Hello All,
(Just a general disclaimer that I must insert here at the beginning. I am but a lay person, like most of you. And these weekly “thoughts” are but my own. Not the definitive word on this or any topic. Just my own conclusions derived from my own study and faith in God. The greatest hope I have for these weekly “thoughts” is to have them be a springboard for further study on your part. Not to be a weekly treatise to be blindly accepted. So, please read them with this intent, this motive in mind).
This week’s lesson from the “Adult Sabbath School Bible Study Guide”, is titled “God’s Mission to Us: Part 2”. Once again, the “Gospel” is referenced. This time it is referenced as “The Eternal Gospel: The Message of Mission” in Tuesday’s lesson for October 10. As so typically presented by most Christians, our quarterly follows suit:
“The gospel is the good news of grace offered to all through Jesus Christ. He came into our sinless world to show us ‘grace and truth’. He lived a sinless life and died on the cross as a substitutionary sacrifice to bear the penalty for our sins. He rose to life, returned to heaven, was exalted by the Father, and today intercedes for us in the heavenly sanctuary. He will soon fulfill His greatest promise – to return in majesty and glory and, ultimately, after the millennium to establish God’s kingdom on earth. These are all essential realities of the eternal gospel.”
This seems to fit Scripture. But, there are some fatal flaws in this reasoning. The first… that there is an imposed “penalty” for our sin. As if God is constrained by the Holiness of His Character and government to kill sinners. So instead of killing guilty you, He is killing His innocent Son. YIKES! Or Christ’s death is a “substitutionary sacrifice”. If this is the case, why would Christ tell us “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me” (Luke 9:23). That doesn’t sound like a definition for substitute = “instead of me”. That sounds like I am to follow Him to the cross… and die with Him (to our “old man”, our sinful self) … not His death instead-of me. It sounds like my death to self with Him.
One of our recent-past important Adventist leaders (Graham Maxwell) once gave a wonderful way of detecting the true from the false. He said, “What makes a doctrine/ teaching false, is not that it goes against any long-established doctrine. Not that it injects a new and unheard-of doctrine. What makes any doctrine false is……………… it puts our Father in a false light. It misrepresents His character”.
For example, the doctrine of praying to deceased “saints” says to us, “you cannot pray directly to your Father. You need to pray to a deceased ‘saint’ who will work-on our very stern and implacable Father. Or you might pray to His deceased mother Mary and she will then work-on her son Jesus and then He will work-on His Father to grant your petition”. HORRORS! This maligns our Father’s character! Therefore, it is false. He needs no one to work-on Him. Christ said, “I do not say to you that I shall pray the Father for you; for the Father Himself loves you…” (John 16:26-27).
It is this concept (false doctrines are false because they put the Father in a false light) that leads many to look again at the “gospel” as typically presented, as presented in our quarterly. Does the Father need someone to die (payment of penalty) before He can forgive? “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself” (2 Corinthians 5:19). This text presents a Father who forgives… and comes looking for His lost children.
“But this great sacrifice was not made in order to create in the Father's heart a love for man, not to make Him willing to save. No, no! ‘God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son.’ John 3:16. The Father loves us, not because of the great propitiation, but He provided the propitiation because He loves us. Christ was the medium through which He could pour out His infinite love upon a fallen world. ‘God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself.’ 2 Corinthians 5:19. God suffered with His Son. In the agony of Gethsemane, the death of Calvary, the heart of Infinite Love paid the price of our redemption” (Steps to Christ pg. 13)
Is it necessary to pay something to God’s broken law? Does the law stand above mankind? If the “sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath”, then by extension, so was all the Law. The Law serves you, not you for it. Breaking His Law carries its own result.
“We behold in (the Law) the goodness of God, who by revealing to men the immutable principles of righteousness, seeks to shield them from the evils that result from transgression” (1 Selected Messages pg. 235).
Yet, the previous quote for EGW in “Steps to Christ” says there is a “price for our redemption”. And there is. “But only by the precious blood of the Son of God could the transgressor be redeemed. The plan of salvation was laid in sacrifice” (Acts of the Apostles pg. 519). “The Lord Jesus Christ paid the ransom price of his own blood for us” (The Youth’s Instructor. 5/26/1894). But the question remains, “to whom is this ransom-price paid”? It is NOT paid to the Father so He could forgive. It is NOT paid to His broken Law. It is paid to the “one” who holds us. And, that person is… ME! Satan does not hold me. The Law does not hold me (the Law describes what holds me… my sinful self). I hold me. “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 7:24).
So, the ransom-price (the precious life of Christ) is “paid” to the one who holds me….. ME. Christ gives His precious life to… ME… to redeem me from sin and self.
For Example: You, an alcoholic child, is in jail for drinking and driving. Your father, goes to the jail, pays the monetary fine, and even volunteers to stay in jail the 4 days necessary for the “penalty”. As this child, I see my father paying the monetary fine and paying the jail time so I can walk out of the jail, free. But seeing those payments thus paid, does not free me from my alcohol addiction. It merely sets me free from that imposed legal penalty for the act of driving intoxicated. As the alcoholic son, I misunderstand what my dad is doing nor the price. I misinterpret it. I do not realize the real “price” my father has paid and for what purpose. The real price dad paid was himself. And the price was given, not to the authorities, but to me. My dad gave to me himself in order for me to see Him giving himself in love to me, and for me to repent from my alcoholic ways and come home. It is not enough to pay my legal fine, He wants to have me healed and restored.
We sinners see Christ dying for us and misinterpret it. We think it is paying an imposed penalty pronounced in the “Garden”. But no. There is no imposed penalty. The proclamation in the “Garden” (in the day you eat the fruit of the tree, you will die) is not a threat. It is the truth. Sin kills us, not our loving Dad. So Dad comes to die our death with us, so that we can have His life, if we will, for we have none of our own. We think He gives His life to assuage His broken Law. But no. He gives His life to us, to heal His broken children.
May we present our Father aright to His children who know Him not. He is their (and our) only hope.
With brotherly love,
Jim