. Their picture need not (nor should not) be ours.
If it is - we are worshiping an Idol.
Pat
Understand I do not disagree with your train of thought nessisarily.
It is just your train of thought does not provide sufficient answer to these questions which I insert again.
Shall we discuss how Gods discription could not possibly be understood as relating to Jobs life and sin? Shall we ponder why Satan would even be interested in afflicting Job in an attempt to get him to sin, when Job was already an average sinner like we are? Shall we consider why God would suggest Job as a subject for testing if he was an average sinner like the rest of us?
I am sure your realize one cant have it both ways.
Michael
Michael,
Is self righteousness a sin?
Job was self righteous as he questioned God's justice in this event (even if "he only allowed it.")
He put God's justice in juxtaposition with his own in defending his ways to his friends...thus "“Would you discredit my justice? Would you condemn me to justify yourself?" Job 40:8.
Now, I am not saying that we mortals can't or should not do that but isn't it fair to say "we are judging" God when we doubt His providences and do so? Now I believe a hypocrite feigning fearful obedience is also a sin ."Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him; I will surely defend my ways to his face. 16 Indeed, this will turn out for my deliverance, for no godless man would dare come before him! Job 13:15,16.
But, Is it not fair to say that our doubts constitute a lack of faith? Is it not written that what is not of faith is sin? When we doubt are we not putting our understanding up as an idol? "Lord, help my unbelief."
Job was a holy man and a saint...but yet imperfect. That is the point also made in Job...but God had mercy Job 42:7-...what hope for we mere saints and mortals.
To often we consider only the "letter of law" violated rather than the thoughts, attitudes and intents that are in the heart that also constitute sin because they in reality express our "secret" desire of autonomy from His ways.
Both Law and Spirit led attitudes are important.
regards,
pat
Donna, I agree with your assessment. If we and the church cannot better explain the pictures of God in the Bible, as you suggested, it will continue to be viewed with less and less relevance to our lives today. Who needs such a god?
So far, all the official theologians' explanations fall short. If they could only admit that the Bible writers were captive of their time and perceptions and that we can never be expected to accept their circumstances and beliefs about God, we might be able to move forward in determining the place of Scripture in our lives today. Trying to make it everything to everybody in answering all of life's questions has not proved satisfactory as there are so many changes in our lives today that ancient remedies are no longer beneficial. The fallacy of turning to the Bible for the answer to any problem one might face, is detrimental to growing in mature judgment.
Pat and Michael...
Job had exactly the same picture of God as his friends. They both believed that God rewards and punishes based on deeds. His friends were claiming Job's secret wrongdoing as the reason why Job was suffering, and Job was saying that it shoudn't be happening to him, because he was innocent of any wrong.
God blows the whole picture apart in the final section, with statements like "Who has preceded me that that I must pay him." Job ends up repenting in dust and ashes. Repenting of what? A distorted picture of God, possibly? And, in the end, wouldn't that all be part of our sinful condition and orientation towards God?
Job, to me, isn't any more special than any other authentic person of faith who walks with God...with problems and struggles and yes, distorted pictures of God that we have learned and need to unlearn. And those of us who live this authentic experience are also in a sense targets, just like Job!
Thanks...
Frank
Frank,
I think it is right there what aspect of God's character was "being distorted."
"Would you discredit my justice?" Job 40:8.
How often are we "better, more loving and more just" than God?
I appreciated your comments.
regards.
pat
Pat and Frank,
All good stuff guys, just not responsive to the 3 questions I gave.
Clarify the point of the test.
Michael
Shall we discuss how Gods discription could not possibly be understood as relating to Jobs life and sin? Shall we ponder why Satan would even be interested in afflicting Job in an attempt to get him to sin, when Job was already an average sinner like we are? Shall we consider why God would suggest Job as a subject for testing if he was an average sinner like the rest of us?
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Hey Michael...
I would suggest that Job is a type of every man...or more specifically...every authentic believer in God. God's description of him would have nothing to do with absolute moral perfection, since the rest of the story reveals that he isn't, and Hebrew thought does not subscribe to such a view of perfection. He is a mature man, who stands for God, who still needs to grow out of and into an understanding of God. Such is a dynamic lifelong process that typifies all of us, even the most mature, even Job. IOW, God would describe any genuine believer in this fashion.
Satan has an interest in Job just like he has an interest in any who claim faith in God. Is it really genuine faith? He bets it isn't. "Just let me turn up the heat and we'll see"! God says it is." Just turn up the heat and you'll see!" Which of us who have an authentic faith, do not at some point or another, pass over this ground. Job's story explains it by Satan's request and accusations, and by God's allowance.
To me, rather than separating Job from the rest of us, it brings him into solidarity with all the rest of us "average believers," whose faith in God is nevertheless authentic and real.
Good discussion!
Thanks...
Frank
Thats a good start Frank
Now, what are your thoughts on how he was tested? How would God or Satan know which could claim a victory?
It seems you and Pat dance around the issue of what the bet was actually about.
One could be vague and say the test was to see if Job would rely on God, but that would soft soap what that actually means. Shall I ask it more pointedly?
Was Satan trying to get Job to sin or not?
Happy Sabbath
Michael
Michael....
What was it that Satan was claiming about Job? That he served God only because he knew where his bread was buttered. "Take the blessings away and watch what happens...he'll curse you to your face." And what was he saying about God? That God essentially bought Job's faith.
Those were the main issues. If we want to look at how Satan was tempting Job to sin, it was to break faith by renouncing God. Job's wife tells him to do just that. Job admonishes her. Then, during the course of his ordeal, he comes extremely close at times to doing what she said.
This says nothing about Job being absolutely sinless. God's description of Job didn't mean that, as we've already seen what the concept of "perfection" was in Hebrew thought. However, it does speak to every one of us who has faith, or even claims faith in God...that we will pass over the same type of ground as we encounter life's vicissitudes. It reveals Job's solidarity with all people of genuine faith, not his separateness. And it points to the main issues of sin vs. faith. What are our motives for trusting in God? And what will do when the evidence for our trust is no longer so evident?
In my mind, to say that it was about Job's reliance upon God is not soft soaping the issue at all. It was all about that. And, although Job never renounced his faith, he certainly had some of the premises of his faith blown apart in the process.
Thanks...
Frank
Frank,
There are many sources to look up what the hebrew word translated as perfect means. Look up Youngs Literal Translation for example. It for sure doesnt mean mature in Hebrew.
Second your characterization of what cursing God constitutes in the context of those passages in Job, you have only to look at verse 5 where Job sacrifices daily for his sons. WHY?
Job 1:5
5And it was so, when the days of their feasting were gone about, that Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all: for Job said, It may be that my sons have (WHAT?)sinned, and cursed God in their hearts. Thus did Job continually.
Given that, what is your new definition of what cursing God in your heart means? The context is sin and that being the same as cursing God in their hearts. The latter describing the former as is common in Hebrew, not 2 separate things. Further it is a mere 3 verses from Gods definition of Job.
Lastly, the entire book of Job contemplates the idea that a punishment from God is the result of sin. Even in Speeches of Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar Job's friends do not waver from their belief that Job must have sinned to incite God's punishment. As the speeches progress, Job's friends increasingly berate him for refusing to confess his sins, although they themselves are at a loss as to which sin he has committed. The three friends continue to argue that Job must have sinned, and therefore must deserve his misfortune.
Job 2:10 "He replied, "You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?"
In all this, Job did not sin in what he said."
Again notice the terminology. ...did not sin...not, did not curse...
Job 4: 6 Should not your piety be your confidence
and your blameless ways your hope?
7 "Consider now: Who, being innocent, has ever perished?
Job asks, Job 7: 20 If I have sinned, what have I done to you,
O watcher of men?
Why have you made me your target?
Have I become a burden to you?
Job 9:21 "Although I am blameless,
I have no concern for myself;
I despise my own life.
Job 12:4 "I have become a laughingstock to my friends,
though I called upon God and he answered—
a mere laughingstock, though righteous and blameless!
Go through and count how many times the word blameless is used and check the Hebrew translation of that. Do the same with the word innocent, righteous and piety.
That Job is suffering and his friends think its because of some sort of sin is the whole point of their conversation. Job and his friends loss to explain the suffering because they know of no sin of Job is their very quandary.
The only reason for their actions is their belief that suffering is a direct result of God punishing sin. Only because of that belief do they prod Job about his unconfessed sins.
None of them knew why Job was being afflicted.
Even when God reproves Job it wasn't on the basis of his sin it was on the basis that he had the right to do this to Job.
Job asks real questions like why did you allow this to happen to me and God says, where were you when I set the heavens in place? No context of Jobs sins even after his bold assertions of his innocence and blameless state.
Do you disagree these things were so? Are my summaries or characterizations wrong? I dont seek to put a spin on anything but you have alot of specifics to answer if your generalizations are right.
Michael
Michael...
When i have more time, I'll get back to you. This deserves a thoughtful response that will take me some time. I appreciate the discussion with you, and the good thoughts you raise!
Thanks...
Frank
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