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 Guide” is titled “From the Stormy Sea to the Clouds of Heaven”. For this quarter, we have finished with the history portion of the book of Daniel and are now into the vision/ prophecy portion. This portion is grouped at the end of the book of Daniel, not because it happened after Daniel’s miraculous escape from the lion’s den, but so each portion will be contiguous and easy to read and follow. Look for the details in each prophecy chapter that helps us determine when each vision took place in Daniel’s history. In some cases, years elapsed between visions.
This chapter in Daniel is very familiar to us Adventists. Four animals from the sea. Each one a parallel to the first dream of Nebuchadnezzar (the image comprised of 4 metals). And at the end of this chapter, a vision of the “Judgement”. And this is what I want to focus-on this week. The “Judgement”.
There is a reason God waits to return. Why He has not come. He waits for us to see Him aright. He will not come as long as the picture of Him we hold and we present before the world is more like the “Adversary” than His Son. The world must see Him rightly, as He is, so that acceptance or rejection of Him and our true identity can be made.
• As long as we keep maintaining that the death of His Son somehow changed the Father, enabling Him to forgive us, then I maintain that He will wait (God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself).
• As long as we maintain that the Father cannot relate to us sinners but must have His Son be a mediator, intercessor, intervener between Him and us, then I maintain that He will wait (Christ brings the things of God to us, not the things of man to God).
• As long as we maintain that the Son’s death on the cross is in-place of my death to self, then I maintain that He will wait (I am to follow Christ to the cross and die to self with Him there… and then rise to newness of life with Him).
• As long as we maintain that God is obliged to execute sinners at the end of time, then I maintain that He will wait (Sin kills us in the end, not our loving Father. We are to fear sin, not fear Him).
• As long as we maintain that God punishes His perfect Son instead of rebellious you and we keep calling this “justice”, I maintain He will wait (true “Justice” is holding the guilty party responsible… you and me… we die with the Son, He dies with us… He shares our death so that we can share His endless life).
• As long as we think the “cross” is an unusual act for God, I maintain He will wait (the cross shows us the self-sacrificing motivation of the entire Godhead and of the heavenly universe).
I maintain that we Adventists still have misunderstandings of God that need work (see “bullets” above). The repetition of long-held doctrines by us is not proof that they are accurate. I maintain that the “Judgement” is not about condemnation or vindication. Not about sins being covered or Christ being our defense attorney before a very vindictive Judge. The “Judgement” is about truth being revealed. That the only thing that “judges” us is the truth.
In a very telling exchange with His listeners, Christ reveals what the “Judgement” is all about. Please follow the Scriptures quoted:
• John 5:22-23 – “For the Father judges no one, but has committed all judgment to the Son, that all should honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him”.(THE FATHER JUDGES NO ONE!!!. He has given this prerogative to the Son).
• John 12:44-47 – “Then Jesus cried out and said, ‘He who believes in Me, believes not in Me but in Him who sent Me. And he who sees Me sees Him who sent Me. I have come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in Me should not abide in darkness. And if anyone hears My words and does not believe, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world’.” (THE SON JUDGES NO ONE!!! Especially those who do not believe!)
• John 12:48 – “He who rejects Me, and does not receive My words, has that which judges him—the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day.” (THE “WORD” JUDGES US!! What does Jesus mean by this?).
• John 17:17 – “Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth.” (THE TRUTH JUDGES US!!!)
• John 14:6 – “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me’.” (THE VERY LIFE JESUS LIVED AND THE WORDS HE SPOKE TESTIFY TO WHO WE ARE TO BE, WHAT WE ARE CREATED TO BE. This is our “judge”… the truth of what we really value in our hearts and minds).
For so long, we Christians have promoted a “Santa Claus” kind of god (small “g”). A god who watches to see if you are naughty or nice and rewards (or withholds reward) accordingly. But this caricature of the real GOD (big “G”) and the real “Judgement” has only created nominal Christians (in name only) and has promoted outward conformity, not inward renewal. The real “Judgement” is a disclosure of who you really are inside. What you really want, what your true heart motive is. Not to punish you. But to give you what you really want. The truth about those who do not want the life God created you to have is this…
“Could those whose lives have been spent in rebellion against God be suddenly transported to Heaven, and witness the high, the holy state of perfection that ever exists there,— every soul filled with love; every countenance beaming with joy; enrapturing music in melodious strains rising in honor of God and the Lamb; and ceaseless streams of light flowing upon the redeemed from the face of Him who sits upon the throne,—could those whose hearts are filled with hatred of God, of truth and holiness, mingle with the heavenly throng and join their songs of praise? Could they endure the glory of God and the Lamb?—No, no; years of probation were granted them, that they might form characters for Heaven; but they have never trained the mind to love purity; they have never learned the language of Heaven, and now it is too late. A life of rebellion against God has unfitted them for Heaven. Its purity, holiness, and peace would be torture to them; the glory of God would be a consuming fire. They would long to flee from that holy place. They would welcome destruction, that they might be hidden from the face of Him who died to redeem them. The destiny of the wicked is fixed by their own choice. Their exclusion from Heaven is voluntary with themselves, and just and merciful on the part of God” (The Great Controversy pg. 542).
This is the “Judgement”. For the irreclaimably wicked it is not punishment, not condemnation, but mercy/ love.
God cannot, will not come until the world sees the truth about Him. May we proclaim and live that truth about Him just as Christ did. It’s what we are called to do and to be.
With brotherly love,
Jim