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Our past couple of studies have been fairly complex. Spiritual warfare is not something that most Churches would even discuss, and even with all the detailed insights offered in the Spirit of Prophecy writings, Adventists can seem fairly hesitant to talk about it beyond the general concept of a Great Controversy. While I think there is great value to be found in pushing the boundaries of what we can know, living in the current light in order to prepare for the new – after all, we are to judge the very angels – it is often just as useful to reflect on fundamental principles, well-known quotations from the Scripture. Sometimes, within the comfort of familiar things, new insights can be gained.
As such, this week’s idea will be relatively simple, yet with great value for strength, for comfort, for accomplishing the same goals that understanding Yahweh’s character, spiritual warfare, and all that digesting the “meat” of the Gospel supplies.
Specifically, I was reading through the Book of Romans this week, something I’ve done a number of times before, and I came across this passage: “For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. 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. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.” (Rom 5:6-10)
What is it that saves the sinner, and makes a saint of him? The most common answer likely to come from a Christian who is asked this question, is that “God’s mercy through the death of Christ on the cross paid the penalty for our sin, so that we do not need to receive its wages, which is death.”
Nothing in this statement is incorrect. The wages of sin is death. Christ came and died for our sins, so that the penalty is not applied to us in the judgment. The problem, though, is that I think this concept is learned by rote memorization of a doctrine. This is what we are taught the Gospel is, and while the motivation for the Father sending the Son is love for humanity, the procedure as it is described there comes across as fairly robotic, transactional, and legalistic. The Law exists, we broke it, and so God rescues us from the Law by the Law.
This way of thinking is something that Christianity has unfortunately inherited from the Judaism that existed in the time of Christ’s earthly ministry, and the first days of the Church. We know that there were “Judaizers” both outside of and within the Church, teaching a legalistic view of what Yahshua wanted His people to do. We read, for example, “And certain men which came down from Judaea taught the brethren, and said, ‘Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved.’ When therefore Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and disputation with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas, and certain other of them, should go up to Jerusalem unto the apostles and elders about this question.” (Acts 15:1, 2) As a result, they called together the elders. During the discussion that took place, the Apostle James stood up and gave his conclusion, saying, “Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not them, which from among the Gentiles are turned to God; but that we write unto them, that they abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood. For Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath day.” (Acts 15:19-21)
This conclusion was approved by the assembly, who sent out messengers to convey their resolution to the congregations in various locations. Interestingly enough, the few areas that they thought of as vital to specify and clarify, avoiding idols and fornication, and the ingestion of tainted meat and blood, is not all that different from what we have concluded in these very last days, that the Commandments of Yahweh and the Faith of Yahshua are the two determining factors in testing the spirit for Christ-likeness. Of course, there is always more to learn, and our beliefs and practices will be refined as we hear more of the Word, and fellowship with the brethren, just as Moses’ works were taught in the synagogues every Sabbath, which the early Christians would frequently attend.
We see idolatry and fornication singled out. These two sins actually capture a large portion of the 10 Commandments, with regard to our obligation toward Yahweh and our neighbors. The idea behind idolatry destroys the relationship between Yahweh and man, rendering even the Sabbaths useless, and certainly drawing the mind away from the Creator to other gods. So, there goes the first four commandments. The principle behind fornication covers adultery, covetousness, and even – depending on the motivation – theft and the bearing of false witnesses. Because of a lack of trust that our Father will fulfill our needs, the carnal man goes out seeking his own fulfillment.
The consumption of blood was a perversion of the sacrifice that represented Yahshua’s giving of His life for mankind. The verse says that Christians are to abstain “from blood,” but this is also the reason behind the prohibition on the consumption of strangled animals. These are not slaughtered properly, in such a way that the blood is removed from the meat, and therefore the flesh is rendered acceptable. While they might not have been able to express it as clearly as we can after two thousand years of theology, this was the way that the Gentiles were being taught to honor the symbols of Yahshua’s sacrifice.
In any event, the new Church clearly rejected the teachings of the Judaizers, and encouraged them to throw off the approach to the Bible that the Pharisees and Sadducees had adopted. When their faith began to fade away over the years due to apostasy, however, they replaced the genuine closeness to Yahweh this would provide with works that were intended to win His favor. This is what happened to Christianity, to the Church. Like Cain, they would offer the best of their works, their obedience to the Law being the “proof” that they were His chosen people, and so content themselves with an entirely inaccurate perception of who our Father is.
Unfortunately, this attitude was not eliminated by the letter sent out after the meeting in Acts 15. In fact, it grew steadily worse over time, until eventually the papacy arose as the new, earthly head of the Church that very much taught and promoted the works-based version of religion that James and the other apostles fought so hard to stamp out. Now, an elaborate system of rituals and formal prayer replaced the warm, organic relationship that Yahshua established with humanity. This was a down-turn from which Christianity in general never recovered, prompting a series of drastic reformations that resulted in Adventism, and now Creation Seventh Day Adventism.
The Christianity of the world has never been able to shake that Judaizer spirit. We must do “something,” whether it is circumcision or ritualized prayer-beads, or choosing the right saint to venerate for a specific result, in order to get our Creator’s favorable attention. So far, I am not sharing anything new, except to emphasize that Christianity as a whole has a very legalistic understanding of what happened on the Cross. While claiming to be of faith and not of works, even declaring, in some cases, that the Law itself was abolished except for a few remaining, vague ideas, they understand the Gospel legalistically.
When asked, “What saved you,” they will say, “Jesus Christ died for my sins.” This is true, but very incomplete. Paul says that yes, Yahshua died for our sins, but if the shedding of His blood has redeemed us from destruction, “much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.” Much more, more important, more impactful than His death was His life. We are saved by His life, both the life He lived during His time on earth leading up to His sacrifice, and His resurrected life – proof of His triumph over the power of sin.
It is easy to prove that the modern Christian sees this legalistically, ritualistically, and generally only goes so far as Yahshua’s death. What was Yahshua like? What was His personality? What are the things He enjoyed? These are not of any importance to the legalistic Christian. For them, He was a means to an end, not a Friend, or loved One. After the death, they say, they are free from the Law and its obligations. They do not need to know what His life on earth was like, or what His resurrection is like. It is not a part of their relationship with Yahweh. The Son is no more to them than the symbol, the lamb itself, the animal laid on the altar in service of their own selfish existences.
They love Yahweh in their way, not because of who He is, but only because of what He has done for them, and what He might continue to do for them. That is not love; that is a transactional agreement. That is a legal exchange, not a committed relationship based on love.
Ask the nominal Christian what Yahshua did while He was here with us. We might get a few of the more impressive miracles mentioned, but not how He spoke to people, or how He treated those who needed to know that they were loved and worth all of that great effort. This was His focus. Remember when His disciples returned to Him, glorying in their ability to cast demons out of their victims. He said to them, “Notwithstanding in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in Heaven.” (Luke 10:20) Their names were recorded in His Father’s Kingdom. This was the proof of their relationship, and it was in this they were to find their joy.
Our last few studies, for all their complexity, were really all about the idea of relationships. Getting to know people, closing the gaps to complete a circuit of faith, drawing near to the afflicted… these are all expressions of the principles of Heaven, that “it is not good that the man should be alone,” (Gen 2:18) It was not good for Yahweh to be alone either, so He brought forth His Son, and He created intelligent beings with whom He could have a relationship in which agape is expressed. Our presence, our existence, is the inevitable consequence of who Yahweh is, but inevitability is not the same as entitlement. We do not deserve to have been created initially, and certainly not to have been redeemed from the consequences of our fall, but are grateful that our Father is who He is, in order to make us who we are.
The life of the Father created us. The life of the Son teaches us. That was all that would be necessary, except for sin; sin necessitated another step – that the death of the Son should be necessary to redeem us, paying the penalty for that sin, but when we are restored, the original principles continue to apply. What does the death of Yahshua change about the Commandments of Yahweh? Not a thing, as He Himself declared, saying, “Think not that I am come to destroy the Law, or the prophets; I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till Heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the Law, till all be fulfilled.” (Mat 5:17, 18) Some have said, “All was fulfilled when He died, saying ‘It is finished.’” That is not the fulfillment of which He was speaking, though, as His followers continued to be faithful commandment-keepers until centuries later with the rise of what would become the papacy.
The life of the Son teaches us. This is something that many misunderstand. A few years ago, I was exchanging emails with some independent Adventists in Australia, and they seem to have been convinced that Yahshua, even in His humanity, was all-knowing. It is not that He could ask the Father to reveal anything to Him, which would certainly be the case, but that in His natural human flesh, He knew all things past, present and future. I pointed out the many verses in which Yahshua Himself declared that He did not know things, or when He was amazed by demonstrations of faith, indicating surprise. He was “led by the Spirit” to know more than nature would reveal, but then so might any human being that is in a relationship with Yahweh. And so certainly, there were Bible verses, doctrinal reasons, disproving that very strange idea, but to me the most important reason why this could not be true is the nature of Yahshua’s own life. We are to learn from His life. What could we learn from an experience so alien to our own?
Yahshua is our example in all things. In His humanity, He needed to have the essence of the human experience in order to become a suitable substitute for Adam’s descendants. He was “tempted in all points.” Temptation is not possible if one knows every possible outcome. We speak of the “faith” of Yahshua, not the “knowing” of Yahshua, because as it is written, “faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (Heb 11:1) There were things Yahshua hoped for, things He did not see, or else it would not be faith, but sight. Paul says this very thing: “For we are saved by hope; but hope that is seen is not hope, for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?” (Rom 8:24)
The life of Yahshua is valuable to us only if He was truly “like” us in His mental and spiritual experience of this world. It only saves us if He became like us so that we become like Him. He only became a suitable sacrifice because He endured what we endure, and He only died for us because He lived as us. Those who only know the legal aspects of this, that transactional exchange, having been taught a few verses of religion, do not see Yahshua as He is, and therefore can never become like Him. Paul says that it is by beholding, by seeing, that we are changed. (2Cor 3:18) John says, “We know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is.” (1John 3:2) For, because, we see Him as He is, we are and shall be like Him. By seeing His life, by knowing Him through His life, we are saved. His death made this knowing possible; because of the cross the sacrifice was paid, and the Church was established to teach us of our Savior, but it is knowing the Father and Son, that is eternal life. (John 17:3) One cannot know what a dead man is like, only what he was like. But Yahshua has lived, and died, and now lives again, so that He may even now be known.
Yahshua now lives again. That divine life continues on into eternity. The glory of the resurrection is what fuels the miracles, the healings, and the truth of the Gospel. Consider: if Christ had merely died, and stayed dead, what hope would that provide? Yes, the legal part would have been fulfilled – a death would have taken place for sin, and mankind would have been redeemed from such sins as it had committed up to that point… but then what? What everlasting life would that promise? The wages of sin is death, so One died for our sins, and the legal penalty is paid. But then what? That doesn’t solve the real problem. Adam was created without sin, and he yet fell into transgression. Being set free from the penalty of sin, or even the tendency to sin, is not enough. We are not looking for a mere “reset” to roll the dice again and see what happens. No, we want, and have received, something far better than that.
Should we merely have our sins “paid for” legally, what assurance would we have that we would not just follow Adam’s path again at the first temptation, or any temptation thereafter? But no, here is the good news: Yahshua’s death and resurrection did more than just pay a debt. It gave us the power to live IN the atonement so that, given the same purity of character that Adam had, we also rely on the ongoing, everlasting life of Yahshua to fuel, to empower, a life that will never thereafter sin. We have that now; we are not waiting for anything. Some have said that the doctrine of Righteousness by Faith, because it makes a man righteous, removes the need for the Savior. They know nothing of the resurrection, of the life of Yahshua into which we enter, and where we abide with Him, held there continually by His limitless love. They believe that Yahshua’s ministry of forgiving our (many, ongoing, inevitable) sins is what saves us; but His death did that. Now His life keeps us always from falling.
Salvation is more than just ceasing to commit sin, and being declared innocent in the judgment. It is about becoming a being, a person, who in all the countless ages of eternity, will never once abuse his freedom and violate the principles of Heaven. That begins right here on earth, in this born-again experience. This is more than what Adam had. He would have attained what I am describing eventually, by learning about the Father and Son – but we have it now, given to us through the life of Yahshua. Yes, intellectually, we have “learned” that the wages of sin is death, and that sin leads to suffering, but Adam knew that – at least to some level – as well, and yet he still chose to follow Eve into destruction. So it is not enough to know this intellectually; it is not enough to merely be without sin, or the tendency to sin. We want an assurance greater than mere human will, even sanctified human will, can provide.
These are things that the redeemed, the purified, the translated, will contemplate. We know that sin will not rise again, not once among the multitudes of people who are saved. Consider that; something is different this time. In the beginning, two humans were created. Both fell into sin, and their firstborn child was a murderer. Satan has always made “sport” of Yahweh’s apparent failure in the creation of man. And of course, there is evidence that it is a failure. The record of transgression is clear, and Yahweh has not hidden it from the universe. Instead, He has said, “Despite its fall, I love those who are in the world, and I will send them my Son.” In giving the world His Son, the Father did not merely provide a suitable sacrifice. That is the legalistic view. If any innocent being could pay the penalty for humanity, then human sacrifice would be a true doctrine; we could just kill an infant, as distasteful as that is to even contemplate, and that innocent blood substitutes for our own – a life for a life, a human for a human, an equal value taken and given. Satan has tried to make this a common thing within humanity, to be an idea consistently linked to religion: take a life to save your life.
But in giving us His Son, the Father has given to us a perfect life. Would you like the perfect life? The Father has given it to you. It was lived in our presence. It was unjustly taken away at our hands. And now it is lifted up before the universe in the resurrection. In His death, Yahshua was lifted up on the cross a little above the ground, and a few people saw Him; but in the resurrection He is raised to the Heavens, so that every eye shall see, and every knee shall bow, and every soul may receive that life as a gift. The Father did not give His Son to “the world” as some general, abstract concept. He gave His Son to you, and to me, and to every true seeker of righteousness and agape love – that perfect life that we need so that we shall not only be forgiven for our sins that are past, and atoned to the Father in the present, but that we shall have life everlasting into the endless future, entirely unstained, forever more unstained, by transgression of the Law.
In the resurrection, multitudes will be saved, and yet not one will follow in the example of the first three humans ever made – all of humanity’s first generation and a good portion of its second. Something is different. The life of Yahshua saves us, and maintains us eternally in a state of atonement, of loving covenant, with our Father. It is not “work” to cease from sin. It is not “work” to be kept from sin, at least, not on our part.
I will close today with a passage from Romans, the Book from which I drew the opening verse and the name of our study: “Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection; knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over Him. For in that He died, He died unto sin once, but in that He liveth, He liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Yahshua the Messiah, our Lord.” (Rom 6:4-11)
The death was just the beginning. His Life is what keeps us in love and glory. This is more than a reset. This is more than a do-over. This is a new thing, a wonderful thing that has never been done before, and something that Satan could never have anticipated. Let us, with wonder and amazement, consider what the Father and Son have done for the lost sheep that we have been.
David.
An Enduring Witness
“The Lord Jesus, who is the image of the invisible God, gave His own life to save perishing man, and, oh, what light, what power, He brings with Him! In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead, bodily. What a mystery of mysteries! It is difficult for the reason to grasp the majesty of Christ, the mystery of redemption. The shameful cross has been upraised, the nails have been driven through His hands and feet, the cruel spear has pierced to His heart, and the redemption price has been paid for the human race. The spotless Lamb of God bore our sins in His own body upon the tree; He carried our sorrows.” [Selected Messages, Book 1, p. 404]
“The greatest difficulty Paul had to meet arose from the influence of Judaizing teachers. These made him much trouble by causing dissension in the church at Corinth. They were continually presenting the virtues of the ceremonies of the law, exalting these ceremonies above the gospel of Christ, and condemning Paul because he did not urge them upon the new converts.” [Selected Messages, Book 1, p. 236]
“Again Christ appealed to those stubborn hearts. ‘Him that cometh to Me I will in nowise cast out.’ All who received Him in faith, He said, should have eternal life. Not one could be lost. No need for Pharisees and Sadducees to dispute concerning the future life. No longer need men mourn in hopeless grief over their dead. ‘This is the will of Him that sent Me, that everyone which seeth the Son, and believeth on Him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.’” [The Desire of Ages, p. 386]