Dear Hyveth,

Are you writing that since Jesus died the second death (separation from God) before the physical death (sleep death) and performed a few actions in-between, that you believe one can survive the second death for a short time physically?

"3. This all means that our salvation was bought and wrought on the cross, not in the grave."

Neither the cross nor the grave were all-sufficient. Thousands of people were crucified by the Romans during this time. Without the wonderful Sunday morning Resurrection, there would be no Christianity today. It is the SOLE reason for Christianity.

The stories and illustrations about the meaning of Jesus' death were not considered at that time, but took decades before they gradually became part of the Christian belief system. The Gospels, written at least a generation afterward, were an effort to show that Jesus had a miraculous conception, birth, life, death and resurrection, and convince the Jews of that meaning. No one at that time believed that Christ was the Messiah, but it was the Gospel writers, many years later, who took pen in hand to convince their readers that Jesus fulfilled all the prophecies of a coming Messiah. Isaiah's prophecy of a young woman's conception and birth was taken out of its context in support of this and many more illustrations were given to support this evolving understanding.

Paul used the metaphor of Jewish sacrifice and atonement that his hearers were all familiar with. But he also used many other analogies in support of the meaning of Jesus. By the time the Gospels were written, the historical facts had been overlaid with mythical elements, giving the meaning of Jesus for his followers. The first Christians saw him as a new Moses, new Joshua and the Jews in Palestine believed that he was the Messiah, the Son of David--before he was killed.

Mark, the earliest Gospel, presents Jesus as a perfectly normal man with a family of brothers and sisters, but no mention of any notice about his birth; in fact, his story begins at Jesus' baptism. Jesus himself never claimed to be God, but the Son of God--a title used by kings in the OT. He called himself the Son of Man.

There is the ultimate question: Is salvation impossible for mankind without Jesus' death? If so, to whom was the ransom paid? Who received the sacrifice? How was his death for our benefit? Neither Paul nor the other NT writers ever attempted a precise, definitive explanation of the salvation they had experienced.

All through our lives as Christians we have sung about the blood of the lamb that redeedmed us; but the explanations posited have never fully explained how blood is salvific.

Elaine,

It is "salvic" for absolutely NO other reason than God says it is. Mt.26:28; Heb.9:15-28; Heb.10:14.

The Sacrifice was accepted in our behalf and He was raised on Sunday morning showing our justification was accomplished by faith in Him. Rom.4:25.

pat

"Without the wonderful Sunday morning Resurrection, there would be no Christianity today. It is the SOLE reason for Christianity."
Nice thought. Would that thoughts count.
The undeserved penalty that Christ took was not his resurection, it was his death.
Without the shedding of blood, there can be no atonement.

(See Romans 5:8-11)
"But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him... And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement."

No blood in the resurection was there?

AMEN Pat.

Amen Michael,

Thanks for adding that "literalist" verse from Romans.

pat

To attribute every word in the Bible to God saying it, removes any human in the choice of words within it, the choice of which writings to include in the Bible, and that God never actually wrote a single word in the Bible. Men wrote what they thought about God, no less than we today write as though we knew what God said and meant many years ago.

Is that the inerrant and infallible view of the literality of the Bible? Sounds much like it.

Elaine,

"Men wrote what they thought about God, no less than we today write as though we knew what God said and meant many years ago."

It is your priviledge to believe this.

I prefer to accept the Chicago statement.
http://www.reformed.org/documents/index.html?mainframe=http://www.reform...

regards,

pat

The words in the Bible may be one perspective, but thinking that the resurection is the SOLE reason for Christianity is quite another.

If I were to choose between the 2 perspectives, I think I would have to choose Paul's over Elaine's.
Sorry

The earliest Jesus-believers, led by Jesus' own brother James, continued their lives as Jewish believers, very attached to the Temple and its blood rituals. They obviously did not view Jesus as the antitypical sacrificial lamb, offered up for the sins of the world. These were the people who knew Jesus best and who apparently never did not hear him say that he had come to abolish the Torah (in fact, he said the opposite in Matt. 5).

In the Synoptics, God is perfectly capable of forgiving sin without recourse to blood (think the Lord's Prayer). By arguing that God needs to see blood run--that of his own incarnated flesh--in order to forgive, turns forgiveness into a quid pro quo scheme.

Paul later on turned Jesus, the ambiguous Messiah, into universal savior, and he clearly saw Jesus as having been killed in our place.

Aage,

And Jesus saying that He was the blood of the covenant shed for the remission of sins?

As to Mt.5:17-The premise is that Jesus fulfilled and ratified/validated the law.

Likewise Paul Rom.3:31.

The Christ event is a package deal!
The virgin birth, the childhood, the baptism, the temptations in the wilderness, The ministry, the challenges of tradition, the Garden, The trial, The cross, the grave, the resurrection,
The walk to Emmaus, The ascention, The Upper Room, meeting Paul on the Road.

The narrative is clear and compelling. My hope is built on nothing less. He lived, died, and rose again for me! Tom

Yes Tom!

How does the death of Christ satisfy God? Is a God that satisfies Himself moral? Is a God that accepts the death of an innocent for the guilty, moral? Is violence at the cross the only way to end sin?

How can blood pay for sins? Or is that just a literalistic motif? and is the assumed premise true that a just/righteous law ought to demand death/blood for eating a wrong fruit?

Many good questions here. Let me add some. In what way did/does the death of Christ "change" God? Is this a prerequisite before he can save/forgive? What kind of judicial systems permits substitution in capital cases? How are concepts of right and justice affirmed by the view of payment of penalty--or the big words like appeasement, propitiation, expiation and so on?

Most of all, what kind of God do we see here? And are we not in danger of splitting the Trinity by setting one element of the Godhead against the other?

Too many questions maybe. But we're supposed to be thinking here, not reciting the catechism...

Jonathan

Jonathan and Arlyn,

Since we are all asking questions...What does it mean that "God is just and the justifier of those that trust in Christ" as far as God's morality and justice? Rom.3:26.

And if the Father, Son, and Spirit are of one accord on the issue why would it divide?

pat

Arlyn,

The death of Christ satisfies God because the rules of His government state that life is conditional upon obedience to his moral law. Failure is not an option. There is no excuse for disobedience. Once Adam and Eve sinned they would have to pay for their disobedience with their lives. Jesus volunteered to give his life as a substitute for their lives. God accepted this substitutionary death.

JB, The position you give above was not constructed until thousands of years later. The whole substitutionary death and demands of the law that there be a death were never an idea or a provision in all of Jewish belief. It is a NT doctrine that developed only after Jesus' death.

What assurance do we have that God accepted this substitionary death?

Jonathan asks questions which no one has tackled:

"In what way did/does the death of Christ "change" God? Is this a prerequisite before he can save/forgive? What kind of judicial systems permits substitution in capital cases? How are concepts of right and justice affirmed by the view of payment of penalty--or the big words like appeasement, propitiation, expiation and so on."

All we hear are repetitious and trite statements. We want explanation of how those actually work. Substitionary death was not accepted under either Jewish or Roman law, but only something added later by Christians. Since these are literal terms, how do they work literally? How do the even work symbolically?

Elaine,

I will ask you also,

Since we are all asking questions...What does it mean that "God is just and the justifier of those that trust in Christ" as far as God's morality and justice? Rom.3:26.

pat

Elaine,

The substitutionary death concept goes all the way back to Adam and Eve and the sacrificial lamb. The story of Cain and Abel is in the Bible because Cain was the first human to reject the substitutionary death of the Savior. The offering Cain brought was a thank offering. The offering means, we, that is, God and Cain are friends, God rejects Cain’s offering saying, there can be no friendship between you and I until you admit you are a sinner in need of my grace through the Savior. Cain is angry because he does not feel he needs a Savior. In his mind, Cain does not see himself as a bad man; God should accept him as he is.

The whole book of Romans is written in answer to the question the Roman Christian’s have asked Paul: Why do we teach Salvation by grace but the other Jews here are saying, we are wrong, we don’t need grace? Paul starts with the people who lived before the flood and goes right down through time showing why we need a Savior. Finally he concludes by saying; God is going to uphold the message I preach that Jesus Christ is the Savior for the whole world. This was the original message of salvation as a promise illustrated and forecast in the Old Testament. Now it has been fulfilled by Christ’s life and death. Every race of man on the earth has a chance to be saved from eternal death. Thank God for his wisdom worked out in reality by Jesus Christ.

Since these are two different viewpoints that run all the way back to Eden we are just one more generation given a chance to see which side we will choose during our watch. Soon we will have to hand it off to the next generation and let them decide what they will do. In the end the real question will be who has the power to deliver on their promises, and bring life, health and happiness.

I am not unmindful of the other questions, but it is not convenient to answer them all at once. Besides, since each idea is related to the next idea, they all form a rational whole; it is of little value to explain other parts if one is rejected.

First of all, the belief in the Jesus' resurrection is the SOLE historical reason for the Christian faith. If the disciples had not believed that God had resurrected Jesus, he would just have been another failed wanna-be Messiah, and the disciples would have backed the wrong horse.

Secondly, substitutionary sacrifice is ONE image trying to describe aspects of the atoning work of Jesus as the Christ. It does not, however, give the full picture of the meaning of Jesus' death (or his life for that matter). The ways of God are more mysterious than we or the writers of NT can possibly formulate (even inspired by God), and a reductionist approach approach to God will not help us understand Him. The incarnation, Jesus' life, teaching, and ministry for the people of Galilee and Judea, his death, and his resurrection, are all part of the atoning work of the Christ.

Pat
I didn't say the idea of blood atonement was not present in the Synoptics. The Gospels were written after Paul's epistles and Pauline theology shows up in them, although it plays a peripheral role there. The point still stands, in my opinion, that those who knew Jesus the best, did not associate him with the Temple's blood rituals. Otherwise, why were they so devoted to the Temple and its service after the death of Jesus, as told in Acts?

JB
Your Cain and Abel theology is not based on either the Old or the New Testament. The Hebrew scriptures do not associate the blood rituals of the Torah with the future. The Middle East was awash in blood rituals. The Jewish sacrifical system does not seem to have been very different from those of surrounding nations (but admittedly, I haven't done any comparative studies and would like to hear from somebody who knows more about the subject than I do.)

Aage,

Am I to conclude that Christ really "did not say" that "This is the blood of the covenant which is poured out for many for the remission of sins?"

Is that "imposed by Matthew" as Christ actually saying it, when He really didn't, only because of Paul's writings or because he was a disciple led of the Spirit to write the book?

Or by His recording the saying was He giving the atoning purpose of His death that Christ himself gave that is later in time elucidated by Paul's writings and the writer of Hebrews if the author there is other than Paul? (I am refering to the sequence of actual events not the timing/dating of the writing of the books)

pat

Jonathan,

So glad to see you in here! Your questions are better than mine!

Friends,

In no way do I want to lesson Paul's contribution to the meaning of Jesus' death.

However, I find it very puzzling that Jesus spends very little time (or maybe he talked about it a lot and the disciples blocked it out)explaining the meaning of his death. (but after being baptized with the HS they wrote the gospels and it's meaning is still de-emphasized in His discourses with them.) So, how did Jesus, God Himself, understand the meaning of what He was about to do? and why was it not an overriding theme in his discourses if the meaning was so central to our salvation?

Could it be that we are wrong in our focus?

Pat,

(I really appreciate your contributions on this blog and we share a wonderful friendship with Bob Rigsby! Wish he would jump in on this!)

Will you unpack what you believe Jesus meant by "This is the blood of the covenant which is poured out for many for the remission of sins?" And if you can use His own words or John the Baptist's mainly, the points would be more credible.

Pat
You asked:"Am I to conclude that Christ really "did not say" that "This is the blood of the covenant which is poured out for many for the remission of sins?"

Pat, that is my conclusion but I hold a different view of Scripture than you. I can't imagine Jesus instituting a religious ceremony focusing on the drinking of blood (symbolic or not)--something that would have been truely repugnant to any Jew, and the Jesus we see in the Synoptics is overwhelmingly Jewish in his outlook.

The Gospels describe two different Jesus characters: One is Jewish, devoted to the Torah, one who's come to restore the fallen house of David and whose mission is strictly confined to the Jewish people (Matt. 10) and who can't abide the thought of the Torah being abrogated (Matt 5). The other Jesus is not concerned about holy places, be it Jerusalem or Mt Gerisim, he sends his disciples into the whole world to make disciples (in spite of the fact that Paul specifically says that he was the first one to come up with that idea, in Galatians) and when he appears before Pilate, he refers to his opponents as "the Jews", as if he wasn't even part of his own people.

My view of the Bible allows me to conclude that the Gospels do not present a consistent view of Jesus. I don't expect you to share my point of view, and I'm even open to the possibility that I might be wrong. (I have been so on more than one occasion!)

Sirje

There seem to be two separate issues here. The one deals with the question, does God need to see blood poured in order for Him to forgive our sins; the second, how can we know our sins have been forgiven.

The New Testament is filled with the concept of a forgiving God, who is more than willing to forgive through His grace, if we only ask. At the same time, Jesus was a Jew, living in Jewish culture which was mixed up with its religious traditions. The Jews had God's forgiveness taken care of through their elaborate sacrificial ceremonies, as had the other cultures around them. When Jesus elaborated on the meaning of sin(Sermon on the Mount) the Jews, who had perfection nailed down, were offended and plotted to kill Him, provididng both political and religious reasons. That is why Jesus was killed.

The second question deals with human nature that requires concrete demonstrations. The Jews had displayed God's forgiveness through a play that included innocent animals, ritualistic death and lots of blood. With this in place, the sinner was able to pick up and proceed with his life for another year. We need the same concrete demonstration of debt paid and forgiveness given.

So, does God need to see blood in order to forgive - NO, but we do.

Hi Arlyn,

Yes, Bob is a close friend of mine also. Until I sold my Honda VTX-C about 2 years ago we rode bikes together quite often and enjoyed talking about many subjects.

On the atonement Bob did not take the "classical" Protestant view but the one put forward by Graham Maxwell. We quit discussing this issue and shared our friendship each holding our own view.

The text in MT.26:28 reads literaly from the Greek, "For this is the blood of me of the covenant the [blood] concerning many for the forgiveness of sins."

Heb.9:11-28 elucidates the fact that Christ death fulfils the old covenant and also establishes a covenant of better promises by the sacrifice of Himself and His own blood.

The better promises being, " 10 And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
11 Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. 12 But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. 13 Since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool, 14 because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.
15 The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. First he says:

16 “This is the covenant I will make with them
after that time, says the Lord.
I will put my laws in their hearts,
and I will write them on their minds.”
17 Then he adds:
“Their sins and lawless acts
I will remember no more.”
18 And where these have been forgiven, there is no longer any sacrifice for sin. Heb.10:10-18.

Obviously without knowledge of the sacrificial system of type the antitype makes no sense. In the OT Isaac said where is the Lamb...In the NT John the Baptist says "behold the Lamb of God."

This is why Christ says in Jn.8:24 that if they did not believe that He was the one He claimed to be they would die in their sins.

The fact that there was not immediate understanding does not mean the well was not there to be drawn from in the future.

To many things that could be said but in closing this time,

"23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; 25 whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; 26 for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus." Rom.3:23-26.

Now that is good news! Good news that can not be had with Christ as an example only!

pat

JB wrote:

"The substitutionary death concept goes all the way back to Adam and Eve and the sacrificial lamb. The story of Cain and Abel is in the Bible because Cain was the first human to reject the substitutionary death of the Savior."

That is how many readers interpret it today but no one until after Jesus' death had even thought of such a symbolic meaning. What one "sees" retrospectively, in any given event, depends solely on his method of interpreting. That is not a conclusion ever given from Scripture. If so, where is Cain's offering explained in such a manner?

Much confusion over the meaning of Jesus' death comes from misunderstanding and misapplication of the OT sacrificial system. So maybe it's time to take another look at that--my little contribution is here:

http://www.pineknoll.org/jg/45-god-in-other-words/185-futile-offerings-g...

So what do WE mean by "there's power in the blood"?

More questions!

Jonathan

Hi Jonathan,

Read your site and agree that God was not satisfied with “just” the cultic sacrifices…BUT He was satisfied with the “cultic sacrifices AND a spiritual heart” as David pleads for so that He might appropriately offer righteous sacrifices in the OT system. Ps.51:18,19.

Of course those are done away by Christ’s sacrifice once and for all. But one can not ignore how the right relationship is made available only through the blood of Christ.

14 Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, Thou God of my salvation;
Then my tongue will joyfully sing of Thy righteousness.
15 O Lord, open my lips,
That my mouth may declare Thy praise.
16 For Thou dost not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it;
Thou art not pleased with burnt offering.
17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
A broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise.
18 By Thy favor do good to Zion;
Build the walls of Jerusalem.
19 Then Thou wilt delight in righteous sacrifices,
In burnt offering and whole burnt offering;
Then young bulls will be offered on Thine altar.Ps.51:14-19.

On a previous post you brought up the normal “strawman” of "division" in the trinity by the propitiation of Christ’s sacrifice as if God forced Christ to do His will.

I understand that you are the SDA- UN Representative so I gather you are a believer in EGW statements.
So how would you see these quotes as dismantling any “strawman” idea that the Father forced the propitionary sacrifice or that it is devisive to the Trinity(Godhead)?

The Son of God endured the wrath of God against sin. All the accumulated sin of the world was laid upon the Sin-bearer, the One who was innocent, the One who alone could be the propitiation for sin, because he himself was obedient. {ST, December 9, 1897 par. 6}

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. {DA 22.2}

Before the foundations of the earth were laid, the Father and the Son had united in a covenant to redeem man if he should be overcome by Satan. They had clasped Their hands in a solemn pledge that Christ should become the surety for the human race. This pledge Christ has fulfilled. When upon the cross He cried out, "It is finished," He addressed the Father. The compact had been fully carried out. Now He declares: Father, it is finished. I have done Thy will, O My God. I have completed the work of redemption. If Thy justice is satisfied, "I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am." John 19:30; 17:24. {DA 834.2}

You do believe those statements don’t you Jonathan?

Regards,

pat

Who is effected by the death of Christ, does God need to change?

Hebrews 9:14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

Blood has two main Biblical meanings, life and violent death. Your conscience is the target of the blood. To change your view, your hostility toward God. The blood is the life of Christ, the life of God who offered forgiveness even as people were killing Him. The life of the one who came back from the Grave and who ever lives as our advocate with the Father. Who is the fullness of God. God changes us. The life and power of God cleanse our conscience from worthless works to the works of the God who is alive and promises to give us life.

Stop this nonsense about Jesus suffered the Second death for which there is zero Biblical support, Stop this nonsense about Jesus punished by God's wrath, for which there is no New Testament support (the article above had to go to Isaiah for that one, New Testament writers did not seem to pick that up, strange). We have so far to go and we so distort God that we should be ashamed at ourselves for making God out to be unjust (then calling it just) and incapable of forgiveness unless He gets His pound of flesh (even though both Old and New Testament say to freely forgive).

For more on this week's lesson go to http://cafesda.blogspot.com/

Ron,

I Saw your site too Ron and since you quoted EGW on the lesson how do you respond to the quotes I offered Jonathan?

Regards,
pat

PS. Perhaps the best understanding of propitiation is "the turning away of wrath."

You see Christ received the wrath of God AGAINST SIN that we should and "turned away wrath from us" so that the "justified by faith" may say,

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. 10 For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.Rom.5:8-10.

pat

"So does God need to see blood in order to forgive? NO, but we do."

Posted by: Sirje | 05 June 2008 at 5:00

Who declared that we "need" to see blood? That was the sentiment of those who lived when the sacrificial system was currently used. How long has it been since Christians used sacrifice?
None.

The concept is outdated by 2000 years, and yet because it was repeated and had meaning for those so long ago, we still use it an analogy which is minus all meaning today. Isn't there a contemporary illustration that we postmoderns are capable of understanding? The Bible writers were certainly in tune with their world. Have we lost all touch with our world today?

To understand forgiveness, who needs to see blood? When you have wronged someone, or you have been wronged, do you, like Shylock, demand a pound of flesh, necessitating blood, in order for it to be effective?

Pat, you said: "Of course those are done away by Christ’s sacrifice once and for all. But one can not ignore how the right relationship is made available only through the blood of Christ."

And then you proceed to use only OT statements which were still in effect at that time. Wake up! We're living 2500 years later and they are NOT in effect today; else why would Christ have fulfilled them? All such sacrifices are obsolete.

Pat wrote:
"I Saw your site too Ron and since you quoted EGW on the lesson how do you respond to the quotes I offered Jonathan?

Regards,
pat

PS. Perhaps the best understanding of propitiation is "the turning away of wrath."

First Propitiation is not turning away from wrath unless one holds to the pagan understanding of appeasing a god. Which is why modern translations say atoning sacrifice or sacrifice of atonement. (what God did to bring us toward reconcilation)

As for Ellen White, being she was a product of her time and her understanding and was largely based upon Christian traditions I don't see any real need to take her statements and set them into the concrete of doctrine for all subsequent Adventists. If the Bible is our standard we don't need her foisted upon us or to have other Adventists use her as if we must accept her statements as if they came from God. Adventism has to get past Ellen White as well as Ellen White's traditional Christian view of Jesus pleading before God saying my blood my blood. God is on our side and not because Jesus was punished by God to pay our penalty but Because God loves us and wants us to love Him, and Jesus is the full revelation of that love, a love that never diminished even when rejected by men.

Elaine my Dear,(I mean it and hope it is not an offense)

Check my post again please. I used Ps.51 because Jonathan had on his site referred to texts in the OT how God did not want sacrifice. In context that was because/due to their "practicing iniquity then bringing sacrifice."

Ps 51 showed the correct attitude for sacrifice in the OT and that was with a truly repentant heart and then the appropriate righteous sacrifice.

The type was replaced by the antitype Christ who shed His blood for us "once and for all."

Your correct in the sense NO MORE BLOOD SACRIFICE of any type...but the application of the merits of that sacrifice are yet needed for entering/maintaining a right relationship with God as we are "being made holy"...but never getting there.

"9 Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! 10 For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! 11 Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. Rom.5:9-11.

Niebuhr summarizes my main problem with what I shall call the "weeds" of "liberal theology" Elaine.

"A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross." The Kingdom of God in America, p.193.

I don't need THAT Jesus of modernity...I'll go it alone first!

Regards,

pat

Ron,

You say, "First Propitiation is not turning away from wrath unless one holds to the pagan understanding of appeasing a god. Which is why modern translations say atoning sacrifice or sacrifice of atonement. (what God did to bring us toward reconcilation)."

Why did we need to be reconciled? Were we not children of wrath?Eph.2:3

What happens when one refuses Christ according to Jn.3:36..."God's wrath remains on him."

See, I suggest you have so long heard the argument (strawman) of Jesus appeasing the Father by his death that you fail to see that the Father and the Son agreed on the way to turn away the wrath of God against sin and sinners. Why this way. I DON"T KNOW. But that is the way scripture tells us it occurs according to God's will and we receive that promise by "faith alone."

Regards,

pat

Isn't it wonderful that no matter what analogy we use about Christ's death or God, that we can be saved without believing any or all of it?

RC,

Yes, the blood is to change us. But, "stop this nonsense about Jesus being punished by God's wrath, for which there is no NT support?"

The synoptics' description of the crucifixion of darkness sweeping over the land at noon carries this idea with it. It is an illusion to OT passages describing the Day of the Lord/i.e the execution of God's judgement against Israel's sin and rebellion. One specific citation is Amos 8:9,

"'In that day,' declares the sovereign LORD, 'I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight.'"

The entire context is one of God's wrath being poured out against the rebellion and sin of Israel.

It's quite interesting that the natural circumstances surrounding Jesus' death are being described in very similar terms. Israel has once again rebelled...this time, by rejecting God's own Son. Darkness sweeps over the land. But instead of calamity and death coming at that time on all... as the OT prophets describe God's judgement upon the rebellion of his people... death only comes upon one person.

And that one person cries out, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" Is this not indicative that God's wrath, in the form of judgement and rejection, is falling on Jesus instead of those who have rejected him? Is this not in keeping with the whole concept of "substitutionary atonement," an idea that is not too popular on this site, but can be traced through not only the NT, but also the history of interpretation?

I personally find this in Paul's statement, "He made him who knew no sin, to be sin (a sin offering) for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." 2 Cor 5:21. I also see this throughout Rom. 5, which speaks of judgement, condemnation, and death coming through the sin of one man, but justification and life coming through the act and gift of the one man, Christ.

He agreed to bare God's judgement, condemnation, and yes, just wrath against sin, so that we might be fully swept into God's favor and grace forever...the way that God always has preferred, and always wants to relate to us.

Whether that changes us, is up to us.

Thanks...

Frank

With all our Western mindset and its emphasis on materialism, it's just too easy to miss the symbolism. We think of "objective blood" rather than look for its meaning. When we read that Jesus came to give his life a ransom for many, we want to know to whom the ransom was paid, how the transaction was accomplished, and what the currency was! Instead, "it cost God a lot!"

As to the problem of "splitting the Trinity" I would see this as far more than a "straw man." While we may make much of Jesus' pleading, we need to remember John 16:26...

Jonathan

So Jonathan...you disagree with EGW. Is that fair to say?
That's ok but it is always interesting that one can disagree with everything but the IJ with immunity in SDA officialdom it seems. That does anger me.

And...this is in regards to the most important issue of all...how we are reckoned to be right with God. In this case, I feel she got it correct with scriptural support in the quotes I posted to you.

I feel you should work on expressing the proper way that sacrifices in the OT were pleasing and commanded by God...they were not to be ignored at that time.

You might add Jn.16:27 to vs.26 to see why "He loves you."

Regards,

pat

Pat wrote:
"Why did we need to be reconciled? Were we not children of wrath?Eph.2:3

What happens when one refuses Christ according to Jn.3:36..."God's wrath remains on him."

What is God's wrath becomes the question. Is it God punishing the innocent as in the starving child or the child raped and murdered by a corrupt person. Or is the wrath of God that God allows there to be natural consequences to man's actions and the chance actions of the natural world where fire, plague and pestilence reek havoc. The consequence for sin was put forth in the Eden story, the symbol of the tree of knowledge of good and evil when one chooses evil the result will be death. Evil choices lead away from God and God is the source of life. So we are all subject to that kind of wrath and except if one accepts the gift of God then they remain under that condition.

Any other view such as saying God's wrath is that He must punish sinners by killing them means that we are not being saved from our broken condition but we are being saved from the tyranny of God. The problem then is not sin but God's attitude toward the sinner. We are not being saved as in salved (the root of salvation), healed, we are saved from the vindictive God's cruelty because He condemns everyone. With the only way out being that He condemns everyone artificially in some type of transaction where people killed Christ yet it was actually an act of God. All this drawn from assuming the quotation of Psalm 22 is not really a reference to a Psalm which of course was not numbered then, a Psalm of tragedy into triumph but was actually God separated from God.

What all this does is very clearly show a distortion of God which I often illustrate by this quotation:

"In many of the popular sermons and hymns of the last two centuries Christ is set forth as mediator between an angry God and the condemned sinner, pleading with God for mercy, at the same time receiving the divine wrath into his own bosom and thus averting from the sinner the consequences of his sin." (The New Schaff-Herzog Religious Encyclopedia, vol. 7 page 270)

For more see:
http://newprotestants.com/Subatone.htm

Pat wrote:

"So Jonathan...you disagree with EGW. Is that fair to say?"

About as helpful as:

"So Pat...you disagree with Scripture. Is that fair to say?"

And I'm sorry for your anger.

Jonathan

Cliff,

If you happen to look in, I appreciate this weeks lesson by Roy Adams and your part that I just looked at.

I feel that "propitiation" rather than "just expiation" could have been dealt with better as does Leon Morris vs. Dodd but overall I appreciate it.

Perhaps the EGW quote on Propitiation would have been good on Friday's page.The Son of God endured the wrath of God against sin. All the accumulated sin of the world was laid upon the Sin-bearer, the One who was innocent, the One who alone could be the propitiation for sin, because he himself was obedient. {ST, December 9, 1897 par. 6}

Jonathan,

That's ok just following Eph.4:25,26. "To speak truth...be angry but sin not."

Regards,

pat

Elaine,
Thanks for responding to my post, but I must not have made myself clear enough. Yes, the blood is an ancient metaphor used more than 2000 years ago. It had meaning at the time, especially for the Jews; but we read the same scriptures and I would have thought my comment you quoted would not be taken literally, especially by you. We need to see the blood in the sense that most of us can't operate merely on the basis of concepts and need concrete ceremony to punctuate our milestones - weddings, funerals, graduations etc. We could just make our vows, our goodbyes and our celebrations
mentally but we seem to need ceremony and something concrete to handle, to exchange, to engrave in stone in order to deal with life events. On that basis, we need to see concrete evidence that our sins have been dealt with.

How would a guilt ridden person find peace except to see graphically the payment for that offense being dealt with. Some of us are capable of living mentally, making our peace in the quiet of our solitudes but the average person needs the graphics.

Hi!
I can forgive someone who has wronged me without requiring that somebody be tortued and killed. Can't God do as much?
Dave

Dave,

Perhaps you are more righteous than God?

"The LORD watches over all who love him,
but all the wicked he will destroy."

Ps.145:20

Yes, I do understand the symbolic meaning of "blood" but it is used and sung so often that there are those who DO take it literally and need the death of Jesus to assure them.

Like Dave, if I truly forgive someone I have no need for them to pay penance. That is taken literally by the Roman Catholic church where penance is doled out to demonstrate a sinner's true forgiveness. Why, if it a necessity as claimed by the Protestant church, that there is not a penance required? Did Jesus "pay" a penance? We speak so glibly but have much difficulty actually giving specific examples of how that should work. When we can begin to avoid the cliches and think of how the salvation jargon sounds to the totally unintiated, we may be able to illustrate better.

Harold said,
"First of all, the belief in the Jesus' resurrection is the SOLE historical reason for the Christian faith. If the disciples had not believed that God had resurrected Jesus, he would just have been another failed wanna-be Messiah, and the disciples would have backed the wrong horse."

If the price of salvation for us was Christs death on the cross then the "bill" was paid when he died. Had he not been resurected the penalty for our sins would still have been paid.

The perspective that the disciples might THINK they had backed the wrong horse is plausable but has nothing to do with if the price had actually been paid.

Aage said,
" I can't imagine Jesus instituting a religious ceremony focusing on the drinking of blood (symbolic or not)--something that would have been truely repugnant to any Jew, and the Jesus we see in the Synoptics is overwhelmingly Jewish in his outlook."

Where do you get this "drinking of blood" idea?

Elaine said to JB,
"The substitutionary death concept goes all the way back to Adam and Eve and the sacrificial lamb. The story of Cain and Abel is in the Bible because Cain was the first human to reject the substitutionary death of the Savior."

That is how many readers interpret it today but no one until after Jesus' death had even thought of such a symbolic meaning. What one "sees" retrospectively, in any given event, depends solely on his method of interpreting. That is not a conclusion ever given from Scripture. If so, where is Cain's offering explained in such a manner?"

Your assumptions are incorrect.
There are many examples but I will give you one. "Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!" This was John the Baptist's declaration in John 1:29
It encompasses the salient points of salvation all of which were known and covered before Jesus death. The LAMB of God. Well known phrase at the time aknowledging the linkage between the sacrifice of lambs they had been making substituionally for generations and their expectation of a comming messiah. Also it confirms the method of salvation when he says, "...who takes away the sin of the world."

As to the rest of your posts, what can one say except, "Earth to Elaine, Hello?"

"Isn't it wonderful that no matter what analogy we use about Christ's death or God, that we can be saved without believing any or all of it?"

Elaine,

Why is it called justification by faith?? Why would Paul speak of the gospel being revealed to faith and nothing but faith (faith to faith) if faith is not necessary. Or, maybe in the system you've constructed the gospel isn't the good news of salvation, it's just good advice... or maybe just a good ancient myth with which us religious types are simply deluding ourselves.

Elaine, I read post after post in which you deride the foolishness of the biblical story/gospel. Maybe that's why Paul called it the "foolishness of the message."

You know something? I personally know what the foolishness of the gospel has done for me in my own life, and the pit from which Jesus saved me. And no...it was not some kind of psychological epiphany, it was the power of Christ working in my life as I called upon him in desperation...desperate faith. And, as I found him personally, the Bible became an entirly different book to me. The gospel was no longer some ancient Near-Eastern myth as it once was to me, it became living good news.

I respect the intellectual rigor that is brought to bear on biblical issues, and our interpretive ideas on this site. It is necessary. But, unless one feels their need, the gospel will be nothing more than a myth or fairy tale, or a nice intellectual, parlor debate and nothing more.

Thanks...

Frank

Michael said:

"There are many examples but I will give you one. "Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!" This was John the Baptist's declaration in John 1:29.

And there was a tape recorder in John the Baptist garment when he recorded this?

We do not have definitive knowledge of who wrote the Gospel of John. Suffice to say that it was not written until at least two generations later and for a particular audience and with a specific agenda. John's Gospel is not purported to be history, but a theological interpretation of Jesus.

Elaine,
Tell me what your paternal and maternal grandfathers 16 generations ago did for a living when they were between 20 and 40 years old.

Then I'll believe you really exist.

Frank,
But, unless one feels their need, the gospel will be nothing more than a myth or fairy tale, or a nice intellectual, parlor debate and nothing more.

Amen Frank, my "past" life has been such that it is my only hope and my present life seems to see my need more and more as I mature because I see through the Spirit my true self better.
pat

Michael, I appreciate your thoughts but "perhaps" the only reason Christ would not be raised would be if He had sinned and then he would not have been raised for our justification. Then the resurrection would not be showing that the sacrifice was accepted and His perfect life imputed to us.Rom.4:25. But in those divine initiatives their is uncertainty.

Regards,

pat

Hyveth Williams needs to study New Covenant Theology to realize the Decalogue, including the Sabbath was fulfilled on the cross, but not leaving the New Covenant without standards:

http://cranfordville.com/NTViceLists.html
http://cranfordville.com/NTVirtureLists.html

The Sabbath was fulfilled on the cross, making Christ our True Rest, that can be experienced, any day of the week. Can we still worship on the "shadow" day, sure, we are not to judge one Christian against another on this matter Col 2:16, 17 declares.

The Old Covenant was declared "obsolete" by the making of the New Covenant, Heb 8:13.

Have we made the Sabbath a "god", to the extent one can not see the "Gospel"?

Pat,
Good thoughts.

I cant say why Christ wouldnt have been raised, but to US, it would have had the same net effect to if he had simply gone directly to heaven after his awakening. No angel to say, why are you crying, no appearance to the disciples later ect.

If a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it, does it still make a noise?
Jesus pays the price on the cross and IF no one saw him after the Resurrection before he went to heaven, was the debt still paid?

The resurrection showed US that the sacrifice was accepted and His perfect life was imputed to us. Rom.4:25.
Agreed whole heartedly. But our confidence or assurance is not what secures our salvation, is it?

Aage/Elaine,

The first premise that stands at the fountainhead of my theology is that there is a living God today. Second is that He chose certain men to convey information in the Bible that He provided to them. Third the Bible is therefore a unified whole, both Old and New Testament operating to explain each other.

I am well aware that Jews do not accept the sacrifices of the Old Testament as having any future meaning nor do they teach the need for a Savior. This is a dispute that runs at least back to the days of Jesus, separated Jews and Christians, and caused persecution. The scope of my presentation of Cain and Abel is from the position of the unity of the Bible.

Cain was not a Jew. The offering of a lamb preceded the Jews by at least 2000 years. Mankind is the same the world over and from generation to generation, therefore we all stand in the same need of a Savior. By rejecting God’s chosen method of sacrifice Cain was rejecting the need for a Savior. He was the first human being to do so, he therefore heads the list those who reject salvation. Abel died believing in the need for a Savior, therefore he stands at the head to the list of those who do accept salvation. There is no third way.

Hi Again!

It appears to me that some of our comments so far presuppose that the PRIMARY issue is whether we get to live forever and how what happened at the cross can guarnatee us that.

But are we absolutely certain that this is the most important consideration? Haven't Christians over the centuries explored other options as well?

Haven't at least some of them PRIMARILY seen in the cross a clue as to how we should live here and now?

"Must Jesus bear the cross alone,
and all the world go free?
No, there's a cross for everyone
and there's a cross for me."

Thanks!

Dave

1. The Biblical texts on blood, lamb, sacrifice, high priest are all true.

And it seems that most of us believe that the blood shed on the cross has a symbolic meaning (though actual blood was shed)in terms of salvation (namely life/death)- we believe that red and white cells, platelets and serum do not add anything to God or "satisfy" Him in any way. And Jesus as the Lamb of God connects Him with the lamb's role in the sacrificial system- not necessarily meaning that Jesus was a four legged creature. So, there is no further need to waste time poking fun at literalistic meanings of the above terms to make a point.

But could it be that our minds are now trapped in literalistic interpretations of the next level of Biblical concepts regarding salvation?

Are "merits imputed or imparted" (EGW words)- are merits a physical tangible asset that can be transferred in the universe- is that God's ultimate reality or a metaphor? Is a perfect human being's death/ or the death of the progenitor of the human race a true physical substitute for anyone else's capital punishment? Is the fact that Jesus willingly fulfills His own law system (propitiation)make that system (or that system as we understand it)now righteous, even though it is proportionally irrational (capital punishment for every infraction)?

I fear that in line with Luther who won the debate over the transubstantiation of the eucharist by quoting Jesus' own words, "This IS my body"- we can be right in affirming the words but trapped in the same trap of literalism that the Jews fell into with the sacrificial system. (He won that debate, he quoted the Bible accurately, but he was wrong in ascertaining the meaning.)

Jesus's blood--death---It does solve the Sin problem. How does it do that? (no shirking -unlike the "Trinity" and "Incarnation", this is a question that cannot be left nebulous because it is the crux of christianity)

Hi Dave,

"Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. 2 By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.
3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve."

1 Cor.15:1-4.

For me, With our gaze on Christ who loved us and gave himself for us on the cross this enables us to walk with full assurance of our salvation in Him..."our worse cross" becomes bearable with the eager expectations of the promises we have in Him. This makes "proper service" possible.

When we focus on "our cross" we lose our way by perhaps having the tendency to look inward and thus become our own savior by "our cross."

I suggest that perhaps Mother Theresa's expressed lack of Joy (barring a true mental illness) was because she could never really accept basking in the gift without "her own sufferings."

my thought,

pat

Hi Arlyn,

You ask, "Jesus's blood--death---It does solve the Sin problem. How does it do that?"

Simply "because God says so" and I accept that by "faith alone."

"But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, 22 even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction; 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; 25 whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; 26 for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus." Rom.3:21-26.

pat

PS. Luther did not win the debate with Calvinist on transubstantiation who asks Luther how can He be in heaven at the right hand of God and in the bread at the same time...obvious symbolism.

Pat,

I, too believe with all my heart.

The question was not- do we believe it does, though, it is HOW do we believe it solves the great controversy and sin?

ps. I was referring to the Marburg Colloquy Oct 2,1529 between Luther and Oecolampadius vs Zwingli and Melanchthon. Luther's use of the scripture was one of three possible interpretations- This is my Body- a. transubstantiation-where material bread became divine flesh b. (Luther) literally Christ's body were present in the sacrament "in, with and under" the elements of bread and wine c. (Zwingli) symbolic-Christ is present but not tied to the elements.
Did you have another event in mind- Calvin?

typo: Luther vs Oecelampadius as a debate pair. Melanchthon vs Zwingli as a debating pair.

Arlyn,

I was loosely referring to "Calvinism and the Reformed tradition."

The issue is... where is there obvious symbolism rather than proceeding from the idea that everything being symbolism or a metaphor.

PS. "The How" is for God who says He is just and "the means" of receiving the blessing by faith alone is for us.

pat

Dear Pat,

Perhaps we waste time stating our points too strongly. I never mean to imply that "everything" is symbolism or a metaphor as a starting point. And I think I know you from your writings that you are not a die-hard literalist that waits for obvious symbolism before you are willing to look for layers of meaning.

What I am suggesting is that substitutionary death, propitiation and merit transfer,to name just three sound biblically-based concepts of salvation stemming from the meaning of the cross- may have multiple meanings or be pointing to a deeper reality. And so more unpacking needs to be done. That's the question of "How?" with all it's implications on the picture of God. HOW God solves Sin says much about Him. (THAT He does, is certain.)

You seem to agree with Calvinists when, for instance, they use reason to point out that Jesus cannot be in two places at one time- to Lutherans. So, that's one tool to also be applied to the three concepts above too.
Transfer of guilt as literal blood in the sanctuary program was symbolic. Could transfer of merits also be? Could Jesus' blood/payment also be? What are they pointing at, then?

Hi,

Just a couple of points.

1. Jesus death was not substitutionary. The Bible very clearly states this fact. It is the principle of the Second Adam.

Romans 5:18, 19 - Therefore, as through one man’s offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man’s righteous act the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life. 19 For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous.

Just as we were all in Adam, all of humanity, just so, all of humanity was in Christ on the cross. That is not substitution.

The other aspect of this thought is also the fact that since Jesus lived the perfect life, the born-again Christian, by faith, (using the same principle explained above) also has access to that perfect life. God the Father, at judgement, does not see my deeds but the deeds of Jesus, perfect! More info at Pr. Sequeira's site http://www.jacksequeira.org

2. The fact that sin brought about death, it was through conquering death is there victory over sin. Therefore, "blood" would be required.

Arlyn,

The "transfer of merits" is not "making righteous by Christ or the OT ritual." It is "rekoning righteous."

Jesus was righteous and fulfilled all righteousness. The Bible says we are "reckoned", (logizomai)considered righteous by faith in Christ. "They point" to God's righteous way to provide salvation for sinners...The "how" and "the means" of receiving.

Your question seems to be implying "how do I prove" that the "how" is valid and not mere symbolism?

pat

Sona,

We were all in Adam- I could see that in a physical sense since our whole gene pool as from him.

But we were all in Christ at the cross. How?

I agree that the Bible says through one Man's righteous act/obedience the free gift came to all/many were made righteous. But does that mean we were all in Christ at the cross physically? Could you use biology to prove that if you think so? Does it mean we were all spiritually in Christ at the cross? How would that be- including the unborn who have not sinned yet?

Is this second part not a symbol or metaphor? (But truth, nonetheless.)

Pat,

So, merits can be transferred? Can they be transferred in part or only as a whole package? Can they be used over and over- since Jesus' merits can be applied to more than one person? What is different about His merits vs the good merits of other humans (if they are capable of being applied in parts?)?

If it is reckoning only and not reality, is salvation then based on bookeeping of merits? Is salvation reality based, or legal formality? Is this how God prefers to operate- to balance His books on merits? Is this why Jesus had to be perfect? Would the cross mean nothing if He sinned just once- does that automatically negate all the good merits He accumulated?

Or could this also be a true metaphor (that corresponds with our reality and His) that helps us who are exacting in our definitions of justice, legalistic? Justice is to us- a tangible transfer of made up punishments and rewards. A criminal gets so many years in jail, lessened for good behaviork, mitigated for attenuating circumstances etc.

Agreed that we are reckoned righteous by faith in Christ. That is true.

Do we know what that means?
Or how that works?
Does the Bible explain further than that?

Arlyn,

Did Christ really come in the flesh and die? Is that symbolism or metaphor? Perhaps rather a gnostic or docetic Christ?

What it means?
I am "considered" righteous/just by God through faith in Jesus substitutionary death.

How it works?
By the believer accepting by faith what God declares to be His just way of forgiving sinners.

Does the Bible further explain it?
nope.."It is finished."

pat

Pat,

You sound like "The Bible says it, I believe it, and that settles it."? Who cares how God looks through our self-contradictory, irrational, legalistic, exacting version of how the death of Christ satisfied God? God says it's just. He says He considers me righteous, that's just by definition. Reality is an inconvenience."

I'm not trying to change the Bible, I don't deny the necessary flesh and blood death of Christ. And I believe God is just in his salvation plan. But since the most common "classic" atonement theory is NOT- I am willing to change my understanding of how salvation works.

There will be more atonement theories in the future- because our understandings grow. No theory will ever be the last. Because no theory is perfect in encapsulating reality. And the best way to grow is to ask why and how to our present paradigm and watch the cliche's fall off.

Arlyn said
"You sound like "The Bible says it, I believe it, and that settles it."? Who cares how God looks through our self-contradictory, irrational, legalistic, exacting version of how the death of Christ satisfied God? God says it's just. He says He considers me righteous, that's just by definition. Reality is an inconvenience."

Actually THAT IS reality.

Hi Sona,

A few questions on your statement that "'blood' would be required." By whom? God? Justice? The Devil? The onlooking universe?

Or does it simply mean that there is an intrinsic consequence to sin--that you die? In terms of the meaning of Jesus' death, that's one of the most important answers Jesus gives at the cross--sin really does kill. And kill completely and eternally. That's why restoration of the relationship with the living God, and accepting the healing only he can give is so vital--far more important than some judicial status.

Jonathan

I remember asking a SS teacher when I was about ten, "Why did Satan kill Jesus if he knew that meant his doom? Why didn't he do everything to keep him alive so the plan of salvation would be wrecked?" I remember my teacher giving me a very strange look and saying something about getting back to me.

To her everlasting credit she did the next week and she gave a pretty good answer I thought. It must have been because I remember it to this day. She said something along the lines that Satan is evil and evil cannot help but destroy. I can't say as I see the entire narrative in the same way now but her answer made a big impression on me regarding the nature of evil.

Michael and Arlyn,

For me "as a Christian" the Bible is as you say it Michael(thanks), My REVEALED REALITY of what God is like.

I start from that premise that it is the authoritive will of God. If you want to show me a better exegesis of texts than the "substitutionary atonement" ones Arlyn then I'll take a look.

If you simply want to create "a new idea/ new considerations /new theories/ new dialogue etc." without sound scriptural support as regards atonement that is unacceptable to me.

Bottom line--

In this way, God loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever trusting in Him may not perish but have life eternal.Jn.3:16 To the one rejecting the Son "the wrath of God remains on him." Jn.3:36.

That's my Faith and it's not about me it's about Him who died for me.I believe "unconverted" man wants to get away from the cross as quickly as possible with new theories for it is foolishness and a stumblingblock to him. "Humanity" will accept Christ as an example of compassion etc.... but as a atoning sacrifice...No.

Regards,

pat

Pat,

The penal substitutionary model of the atonement is a very dated and inadequate model for today's world. It has served the Christian church, both Protestant and Catholic for centuries, but it was not the atonement model of early Christians. it is a model that came into prominence during the middle ages.

You may not be aware but there are many other atonement models used in Scripture. The Great Controversy model that many Adventist prefer is just one such model even though many see it as reality in verity, just as those who see the substitutionary model of understanding Christ's death as reality and not a model.

The growth of understanding about God, his nature and character have led theologians across the religious spectrum to question the penal substitutionary model. In the past ten years even evangelical scholars have raised serious questions as to its validity and value.

In its defense, the substitutionary model is one that can be easily explained, wrapped up and tied neatly with the Old Testament sacrificial system forming a closed system of thought that is hard to break out of. In addition its content and wording has been woven into all our hymns, sermons, religious teachings and liturgies.

One need not reject the substitutionary model when one see its inadequacies, other models have their limitations as well. But as we are to walk in increasing light until the Day Star dawns, I would urge you, Pat, to be open to seeing the saving work of God in an even greater light than the substitutionary model provides.

Donna

Pat,

"I believe "unconverted" man wants to get away from the cross as quickly as possible with new theories for it is foolishness and a stumblingblock to him. "Humanity" will accept Christ as an example of compassion etc.... but as a atoning sacrifice...No."

Right on! This discussion feels a bit like Paul's Athens experience in Acts 18.

"(All the Athenians and foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)" Acts 18:21

But when Paul goes to the Aeropogus, and gets down to the brass tacks of Jesus, his resurrection, and the coming judgement, they sneer at him. It becomes an offense to their reasoning, wisdom, etc. It seems like the same type of offense is coming up here, albeit over some different, but related issues.

Why? Is it that the gospel is an offense to us as well? We can live with Jesus primarily as a moral example/moral influence, we can live with the idea of trying to do our best to follow his teachings, but the preaching of the cross really reveals that we are in a much bigger mess than we would like to admit. Without Christ, we are all judgement bound, whether we like it or not, whether we understand it or not, whether it offends us or not. Paul preaches this over and over in Acts and in his letters... it can't be gotten around. There is no difference, all are in the same predicament without Christ, Jew and Gentile. (Rom. 1:18-3:20)

But, what Christ has accomplished through his death for us, and all that follows (resurrection, etc.) is truly sufficient, and is the only way to change our appointment from judgement to salvation.

"For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath, but to recieve salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. He died for us (substitution?) so that whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him." 1 Thess. 5: 9-10

God has us in his "eternal appointment book," because of nothing else but our clinging to Jesus as our Lord, and what Jesus did for us as our Savior! All other issues must follow in this train. To me, that's truly good news!

Thanks...

Frank

"Elaine,
Tell me what your paternal and maternal grandfathers 16 generations ago did for a living when they were between 20 and 40 years old."

Surprise! They were kings and queens in England and in Europe. I have been very fortunate in the ability to trace my ancestry (thanks to the world's largest genealogical library in Salt Lake City) in a direct line back through Charlemagne and down to the first century A.D. These records are faithful, as all the different nations kept very accurate records of births, marriages, and deaths for succession reasons. Because of the intermarriages to cement relations between the different nations, they are all in my direct ancestral line.

So, to answer you question, 16 generations ago my ancestors were in the royal line, living in castles and owning land that was farmed by the peasants. I have every name, DOB, DOD, and marriage date. Eleanor of Aquitane is a direct ancestor, and one of the few queens who was married to two kings and the mother of three; immortalized in Katherine Hepburns' "The Lion in Winter." Name a king or queen of any of the Western European countries: Spain, Portugal, France, the German districts, and I'm from that stock.

Maternal line is mostly French, going back only to the 14th century. Genealogy was a hobby several years ago and it's intriguing when you find information you never knew existed previously.

Any more questions?

Hi Pat Travis.

You make some interesting points. I have read your comments on many articles in the Spectrum blog, and even an article that you wrote for Ministry Magazine. I have noticed a consistent trend in your incessant use of "quotation marks" and I wanted to share some liberation theology with you:

You are "free" from having to do that. You no longer should feel as though you "need" to use quotation marks to make underhanded points. In fact, unless you are actually "quoting" someone, quotation marks may actually detract from the real points you are making.
Be free!

Cheers,

"Grammar Nerd"

For those who wish to substitute their logic and science for the substitutionary gift of Christ/God, what gall, and brazen daring. Can you save yourself? Since Adam it has been proven no.

So, eliminate the Bible and go to Darwin, salvation is not even a concept. Is it a selfish concept to want to live forever? Not when suggested as an option by God.

So, why should anyone listen to someone, new Atheist, that has no answer to the afterlife?

Grammar Nerd, you may not except this source but:

"Quotation marks are also used to indicate that the writer realizes that a word is not being used in its current commonly-accepted sense."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotation_mark#Signaling_unusual_usage

Frank:

Re: your scripture quote: "For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath, but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. He died for us (substitution?) so that whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him." 1 Thess. 5: 9-10

The word "for" used here is "huper" and would usually mean "to the benefit of" rather than "instead of." Only by imposing a previously determined theological view would substitution be seen in this verse, I think.

Best wishes,
Jonathan

RDS,

I might take exception to your use of the word except when what you seem to mean is accept. But then, I'm just a Grammar Nerd. You'll forgive me.

Yes, Jonathan...

But could one of the benefits be that he died in my place? I don't see the substitutionary model of salvation as an either/or proposition over and against other models. Jesus and salvation are huge enough to encompass many metaphors, and realities actually, at the same time. To me, both/and.

Thanks...

Frank

Frank,

Very well written! We truly are in a bigger mess than we realize.

Wow,

Went out for awhile and activity picked up!

Donna,
If you will give me text's of your view and exegete them, I will be glad to look at your view. If you start with the view that the scriptures themselves are in error and this is what we now reframe it to mean...I can't go there.
Frank's 9:04 comments seem very good for you to consider.(Thanks Frank)

Dear "Grammer Nerd,"
I am much more a mess than even you realize! Thanks for the thoughts but no promises on how I will try to bring attention to certain points.
Good grammar and communication skills most certainly are to be desired.
Not suggesting you are this way but it seems today that there are individuals that would accept a very articulate sermon or a wonderfully written piece as being terrific "EVEN" (so sorry)if it had absolutely no content! But true, the best goal to shoot at is terrific communication skills WITH content. I am "challenged" on both fronts.

I tell my wife that if we understand what each of us means (not hears) that is often good enough. With a look, she can sometimes do that without speaking or writing a word!:~) Believe me, that Filipino blood can get your attention real quick! I hope she doesn't tell my secrets.

Jonathan,
Would you say that Rom.3:26 is about substitution?

By the way, I got the "look" from my wife last night and scurried away from the computer. My point was...do you believe the specific quotes offered by me of EGW are accurate as regards propitiation, substitution, and common agreed purpose of the trinity in atonement?

RC got my point and said she was a product of her times. How say you?

I think that is everyone.

pat

Pat

Where in God's name did you ever get the idea that I was even suggesting that the various atonement models are not biblical. Your response to me indicated that I did not get my point across. I do not share to convince you or to convert you but to make you aware that other atonement models exist and are valid and are biblically based. That these models exist is not my personal opinion, belief or viewpoint. They are recognized in most theological texts books. There are real problems with limiting one's view to just one model.

Most folks mix and match the models - even St. Paul was known to use two or three different models in the same sentence! His goal was security of salvation. His exegetical methods have cause grief to systematic theologians for centuries. Our own church has infused the Great Controversy model with much of the substitutionary model's wording.

But limiting one's theology to a particular atonement model limits God's gracious acts in history and his continued revelation for our current time. The penal substitutionary model can be a horrible model when it comes to revealing God's character, nature and his salvific purposes, however satisfactory you have found it to be personally.

Donna,

I was blessed to take a class on "The Atonement" from Dr.Roger Nicole at RTS while in seminary. Dr. Nicole was one of the original founders of the ETS.

I am aware of the various theories of atonement.

1.The ransom-to satan theory by proponents such as Origen
2. The recapitulation theory by Irenaeus
3The satisfaction theory of Anselm (not the reformers view)as it is not based the necessity on the justice of God.
4.The moral influence theory by Abelard...much like Graham Maxwell's view though not identical Maxwell asserted.
5.The example theory by the Socinians
6.The governmental theory by Grotius
7.The mystical theory was proposed by Schleirmacher.
8.The theory of vicarious repentance by Cambell
9.The penal substitution theory which is the Reformed tradition and I suggest the one most closely aligned to EGW and the GC Theme.

As you might guess, I feel #9 most clearly represents the Biblical position and I suggest the one most like the one put forward by EGW (which doesn't mean it is correct)

regards and blessings with your Chemo.

pat

PS. Please excuse my lack of Caps grammer nerd in proper names in 1-9.

Whatever view of the atonement we hold, it should harmonize with the words that Jesus Himself used to define his mission in coming:

"This is eternal life, to know you, the only true God, and to know Jesus Christ, whom you sent. I have shown your glory on earth; I have finished the work (the mission - singular) that you gave me to do...I have made your name (character) known to those you gave me..." (John 17:3-6)

And, one of my favorite verses on this subject:

"We know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding [without reading on how would you finish this verse? Why did the Son come and what understanding did He come to give us?], SO THAT WE KNOW THE TRUE GOD. We live in union with the true God -- in union with his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and this is eternal life." (1 John 5:20)

Brad

Grammar Nerd believes in grace (which is the subject of this column, isn't it?). Therefore, all of your grammatical errors will henceforth be forgotten. I absolve you.

Grammar Nerd,

Shalom...I will try to do better as it is the ideal but I am "challenged."

Thanks for the fun and grace!

pat

Is God "Love" or "Only Love". The list of "various theories of atonement" can be attractive to those that do not believe God has various traits to his personality beside "Love", like justice, wrath .....

There is a fad, IMO, in some forums to forget this. They wish to talk of "natural consequences" that gets God "off the hook" for his justice which involves punishment and death. Why is that? Modern day progressive thought I would suggest, or left wing Theology. How could we worship a God that gets angry?

RDS,

The Bible succinctly puts it this way: "God is love"

There is no verse in the Bible that says "God is justice" (although God is just). There is no verse in the Bible that says "God is wrath" (although there is such a thing as God's wrath described in the Bible).

The all encompasing description of God's character is love. Period. So, we need to be able to describe the subjects of God's wrath and justice in such a way that they are seen as a dimension His love. These qualities are not separate and distinct from His love in any way.

Brad

Brad, I recognize your name as the leader of the forum www.heavenlysanctuary.com . Do you not teach that natural consequences rather than God proactively punishing or showing his wrath is the way the sinner will "get what's coming to him". When God exercises His justice or wrath in the Bible to protect those He loves, and those who love Him, isn't that a loving act???

Since systematic theology is by nature the product of one's understanding of the world making sense of what the Biblical words mean, and the Biblical words correcting one's understanding of experience, all theological theories are a product of their times interacting with scripture. The biggest mistake is to think a certain atonement theory is scripture. It isn't, it is an understanding of scripture.

The penal substitution theory is based on that century's understandings of law, on the right of rulers to impose arbitrary law and satisfy it by pure choice. That model of penance, imposed arbitrary punishment, transferable death decrees is not a paradigm that is respectable today or worthy of intelligent worship and does not address great controversy issues. It is focused on the narrow scope of earthly sinners only and God finding loopholes in His law in which to satisfy Himself with His own death/blood then transfers in two directions: of the death penalty from man to Him, and merits from Him to God. And then, the sinner with someone's else' record is considered perfect under law and is given eternal life because legal fiction has been transacted. What??? This is NOT the only way scripture can be interpreted, it is merely the most familiar way it has been interpreted to our generation.

Our understandings of law has moved on- it is no longer a sole right of rulers to create, it is more essentially an encapsulation of how things work- and how to make them work most effectively. So there are constant adjustments and amendments to approximate truth. There are now severe limitations on what can be substituted for crimes and capital punishment- and justice for a crime is not satisfied by a perfect relative offering themselves, or previously impeccable history. Transference of records is completely unethical and abhorrent in law. And any judge that accepts such slight of hand is corrupt or stupid.

To say that God does all these things- as the penal substitutionary theory proposes Him to do- and think that makes one want to be LIKE Him? or TRUST Him? Or respect Him as JUST? It takes a lot of brainwashing to swallow this without choking on the lack of ethics/fairness/logic/exemplary legal protocols.

Don't you see that it was fine with the believers at one time to accept the Ransom Theory of atonement- because that was how their society ran and it was considered just. By the time the next theory was needed and created- reality for the believers had changed and the cognitive dissonance forced them to go back to the SAME Bible and plumb it for another paradigm. The TEXTs are eternal, the theories are man's.

It is wrong to accuse those who see this cognitive dissonance and retreating relevance of the present penal substitutionary atonement theory-of trying to diminish the cross and death of Christ when they do love and treasure the Biblical texts, and take them seriously. (BTW, this atonement theory is over 500yrs old, our ideas of law, justice, systems, truth, perception, capital punishment have changed.) Nay, it is the love of the cross that forces us to strain to see it anew because we care to grow spiritually and retain intellectual integrity at the same time. We want to love Him with all your heart, soul, body and mind.

Do I have the next answer? no, not yet. But am eagerly learning and trying to see what is biblical yet meaningful for this generation in regards to the cross.

Arlyn, you speak of relativism. A story, my wife and I were waiting in an office for an appointment when in walks a mother and two children, one a toddler the other maybe 8 or 10 years of age. The mother's first words to older were, "Don't tell your younger sister NO." I have seen discipline given out like this over the last two generations only to see more and more parents say to school administrators and authorities, "Not my Johnnie/Susie."

God can be just with a Flood. It can also be a loving act. It by the scope of it was not merely a natural act.

Arlyn,

It is fine for you to refuse Christ's substitionary atonement and reckoned righteousness by faith if you choose. You can offer the Father your own Righteousness on the day of judgment.

regards,

pat

Brad:

Luke 11:42 "Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone."

Justice, what do you see needed to administer it?

Pat,
I realize that you cannot separate the theory from the texts. They are the same to you. That's okay, I couldn't read the Bible any other way either from the way I was originally taught until much later in life. I have no righteousness of my own, it is always Him and Him through and through. But I don't need legal fiction to feel safe in His presence. Keep the security blanket if you need it, the Bible did provide it, just as it provided the sanctuary service.

RDS,

Relativism is when there is no firm foundation- the Bible has always been my firm foundation for theology. So, that label is inaccurate, or haven't you been reading my posts fairly?

As for the parent story- I am with you. Actually, I freely use the word "no" effectively on my 6 kids. It is the first word they need to understand to stay alive. It comes from love.

All,
The Great Controversy Theory is the only viable Subjective (works on man, God doesn't need to be changed) theory of atonement that I know of besides the Moral Influence Theory. The rest are objective and emphasize that (God needed the cross to change Himself too).

But the greatest and most important difference between the two Subjective ones- (and there are many differences) is that

a. the Moral Influence Theory focuses only on the emotional drawing power of LOVE as demonstrated by the cross to restore/redeem Man into a proper relationship. It is weak on taking sin seriously.

b. the Great Controversy Theory actually focuses on the TRUTH as objective reality that needed the death of Christ to make it clear (thereby securing unfallen beings in their loyalty, and restoring our Trust in God) and the cross draws man internally by LOVE toward God who then starts healing the sin damage internally. Without such healing- sin will surely kill the sinner inherently like a poison or cancer. It takes sin MUCH MORE SERIOUSLY than all other theories of atonement. (Objective theories posit sin as an alternative that God hates, so God needs to do the killing, imposed penalty,-needing a divine executioner)

Arlyn and Jonathan,

Who is primarily resonsible for the Great controversy theme?

These are her quotes that I asked Jonathan to respond to. RC responded with an "honest" answer that reflected his views.

How do you and hopefully Jonathan respond?

The Son of God endured the wrath of God against sin. All the accumulated sin of the world was laid upon the Sin-bearer, the One who was innocent, the One who alone could be the propitiation for sin, because he himself was obedient. {ST, December 9, 1897 par. 6}

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. {DA 22.2}

Before the foundations of the earth were laid, the Father and the Son had united in a covenant to redeem man if he should be overcome by Satan. They had clasped Their hands in a solemn pledge that Christ should become the surety for the human race. This pledge Christ has fulfilled. When upon the cross He cried out, "It is finished," He addressed the Father. The compact had been fully carried out. Now He declares: Father, it is finished. I have done Thy will, O My God. I have completed the work of redemption. If Thy justice is satisfied, "I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am." John 19:30; 17:24. {DA 834.2}

Regards,

pat

I think the Great Controversy Story is clearly in the Bible starting with the first book written; the book of Job. EGW simply spells it out clearly because people don’t study their Bibles well enough and time is running out on what we must do. After all the Controversy is not over yet and we have a part to play. A team plays best if they understand their goal and understand their role.

The Introduction to the Great Controversy quoted below lays out succinctly what the last generation will be called on to deliver.
“It is not so much the object of this book to present new truths concerning the struggles of former times, as to bring out facts and principles which have a bearing on coming events. Yet viewed as a part of the controversy between the forces of light and darkness, all these records of the past are seen to have a new significance; and through them a light is cast upon the future, illumining the pathway of those who, like the reformers of past ages, will be called, even at the peril of all earthly good, to witness "for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ."
To unfold the scenes of the great controversy between truth and error; to reveal the wiles of Satan, and the means by which he may be successfully resisted; to present a satisfactory solution of the great problem of evil, shedding such a light upon the origin and the final disposition of sin as to make fully manifest the justice and benevolence of God in all His dealings with His creatures; and to show the holy, unchanging nature of His law, is the object of this book. That through its influence souls may be delivered from the power of darkness, and become "partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light," to the praise of Him who loved us, and gave Himself for us, is the earnest prayer of the writer.”

JB, My last post for the evening. What does this mean?

The cross of Christ will be the science and the song of the redeemed through all eternity. In Christ glorified they will behold Christ crucified. Never will it be forgotten that He whose power created and upheld the unnumbered worlds through the vast realms of space, the Beloved of God, the Majesty of heaven, He whom cherub and shining seraph delighted to adore--humbled Himself to uplift fallen man; that He bore the guilt and shame of sin, and the hiding of His Father's face, till the woes of a lost world broke His heart and crushed out His life on Calvary's cross. That the Maker of all worlds, the Arbiter of all destinies, should lay aside His glory and humiliate Himself from love to man will ever excite the wonder and adoration of the universe. As the nations of the saved look upon their Redeemer and behold the eternal glory of the Father shining in His countenance; as they behold His throne, which is from everlasting to everlasting, and know that His kingdom is to have no end, they break forth in rapturous song: "Worthy, worthy is the Lamb
652
that was slain, and hath redeemed us to God by His own most precious blood!" {GC 651.2}
The mystery of the cross explains all other mysteries. In the light that streams from Calvary the attributes of God which had filled us with fear and awe appear beautiful and attractive. Mercy, tenderness, and parental love are seen to blend with holiness, justice, and power. While we behold the majesty of His throne, high and lifted up, we see His character in its gracious manifestations, and comprehend, as never before, the significance of that endearing title, "Our Father." {GC 652.1}
It will be seen that He who is infinite in wisdom could devise no plan for our salvation except the sacrifice of His Son. The compensation for this sacrifice is the joy of peopling the earth with ransomed beings, holy, happy, and immortal. The result of the Saviour's conflict with the powers of darkness is joy to the redeemed, redounding to the glory of God throughout eternity. And such is the value of the soul that the Father is satisfied with the price paid; and Christ Himself, beholding the fruits of His great sacrifice, is satisfied. {GC 652.2}

As sinners we have an inflated opinion of ourselves in which we over value self and under value our brother. When it comes right down too our real value a human being has no intrinsic value. We are made out of the elements of the earth and our value is strictly dependent on how our Creator perceives us. God tells Jeremiah to look at two baskets of figs one is worth saving the other is rotten and worthless. In the book of Kings God says Israel followed worthless idols and became worthless.

It is a giant step in maturity when a person has a balanced view of his own worth and the equal worth of his brother: as Saul said to David, you considered my life precious in your sight. When God thinks we have become worthless he has no problem killing us. Many times in the Bible He says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, meaning, if your mind is so dense that you cannot appreciate His love you should at least fear His power, because He will kill you.

"I think the Great Controversy Story is clearly in the Bible starting with the first book written; the book of Job."

It's amazing the perceptive ability to see what one is looking for. Perhaps Job was familiar with the Great Controversy story, also?

FWIW: The Interpreter's Bible Commentary says:

"The Hebrew text of Job as it has come down to us is the most corrupt of all biblical documents....There is abundant evidence that the original has repeatedly been worked over and revised by a number of different editors...One of the most closely related to Job is a Sumeriam poem dating from soon after 2000 B.C."

"n terms of both literary form and content, therefore, his book was not produced "out of the blue" and should not be too narrowly judged as emanating from a purely Hebrew environment....The use of divine names are avoided: Yahweh, Elohim, and employs instead El, Eloah, and Shaddai. One feature of the prose prologue, the prominent part played by Satan, may be as late as the 6th or 5th century, a time when Persian influences were infiltrating Hebrew religious thinking."

Pat,

It means after creating us free from sin, after placing us in a beautiful home and a ecologically balanced environment, after we trashed it all, He deserving respect by right came to his earth and earned that respect the old fashion way. He now offers us a second chance, it’s a great deal, we ought to take it.

Aryln, in your post you allow the changes of society to change the atonement model you accept. That certainly is not turning to the Bible but society for your anchor or answer. That is dangerous.

Today the new-Atheists, and the Progressive Left Religionists are on the prowl. I strongly believe that these should not be our anchor, or who we turn to. Our direction should be anchored in the Bible not every wind that blows, even in different generations. There may be new rules from generation to generation but the principles won't change.

Hi RDS,

I think that we have greatly misunderstood the subject of "God's justice" as the Bible defines it. We read the word justice in the Bible and falsly associate it with today's criminal-legal system.

But in dozens of examples, the Old Testament concept of “justice” is manifested in positive acts of mercy and compassion to the mistreated and the outcasts of society who have been denied real justice. To “bring justice“ in the Old Testament does not mean to bring punishment, but to bring healing and reconciliation. Justice means to make things right by correcting injustice.

And guess what! The meaning of justice did not change when we move into the New Testament.

The verse that you quoted about Jesus fits right in with this definition. Jesus was saying to these self-righteous people: “You are dealing unjustly with others. Why don’t you practice mercy and compassion to those around you? That is what God is really after. God would much rather have you treat others with love than to spend so much time tithing your herbs and spices.”

God's justice is not to bring punishment but rather to bring loving restoration.

I can't make a full and complete case for this and with all the Biblical evidence in such short space, but there is an article entitled "God's Style of Justice" at this link:

http://www.godscharacter.com/staticpages/index.php/featured_articles

Take care,

Brad

Elaine,

I agree with you, “it's amazing the perceptive ability to see what one is looking for.” Take your marker and black out the section concerning Job in the Interpreter’s Bible Commentary. It is not telling the truth, other than the fact Job was not a Jew.

Brad, your reference was a little if not a lot self-serving since you authored it.

You have not answered the question I asked in the same post. Does www.heavenlysanctuary.com teach natural consequences for evil doer's punishment or proactive action on God's part as part of His justice?

God is multi-faceted, you paint Him as Monolithic. The Bible does not do that. Your piece does not follow the Bible's example of portraying God in His many facets. It sounds nice, but hell will not be spontaneous combustion, it will be ignited by the wrath of God on evildoers that have not heed His warnings.

Hi Arlyn,

You said to Pat concerning the Bible's forensic model, "Keep the security blanket if you need it, the Bible did provide it, just as it provided the sanctuary service."

I hear your sincere desire for greater light concerning God's character and how he relates to us in this entire procass of salvation. I also feel that Jesus and salvation are vast enough to encompass many metaphorical models, and actually realities, simultaneously. No single view can fully capture the entirety of who he is and what he has accomplished. Nor can any human language.

I do have difficulty, however, with equating the obsolesence of the sanctuary service with NT descriptions of Christ's finished work and its implications for us. The NT is clear that Christ put an end to the service and its necessity. It was a shadow that was passing away. But, it gives us no such green light to similarly do away with its own literary imagery concerning salvation. That would be our own doing...not God's. Quite a difference as to who is making the call.

And this is where I find a problem with your negative view of forensic justification. While this may be a theory that was developed in the middle ages, and elucidated by the reformers, the bottom line is as you stated, "the Bible did provide it." Why then, would a different view negate the validity of this one, if its roots indeed can be found in the Bible itself?

Yes, penal theory has vastly changed over the past 500 years, just as it had changed in the 1,500 years before that. Thus, should not a 2,000 year old middle-eastern context be where we turn to understand the courtroom imagery that the NT writers (especially Paul) use to convey truth concerning our salvation? The imagery is there. Words and concepts like judge, judgement, condemnation, righteousness/vindication, etc., are laced throughout the texts. To look to move beyond a middle age legal/individualistic lens is one thing, but to reject all forensic imagery as foreign to the biblical writers' intent would be another. Wouldn't a better solution be to examine the courtroom metaphors in light of their original legal contexts, and to draw our interpretive conclusions from that, rather than saying a "Great Controversy" model simply trumps all former views?

For me, there is still drawing power to the reality that one died in my place. And I find it in the NT text. As Paul said,

"...and the life I now live, I live by the faith(faithfulness) of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness comes by the law, then Christ died in vain."

Thanks...

Frank

Hi RDS,

I'm here as an individual interested in this conversation, not to promote myself or to derail the subject matter toward what another website believes.

But I would say "yes" I personally do believe in the view that is "hardest on sin" (my opinion) - that is, the view that sin is malignant, punishing, and that God does not need to heap on any additional punishment on top of the full effect that sin accomplishes just fine all on its own - - - separating the sinner from the God of love and healing.

The Cross says something not only about God, but about the nature of sin.

Brad

Brad,

I agree...the terms justice/righteousness and judgement have taken on a more Latin and modern western meanings to us, meanings that would be foreign to the biblical writers and audiences.

To do justly, or to judge rightly, certainly meant to champion the cause of the helpless and hopeless over against those who sought to take advantage of them and their condition. Something that Jesus has done and continues to do for us.

This has spurred some more thoughts. Funny how we've turned Daniel into a frightening book about God investigating our names, when instead, I see what you are saying about God's justice and judgement as its main message. God comes to the aid of his embattled people, rescues them from the oppressive powers that have held them captive, and destroys those powers so that they will never rise in threat again. He has done this not because of Israel's own worthiness, but because of his own righteousness/mercy. The righteousness to which Daniel himself appealed as he prayed.

This is why judgement was often viewed by the OT writers as good news...something foreign to our thinking. It's also in keeping with Daniel's name...God is my champion.

Thanks for your thoughts...and for getting me to think...

Frank

Brad, while I am certainly sympathetic to your portrayal of God's justice in the OT, I also think there is quite a bit in there that counters that view. In fact, I think the prevailing view of God is that God plays nice and looks out for you when you obey His laws but if you don't, He'll give you "justice" right between the teeth. I'm not arguing that it is an accurate picture of God or even the sole view of God, but I do think it is the overarching view.

I also think that the Israelite view of justice to others was different depending on whether you were one of them or not. Like all the other tribal nations of the time in that area. What is just is what benefits our tribe and if you don't like it, well poor you, you worship the wrong god who is clearly too weak to protect you.

To me, parts of the OT sound like those who think they are entitled to act poorly towards others because they are somehow special and then cry for justice when it comes around to bite them. Israelites could keep slaves but God forbid they should be slaves to someone else - they were God's special people. They could take other people's land and slaughter anyone who resisted but it is a huge tragedy and God must get involved when it gets done to them. Justice, when I am doing it to you, is different from when you are doing it to me.

Makes Jesus' clear instruction to love your neighbor an eye-opener. Especially when he made a point to describe the neighbor as someone outside the Jewish circle.

Brad, I too believe that sin ultimately results in separation from God. However, you have to throw out a lot of texts if you believe a sinner just dies and nothing more is involved in his/her judgement and punishment. To believe in natural consequences, how does that relate to the punishment of a person guilty of fraud, not cigarette smoking; or Sabbath breaking and not some other sin that will have natural physical consequences when violating natural laws that will result in actual physical harm.

The new worldview touted on www.heavenlysanctuary.com appears to be that one dies, no lake of fire, no second resurrection, no surge against the new Jerusalem with ultimate death after being resurrected to participate.

This is related to this thread, because more and more "kinder, gentler" Adventists are beginning to think, blood or death wasn't necessary for Christ to accomplish what was originally planned in heaven as an "escape hatch" for those that sin, inherited or otherwise. Share your thoughts with the group, would you?

1. The Sanctuary Model is not a model that is done away with, it was based on heavenly visions and reality. What form it exists in heaven is open to sanctified imagination- but that it does-as Hebrews asserts Christ is involved in it- is sure. When I call it a security blanket- I am referring to the tangible and mechanical way it dealt with guilt and sin- which became an idolized paradigm in Hebrew thought. Leviticus does assert that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin. Yet EGW points out that this truth was abused by the priests to economically disenfranchise the poor and enrich themselves through the temple shekel/temple condoned lambs as the "acceptable" blood. And their vulnerability to this abuse was because they believed that without the shedding of (condoned) blood there would be no forgiveness for sin.

So every truth, once formulated in mechanistic terms, becomes easily abused, can bring horrible implications of God, and needs to be accepted with an ear open to new Biblical light. Jesus never abolished the sanctuary system during his lifetime, but he made enough disruptions, even at his death so that one would be driven to the scripture to re-interpret what it all meant.

2. No, I don't believe that EGW totally supports one atonement theory, even the Great Controversy one. She holds all of them in various modes an in different degrees. Perhaps that is wise for every church teacher to do- as people need different aspects of the atonement theories to match their soul's needs. Hence, even I would not take away the penal substitution atonement theory from my mother- who, with her keen sense of sin and exacting judgment, needs such one-on-one correlative assurance. The Bible does support all the atonement theories in one place or another, but each does have their limitations and I was pointing out the ones most pertinent to the most recent. Personally, I suspect when we get to Heaven and announce to God that we sure are glad that Christ' perfect merits or blood covered up our records so we could get in, God will be too polite to say, "Whatever makes you feel safe and welcome in my presence." He'll probably say, "Good. I'm glad we are together too."

3. The End of Sin and Sinners. Death will happen. And God is involved in it. But He is not the source of that death. Fire is present along with agony "weeping and gnashing of teeth". That John saw fire streaming from God's throne is accurate. That John saw death in the midst of that fire is accurate. That this means God's fire is doing the killing- is what most seeing the same vision would conclude. Yet, the Bible all along identifies God with fire, and at the same time says He is not death, but the source of life. So this is a divine puzzle- and modern science does give us some hints about nuclear energy and the essential matter of all things which was not available to John. We can leave the texts exactly as they are- and should- and see if we can reconcile the Biblical concepts together in light of everything we know. It is our understanding that needs to grow, not the changing of the texts or cutting out of any of them.

too long, I'll stop rambling. Brad and others do a better job of explaining, I grope toward a better picture.

Here's how I understand death as a natural consequence of sin. Some sins aren't considered "fatal" in our world because our world actually functions in the "bubble" of God's lifegiving grace.

Sin=separation-from-God is inherently- instant and automatic death. He is the only source of Life in the Universe. Yet, because we are ignorant, God has chosen to keep the connection alive between us and Himself, thereby we are on imposed life support from a benevolent Creator who is giving us more time to learn and therefore make an informed choice. (I think Satan doesn't care to learn, but he is also on life-support at the present time else he would have disappeared immediately at the beginning of sin in heaven. That could have cause unknown fear since that kind of natural consequence had never been tested before.)

So, God is keeping sinners alive now.

When this earth's timeline is done, and Jesus comes to set things "right" or back into ultimate reality, He will "let go" of that connection for those who can't stand Him still, and they will be relinquished into the void with fire,anguish,torment,evil that naturally fills the void when life and goodness is withdrawn. Fire? A natural consequence either of fusion or fission when God as Sustainer doesn't use His power to keep the molecules in correct spatial relationship.

This is how I understand Jesus' harsh words to the people when they asked innocently if those killed by Pilate in the sacrifice massacre were deserving of death more than those living- and Jesus takes their paradigm of God killing the living to you all are doomed to death unless you repent (God is not the killer but lifegiver who can keep you alive, as He is doing now).

i should like that somebody answer me to whom has christ
paid the ransom ,i know jesus has paid the ransom for me,
but to whom?has jesus paid the ransom to one wrathful god?
whom has asked his death [jesus]to take off of eternal death?
i have read several commentarys about the meaning of his death
but nobody has spoken to whom he has paid.
by any chance it should be god who received the ransom?
by any chance was there not the evil would there be the ransom?because if jesus has paid the ransom somebody
demanded it.
somebody will be able to tell jesus has paid the ransom?
whom has asked his death[jesus]?
laercio
awating reply sooner possible
thank you

Dear brother Pat,

This question arises from your atonement paradigm, you answer it.

Laercio,

God is the one who demanded the ransom and God is the one who paid it to God. God the father and God the Son they are both God. They work together as a team along with the Holy Spirit.

dear brother in christ jb.
i do not understand how god has demanded the ramsom ,
beacuse i was sentenced to eternal death,but jesus has
took me off this eternal sentenced,and i was in this situation
beacause before somebody was not obedient to god.
adam was not obedient to god,so he had chosen one way
that would lead him to far away of god.
he delivered the key this world to demon so now,
the demon was delivered AND got to be owner this world.
if demon is owner this world beacause adam had given the
key which god had given to adam so satan robbery the
position of adam.
what would god do now? would god take the key of satan by the
violence?adam had been the one who gave the key to him [demon]
if the demon has robbery the adam's position and adam has
not been faithful to god soon adam would deserve to die.
whom should slay adam god or satan?
this world has become satan's kingdon since adam has delivered the key to him.satan had asked adm's life,but
god interfered betwem satan and the man and gave a warning to
satan;genesis 3;15;jesus would die the eternal death in
adam's place.so jesus has paid the ramsom taking me off
of satan's hands dying in the cross.i would like that
thinking about these thing that i have spoken.
think well before you reply me
okay
thank you
laercio

laercio,
you are unmistakably logical. Pat, JB, RDS- I hope your answer lives up to the challenge and does not need to hide behind the excuse about the "foolishness of God" to this coherent question.

If God sets up an illogical death trap, then satisfies it Himself, this is righteousness? Let's not make this atonement look like a form of spiritual mastur....

hello arlyn
what is righteousness to you?
you need to compare the god's character with satan's
character,god has not set up illogical death trap,
god has prepared the salvation thru his only become
son jesus our savior.
it is not righteous a man without any guilt to die
for the guilty.what jesus has made is becoming possible
the salvation to every one who's come untill him.
when christ has made this atonement,it was to display
to universe the true character of satan.
delivering every one of the satan's hands he jesus
displayed ,what kind of realm should be whether satan
goes on reining on this world.
satan has been thrown on the world and he satan is wrathful
against every one who has worshipped god.today i understand
god is holy ;rigtheous ,good, because he has died at the cross
to deliver myself or ourselves of the satan's hands;
think well
and be rigtheuos to with god.death does not come out of god.
god is life
laercio
tahnk you

Oh, how we need Satan! Can Christianity be explained unless there is a Devil? They are like Siamese twins in these sorts of explanations: one can't live without the other.
Where did Satan originate if not from heaven?

hi elaine
i undestand is difficult because since you were born
somebody taught you about god.
then whom has taugth you spoke about punishiment of god
and god stays wrathful against you because you have made mistakes.
we do not need satan,we need to understand about
cosmic war between satan and god,and this war starts into
my mind.then satan says god is not good because if god was
good there was not sufferings at the world.
sufferings are results of sin,jesus displayed as king
as shall be his kingdon whem he is come to take us out of this world.when christ was here everyone in the universe
could look at sufferings put on the people that lived in that
time.i should like elaine that you understand satan always
wanted to slay you and me and if jesus is not come to
delivering us this situation we would be deceased.
look where you want but you will not find in no one
place ,who god has asked adam's life.
god has said what would happen but god has not put nobody
to die.please my sister study and understand about god's love.
if was there not devil should there be death in this world?
thank you
laercio
blessings

hi elaine
i undestand is difficult because since you were born
somebody taught you about god.
then whom has taugth you spoke about punishiment of god
and god stays wrathful against you because you have made mistakes.
we do not need satan,we need to understand about
cosmic war between satan and god,and this war starts into
my mind.then satan says god is not good because if god was
good there was not sufferings at the world.
sufferings are results of sin,jesus displayed as king
as shall be his kingdon whem he is come to take us out of this world.when christ was here everyone in the universe
could look at sufferings put on the people that lived in that
time.i should like elaine that you understand satan always
wanted to slay you and me and if jesus is not come to
delivering us this situation we would be deceased.
look where you want but you will not find in no one
place ,who god has asked adam's life.
god has said what would happen but god has not put nobody
to die.please my sister study and understand about god's love.
if was there not devil should there be death in this world?
thank you
laercio
blessings

Laerico,

All I write about the Bible is contained between its pages, as I do not accept what others have said. Isn't that the best way?

Elaine,

Your references on other posts to Jahwist, Elhoist,etc. source theory is between the Bible's pages? Please! All you seem to believe is within its pages, is that the Bible is one big myth, that outlines one of many historical and cultural understandings of God...if he even exsists.

The bias you accuse others of displaying comes through just as loudly in your own posts!

Frank

Laercio,

Let me try to give an illustration of what I think you are saying.

I am walking down the street when some robbers jump out and capture me. They send a letter to my family saying, my family will never see me alive again if they do not pay one million dollars by Monday morning. You are saying the person demanding the ransom is a bad person. Therefore a person who demands a ransom cannot be God because God is a good person and good people never demand a ransom.

The real situation we find ourselves in this. God created us free moral agents. With this freedom comes a responsibility; you must pay for every choice you make. If the choice is good your payment is your life; you may continue to live. If you if make a bad choice; you must pay for it with your life, you must die. The way God created us there is no reason whatsoever for making a bad choice. God demands are just; you must pay for your bad choice with your life. The only way out is to find a payment for your life which in this case we call it a ransom. There are two meanings to the word ransom. In this case Jesus who is God makes the payment for you with his life and releases you from the condemnation of God’s law.

Therefore God is the one who demands the ransom and He is the one who pays for it.

Arlyn,

There is no illogical death trap. God meets every condition laid on Him. Since He is a creator He must meet three demands. First, His design of the human mind must be flawless. Second, His construction of us must be flawless. Third, His instructions to us must be flawless. He not only did this but went on to prove it. The failure is ours and therefore He rightfully demands our life. There is only one way out somebody must volunteer to give his life for our life. This is what we call the ransom or payment. God is the volunteer. God demands the payment and He makes it.

I agree with the following statement posted by Aage Rendalen on 04 June 2008 at 1:53:

"In the Synoptics, God is perfectly capable of forgiving sin without recourse to blood ... By arguing that God needs to see blood run--that of his own incarnated flesh--in order to forgive, turns forgiveness into a quid pro quo scheme."

I just checked my Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, which defines forgivenes as: "To grant relief from payment of a debt." Based on this definition, I conclude that If Jesus' death was a payment for my sins, then God cannot claim that my sins have been forgiven. If I have a traffic ticket, and a friend of mine makes the payment, would it make sense for the judge to say: "I forgive you for your speeding ticket?"

In the Bible, blood stands as a symbol of life, this is why we find the following statement in the New Testament: "We are saved by His life." A dead Saviour is no saviour. Only a living Saviour can save and forgive.

Demanding the death of the most innocent being in the universe does not solve the sin problem. A just God could not demand the death of the innocent. Substitutionary justice is morally acceptable in civil cases, but not in criminal ones. You do not restore the moral balance by punishing the innocent, you rather compound the injustice.

Nic, you have abandoned the truth, and substituted your own logic. The salvation plan for God's Son to die was there before our Earth. It may confound your logic, but it is what saves.

God is righteous, just not all the atonement theories make Him out to be. They proclaim He is, when He fulfills the original requirements, but the original requirements are arbitrary and illogical as they state it.

Let's take your explaination, JB:

"There is no illogical death trap. God meets every condition laid on Him. (every condition laid on Him by logic, I assume you mean?) Since He is a creator He must meet three demands. First, His design of the human mind must be flawless. Second, His construction of us must be flawless. Third, His instructions to us must be flawless. He not only did this but went on to prove it. The failure is ours (-is Adam and Eve's, and then through default to every single human hereafter who has no choice but to be born into sin and is doomed to die regardless of all of our choices, since now our minds and bodies and understanding of God is corrupted from birth- so all three requirements are void for us)and therefore He rightfully demands our(every one of us? When we had no choice about which planet we were born into? And all our righteousness is like filthy rags, and all our good deeds are inherently worthless in the sight of God?) life. There is only one way out somebody (no, just anybody cannot pay to God their life for ours, the penal substitutionary theory demands more than one life, it demands a perfect life, and so it excludes all the human race from that possibility because of the above, and angels could not pay it, and unfallen beings could not pay it even if they were perfect. Something more was needed- what?)must volunteer to give his life for our life. (And this is justice, that a just God demands an innocent death in place of a guilty death? How can this NOT make God seem petty and bloodthirsty?) This is what we call the ransom or payment. God is the volunteer. God demands the payment and He makes it. (So that absolves Him? I will use your analogy of Laercio's question- If a mobster kidnaps a person demands a ransom, then later has a change of heart and pays it himself to himself, that absolves him and he is a righteous person? No!Even if he were to commit suicide instead of killing his prisoner, he is not innocent. We were born without choice into this sinful world in a sinful state of being ourselves. Adam and Eve had a real chance. Not us.)

Again, do not mistake my comments as absolute. God IS righteous and rational and mysterious all together. The Biblical texts on atonement are all true. But it is fair game to attack any man-made paradigm of atonement for consistency, comprehensiveness, justice and relevance in order to evaluate it's approximation to absolute truth.

JB,

In order to make God look reasonable and fair and make our mortality our own fault, you underestimate the depravity that all mankind (after Adam and Eve) is born into. You underestimate the effects of sin. We will find it hard to be grateful that He "cleans the mud off of us" if He is the one that shoved us into the mud puddle and we had no option (to use an analogy).

The Great Controversy Theory does trump all the others in taking seriously the mortality of sin that is in us. It is fatal and inherent, not a punishment that can be transferred.

Hey all,

If you'll accept a late-comer to the already rich discussion, here are some thoughts.

A book that has helped/influenced my thinking on this topic is "The Cross of Christ" by John Stott. In it, he overviews the major theories of the atonement through history--ransom theory (Jesus death "buys" us back from Satan--Laerico, your position?), penal substitution (God satisfies his own sense of justice through Jesus' death), moral influence theory (Jesus' demonstration of love free us from our own selfish, sinful nature).

(I'm not sure if he cover's Aulen's 'Christus Victor' model, but mention it because I think it comes closest to 'the Great Controversy Model' Arlyn describes--Christ's death/resurrection demonstrates the power of love over that of sin and death.)

(Pat, I know that this is not as extensive as the numerous models you've already listed and repeats some of them.)

In my mind, it seems that all of these major models have some kind of Scriptural support. The problem seems to be positing one of the exclusively. Maybe the event of Jesus' death/resurrection does all off the above (and more!).

In other words, it's not an either/or but a both/and. =)

Another helpful explanation in Stott's book is on the different metaphors found in Paul's writings describing what happened at Christ's death--propitiation, reconciliation, redemption, justification.

According to Stott, these metaphors all try to express the same thing, but to different people.

-Propitiation is cultic language, i.e. "language of the temple."

-Reconciliation is familial or relational language.

-Redemption is the language of the marketplace, where slaves are bought and sold.

-Justification is legal/courtroom language.

All these metaphors try to explain something to different kinds of people, and none of them alone fully communicates what happened with Jesus' death (and resurrection).

Perhaps different theories of the atonement do the same thing?

Anyway, I found the book, and Stott's general points to be very helpful and thought I'd share them.

Here is another very interesting book on this subject: "Stricken By God?" Here is from the introduction:

"We considered him stricken by God. But...

Did God pour out his wrath on his own Son to satisfy his own need for justice? Or did God-in-Christ forgive the world even as it unleashed its wrath on him? Was Christ's sacrifice the ultimate fulfilment of God's demand for redemptive bloodshed? Or was the cross God's great "No" to that whole system? The church is asking these questions afresh. And from every stream of Christianity, answers are coming."

Nic,

Interesting comments. And also interesting that the reply is to "flame" you for "abandoning the truth," rather than offering any counter-arguments.

Any theory of the atonement (and note they are all theories!)must not only seek to explain the way in which we are at-oned (reconciled, brought back into harmony etc), but also must not violate the fundamental nature of the moral and ethical laws God set in place for the universe. The problem with too many models is they do just that, and so misrepresent God in the process. In fact, some are so "pagan" they are clearly have their origins in the accusations of Lucifer himself which are the reasons for the great controversy.

Much of the problem is understanding what went wrong in the first place--i.e. what sin is, and what the penalty is for sin. God did not say "the day you eat thereof I will execute you"--in other words, an extrinsic and applied penalty. He simply said "you'll die"--as an inevitable consequence of breaking the relationship of trust. As J B Phillips translates, "Sin pays a wage, the wage is death." It's not God paying the wage, or executing his Son to provide him with some substitute penalty that he himself imposed.

It's not hard to see why so many turn away from such a presupposed picture of God. Like the poet Lord Byron, who wrote, "The basis of your religion is injustice. The Son of God the pure, the immaculate, the innocent, is sacrificed for the guilty."

Abraham was so right when he argued "Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?" The whole of the great controversy is a demonstration of the rightness of God, so why would we want to believe in any concepts that put God in a wrong light?

Jonathan

Zane: Thanks for your comments. We are like blind men trying to describe what an elephant looks like. All the Atonement theories are helpful, but they are imperfect, and all of them can be supported by Scriptural texts and the writings of Ellen White. The moral influence explanation for Jesus' death, which many theologians reject, is supported by one of the clearest quotations from the writing of Mrs. White. It goes like this:

The plan of redemption is not a clever maneuver the Lord devised to balance the heavenly scales of justice. The cross is a window giving us a glimpse of the suffering God was subjected to since sin and rebellion raised their ugly head. If you want the actual quote, I can dig it out. Some years ago I wrote a monograph entitled: "Redemption in Spite of the Cross," and it is built around this concept taken from the pen of our inspired prophet.

Ellen White also has another statement asserting that God's original plan was for Israel to accept their Messiah, and for the nation of Israel to eventually grow and encompass the whole world. God did not plan nor require that we kill Jesus. We did this inspired by the Devil, who has been a murderer from the beginning. It is high time that we place the blame for Jesus' death on the shoulders of God's enemy instead of the Creator.

The substitutionary theory of Atonement trumps the notion of true forgiveness. How can God claim that our sin has been forgiven, if the penalty was fully paid by Jesus? If a friend of mine pays for my speeding ticket, it would make no sense for the judge to say: I do forgive you for your trespass.

Before his death, Jesus said to his disciples: Now you are clean. He did not say, once I am dead and have paid the price for sin, you will be clean. They were declared clean before his death! Before his death, he said to the paralitic: "Your sins are forgiven!" He did not say, your sins will be forgiven once I have been crucified.

There is a text in the Bible which tells us that we are saved by His life. The notion that God could not forgive sins unless God saw innocent blood flowing from his veins is an impefect way of describing the plan of salvation. God did not earn the right to forgive sins after the cross. He had this right all along. The "price" for forgiveness was the suffering imposed on God by sin and rebellion. Suffering is a natural result of rejected love. When a child rejects the love os his parent, suffering takes place and the parent earns the right to forgive.

The Bible tells us that "in all their aflictions, God was aflicted." By the time Jesus was born in Bethlehem, God has suffered more than enough as a result of sin and rebellion. He experiences the pain for the sins of all his children. Suffering, the natural result of sin and rebellion, was fully experienced ["paid"] before Jesus' birth. There was no need for Jesus to die, since God had suffered more than enough already.

God allowed for Jesus' death to take place that we might have a glimpse of God suffering since the inception of sin, but he did not require this. Satan did! God did not earn the right to forgive sins at the cross. Ellen White even says that when Lucifer sinned and asked for reinstatement, had he been willing to take a lower position in heaven, God would have forgiven him.

When Lucifer rebelled, God suffered as a result of his sin and rebellion, the natural result ["price"] for sin was already experienced ["paid"] by God's suffering, and God had the right to forgive his sin if he truly repented of his misbehavior.

Thanks, Jonathan! I saw your comments after posting mine. God bless!

Brad, there may be a "but" in the quote in the book "Striken By God" but there is none in the Bible.

You appear to be the one that can't believe the Bible portrayal and are looking extracanonical for a different answer. A "kinder/gentler" answer for the solution to sin, to answer the trait of justice that is there with the love in God's personality.

Acts 17: 30In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. 31For he has set a day when he will judge the world with JUSTICE by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead."

You're welcome, Nic. Also enjoyed your analysis. It might be good to get the EGW material out for those who would like to take a closer look.

Oh, and by the way, to everyone on this discussion--next quarter we get to do 3 months on the concept of the Atonement. So plenty of time for a "free, conversational study of the Scriptures"!

Jonathan

I used the following example yesterday as I led the discussion in SS class. This is taken from my long neglected book in progress posted at: http://newprotestants.com/npbook.html
I mention that because it goes on with some more reference quotes that are useful here.

"By way of introduction here is a small section of a story from a book by Tony Hillerman called Sacred Clowns. Since we are interested in the concepts contained in this story, a short excerpt from the story is all that we shall deal with here. Like the story in chapter 2 this is a work of fiction, but it provides an opportunity to look at concepts of Justice which are central to Gospel. As we join the story Navajo police officer Jim Chee is investigating a case of hit and run driving which ended in the death of a man. The drunk driver who had hit the man had recently been on a local radio station where he acknowledged his crime and explained how he would be making restitution by monthly monetary help to the family who lost their loved one. Knowing well that there was nothing else he could do to help the family of the man he had killed. Jim Chee’s companion for the day is his friend Janet who is a lawyer and also a Navajo. Jim asks her what he should do when he finds this individual;

“For convenience, let’s call our hit-and-run driver Gorman. Let’s say he’s a widower. Doesn’t drink much, usually. We’ll follow the script in the radio tape but give him more of a personality. He’s a hard worker. All the good things. Something comes along to be celebrated. His birthday, maybe. His friends take him out to a bar off the reservation. Driving home he hits this pedestrian. Like in the tape he hears something and backs up. But he’s drunk. He doesn’t see anybody. So he drives away. Now I’m a member of the Navajo Tribal Police, also deputized by a couple of the counties in Arizona and New Mexico, sworn to uphold the law. My boss wants me to catch this guy. So one day I catch him. What do I do?”…

… Janet replies, “You just think about why you have laws. Society puts a penalty on driving drunk because it kills people. It puts a penalty for leaving the scene of an injury accident for pretty much the same reason. So what you do is arrest this guy who broke those laws and present the evidence in court, and the court finds he was guilty. And then the judge weighs the circumstances. First offense, solid citizen, special circumstances. It seems unlikely that the crime will be repeated. And so forth. So the judge sentences him to maybe a year, maybe two years, and then probation for another eight years or so.” She studied him. “You agree?”

“That was phase one,” Chee said. “I’m going to make it harder for you now. We’ll give this guy some social value. Let’s say he is taking care of a disabled kid maybe a grandchild whose parents have dropped him on our Gorman while they do their thing. Maybe a broken family. Father took off, mother a drunk. You make your own plot. Now what do you do?”

“Come on, Jim,” she said. “Why not make him a biologist? He’s about to unlock the secret of the AIDS virus. But he can’t leave his laboratory even for one minute to be arrested or his test tubes will all dry up and his cultures will die. It doesn’t change the basic principle. Society passes laws to ensure justice. The guy broke the society’s laws. Justice is required.”

“Okay,” Chee said. “Now we get to the next phase. More complicated . we’ll say this bird is a Navajo and the guy he killed was a Navajo.”

“What’s the difference?” Janet asked. “He violated the laws of the Navajo Nation, too. If you have justice, it spells out the punishment in advance. It tells you if you do this harm to society, then society does this harm to you. We’ll lock you up, for example. Or fine you, the idea is prevention.”

“Right,” Chee said. “Now we enter phase two of this problem.”

“We just finished phase two.” Janet said, “but it’s better than talking about culture.”

“Okay, now for phase three” Chee said. “We’re dealing with justice. Just retribution. That’s a religious concept, really. We’ll say the tribal cop is sort of religious. He honors his people’s traditional ways. He has been taught another notion of justice. He was a big boy before he heard about ‘make the punishment fit the crime’ or ‘an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.’ Instead of that he was hearing of retribution in another way. If you damage somebody, you sit down with their family and figure out how much damage and make it good. That way you restore hozho. You’ve got harmony again between two families. Not too much difference from the standard American justice. But now it gets different. If sombody harms you out of meanness—say you get in a bar fight and he cuts you, or he keeps cutting your fences, or stealing your sheep—then he’s the one who’s out of hozho. You aren’t taught he should be punished. He should be cured. Gotten back in balance with what’s around him. Made beautiful again—“ He glanced at her. She was looking straight ahead. Apparently listening.

“Beautiful on the inside, of course. Back in harmony. So this hypothetical cop, that’s the way he’s been raised. Not to put any value on punishment, but to put a lot of value on curing. So now what are you going to do if you’re this cop?”

We now leave the story, if you want to know what happens in this little subplot you will have to read Tony Hillerman’s book. But the concept is set before us in the last two paragraphs above. Justice versus punishment. But we are not going to deal so much with our earthly legal systems; rather we need to look at how God deals with, us his rebellious children. So we will have to look more on the philosophical side of things to help us deal with the issue.

The idea that justice and harmony work together is nothing new, in fact Plato said much the same things. Plato felt that harmony is the basis of all justice. With justice, people will have other virtues as well. Incorporated into this harmony was the idea that for the person who commits an injustice it is better for them to be punished than to allow them to go unpunished since the punishment would help cure the problem which caused the injustice."

The danger of today's "seeker" is to place their logic and science in place of the Word of God. To go extracanonical to find a "nice clean" answer. No blood, no death. Unfortunately that is putting "us" in place of the Bible, and those neat little answers above God's. If you need extrcanonical, try this author:

Spurgeon wrote:

A Completed Sacrifice

And he shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt offering: and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him. (Leviticus 1:4)

If by that laying on of his hand the bullock became the offerer's sacrifice, how much more shall Jesus become ours by the laying on of the hand of faith?

My faith doth lay her hand On that dear head of Thine, While like a penitent I stand, And there confess my sin.

If a bullock could be accepted for him to make atonement for him, how much more shall the Lord Jesus be our full and all-sufficient propitiation? Some quarrel with the great truth of substitution; but as for us, it is our hope, our joy, our boast, our all. Jesus is accepted for us to make atonement for us, and we are "accepted in the Beloved." Let the reader take care at once to lay his hand on the Lord's completed sacrifice, that by accepting it he may obtain the benefit of it. If he has done so once, let him do it again. If he has never done so, let him put out his hand without a moment's delay. Jesus is yours now if you will have Him. Lean on Him -- lean hard on Him -- and He is yours beyond all question; you are reconciled to God, your sins are blotted out, and you are the Lord's.

http://sermonindex.net/modules/articles/index.php?view=article&aid=1172

The word capitalized JUSTICE in Acts 17:30 referenced above is the usual word "dikaiosune", or more simply, "rightness." Using the Latin-based word justice adds those more legal overtones which are not there in the original. God is quite simply going to use the standard of right to judge everyone in the world, and as has been noted before, he not only acquits those who do/are right, but vindicates them too, as part of his vindication of right in the great controversy.

Jonathan

Jonathan, any Latin interpretation for this text:

Ephesians 5:6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God's wrath comes on those who are disobedient.

I’m just a simple guy. I don’t read Hebrew or Latin. I prefer poetry to prose; allegory to history. Geometry was a fascinating study in logic. Can there be a geometry to the solution to the sin problem?

Here is one attempt.

1. God created Lucifer
2. Lucifer wanted to be God.
3. That required God to die, if Lucifer were to succeed.
4. By denying God, Lucifer lost his life line.
5. Lucifer declared that unfair.
6. Lucifer set out to prove his point
7. 1/3 of the heavenly host agreed with Lucifer.
8. Eventually, Adam and Eve fell into Lucifer’s trap.
9. The entire universe wondered.
10.Lucifer returned to heaven in Adam’s place.
11. God said, not so fast God proposed two tests Job and Jesus.
a. Job as an example of creature loyalty.\
b. Jesus an example of God’s character of peace and justice.
12. Rebellion has its price. God proposed to pay that price. Lucifer rejected the offer, Adam accepted.
13. Christ by His virgin birth, His Childhood, Baptism, Temptations, Ministry, The agony of the Garden, The Trial,
The crucifixion, The death, burial, Resurrection, and Ascension and enthronement gave not only the lie back into Lucifer’s face but confirmed the nature of God to the universe, man excepted.

14. We now live in the contested time seeing who will accept without reservation the finished work of Jesus Christ personally.

15. When each one of us can say Christ Died that I might live—we have entered into His Grace. Even so Come Lord Jesus.

Ergo—Christ died for me—Thanks be to God.

If there is a prize of eternal life and heaven at the end of our life here, consider this: there is not one fact or evidence that there is either a heaven or eternal life. It's all based on faith: faith that the Bible writers knew what they were writing about, but failing to recognize that none of them had evidence of an eternal heavenly life either. Again: because some ancient writers had this faith, we accept their beliefs also? The ancient peoples had many beliefs, too numerous to mention, that we no longer accept. How do we differentiate between the many concepts which they firmely believed, especially those for which they had no evidence, merely tradition: what my grandfathers believed, I also believe. Do we continue in their traditions because they were so fervent in believing them? The Bible is full of beliefs that we have rejected today as the perceptions of people of their era. So, how do we select sections from this book that are timeless and those that no longer have relevance other than historically interesting? Numbers 5, recently discussed here is one of hundreds of such illustrations.

No one has answered the question: if there was no heaven or eternal life granted us at our death here, how differently would we live? Would we all become hedonists? (That has been proposed by some.) Would we rob and kill because of no eternal consequences, only the current civil laws? Are laws the only disincentive that holds us in check from losing all control? Would we be cruel abusive parents? Bad neighbors? Would we no longer feel the need to help those less fortunate? IOW, is the idea of an eternal heaven, or the fear of eternal hell, the only things that nudge us toward the way we live? Are we so immature that it is only the end reward, rather than living well is the foundation for our lives?

From the Spurgen quote:
"Let the reader take care at once to lay his hand on the Lord's completed sacrifice, that by accepting it he may obtain the benefit of it."

The sacrifice is agreed to by all theories, laying hold of the Lord's completed sacrifice is not the problem, the problem comes when the sacrifice is limited to one view, substitutionary/penal atonement. All relegated to secondary roles. It takes very little study to see that the Moral Influence Theory is accepted in all other Atonement theories, as it should be as it is the first view Church Fathers recognized and has the most explicit Biblical backing. But the Moral influence theory is different in that it does not require additional theories to work, it is a part of all the atonement theories yet it requires no additions. It is the additions that are the problem whether they are the view that the atonement was paid to Satan, or that God demanded satisfaction for the offense of sin or that we were mystically present in Adam and Christ. Those become the speculations and the speculations are the problems. Just as the above geometry lists multiple steps based upon the misuse of Isaiah 14 reference to the prince of Babylon as being Satan (something not believed by the Jews or the New Testament) there is an intrusion of speculation which is far different from the context of the Biblical writing.

When traditions replace our understanding of God we fall into much more confusion and that becomes the problem here. Penal theory redefines God, it redefines Justice to be something that not only would man reject but it goes against God's instructions in the Old Testament as well as the New Testament (read what Jesus says about forgiveness). Claiming you just have to accept what the Bible says when it says nothing like what someone may be saying it says is a huge problem in Christianity.

Jonathan: I will follow your advice. Here is Ellen White's quotation in support of the moral theory of the Atonement: "The cross is a revelation to our dull senses of the pain that, from its inception, sin has brought to the heart of God. ... Suffering did not begin or end with His manifestation in humanity [Education, p. 263]. For some reason, many theologians prefer to cite only the other passages where she uses the substitionary explanation for the atonement.

Likewise, said theologians prefer to ignore the many biblical passages that offer strong support for the moral explanation for Jesus' death on the cross. If Jesus' suffering did not begin with his incarnation, then when did it begin? It began with Lucifer's rebellion. Jesus, the Lamb of God "was slain from the foundation of the world." [Rev. 13:8]Christians prefer to see the cross--God's suffering--as an event in history, when in fact it is a process that began with Lucifer's rebellion which will end with the eradication of evil from the universe.

Jesus said: "If I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto me." Notice that the Lord did not say, If I be lifted up, God will be able to forgive your sins! In the Old Testament, we find the following statement: "They shall look upon me whom they have pierced." [Zech. 13:8] Notice the use of the past tense by the translator. Why, because Jesus had already been figuratively on the cross, subjected to suffering and pain since the inception of sin.

Note: I have to run an errand I will continue this when I return!

I left out one critical element in my Euclid progression. Lucifer's demonstration of his itent to Kill God. An act that granted me my redemption.

Who wants to go to the grave whispering: "Vanity, Vanity, All is Vanity1"

I would rather my last words be " I know in whom I have believed and I know He is able!"

The meaning of his death has both universal and personal meaning. The Great Controversy is settled and my future is secured. All esle is vanity. Tom

I left out one critical element in my Euclid progression. Lucifer's demonstration of his itent to Kill God. An act that granted me my redemption.

Who wants to go to the grave whispering: "Vanity, Vanity, All is Vanity1"

I would rather my last words be " I know in whom I have believed and I know He is able!"

The meaning of his death has both universal and personal meaning. The Great Controversy is settled and my future is secured. All esle is vanity. Tom

I left out one critical element in my Euclid progression. Lucifer's demonstration of his itent to Kill God. An act that granted me my redemption.

Who wants to go to the grave whispering: "Vanity, Vanity, All is Vanity1"

I would rather my last words be " I know in whom I have believed and I know He is able!"

The meaning of his death has both universal and personal meaning. The Great Controversy is settled and my future is secured. All esle is vanity. Tom

Posted above:
"Jonathan: I will follow your advice. Here is Ellen White's quotation in support of the moral theory of the Atonement:"

I think those of you who try to use EGW on this will not be too successful because you will find that the moral influence idea of atonement is commonly incorporated within the other atonement views. This is readily apparent when one reads the many authors from the reformation on. They will hold to Penal/Substitutionary atonement, and they will also express how the love of God is revealed in this process. So pointing to a few EGW statements that indicate moral influence is par for the course of any penal/substitutionary writer, who very clearly EGW was.

Jonathan,Arlyn and other "substitution" skeptics.

If I taught a course at an SDA institution and I asked what the EGW quotes meant that I have offered above, I would not accept a correct answer to be one that completely ignores that she believed in "substitutionary Atonement" or the wrath of God against sin.

Those theologians in Adventism that claim to be teaching a "Great Controversy" theme and then completely ignore this are simply being intellectually dishonest with the meaning of words.

Now personally if one chooses not to believe her that is ok with me but it is fraudulant to put forward her theme and then suggest ideas that ignore hers and are the complete opposite. Is it not?

Now to various scripture concepts related to the atonement. A few samples are personal sacrifice (Gal.1:4), reconciliation (Rom.5:10),court of law concepts(Rom.3:25;Rom.5:10),Purchase(Acts 20:28;Eph.1:7),Propitiation (Rom.3:25;1 Jn.4:10)to name a few.

All of these were done in our behalf in love by our savior who loved us and gave himself for us as an atonement for sin.
What is so hard to understand about that. Amazing Grace...I was blind but now I see. Praise God that I and others can be reckoned righteous by faith in Christ.

Best wishes to those of you who seek saving righteousness a different way.

Pat

PS. Zane, Stott's book is excellent as is Piper's book on the "Justification of God."

Nic,

Despite assertions to the contrary, writers on the atonement, especially from the Reformation and its tradition, missed much. That's why EGW wrote so much on the cross as the answer to the whole sin problem AS IT AFFECTED THE UNIVERSE. This perspective is almost entirely lacking in other views of the atonement. I find no other writers, for example, who insist that the atonement was for angels as well! Note the following:

“But the plan of redemption had a yet broader and deeper purpose than the salvation of man. It was not for this alone that Christ came to the earth; it was not merely that the inhabitants of this little world might regard the law of God as it should be regarded; but it was to vindicate the character of God before the universe. To this result of His great sacrifice--its influence upon the intelligences of other worlds, as well as upon man--the Saviour looked forward when just before His crucifixion He said: `Now is the judgment of this world; now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all unto me.’ [John 12:31,32] The act of Christ in dying for the salvation of man would not only make heaven accessible to men, but before all the universe it would justify God and His Son in their dealing with the rebellion of Satan. It would establish the perpetuity of the law of God, and would reveal the nature and the results of sin.” Patriarchs and Prophets 68,69.

“To the angels and the unfallen worlds the cry, `It is finished,’ had a deep significance. It was for them as well as for us that the great work of redemption had been accomplished. . .
“Not until the death of Christ was the character of Satan clearly revealed to the angels or to the unfallen worlds. The archapostate had so clothed himself with deception that even holy beings had not understood his principles. They had not clearly seen the nature of his rebellion.” Desire of Ages 758.

“That which alone can effectually restrain from sin in this world of darkness, will prevent sin in heaven. The significance of the death of Christ will be seen by saints and angels. . . .(QOD 680)

“The angels ascribe honor and glory to Christ, for even they are not secure except by looking to the sufferings of the Son of God. It is through the efficacy of the cross that the angels of heaven are guarded from apostasy. Without the cross they would be no more secure against evil than were the angels before the fall of Satan. Angelic perfection failed in heaven. . . .
“The plan of salvation, making manifest the justice and love of God, provides an eternal safeguard against defection in unfallen worlds, as well as among those who shall be redeemed by the blood of the Lamb.” Signs of the Times, December 30, 1889.

There's a lot more of this, but the examples will need to do.

Best,

Jonathan

Jonathan wrote:

"Despite assertions to the contrary, writers on the atonement, especially from the Reformation and its tradition, missed much. That's why EGW wrote so much on the cross as the answer to the whole sin problem AS IT AFFECTED THE UNIVERSE. This perspective is almost entirely lacking in other views of the atonement. I find no other writers, for example, who insist that the atonement was for angels as well! Note the following:"

The reason for that is very likely that there is no Biblical reason to think that the atonement was for angels or supposed unfallen beings. We don't have a Biblical record of angels those holy messengers of God questioning what God is doing. So if they lack a description of a view that is not found in the Bible that would be expected. Of course as SDA history has shown even assuming the Penal/Substitutionary view does not stop anyone from thinking the penalty and wrath of God could not be used to affect the supposed questioning angels or supposed unfallen universe. All they have to do is work those speculative ideas into their concept of atonement.

But as with all these questions is there actually Biblical reason to accept those propositions. We all know there is not just as there is no evidence that Jesus suffered the second death which is defined as a death with no resurrection. That is why instead of giving Bible verses to back up their theory they simply state the theory as a foregone conclusion. So in effect the Great Controversy or Larger View theory of the atonement are the least viable of all the views being based largely upon a 19th century supposed prophet. Certainly not a view that will ignite a revival throughout Christianity unless they first accept EGW as a prophet.

Posted by: rc | 08 June 2008 at 10:15
"I think those of you who try to use EGW on this will not be too successful because you will find that the moral influence idea of atonement is commonly incorporated within the other atonement views.

My Response: Right you are, the moral influence is contained in the substitutionary theory of Atonement, and the reverse is true as well. The difference is that, as Tom has stated above, with the legal view of the cross, we have to thank Satan for making salvation possible, which is not the case with the moral explanation for Jesus' death. Besides, with the moral view we free God of any complicity in the death of the most innocent being in the universe.

In criticizing the use of Ellen White for the support of the moral influence of Atonement, you are ignoring all the statements found in the Bible that favor this explanation for the cross. In my previous post I did mention Revelation which describes Jesus as the Lamb of God "slain from the foundation of the world", which agrees with White's view that God's suffering began with Lucifer's rebellion. Would you deny this concept? All the Bible testifies to the fact that the Lord suffers when his children suffer.

It states that "in all their aflictions, he was aflicted" [Isaiah 63:9,10]. It does not say that in all their aflictions, he will some day be aflicted. Bible translators use the past tense. It states that "They shall look upon me whom they have pierced." [Zech. 13:8] Again, the past tense is used to describe the suffering of the Messiah. The same could be said about the classical Messianic description of the suffering servant found in Isaiah 53. Read it again, and notice that translators used the past tense to depict the suffering of Jesus. What is wrong if I use Ellen White to second what the Bible teaches?

We have a tendency to accept the idea that certain biblical predictions were contingent on human response. Jonah is the classical case. I would suggest that the prophetic descriptions of the Messiah were also contingent on Israel's response to his plan for their future. They follow Deuteronomic pattern of blessings and curses contingent on human behavior. Do not forget that Jesus himself used a contingent statement when describing his own death on the cross: ""If I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto me."[John 12:32] The meaning of the term "if" should not be equated with "when."

Evidently, even at that point, there was still a chance for Israel to accept Jesus as their rightful Messiah. Had they accepted Him as their Savior, history would have been different, because by the time Jesus was born in Bethlehem, God had already suffered more than enough since Lucifer's rebellion in heaven. What is unbiblical about this view of the reason for Jesus' death? So, why did Jesus die? Because we rejected him as our Savior and killed him, instigated by the one who has been a murderer from the beginning.

After the fact explanations for Jesus' death are not entirely reliable. They do not reveal the whole truth. Joseph of old stated that his sale as a slave was providential to save them from famine. Does this mean that God had no way to save them from famine unless his treacherous brothers were willing to sell Joseph as a slave? Do you think that they congratulated themselves for their crime agains his innocent brother?

Those theologians who insist on their preference for the legal view of the cross forget that the biblical statement affirming that there is no redemption without the shedding of blood reflects human justice. The Jews had a natural bent for the use of symbols, and in the Bible blood is a symbol of life.

When Jesus told the crowd of followers that they needed to drink his blood and eat his flesh, they were offended. Jesus explained to them that "The flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life [John 6:53,63]. Their salvation was contingent on their acceptance of his teachings, not on their willingness to take the life of the Son of God or on drinking his blood and eating his flesh.

Finally, let me remind you that the Bible says some surprising things about the sacrifice of animals: "I gave them also statutes that were not good" [Ezeq. 20:25]; "For I spake not ... nor commanded ... concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices: but this I commanded ... obey my voice.;" and many similar passages suggesting that the sacrificial system was a concession to their depraved appetite for the consumption of flesh. God tried to give them a vegetarian diet, but they preferred the fleshly pots of Egypt.

Jonathan: Thanks again for your comments. They are very helpful! I found your latest post after I posted mine.

"It is high time that we place the blame for Jesus' death on the shoulders of God's enemy instead of the Creator."

I think we are wading into waters where no absolute statements such as this can fully float.

Hebrews 13:20 speaks of the blood of the eternal covenant as the means through which God brought Jesus back from the dead. The shedding of Jesus' blood has been described in covenetal terms throughout the book, comparing and contrasting Old and New, and illustrating how the shedding of blood was central to the covenants; "...without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin.". This culminates with the ultimate reference to "the blood of the eternal covenant." Since God alone is eternal, this refers to the overarching, binding agreement within the Godhead, that Christ would give his life and triumph over sin and death for us. God made this covenant with himself, so to speak, from "eternity past" and looking forward towards eternal results, as JB has stated repeatedly.

The conception and execution of it in this eternal sense, falls squarely on his shoulders. This is why Jesus, in John 10:17-18, could say in the face of his coming death at the hands of Roman soldiers and Jewish betrayers,

"The reason the Father loves me, is that I lay down my life-only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and authority to take it up again. This command I recieved from my Father."

In this sense, no one, not Satan, nor rebellious human beings, took Jesus' life from him. The fact is, no one could, unless he willingly gave it! To fully understand how the interplay of divine will, purpose and foreknowledge, and evil human activity come together here, has eluded us for 2,000 years. Theologians have pondered this interplay through the ages, and have never fully plumbed its depths. Nor does it fit neatly into our own ideas of justice, and human accountability.

On a scaled down level, the Joseph story in the OT provides one model of understanding. When confronted by his remorseful, fearful brothers, Joseph said, " What you intended for evil, God intended for good, to accomplish what now is being done, the saving of many lives." (Gen. 50:20) This did not lessen his brothers' accountability, nor their need for repentance, as seen in the story, but it speaks of God's over-arching purpose behind the human dynamics and choices made.

This same interaction between human and divine can be seen in the story of Jesus. To simply cut God's own role and responsibility out of Jesus' death, is to ignore so much of what the Bible explicitly states, in the attempt to neatly categorize the gospel into our own understanding of God and justice. To me, the gospel, God, and the merging of divine purpose with human responsibility are far too complex, to simply reduce them to such one sided statements.

Thanks...

Frank

Not one of you has addressed the fact that Jesus own brother James, who took over the leadership of the Jesus-movement, and the old disciples of Jesus obviously did not see Jesus as the anti-typical sacrificial lamb. They practically lived in the temple after Jesus death, a temple dedicated to the sacrificial service mandated by the Torah.

It seems to me that we have camped around this mountain long enough. I recall my first clerkship in Oral Surgery. We were assigned to do simple one tooth extractions. The student in the next operatory was struggling for seemingly hours. Finally the instructor called over" "Son did you get the tooth out?" The student replied: "I got the crown out!" The instructor replied with some exasperation and sarcasm @&&%@ the crown always was out!" "Now get the root out!" Paul makes it clear in Romans 5 that Jesus Christ got the crown and root out in one act of Grace towards us. We now have a High Priest at the right hand of the Throne of God the Father. The game is up. We are simply dealing with some sore losers. Tom

Appeal to a lurking scholar
Has anybody reconstructed the origin of the SDA Great Controversy theme--especially the idea of a literal coup d'etat in Heaven, lead by one of God's own lieutenants, a rebellion so successful that the Universe has been looking ascance at God ever since?

I find it interesting that two of the most pivotal theological dogmas in Adventism can only call upon one Bible verse each for support, both part of apocalyptic prophecies:

The 1844 dogma: Dan 8:14
The Great Controversy: Dan 12:7

The Mormons, likewise, only manage to find one Bible verse to function as fig leaf for their pivotal doctrine of baptism for the dead.

Somehow, that's not how they teach you to treat the Bible in any seminary that I know of.

Whether our modern "sensitivities" allow for God offering His own Son as a sacrifice for all sin, that is what His Word says. I will take that over any man's interpretation, let the Word speak for itself. I agree with Tom, the issue has been now aired and discussed, let us hear the end of it.

RDS,

I think all of us who appreciate the atoning death of our savior can allow "this strand" to cease but never the recognition that we will always have to contend for "the faith."

The cross will always be "foolishness and a stumblingblock" to the world but yet must always be the focus of first importance as regards the Christian message.

Regards,

pat

What we know is that interpretations of the meaning of His death are based on the paradoxical premise of the great controversy theme. We are led to believe that Lucifer being a brilliant but also very dim being rebels against the one entity that sustains his life - perhaps suicide was his goal. Furthermore it seems there were the angels who also rebelled and for the same reason should have known better.

Beyond this, there is a universe of so called unfallen who have the distinct advantage over humans in seeing how this whole thing plays out before they make their decision (going on 6000 years now) – again perfect but stupid.

This shows three distinct groups of beings, both stupid and intelligent at the same time.

It seems to me, that we humans should not add a fourth group to this scenario by perpetuating such stupidity and nonsense.

The problem of humans who venerate other humans above themselves and subjugate their own reason and logic is brought into stark relief. Whether it be Ellen White, Paul or Peter or perhaps Moses, they were all humans. Because humans say that these humans speak the word of God does not make it so.

The mere fact that the foundation for such theories as the “great controversy” are shown to be ridiculous should demonstrate the bankrupt nature of theologies based on such foundations. It should also make us think twice when someone claims to have any direct revelation from God.

Come on Fellows:

Obviously the Great Controvery theme of E.G.W. was built upon Milton's Paradise Lost.

Yet there is an abundance of Scripture to give us a basic framework.

The Book of Job.
The Book of Jude
The Temptations of Jesus
Romans 1-8
The Book of Revelation, particularly Chapter 12.
Phil 2: 5-11
The entire Book of Hebrews.
and the list could go on.

So what is the argument. Could it be that someone is contesting we really don't need a Redeemer?

If so, you are in the wrong thread. Tom

Posted by: frank7 08 June 2008 at 12:49

"...without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin."

The shedding of blood was the requirement for forgiveness in the Old Covenant that was based on the "Talionis Lex" which required "an eye for an eye." Jesus replaced this imperfect legal system with a new one which required that we love our enemies instead of demanding a pound of flesh. He replaced vengeance with love.

When Jesus told the crowd that followed him that they must drink his blood and eat his flesh, they took this statement in a literal manner, which forced the Lord to explain to them the deeper meaning of drinking his blood and eating his flesh this way: "The flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life [John 6:53,63].

God's saving power is the same that created this world: it is hidden in his Word. Only God's Word can regenerate a sinful human heart and infuse it with new life in harmony with God's will. Once this is done, there is no need to impose the death penalty on the sinner, because he is now a new creature--a creature no longer in rebellion to his holy will.

This is the same power that spoke forgiveness to the paralitic and granted new life to Lazarus. This is the true meaning of the power symbolized by Jesus blood. This power was available at creation; it was available before the cross; and it is available after Jesus' resurrection. The legal theory of Atonement ignores this wonderful reality.

The shedding of human blood also symbolizes pain and suffering. Those who are enamoured with the old legal system that demands a pound of flesh, should remember that God was subjected to pain and suffering since the moment Lucifer rebelled against his holy will. This suffering and pain has lasted for thousands of years. By the time Jesus war born as a babe in Bethlehem, God had suffered more than enough.

Only Satan could demand and impose additional pain and suffering on the Son of God. He did so, and God allowed this to happen in order that Satan's true character might be revealed both to humans and to the entire universe. If suffering was the payment required for the forgiveness of sins, then I would suggest that the cross was not a payment, but rather an overpayment.

When the theory of Atonement is understood this way, God can no longer be accused of being an accomplice in the planning and executing the death of the most innocent being in the universe, because then it becomes crystal clear that Jesus death is the entire responsibility of the one who has been a murderer from the beginning.

Of course, Satan is delighted when Christians ignore this truth and thus stain God's pure and just character with the allegation that God planned the death of his Only Son. This serves his evil purposes of maligning God's holy character. We could say the same about the dogma of an eternal hell which has led many to reject a vengeful God who demands his pound of flesh over and over again throughout eternity.

The defenders of the legal theory of Atonement would do well to remember that, interpreted in a literal manner, the dogma of an eternally burning hell is biblical. We reject this dogma because it maligns the character of God and it jars with what the Bible teaches about God from Genesis through Revelation. We could say the same about the legal theory of Atonement. It is biblical if the Bible is interpreted in a literal manner, but it does not agree with what the Bible tells us about the character of God.

Those that believe in an eternal burning hell at some time have to deal with the fact that the 1st Covenant with the Jews was not everlasting nor the circumcision that was a sign of that covenant, even though it was proclaimed to be everlasting and for all generations. Gen 17:7; Gen 17:13. In the case of Eternal Hell, until consumed is probably the correct interpretation, and the 1st Covenant was conditional and became null and void due to the Jews unbelief.

However, Salvation under the 2nd Covenant does involve death of the Saviour in our stead, and dead of the sinner that doesn't accept that gift. Hard to get around those facts.

Well said RDS

Arlyn,

The Bible says God is both just and the justifier of those who trust in Jesus. Justice means comparing the law with the person’s behavior. Who made the law that says if a person sins he must die. God made that law therefore He is the one who demands your life.

Freedom means: I can choose to do good or bad but I must take responsibility for the choices I make. Where does the rule come from that say's I must take responsibility for the choices I make? It comes from God. He is the one who made me and made the rule. Is the rule fair, yes it is. If there was no such rule God would not be justified punishing anyone. God would be responsible for all sins. Since God has done everything possible to make us free and prevent us from sinning, he is exonerated from any wrong doing.

I gave Laercio the illustration of kidnapping to show he was using the term ransom improperly when he applied it to God. What God has made plain you and others, whether you know it or not, confuse people as to God’s means of salvation, by making what is simple complex. Write the vision and make it plain that he may run that reads it.

You seem to be worried about how God is going to treat your children. Children are a product of parental choices and therefore must take the brunt of choices their parents make whether it is good or bad. If God had been strict with Adam and Eve they would have been dead and we would never have been born. God says to honor your parents. It means honor them whether they are a saint or a sinner. Godly children show the wisdom of God’s mercy when they seek to rectify their parents mistakes rather than condemning them.

I also say: "Well said RDS," except for his conclusion!

Let us let God be God, Huh?

Even when I had been bad and my dad said, "Come here son". I went without fear. I did get a paddling but I also got lots of hugs and kisses.

What I fear is not the Judgment of God but the Judgment of Churchmen!

Everlasting is not a time frame. It is eternal life or eternal non-life. Both are confirmed or executed in a moment and a twinkling of a eye. God has no pleasure in the punishment of the wicked. If they deny God they also deny life, the source of life. Tom

Just as some children are forced to divorce their parents for abuse, alcoholism, or even abandonment, seems to be the only way that such children are able to cope; even the CPS will remove children from such an environment.

How can it be sin if those who deny God have been given such a false picture that it would be impossible for them to worship such a god? Millions throughout the centuries of Christianity have been so fearful of a god who would send them to everlasting Hell (Dante's Inferno) that to do otherwise would mean they are incapable of reasoning.

The postulating that normal people could possibly deny God is based on our own perceptions; we cannot be responsible for what others have been taught. They make rational judgments, just as we do, on the available information. We also should admit that there are biblical texts that illustrate God in multiple ways that are good, and multiple ways that are destructive and filled with anger. Some folks emphasize one over the other.

So Nic,

Are you saying that we then are saved by following Christ's teaching through the power of his Spirit and Word...and his death has nothing to do with it? It was merely the evil result, of evil people who rejected this way into the kgd? And Jesus' death has nothing to do with the forgiveness of sin? The Lord did not lay on him the "iniquity of us all" in order to wipe out our guilt? Following Jesus' example of love is the way in, and not the loving response from someone who has been given a free gift of total acceptance, based on Christ's complete atonement? And God's love isn't seen by giving his Son to die and pay the price we could never pay...and credit it to us as a pure gift?

If I'm understanding you correctly, sounds like a different gospel to me. Funny, but I remember Paul saying something about this...

But maybe I'm missing your point.

Frank

Elaine, if your home town was surrounded by terrorists that are about to blow up you and your neighbors, and George W., who I know you are not too fond of, gave the order to destroy and capture any survivors of the terrorists, would your feelings about him, having saved your life, change?

It is similar with God, when he protects His own by destroying those that would destroy us, it should heighten our love for Him and His protection.

However, if your Pacificism is more important than eternal life, your individual reaction may vary!!!!

Yes, in the OT the writers said God told them to destroy all their enemies. Did it heighten their love for him? Were they then more obedient?

If one is killed by a terrorist, are you implying that their eternal life is at stake? How many innocent people have lost their lives in the search for terrorists? If one believes in eternal life, there should be no worry of terrorists, should there? Even those in the early history of Christianity courted mayrtrydom as they believed it was the assurance of eternal life.

We are all going to die, by one method or another. Few of us have any control over how our life will end; relinquishing that control leads to a peaceful attitude. Christians, who believe in eternal life, of all people should not be threatened by losing their lives today. Yet, I see few who aren't desperately clinging to life and none that are looking forward to death. Paradoxical?

Every time I read another post on this thread I have to go back and read Romans 5. Thanks be to God. Tom

Posted by: Elaine Nelson 09 June 2008 at 6:59

"Millions throughout the centuries of Christianity have been so fearful of a god who would send them to everlasting Hell ... "

No doubt! This false view of God's character who would demand a pound of flesh day after day throughout eternity for a short life of sin has driven millions to desperation, atheism, and madness. We can say the same about a theory of atonement which pictures God demanding the death of his Only Son, the most innocent being in the universe, before being willing to forgive sinners their shoretcomings.

Imagine the father of the prodigal son meeting his dad, repentant and willing to be hired as a menial servant, and his father responding: "Before I can forgive your misbehavior, we need to execute your little brother." This is in essence a picture of the legal view of the cross. What is different between this dogma and the one about an eternally burning hell? Not much. Both of them paint a distorted picture of God. God is just. No doubt, but fair at the same time!

Nic, God gets angry, also. Because that violates your logic or sensitivities doesn't make it any less so. This is not about you but about salvation from destruction and eternal life that only God can grant on His terms, like it or not.

There seems to be a lot of confusion going round!

A mind clearing experience would be to read Systematic Theology by Berkhof pages 265-271 The Covenant of Redemption.

A very sound statement of the Reform view. Jesus' prayer in the Garden was the struggle He was under at the moment to "Truth" Should one Creator die or should one creation perish. Thanks be to God. He died for me. Tom

Tom,

I'm right with you!

Frank

Posted by: frank7 09 June 2008 at 8:13

"Are you saying that we then are saved by following Christ's teaching through the power of his Spirit and Word...and his death has nothing to do with it? ... nothing to do with the forgiveness of sin?"

Jesus said to his disciples the evening before his crucifixion: "You are now clean." He did not say, "You will be clean after I have shed my blood on the cross." Way before his death, Jesus said to the paralitic: "Your sins are forgiven." He did not make forgiveness contingent on his death. What did he say about his death? He stated the following: "If I be lifted up, I will draw all men to myself."

We often sing with great zest about the power of Jesus blood. Does Jesus' power reside in his literal blood, or rather in his Word? Can we trust Jesus to answer this question? To the crowds that followed him for the fish and the daily bread, he said that they needed to drink his blood and eat his flesh. His hearers interpreted his statement in a literal manner, and we do the same when we insist that there is no forgiveness without the shedding of Jesus blood.

This erroneous concept is partially true, because, were it not for his death, many would have not been drawn to repentance and forgiveness, but we should not erroneously conclude that there is no forgiveness for those who repent for other reasons. The paralitic was forgiven before Jesus death, and he probably knew nothing about the coming death of his Savior.

Did Jesus suggest that his death would have no effect on sinners' salvation? To the contrary. His death would motivate many to accept him as their Savior. Did he ever suggest that forgiveness was contingent on his death? Perhaps such texts can be found. I know that Paul has said this, but I will rather believe what Jesus said about the forgiveness of sins rather than taking Paul's statements verbatim. Paul told us that women should not talk in church, but God used a woman as his intrument to build the SDA church, and she probably preached more sermons than the average minister.

Did the Lord let his hearers believe their erroneous manner of interpreting his statements in a literal way? No! He told them: "The flesh profiteth nothing, the words that I have spoken to you, they are spirit and they are life." [John 6:53,63] God's saving power does not reside in the literal blood of Jesus, nor on his literal death, but rather in the creative and redemptive power of his Words, the Words which created us in the first place, and who are imbued with the power to recreate us in his image.

I have to go! I will answer you other question when I return. God bless!

Tom,

I know you grasp what is taking place here. Those who do not hold that substitutionary atonement is necessary or takes place don't feel that scripture is our final authority or an accurate representation of God's will today...it is a man made book in the final analysis pure and simple.

Thus they would not accept or allow a "literalistic" systematic theology approach to convict them as presented in Berkhof's systematic theology. After all Berkhof in their reasoning believes in eternal hell and TULIP thus obviously he is also wrong on the merits of Christ's sacrifice and blood substitution.

Another aspect is for "liberal theological Adventism" to feign the "Great Controversy" theme while ignoring it's fundamental principles set forth by EGW that I offerred in this strand.

What we have ladies and gentlemen is a mess and confusion in the Adventist church over the understanding of the true Gospel since our beginnings. Gal.1:4-8.

Jonathan, I don't see that next Quarters lessons are about the Atonement...you sure?

Pat

Pat,

And we also are to trust Jesus' words on salvation through the gospel writers over Paul's take on it. I guess Paul is less inspired...even less so than EGW, apparently.

What a mess!!

Thanks...

Frank

Nic,

Simply put, you believe in sanctification as salvation, but totally apart from justification as described in Romans, Galatians, etc.

BTW, Paul describes Christ our Passover as sacrificed. As the Lamb of God, our faith in his blood/death, is how God unleashes his power to set us free. It's God's doing. Christ was God's lamb. The Passover was the type.

Thanks...

Frank

Pat, no confusion. Look at Paul's commission:

Acts 26: 15"Then I asked, 'Who are you, Lord?'

" 'I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,' the Lord replied. 16'Now get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen of me AND WHAT I WILL SHOW YOU. 17I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them 18to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.'

Paul was going to be shown things by Jesus. I would think we should be very careful to discard or ignore Paul's version of salvation, don't you?

Well my dear brothers, I can see that many characterize anyone who disagrees with them as someone who:

a. does not take as final authority the bible,b.disbelieves that Christ really died or shed His blood, c. or is making up a "nicer" God and without divine wrath (anger)d. doesn't understand that the Bible and EGW uses many of the models, not just one. ( more accurately, they contain themes that correlate with many of the present atonement models, but has yet to be encapsulated comprehensively and coherently into one theory of atonement. )

I feel I have been mischaracterized in this thread. I believe in all those things with all my heart and have written so- actually being the first to mention point (d) myself.  (obviously, many don't read accurately), and was hoping that with my fellow Adventists we could discuss both the strengths and weaknesses of the various atonement theories, and learn together. There are weakness to the Great Controversy or Larger View theory too, and I was going to go in to some of that, but perhaps this isn't the right setting, as I am not among careful friends. 

God does save us and has through the death of Christ.

Please don't stoop to impugn another's spiritual motives to assert your points. It ruins the atmosphere of love. For some, atonement is a closed book, all done and explained. For me, I believe we will spend eternity looking deep into it's many facets and keep finding new ways to understand it that incorporate the best of what we already knew- why not start that journey of eternity now?

Thanks and bye.

Pat
Let me take up for my liberal friends of faith. You shouldn't be so discouraged about their theology. All of you seem to agree that God is standing with his hand outstretched to you. The discussion here is about what makes him do it. To me that seems to be a lesser concern, and one that should not separate good friends. I seem to remember from my reading of the Bible that Christianity is not a pass/fail graduate seminar in theology.

Posted by: frank7 09 June 2008 at 8:13

"The Lord did not lay on him the "iniquity of us all" in order to wipe out our guilt? ... And God's love isn't seen by giving his Son to die and pay the price we could never pay...and credit it to us as a pure gift?"

Frank: It seems to me that you are attempting to interpret what the Bible says about the Atonement in a strictly literal manner. Could it be that you are making Nicodemus mistake? When Jesus told him he needed to be born again, he responded that said requirement was impossible to comply with. Do you think that "iniquity" is an object that can be transferred from one person to another? Would you grant that we are dealing with metaphors here?

This is the way I read this: God the Father and God the Son agreed that Jesus would assume the responsibility of revealing to heavenly and human beings the true character of God, which had been maligned by Lucifer. This implied tremendous risks in the event Jesus might fail to perform this task correctly.

Such a revelation did not begin when Jesus was born as a babe in Bethlehem. It started in heaven following Lucifer's rebellion. It involved pain and suffering, which is the natural result of rejected love. By the time Jesus took human form, both Jesus and God the Father had suffered enough as a result of sin and rebellion. This suffering was not an artificial legal requirement, but rather a natural consequence of God's infinite love towards those he had created.

The "price" for out salvation is also a metaphor. You seem to equate said price in terms of blood spilt. Remember that many innocent human beings were crucified by the Romans, but the "price" they paid had no efficacy to save from sin. I see this "price" as suffering resulting from rejected and misinterpreted love manifested by human sin and rebellion.

Seen this way, the suffering connected with Jesus' death was not a payment, but rather an overpayment, because by the time he came from heaven, he had suffered more than enough. This is why Ellen White describes the cross as a window designed to help us see the suffering God was subjected to since rebellion broke out in heaven.

I would venture to suggest that, had Israel of old comprehended how offensive to God sin is; had they understood the tremendous pain God had been subjected to as a result of sin and rebellion, there would have been no need for God to allow the death of Jesus. There was no longer any underpayment in terms of suffering. Unfortunately, God's plan for Israel's future failed, and God saw that allowing Satan to exercise his murderous desire of killing the Son of God, would eventually be beneficial to many who otherwise would never be drawn to the love of Jesus.

Does this mean that God requred the death of his Son? I don't think so! Satan demanded this, and God let him climax his evil desires and thus reveal to the entire universe that he has been a murderer from the beginning. The cross became a crystal clear revelation of the contrast between God's and Satan's characters.

This is why Jesus could say to Nicodemus: "If I be lifted up, I will draw all men to myself." There is an enormous difference between drawing a rebellious child by the chords of love and pacifying an angry deity with the sacrifice of an innocent victim.

Both Josephus and the Bible make reference to kings who under tremendous military threats, did offer their first born son as a sacrifice to pacify the anger of an enemy military general. This is a pagan way of pacifying the anger of an enemy. Using this metaphor to illustrate God's saving action does do a tremendous injustice to God's character.

Arlyn,

Personally, I have no problem with your desire to discuss various understandings of the atonement. I agree with you, that one model cannot sufficiently explain the vastness of what Christ has done.

The problem that I do have, as do others, is with those who want to throw away the idea of substitutionary atonement, altogether. When statements are made by those making this argument that they would rather listen to the words of Jesus through the gospel writers than trust what Paul is saying about the atonement, then what is one supposed to think? When Paul is quoted with no regard for context to support such thinking (his statement concerning the silence of women), what is one supposed to make of it? When clear lines of thought in letters such as Romans and Galatians that depict substitution are blithely ignored, what can be said? When Pat keeps posting EGW statements that are in agreement with substitutionary thought, and no one bothers to address it, what does that say?

Such arguments and their lack of balance do not hold water for me.

Thanks...

Frank

Thanks Frank for noticing the silence..."When Pat keeps posting EGW statements that are in agreement with substitutionary thought, and no one bothers to address it, what does that say?"

It says they think she was wrong!

If they don't keep harping on the "Great Controversy theme"...no problem but if they do they must acknowlege their inconsistent thought with her's to be intellectually honest.

While I disagee with EGW on not entering the Most Holy until 1844, I don't harp on the "Investigative Judgment Theme" beginning in 1844 as being good and then ignore what she said about it...Fair enough?

Arlyn, If the shoe fits wear it. I don't hate you are dislike you and I will respect your right to your view as others who I call my friends. That does not mean I have to respect your view as an adequate representation of scripture or that I would be willing to pay you to teach my children the gospel...fair enough?

Aage, To much historically has gone into the development of scriptural substitutionary atonement and justification by faith alone to not contend for the faith. I respect but will not personally accept the validity of arguments that diminish scripture's authority or reframe scripture in such a way as to diminish Christ's and scripture's supernatural claims.

Regards from one sinner to another,

pat

Nic,

I have seen your argument over and over and understand where you are coming from. I can see beauty in some of what you say. But, I cannot agree with your total dismissal of God requiring the death of his Son. Too much Scripture speaks too clearly and readily to me on this issue.

We are debating the whole basis of justifcation by faith, the article on which Luther said "the church stands or falls." Of which EGW said is "the three angels message in verity."

At this point, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. You feel that I'm a literal thinker. I feel that you are imposing an Adventist/Great Controversy/EGW paradigm (while ignoring statements that Pat has posted showing EGW's agreement with substitutionary atonement) on clear readings of the text. Your reasons for diminishing Paul's witness and writings concerning this also baffle me.

Your emphasis on Jesus as the revelation of God's love is wonderful. I just see his sacrifice as the ultimate self-giving revelation of this love, offered in ther form of the free gift of himself and his salvation to us. I recieve it and him by faith.

To me in the end, our different takes in many respects do not have to be totally either/or, but could move to both/and. However, where we disagree may prevent this shift from ever fully happening. Nevertheless, let God lead.

Blessings...

Frank

Posted by: RDS 09 June 2008 at 12:07

"Nic, God gets angry, also. Because that violates your logic or sensitivities doesn't make it any less so."

RDS: Yes! The evidence is that Jesus, the Son of God, the clearest revelation of God the Father, did get angry and chased the merchants from God's holy Temple. Did I ever say that God is immune to the feeling of anger? We need to differentiate, though, between uncontrolled and unreasonable anger which leads to unjust treatment of others, and the one that is fully controlled and motivated by love which moves an individual to choose the best course of action for the benefit of all involved.

Thirteen years ago a careless driver killed my daughter. I forgave this woman for her action. Would it have been proper for me to say to her: "I have the legal right to take youjr life, but I am willing to forgive you for the pain and suffering that you have caused to me and my family; but before I can forgive you, you need to help me first kill my daughter's younger sister. Only such an action will fulfill the rquirements of justice. Would this be evidence that I am really just and fair in my treatment of the one responsible for my pain?

This is the kind of justice espoused by those who blindly defend the legal theory of Atonement. I just can't swallow this kind of pagan justice. It maligns and distorts God's holy and just character. Whenever anger leads people to act in an unreasonable, unfair, and cruel manner,the glory of God is diminished, dimmed and destroyed.

Posted by: frank7 09 June 2008 at 3:57

"Nic, Simply put, you believe in sanctification as salvation, but totally apart from justification as described in Romans, Galatians, etc."

Frank: Let me speak for myself. For me, in a nutshell, justification represents the immediate result of God's forgiveness, and sanctification the long term result of the same.

Posted by: frank7 09 June 2008 at 6:48

"Nic, ... I cannot agree with your total dismissal of God requiring the death of his Son. Too much Scripture speaks too clearly and readily to me on this issue. ... I feel that you are imposing an Adventist/Great Controversy/EGW paradigm (while ignoring statements that Pat has posted showing EGW's agreement with substitutionary atonement) on clear readings of the text."

Frank: Jesus was a Jew, he was raised by a Jewish mother, and he grew up in a Jewish culture. Jews had a strong love of metaphors, and Jesus used them profusely. This is why he had to explain to his disciples again and again the true meaning of what had said.

Nicodemus misinterpreted what the Lord had stated by reading it in a literal manner, the crowd that followed Jesus did the same and Jesus had to explain to them that his flesh was a symbol of his Words, Jesus' disciples missed what the Master was trying to tell them when he warned them about the leven of the pharisees, and those who hated him accused him of plotting to destroy the Jewish Temple. All these people were determined to stick to a "clear readings of the text."

I agree with you that there is much in the Bible using the substitutionary metaphor to explain Jesus death. Let me suggest to you that a "clear readings of the text" destroys the beauty of biblical metaphors and leads us to mar the Holy character of God. The insistence on the legal theory of the Atonement and an ever burning hell has the tendency to lead some people to reject both the Bible and sometimes even God. I am trying to avoid this honest, but misguided mistake.

And let me remind you that Atonement means reconciliation. We were the ones reconciled to God, and not God to us. God never stops loving, even when sometimes he performs his "strange" work and destroys obstinate sinners who have committed the unpardonable sin by severing their connection with his Holy Spirit. God bless!

Okay, to address the "silence" re: Pat's quotes.

1. John 3:36 was quoted by Pat in his statement "To the one rejecting the Son "the wrath of God remains on Him." this poses no threat to the Great controversy theory, the wrath of God is spelled out by the Bible in Romans 1:18-1:28. The bible describes wrath in past tense in tangible real life examples-as the mechanism clearly delineated as giving up, abandoning them. I use this clear and present world description of God's wrath and His role in the application of the His own wrath and apply it to Revelation's wrath in that less clear-visionary book of the final death. And the understanding of God's wrath is not just "one" verse, its many, with concrete examples in Romans.

2. "The Son of God endured the wrath of God against sin. All the accumulated sin of the world was laid upon the Sin-bearer, the One who was innocent, the One who alone could be the propitiation for sin, because he himself was obedient. {ST, December 9, 1897 par. 6}"
Son of God endured the wrath (abandonement by God)of God against sin. All the accumulated sin of the world (not the future as well? so this phrase should NOT be limited to its literal limits-I would credit even more to this phrase than EGW does- all the sin of the Universe, past, present and future- based on the Biblical view) was laid upon the Sin-Bearer (with its full effects- death), the One who was innocent, the One who alone could be the propitiation for sin, because he himself was obedient. This correctly aligns with Romans 3:25's idea of propitiation, shedding of blood, past and present sins, 1 John 2:2 propitiation for the whole world, I John 4:10 that God sent him to be the propitiation for our sins. But EGW's requirement that perfect obedience is what made him worthy to be the propitiation doesn't go far enough because there are other beings in the universe that are perfectly obedient and available, so I expand on this one literal requirement statement to believe that more than perfect obedience, Christ also had other characteristics that made him more than anyone else- appropriate for this sacrifice. Propitiation- the sacrifice that "atones, turns one favorable, reconciles, appeases" the anger (or wrath of God-see above- in this setting). (Oxford English Dictionary). No problem with that, though I dislike the pagan implications of one of those words-"appeasement" and I suspect you do too.

3. DA 22.2 complete agreement, it does not go against the Great Controversy it does not solely support the Penal Substitutionary Theory, so I really don't need to unpack this one for you.

4. DA 834.2 complete agreement, again, it can support all the atonement theories, is not an argument limited to any of them. So I won't unpack this one either.

Two good arguments given and answered. Two moot arguments don't need addressing in this context of comparing views.

I just thought you could see that these aren't really that exclusive to the penal-substitutionary theory. The silence has been addressed.

Pat,

"if the shoe fits, wear it" typical callous remark from utterers who dismiss responsibility for their negative affect on the conversational mileiu, even as they defend their point. Or shall we see this as the stance expected from a penal-substitutionary theorist? Perhaps the shoe does reflect the thrower?

I gotta stop.

Nic,

Atonement, in the Hebrew sense (kippur)does not simply mean to reconcile. You are taking the linguistic trick, at-one-ment, and using that for its whole range of meaning. Kippur's first appearence in the OT means covering. Its later, more liturgical use means cleansing. Reconciliation to God implies both of these meanings as well, as seen in the temple service and Yom Kippur. I wrote more about this in an earlier post.

Again, I feel you are taking one aspect of truth to build your case, without acknowledging the multi-faceted nature of what Christ has accomplished. This is in line with ignoring statements of debt being paid, such Jesus own ransom statement, and Paul's statement about our certificate of debt (i.e. sin-debt) being nailed to the cross in Colossians 2.

We can agree to disagree.

Frank

Nic
Has it been thirteen years? Seems like yesterday to me. How much more so it must seem to you! How well you carry your cross!
Dave

Any sense in this verse that kpr means the turning away or staying/stopping of God's wrath?

"41But on the morrow all the congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron, saying, Ye have killed the people of the LORD. 42And it came to pass, when the congregation was gathered against Moses and against Aaron, that they looked toward the tabernacle of the congregation: and, behold, the cloud covered it, and the glory of the LORD appeared. 43And Moses and Aaron came before the tabernacle of the congregation. 44And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, 45Get you up from among this congregation, that I may consume them as in a moment. And they fell upon their faces. 46And Moses said unto Aaron, Take a censer, and put fire therein from off the altar, and put on incense, and go quickly unto the congregation, and make an atonement for them: for there is wrath gone out from the LORD; the plague is begun. 47And Aaron took as Moses commanded, and ran into the midst of the congregation; and, behold, the plague was begun among the people: and he put on incense, and made an atonement for the people. 48And he stood between the dead and the living; and the plague was stayed. Numbers 16:41.

pat

This tempest in a teapot and the exact definition of how we are saved, is only another well-thought out reason for many to reject the whole death of Jesus concept.

Surely, no one here today would limit salvation to those who had a proper and correct definition and could succinctly state it.

Frankly, agnosticism looks better every day: if I'm saved, it will surely not be because of my ability to pass a test or diagram or write a thesis on what Christ's death means. If I'm lost, it too, will not be because of misunderstanding and misinterpreting this dilemma that is too apparent here.

You've done some of us a favor in illustrating that Christ's death can never be explained to a child, let alone and adult. Did anyone ever consider that it is just may not be a necessary requirement for any Christian?

Arlyn,

Might have overlooked it but did you address this one?

"Worthy, worthy is the Lamb
that was slain, and hath redeemed us to God by His own most precious blood!" {GC 651.2}and The compact had been fully carried out. Now He declares: Father, it is finished. I have done Thy will, O My God. I have completed the work of redemption. If Thy justice is satisfied, "I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am." John 19:30; 17:24. {DA 834.2}

The substitution of Christ for our sins by his atoning death/blood that allows God to be just and the justifier of those who trust in Him has been repeatedly denied by you if I am not mistaken.

pat

Elaine,

Christ did say unless you become as a little child you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.

Children seem to be able to believe that Christ died for their sins on the cross while obviously not understanding all the implications.

It is adults that feel the cross is a scandal and foolishness, and thereby to them Christ death ends up being a stumblingblock.

pat

PS.

Sometimes it might be well to consider in this discussion that it is not what someone affirms that is necessarily a problem. In fact it may be a good point.

It is what one denies that is telling.

pat

Posted by: pat travis | 09 June 2008 at 6:45

"Thanks Frank for noticing the silence..."When Pat keeps posting EGW statements that are in agreement with substitutionary thought, and no one bothers to address it, what does that say?" It says they think she was wrong! If they don't keep harping on the "Great Controversy theme"...no problem but if they do they must acknowlege their inconsistent thought with her's to be intellectually honest."

Pat: The fact that Ellen White did use the substitutionary theory of Atonement is a given. The same is true about the Bible. You can use Mrs. White's statements to support any explanation for jesus death on the cross. She was a prolific writer and she probably did not miss any of these theories. The question is: Should we interpret those statements in a literal manner, or is it more proper to treat them as metaphors.

I have been suggesting that, if a literal reading does violence to the character of God; if it portrays the Creator as vengeaful, irrational, cruel, and unforgiving; then please opt for a metaphorical reading of the text. We do the same with the literal readings of the biblical texts making a reference to an ever burning hell. We do reject such literal reading of the text because it does violence to the true character of God. The Lord is just, and does punish the wicked, but he is not irrational, nor cruel, or vegeaful.

Am I one of those who you think are "inconsistent" and who are not "intellectually honest"? Let the reader decide! I have a hard time understanding how we can accept certain biblical statements as metaphorical while we reject others which are even more so.

When someone asks you: "Are you born again Christian," you do not take this literally. Nicodemus did read Jesus' statement this way, but we don't. Why can't we see the metaphor in the reference to the substitutionary death of Jesus, when a literal interpretation maligns the character of God? I suggest that both the legal view of the cross and the dogma of an eternally burning hell distort and stain God's just and loving character. For this reason we opt to treat those texts metaphorically!

There is only a metaphor Nic if the language is consistent with the rest of the Bible. How one can read about years and years of substitutionary animal sacrifice, and believe that Christ's death is a metaphor is beyond me. The truth of it is right in front of your nose!!!

It seems to me Nic that everything from the Bible's words to EGW's words in your view are not to be taken literally in most cases but simply become metaphors for my own personal interpretation.

This is a serious deconstruction of human communication and language. We are to proceed from a literal understanding in communication unless the genre of the literary type would suggest for us to do otherwise.

As RDS says, what was all that OT substitutionary sacrifice about... It was about preparing us for the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world. His own blood is the blood of the covenant shed once for all for forgiveness of sins.

Now that may seem to impugn God's character to you but to me He was declaring that He could be just and the justifier of those that trust in Christ...I thought that was the main premise of the GC theme of how can God be just and forgive sinners without voiding His law.

"Worthy, worthy is the Lamb
that was slain, and hath redeemed us to God by His own most precious blood!" {GC 651.2}and The compact had been fully carried out. Now He declares: Father, it is finished. I have done Thy will, O My God. I have completed the work of redemption. If Thy justice is satisfied, "I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am." John 19:30; 17:24. {DA 834.2}

pat

Posted by: frank7 10 June 2008 at 4:49

"Nic,Atonement, in the Hebrew sense (kippur)does not simply mean to reconcile. You are taking the linguistic trick, at-one-ment, and using that for its whole range of meaning. Kippur's first appearence in the OT means covering. Its later, more liturgical use means cleansing. ... This is in line with ignoring statements of debt being paid, such Jesus own ransom statement, and Paul's statement about our certificate of debt (i.e. sin-debt) being nailed to the cross in Colossians 2."

Frank: Linguistic trick? I did not even use the "at-one-ment" linguistic device. I am familiar with it, but I purposely avoided it for the simple reason that it does not work in other languages. It works in English only. I resorted intead to the Webster's definition of the term: "Reconciliation ... the reconciliation of God and man." My question to you. Who was in need of reconciliation, God or man? Who had alienated himself from the other party? Who took the initiative to entice the other party to becomes friends again?

Let's consider now the different connotations of the terms that you cite: 1. Covering. Can we take this term in a literal manner? Do you believe that God literally covers our moral imperfections in order that his eye will no longer see them? If not, then , would you grant that it is a metaphor? 2. Cleansing. Does God literally uses a sponge, soap and water-or literal blood, if you prefer-- to cleanse our sins? Would you admit that this is a symbol for the concept of forgiveness? 3. Ransom. Was there a literal exchange of gold, silver, or any other object of value between Satan end God. If not, would you concede that we have here again another metaphor? 4. Certificate of Debt. Does God hold a copy of a receipt acknowledging that payment had been made, or are we dealing again with another metaphor?

My dear friend: I invite you to recognize that this Atonement busines is metaphor all the way down. Let me unravel this metaphor for you so that my little grandchild will understand: God created man perfect and obedient. He listened to Satan and rebelled against God. God said: I can make you perfect and obedient again if you will let me. I created you, and I can make you whole again. Please, let's be friends again. This is the Gospel, the way I understand it, in a nutshell.

Posted by: davidrlarson 10 June 2008 at 5:00

"Nic, Has it been thirteen years? Seems like yesterday to me. How much more so it must seem to you! How well you carry your cross!"

David: Yes, it happened thirteen years ago. Following the tragic loss, when the pain was the greatest, what sustained me was the knowledge that God had also experienced the tragic death of his Only Son. "Ten thousand angels" were ready to free the Savior from his enemies, yet God foresaw that in the event Jesus "was lifted up," he would draw all men to him, and many would respond to the drawing of his love; people who otherwise would not do it.

If God saw it fit to allow this tragedy, and he allowed millions to suffer for his cause, who was I to expect a special treatment? God could have avoided my loss by delaying the crossing of that intersection in the City of Redlands by a fraction of a second, and my daughter would be alive today. He so it fit not to intervene, and I must accept his wisdom, since he gave me ample evidence of his love and care.

God bless!

Nic,

Thanks for sharing of yourself with such grace. More than all this debate, I want to say how much more your words of personal belief have meant--and I'm sure I'm not the only one. As EGW made clear, a cold, joyless religion never brought anyone to Christ, and I fear in all our theorizing we do just that, and reduce his wonderful work to some transactional theory. Thank you for confirming the truth won at such great cost--even a ransom!--that if we have seen Jesus, we have seen the Father, and all the lies of the Devil over the nature and character of God as seen for what they truly are.

May we not fall into the same trap as those so self-assured "godly" people that believed very much as we do in terms of following Biblical injunctions to pay tithe and avoid unclean foods and keep the Sabbath, yet crucified the Lord of glory.

May God bless you for your loving defense of our loving Lord,

Jonathan

At the risk of being misunderstood our misfortunes and cross',terrible as they are, don't constitute "eternal" truth. Indeed there are traumatic experiences in our life. We all have had some and unfortunately some more profound ones.

This issue is about Him who sufferred and bore the sins of the world and that is what is the source of our present and ultimate healing.

For Paul in his trials said this,

"And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. 2 For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. I Cor.2:1,2.

Regards and this is in the last comment in this strand presently for me as it has perhaps turned from being able to accomplish it's original intent "to our cross."

I am sorry for your loss Nic. I lost an old friend and relative this week "to sleep" whose husband and baby were lost in an accident some 30 years ago.

May her joy be full at the resurrection because of the Christ she loved and who she believed died and gave his life for her in love so that she could see her loved ones again in eternity.

Regards,

pat

Posted by: frank7 09 June 2008 at 6:23

"The problem that I do have, as do others, is with those who want to throw away the idea of substitutionary atonement, altogether. When statements are made by those making this argument that they would rather listen to the words of Jesus through the gospel writers than trust what Paul is saying about the atonement, then what is one supposed to think? When Paul is quoted with no regard for context to support such thinking (his statement concerning the silence of women), what is one supposed to make of it? When clear lines of thought in letters such as Romans and Galatians that depict substitution are blithely ignored, what can be said? ... Such arguments and their lack of balance do not hold water for me."

Frank: I do lament the fact that you are misreading the comments I have made so far. I have not attempted to throw away the many biblical and Ellen White's references to the substitutionary explanation for Jesus death on the cross. All I have tried to do is to emphasize the fact that reading what seems to be metaphor in a literal manner is inappropiate.

Jesus followers, Nicodemus, and those who condemned Jesus to death did interpret what he had said, thus patently ignoring the meataphor he had used. The Lord said they needed to eat his flesh and drink his blood, and the Jews refused to acknowledge that he was using a symbol for his Words. He told Nicodemus that he must be born again, and he said: "That is impossible!" He said "destroy this temple," and Jesus enemies took him literally and accused him of plotting to destroy the Jewish Temple.

Jesus said to his disciples: "This is my body." Catholics say: "See? That bread was transformed into Jesus' body!" We say: "Nonsense. The bread they ate was still bread." This means that we do know the difference between what is metaphor and what is literal language. We do know when to read biblical statements metaphorically.

Jesus said: "Whoever does not hate his father and his mother ..." and we say, it is a metaphor. What he meant is: "Whoever does not love less his father and mother ..." Jesus said: "Let the dead bury their dead," and we say: It's a metaphor. It means, do not wait until your parents are dead to follow me."

How is it that we can deal with these metaphors, but when it comes to the substitutionary explanation for Jesus death, which portgrays God as a cruel deity demanding the death of his own Son as a condition for granting forgiveness to repentant sinners, we say: This statement must be interpreted verbatim. No metaphor here!

Frank, let me repeat here what I stated before: It is metaphor "all the way down." Forgiveness, God's love, and salvation are real, but the way these heavenly realities are depicted in Scripture are metaphors. Look how many symbols Jesus used to describe the kingdon of heaven: as leaven, as a large catch of fish, as a grain harvest, as the task of separating sheep from goats, and so on. The same can be said about the many ways the Bible describes the suffering of our Savior.

So, do not think that I am rejecting what the Bible or Ellen White have stated. I only reject the literal reading of the text when such literal reading maligns the character of God. You claim that my arguments do "not hold water," and you are right, they hold the sacred water that has been transmuted into wine by the power of the one who provided this delicious beverage at the wedding at Cana.

Pat,

Cheers! I believe you do misunderstand me persistently. I do NOT deny the substitutionary bloody actual death of Christ on the cross that saves me. And God is both just and the justifier of those who trust Him. I believe in every bible verse you can find.

I just don't ascribe to your exact interpretations of those sacred words.

And here, I must say goodbye for real. Thanks Nic and Jonathan and RDS, JD and Pat for how much you love the Lord and enjoy trying to understand His work on the cross.

sincerely,
arlyn

Metaphors, literalism, parables......There are times to realize it is a parable and not to take it literally, i.e. Lazarus and the Rich Man an arm's length away from each other, one in heaven one in hell. Believe that literally? However, when we impose our interpretation of Salvation to be a metaphor, we get on dangerous ground. I personally take the subject very serious. I quit participating in a forum when an self proclaimed Atheist was given free run of the place. Why waste our time talking anti-God talk. There is nothing at the end but death and dust.

Nic, you say it is about God saying, "Let's be friends and I can make you perfect like Adam was before he sinned." WOW, what an interpretation! That's more than a metaphor, that is a left field interpretation, IMO. If God created the earth, and man in His image and said, this is what you have to do to be saved, I count that seriously more than a metaphor, I consider that serious instruction.

Why is it that there is a new group in the last decade or so that what to define for everyone else what a loving God is. That is presumptious at best and leading a stray at worst. Be very, very careful in this territory. Believing in a God that has a multi-faceted personality that includes Love, Justice, Mercy, Anger (at disobedience), Wrath (to protect those who love Him and He loves), Power to destroy (to make all things new for our eternity). To lightly interpret how to be saved after all the blood shed in the OT pointing to a Savior who would die, I take literally. Are there parables and metaphors used in the Bible, yes, but not about how to be saved. What was said to the jailer by Paul, "Well Jesus die, but that was a metaphor!!!!" Dangerous, Dangerous, ground to be on Nic!!!

Nic,

I understand metaphors for what they are...I'm not stupid. However, I feel that you are taking such metaphors, and pouring different meaning into them, or discarding them altogether.

Ransom or certificate of debt means a price had to be paid, a price that we couldn't...Paul and Jesus are merely using those terms to point to the spiritual reality. But, I understand you saying that no price needed to be paid for us. Your interpretation of the metaphor is different than mine.

For the third time, we can agree to disagree. And I would appreciate not being talked down to.

Thanks...

Frank

Instead of saying that the Bible's descriptions of God, and salvation (the atonement), are "metaphorical", not literal, would "analogical" perhaps not be more apt?

Posted by: Elaine Nelson 10 June 2008 at 6:55

"This tempest in a teapot and the exact definition of how we are saved, is only another well-thought out reason for many to reject the whole death of Jesus concept. Surely, no one here today would limit salvation to those who had a proper and correct definition and could succinctly state it.

Frankly, agnosticism looks better every day: if I'm saved, it will surely not be because of my ability to pass a test or diagram or write a thesis on what Christ's death means. If I'm lost, it too, will not be because of misunderstanding and misinterpreting this dilemma that is too apparent here.

You've done some of us a favor in illustrating that Christ's death can never be explained to a child, let alone and adult. Did anyone ever consider that it is just may not be a necessary requirement for any Christian?

Elaine: I understand your frustration. If acquiring a correct understanding of how Jesus saves were a requirement for salvation, no one would qualify. The Bible says that even angels are eager to understand this mystery. Nevertheless, if, according to Ellen White, this will be the central topic of study in heaven throughout eternity, what is wrong with trying to unravel what we can by using what God has revealed to us so far in the Bible and the writing of Mrs. White?

This exercise is not mandatory for salvation. "Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so." This a little child can understand, and it represents what is needed for salvation. The rest is optional icing on the cake. I do not need to understand how my car is put together. Of course, some individuals enjoy learning this, but it is not a requirement for getting the benefits of this wonderful miracle of transportation.

Nic: agreed. It is man who has devised such complexity. Look no further than Adventists who begin their evangelistic meetings with Daniel's prophecies. If one judges by the first encounter, we have not simplified, but rather complicated it.

Nic wrote:
"This exercise is not mandatory for salvation. "Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so." This a little child can understand, and it represents what is needed for salvation."

Frank7 wrote:
"Ransom or certificate of debt means a price had to be paid, a price that we couldn't...Paul and Jesus are merely using those terms to point to the spiritual reality. But, I understand you saying that no price needed to be paid for us. Your interpretation of the metaphor is different than mine."

And there we see the flaw of the penal theory, Jesus is love and He can freely forgive and He freely gives of Himself. God is full of wrath and He demands someone must be punished, someone must pay God the penalty for sin because God can't freely forgive, because God is mad at people. But God is love..well at least Jesus is love...God not so much.

No flaw to me if you see that God is multi-faceted. Infinite mercy and infinite righteousness and holiness in one and the same being.

Another thought, do we possibly under-estimate the offensiveness and destructiveness of sin? The finale of Revelation speaks of sinners being raised, and still attempting to destroy the city. They are possessed by absolute insanity! God wipes them out in the end to secure his creation and his redeemed, and to put them out of their misery, so to speak. This would be an act of love.

If one were to attempt to destroy your family, would you stand by idly and watch? Is sin in its raw state much more aggressive and destructive then we now understand it to be? Would it not warrant God taking action? And could it not explain the action that Jesus/God agreed upon together to take against it, rather than us, at Calvary?

For the last time, we can agree to disagree.

Thanks...

Frank

The problem is that the book of Revelation is written in a style that is highly symbolic, to attribute it as literal or to attribute that because it says something that it must happen that way is to misunderstand apocalyptic literature.

Of course this would apply to your multifaceted view of God as well, He could be everything that you make Him out to be. Irrational, one who punishes the innocent, wrathful and cruel who would cause eternal conscious torment and the defense would be the same as you put forward. "We simply don't take in the multifaceted nature of God." It is a dodge which tries to explain the irrational view as if it is rational.

Arlyn wrote: "How does the death of Christ satisfy God? Is a God that satisfies Himself moral? Is a God that accepts the death of an innocent for the guilty, moral? Is violence at the cross the only way to end sin?"

It would seem to me that the significance of Jesus death and how it dealt with the sin problem would depend very much on what we think that problem is.

If we believe that the real "problem" with sin is that it is "illegal" and incurs a "legal penalty" then we will understand the solution in terms of a "legal payment".

If we believe that the real problem with is is that it breaks relationships, specifically our relationship with God, then we will understand the redemptive event more in terms of an at-one-ment, a bring back together of separated parties.

If we believe that the real problem with sin is that it destroys its victims then we may understand God's remedy more in terms of healing.

God has given all of these explanations to us so that no matter what our hangup is, he has a way to reach us.

As to this "satisfying" God in some way, the implications for the kind of God that portrays... well, it doesn't seem very much like Jesus is portrayed, the same Jesus that said "If you have seen me you have seen the Father" and "this is life eternal, that you may know me and the One who sent me."

Mark
-- What senses do we lack that we cannot see, cannot hear another world all around us.

rc,

I never said that I believe that God causes "eternal conscious torment," as you put it. I don't believe that is true at all. But, unlike you, I can separate that issue from the others we have been discussing.

As far as the rationality of what we are discussing, go ahead and try to rationally prove faith and hope. Rationally prove miracles and the resurrection, the "mystery of Godliness," and the "mystery of iniquity," the trinity, etc. At some point, our rational thought hits a wall with all of it. I don't view that as a dodge, just the reality of what we are dealing with. It doesn't all make rational sense, it exceeds it. That is why Paul calls it, "the foolishness of the message."

And BTW, it would help in the future if you would not put words in my mouth.

Thanks...

Frank

SYS-OP - Is there any chance of having the poster's name and time of post at the TOP rather than at the bottom? As I scanned through trying to catch up I often found myself having to scroll down to the bottom of long posts to figure out who I was reading.

Frank7 wrote:

"I never said that I believe that God causes "eternal conscious torment," as you put it. I don't believe that is true at all. But, unlike you, I can separate that issue from the others we have been discussing."

I never said that you believed in eternal conscious torment, but those who do follow your same erratic logic that is God is multifaceted and they insert literal interpretation into various portions of the book of Revelation. So to them eternal torment is just another part of the God of wrath the God of justice. And who is any of us to say otherwise, we being the mere mortals who cannot understand the mystery of Godliness.

So I am not putting words in your mouth I am responding to your claims which are substantially the same as those Christians who have no problem with God torturing people for eternity because we just can’t understand God.

If Christ came to show us the Father then yes we can understand God maybe not the how but at least the why.

It's not just the interpretation of apocalyptic imagery in the book of Revelation which we've been discussing. It's metaphors of ransom and payment from all over the Scripture which you say merely reflect a less than modern cultural understanding of the writers, and not a spiritual reality.
So, the analogical or metaphorical meaning of such images break down on a spiritual level, thus enabling one to pour different spiritual meaning into them. In your case, a "kinder, gentler God."

I don't think your issue is with the history of interpretation here, I think it's with the plain sense of the text, and with what the biblical writers meant to convey about God through the text. I also don't feel we're at liberty to simply explain it away as metaphorical because of their limited cultural conditioning. Sound exegesis respects the author's intent, and draws application from that obvious intent, unless the genre (as you have pointed out in apocalyptic) allows for otherwise.

We can agree to disagree... and I'm done.

Thanks...

Frank

Frank7 wrote:

"It's metaphors of ransom and payment from all over the Scripture which you say merely reflect a less than modern cultural understanding of the writers, and not a spiritual reality."

The New Testament says nothing of paying a penalty or payment. It speaks of being bought with a price and yes a ransom for many. Both of which suggest the cost of an activity something given up for the sake of others. That is not merely the modern application but it is the application the Early Church Fathers used. We often forget that they did not teach penal/substitutionary atonement they taught the moral change that comes from seeing the love and victory of Christ.

The following is taken from a short article describing the atonment theories that I put together several years ago.

http://newprotestants.com/ATONHIST1.htm

The Christian Churches attempts to understand Christ’s Atonement and Sacrifice.

The following theories are listed in chronological order. However multiple theories may exist concurrently.

Moral Influence Theory

The Apostolic Fathers About 100-200 AD Vague time frame.

Their chief emphasis is on what Christ imparted to us: new Knowledge, Fresh life, Immortality.

Clement states: Through Him God has called us from darkness to light from ignorance to knowledge of the glory of His name. Clement further says that Christ endured it all on account of us and that His sufferings should bring us to repentance.

Hemas adds that Christ reveals to us the true God. Barnabas notes that He came to abolish death and to demonstrate resurrection from the dead.

Reiterated by Abelard in the 1100’s

Apologists also about 100-200 AD

The ideas stayed much the same with the Apologists with the addition of the concept that not only does God impart saving knowledge and bestow illumination, but principalities and powers are destroyed by Him. Justin says that the aim of the incarnation was the conquest of the serpent. Justin further adds that Christ became a man for our sakes, so that participating in our miseries He might heal them. The essence of the Moral Influence theory is that Christ’s Atoning work is directed to leading man to repentance and faith by revealing the true nature of God

Posted by: pat travis | 10 June 2008 at 8:00

"Children seem to be able to believe that Christ died for their sins on the cross while obviously not understanding all the implications. It is adults that feel the cross is a scandal and foolishness, and thereby to them Christ death ends up being a stumblingblock."

Pat: I have no idea who you are talking about! Those Christians who reject the legal model for Jesus death do not consider the cross a sumblingblock. Personally, I believe that God allowed Jesus death to take place for the benefit of those who otherwise would have never sought repentance and the forgiveness of their sins. Jesus said: "If I be lifted up, I will draw all men to myself." Does this depict Jesus death as a stumblingblock?

The difference between those who defend the lagal theory of Atonement and those who prefer the moral view of Jesus death is quite simple. Those in the first camp believe that God had no intention nor willingness to forgive sins unles humans killed his Only son. He required such sacrifice. This sounds like paganism!

Those in the opposite camp are of the opinion that God simply allowed Satan plan to take the life of Jesus because he realized that this would convince human and heavenly intelligences that God did in fact loved sinners and wanted them to repent and be saved from sin and rebellion.

The natural result of rejected love is pain and suffering. This took place when Lucifer rebelled against God in heaven. When Adam joined Lucifer in his rebellion, God's suffering intensified. When Cain killed his own brother, God's pain increased, and if you add the pain and suffering of all God's children throughout the ages, the net result is that by the time the Baby Jesus was born in Bethlehem, God had suffered more than enouth as a result of sin and rebellion.

The Bible states that "In all their afflictions, he was afflicted." God did not require any additional pain and suffering, but Satan did, and the Lord allowed him to have his evil and cruel desire to be fulfilled, knowing that by doing so, many sinners would be drawn to the love of God exhibited on the cross.

The cross of Christ a stumbingblock for those in the moral theory of atonement? I don't think so!

Posted by: RDS | 10 June 2008 at 1:36

How one can read about years and years of substitutionary animal sacrifice, and believe that Christ's death is a metaphor is beyond me. The truth of it is right in front of your nose!!!

RDS: There are several potential explanations for the animal sacrificial system.

One: God's plan to provide the Israelites a vegetarian diet failed. Have you ever figured out what would have happened to the sacrificial system in the event the children of Israel had settled for a vegetarian diet?

Two: Have you considered the possibility that the sacrificial system was instituted as a concesion to their depraved appetites? Notice some of the biblical statements about the killing of innocent animals:

Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifices. [1 Sam. 15:22]

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and contrite heart. [Psalm 51:17]

To do justice ... is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice. [Psalm 21:3]

To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices? I delight not in the blood ... of lambs! [Is. 1:11]

Question for you: If the Lord did not delight in the sight of the blood of lambs, how can you imagine that the Lord did require the blood of his Only Son be shed? If the Lord did not delight in the sight of animal blood, then who did? Humans? angels? Satan?

I gave them also statutes that were not good. [Ezeq. 20:25]

Your burnt offerings are not acceptable, nor your sacrifices sweet to me. [Jer. 6:20]

For I spake not ... nor commanded ... concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices: but this I commanded ... obey my voice. [Jer. 7:22]

Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams? What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy. [Mic. 6:6-8]

I will have mercy and not sacrifice. [Matt.9:13]

Three: The sight of innocent animals being killed as a result of human sins should have evoked in the minds of worshippers the pain and suffering sin and rebellion imposed on God since Lucifer rebelled against a loving and just God.

Let me suggest that, had the Israelites understood this, and had they received Jesus as their promissed Messiah, God's reign of glory would have been inaugurated two thousand years ago.

There would have been no need for Jesus to die. Jerusalem would have become the capital of the world, and the just Kingdom of Heaven would have eventually expanded to all the habitable earth.

Do not forget that God's predictions come with two alternatives: one if humans respond to God's warnings, and the other in the event they reject them. A glorious future was predicted for the nation of Israel. That was God's Plan A. The alternative was the destruction of Israel as a nation and the death of the Messiah. That was Plan B. The Jews chose the second alternative.

Posted by: pat travis | 10 June 2008 at 2:00

As RDS says, what was all that OT substitutionary sacrifice about... It was about preparing us for the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world. His own blood is the blood of the covenant shed once for all for forgiveness of sins. ... "Worthy, worthy is the Lamb
that was slain, and hath redeemed us to God by His own most precious blood!"

Pat: Yes, God allowed the sacrificial system as a concesion to the depraved appetite of the children of Israel and as a preparation in the event they failed to follow God's Plan A, which contemplated a glorious future for the nation of Israel. God always provides for us a glimpse of two alternatives. One if we are obedient, and the other in the event we are not. The sacrificial system fits the symbol of a dying Messiah simply because Israel opted for God's Plan B.

The Lord allows us to follow our foolish desires, and deals with them in a redemptive manner. God did not require that Israel choose Plan B. He required that they follow Plan A, which points to a path of obedience. Plan B always ends in disaster, but the Lord in his mercy, partakes of our pain and suffering even when we choose the wrong path.

Remember that the Lamb lf God was slaim from the foundation of the world. The foundation of the world did not take place in AD 31, but thousands of year before that event. This is why Ellen White talks about the cross being a window for our dull senses to help us understand that God's pain and suffering did not begin, nor did it end, with the cross.

The Bible tells us that in all their afflictions He was afflicted. Since His love and mercy is infinite, he was subjected to infinite suffering at the time of Lucifer's rebellion and throughout the terrible history of suffering his children were subjected to. This means that the price of our redemption--a natural result of love--was fully paid way before the cross.

Was forgiveness contingent on the cross? I do not think so. Jesus did not make the forgivenes of the paralitic' sins contingent on his death. Way before Calvary, Jesus said to him:Your sins are forgiven. Was his forgiveness real and effective before Jesus' death? I believe it was. Before his death, he said to his disciples: Now you are clean by the word that I have spoken to you.

Did Jesus' death result in our sins being forgiven? Of course. If his death incited us to respond to his love and led us to repentance, then our forgiveness was a direct result of his death on the cross. Nevertheless, this does not mean that Jesus did not have the power to forgive sins before dying, or that God's forgiveness was contingent on the cross.

Posted by: Jonathan Gallagher | 10 June 2008 at 6:49

Nic, Thanks for sharing of yourself with such grace. More than all this debate, I want to say how much more your words of personal belief have meant--and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Jonathan: Thanks for your words of encouragement. You can't imagine how much they mean to me. I should be asleep right now, but I am stil up and trying to get caught up with all the comments made by so many. May all this result for God's glory!

Posted by: RDS | 10 June 2008 at 11:41

Metaphors, literalism, parables ... when we impose our interpretation of Salvation to be a metaphor, we get on dangerous ground. ... I quit participating in a forum when an self proclaimed Atheist was given free run of the place. ... Are there parables and metaphors used in the Bible, yes, but not about how to be saved.

RDS: I doubt that you have read everything I have said about salvation and the death of Jesus Christ. Jesus was accused of being a tool of Beelzebub. You accuse me of being an atheist. Thanks for being kinder with me than the way Jesus was treated by the theologians of his time!

Just in case there is any doubt. Salvation is real--not a metaphor! The death of jesus was real--not a metaphor! The blood which Jesus shed for the forgiveness of sins was real--not a metaphor! The lambs that were killed by the Israelites were real, but a metaphor at the same time. They pointed to what would happen in the event the nation of Israel opted to reject the glorious future the Lord had planned for them.

The forgiveness Jesus granted the paralitic before his death was real--not a metaphor! The cleansing he granted his disciples the evening before his death on the cross was real--not a metaphor! Jesus resurrection was real--not a metaphor, but it also pointed metaphorically to the resurrection of all those who believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God.

RDS: I suggest that you read again what I have written with an open mind instead of suggesting that I am an atheist . Is this the way you treat all those who happen to disagree with you? Can we be friends even though we view our Savior from a different perspective? I hope we can! God bless!

Posted by: frank7 | 11 June 2008 at 4:55

Nic, ... I feel that you are taking such metaphors, and pouring different meaning into them, ... I understand you saying that no price needed to be paid for us. Your interpretation of the metaphor is different than mine. ... I would appreciate not being talked down to.

Frank: Price to be paid? We probably agree that said price is a metaphor for pain and suffering. I am suggesting that said price is a natural result of rejected love. A human parent suffers when his/her children rebel. Ellen White tells us that Lucifer's rebellion produced intense suffering on God, and that Jesus death on the cross was an open window that we might have a glimpse of the suffering God was subjected to since the inception of sin.

God's love is infinite, therefore his suffering was infinite as well. The Bible states that in all their afflictions he was afflicted. If you compute all the human suffering since Adam's fall, and allow for the notion that when humans suffer, God suffers even more, then you probably would agree with me that by the time Jesus was born in Bethlehem, said price in suffering had been fully paid. Ellen White also says that the cross was not a clever maneuver to balance the books of heaven. Therefore, I conclude that there was no legal need for Jesus to die.

Why did God, then, permit Satan to have his pound of flesh? Because the nation of Israel had rejected his chosen Messiah, thus thwarting God's original glorious purpose for God's chosen nation. God's Plan A had to be abandoned, and Plan B, which included the death of Jesus instituted. By allowing Jesus to be killed, the contrast between God's character and that of Satan would be clearly revealed to the entire universe. I conclude that the main difference between the legal and my version of the moral model of Atonement boils down to the contrast between ALLOWING the death of Jesus, and REQUIRING the same to take place.

Frank: Please clarify your statement in reference to being talked down to ! Can you identify the comments you are referring to? Please give me a link to said statement of mine, or else the date and time so I can go back, review what I have said, and make any corrections that need to be made in what I have stated, or at least have a chance to clarify what I meant. Without this, there is no way for me to guess what you mean, since this blog is approaching infinitude.

Posted by: Elaine Nelson (not verified) | 11 June 2008 at 9:37

Nic: agreed. It is man who has devised such complexity. Look no further than Adventists who begin their evangelistic meetings with Daniel's prophecies. If one judges by the first encounter, we have not simplified, but rather complicated it.

Elaine: Could you elaborate on what you said? I am not sure I understand its implication!

Posted by: rc | 11 June 2008 at 9:50

Nic wrote: "This exercise is not mandatory for salvation. "Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so." This a little child can understand, and it represents what is needed for salvation."

And there we see the flaw of the penal theory, Jesus is love and He can freely forgive and He freely gives of Himself. God is full of wrath and He demands someone must be punished, someone must pay God the penalty for sin because God can't freely forgive, because God is mad at people. But God is love..well at least Jesus is love...God not so much.

RC: Great summary. You made me chuckle! I wish more people would see the light the way you see it! Keep up the good work. You made my day.

Posted by: frank7 | 11 June 2008 at 10:15

No flaw to me if you see that God is multi-faceted. Infinite mercy and infinite righteousness and holiness in one and the same being. Another thought, do we possibly under-estimate the offensiveness and destructiveness of sin?

Frank: Good point! We also underestimate the suffering God was subjected to since sin and rebellion raised their ugly head in heaven and then on earth. God's love is infinite, and his suffering at seeing millions of his children whom he loves dearly suffer and die is also infinite.

I conclude that God could not have demanded additional suffering from Jesus. God had suffered enough already. The death of Jesus was a concession to the one who was a murderer from the beginning in order that the entire universe might appreciate what sin and rebellion does to the heart of God.

The Lord had a glorious plan for the nation of Israel. Unfortunately, they rejected their own Messiah, and decided to kill him. This was instigated by Satan--not required by God, but rather by the evil one. The net result? Millions saw clearly that God is love and that the natural result of love is a willingless to suffer for those he loves. Said millions repented and sought forgiveness, which resulted in their salvation from Satan's deceptions.

Nic,

I sometimes talk to myself also...try not to answer that much.

Posted by: rc | 11 June 2008 at 3:17

... the Early Church Fathers ...did not teach penal/substitutionary atonement they taught the moral change that comes from seeing the love and victory of Christ.

The following is taken from a short article describing the atonment theories that I put together several years ago.

http://newprotestants.com/ATONHIST1.htm

The Christian Churches attempts to understand Christ’s Atonement and Sacrifice.

The following theories are listed in chronological order. However multiple theories may exist concurrently.

Moral Influence Theory

The Apostolic Fathers About 100-200 AD Vague time frame.

Their chief emphasis is on what Christ imparted to us: new Knowledge, Fresh life, Immortality.

Clement states: Through Him God has called us from darkness to light from ignorance to knowledge of the glory of His name. Clement further says that Christ endured it all on account of us and that His sufferings should bring us to repentance.

Hemas adds that Christ reveals to us the true God. Barnabas notes that He came to abolish death and to demonstrate resurrection from the dead.

Reiterated by Abelard in the 1100’s

Apologists also about 100-200 AD

The ideas stayed much the same with the Apologists with the addition of the concept that not only does God impart saving knowledge and bestow illumination, but principalities and powers are destroyed by Him. Justin says that the aim of the incarnation was the conquest of the serpent. Justin further adds that Christ became a man for our sakes, so that participating in our miseries He might heal them. The essence of the Moral Influence theory is that Christ’s Atoning work is directed to leading man to repentance and faith by revealing the true nature of God

RC: Thanks for your comments and thanks for sharing with us the result of your research!

Posted by: pat travis | 12 June 2008 at 7:08

Nic, I sometimes talk to myself also...try not to answer that much.

Thanks for your advice. You are right. I have said more than enough! Nevertheless, I feel satisfied that finally I got caught up with answering all the comments that were directed to what I had stated. If I have tired you, I apologize.

Perhaps even this posting should have been avoided! My theory is that, out of courtesy, I need to acknowledge when others are telling me something. This is why I responded so many times, and why I am even respondig to this comment of yours!

Peace...

Nic, the complexity man has added to the simple:
Jesus loves me this I know" is perfectly illustrated by the SDA evangelistic type meetings which usually begin with esoteric prophecies and the Adventist interpretation. They do not begin with a simple story of how much Jesus loves me, do they? That is what I meant by the man-made complexity. Do you see it differently?

Elaine: Thanks for clarifying the meaning of your previous posting. It's true. All our evengelistic presentation should start with Jesus and end with the same. But, it is much easier to say Jesus Loves me this I know, for the Bible Tells me So, than to portray his love in our daily dealings with others. People are more impressed with our actions than with our words. This is why Jesus showed so much interest in providing for the needs of people.

ADRA is a good example of the right approach to evangelism. Another good example is what the Quiet Hour is doing: they show people how to improve their life and health. People tend to respond to the biblical message whenever it is preceded by a genuine interest in responding to their most pressing interests and needs of people.

Using charts depicting biblical beasts of prey does work sometimes. It did work with King Nebuchadnezar, and it did work a century ago when the American public was more familiar with biblical prophecy. It also did work half a century ago when I was young out of a seminary and engaged in assisting a very talented evangelist in Argentina, and it still works in certain parts of the world.

Over a decade ago, a bright young Russian woman connected with our radio and television work in the former Soviet Union who visited one of our Sabbath Schools in Loma Linda explained his conversion to Adventism from communism this way : Adventists are the only ones who really understand biblical prophecy.