Starhunter wrote:As the 7th Day Adventist thread was drifting off topic, I moved the OSAS discussion here.
Rick
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I was watching a video by Dennis Priebe,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lA-r7XVFGs
Which I would not generally recommend because it is addressed to SDA's who know the Bible and the issues at stake in the SDA church, and if you watched it without a knowledge of those things you would get lost.
But it is interesting that the only doctrine that SDA's have been given as a church, which no other church or individual gave them, is the understanding of the final atonement, made by Christ to end the great contest between good and evil, between God and Satan.
It brings a full understanding of the issue that Satan has claimed against the government and character of God since the beginning of the rebellion, and it shows how God answers the Devil.
Not by words or a claim, but by a demonstration to angels and world, in humanity.
The Devil also has a show prepared for the world. You can read the details of that battle in our history since the Christian era, in the book "The Great Controversy" by E. White, available on line.
Some people like to say that SDA's are just following a whole lot of their own traditions, but no, all their teachings were already established by all the reformers and reformation churches. Somehow the understanding of the final atonement that God has in Christ for the world, is a culmination and collation of all truth, as well as a restoration of the image of God in humanity, the image so far as heart is concerned - a people of faith.
This subject is so great that I doubt that even SDA's understand it. I cannot grasp it at all, but I have read about it in the Bible to get the bones of it.
There are aspects of it which people in all denominations already know, and the readers here as well, including atheists, but also have not been able to get the whole of it. We sense that there is something missing, even in our Christian walk, we know that there is something powerless and slovenly about our personal walk with God. What is the missing piece the world needs if not the final atonement?
For example, some say that the ecumenical understanding of the Gospel, that Christ's sacrifice removes the sins of the world past, present and future is wrong, because it says that "if we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive..." making it seem like a present action of God, and not one in the past.
Yet John the Baptist declared "behold the Lamb of God which takes away the sin(s) of the world." that would have to be a statement for past, present and future would it not?
While I believe salvation is conditional upon acceptance of Christ, I do not believe that the removal of sins, as in guilt before God, is conditional, seeing that God already loved the world so much, that He gave His only Son. A plan which was made for humanity in the garden of Eden.
Paul says "while we were sinners Christ died for us" and "being reconciled by His death." So the death of Christ reconciled the world long before we came to be. And the world of old was reconciled long before Christ came, because the promise of God - the Word of salvation could not fail, so it was as good as done.
The love of God for the world, has reconciled all of humanity to God, past, present and future, and that such a term of redemption remains in place until the judgement, when those who have not accepted this salvation are faced with their own life time of rejection of the love of God, and condemned.
The red carpet to heaven is already rolled out for humanity, right from the beginning of sin, and salvation is conditional of remaining on it to the destination.
So
when we confess our sins, we are confirming and accepting the provision of salvation, which is forgiveness already.
Paul says that there
remains a Rest for us to enter into. The Rest is already there - it is Jesus Christ our friend and Savior. It has to be as simple as that.
That is not teaching once saved always saved, because we can leave that provision if we choose.
