Pythons: Thanks for what you said about my post. However, you are correct in saying that we do not worship a God that was conditional on His Being and remaining God. In a sense, it is not only folly but truely a heresy to think that God or that His begotten Son could also sin. I wonder sometimes if those who believe in such things really think about what they are saying and believing. yet, since the time of Jesus and also of the Apostles there were those who preached and taught a different gospel than the one Jesus taught the Apostles who in turn passed it on through the Church. It has continued since that time to the present, some of it due to the Protestant Reformation and some due to not understanding what Scriptures are saying and the meaning thereof.
Yes for sure - even back in the time of Moses there were those who didn’t quite like the God Moses was representing…
…So they crafted a god “more to their liking”.
…i.e. the golden calf!
Some people don’t like the teaching that there is a Hell & that it’s eternal…
…So they fabricate a god that’s more to their liking.
…So THAT god does things more to the way THEY think things should be done.
I’ve actually heard Jehovah’s Witnesses openly tell me that they wouldn’t want to worship a God who supports an eternal Hell…
…I’m reasonably sure the SDA’s would say the same thing or close enough it might as well be the same thing.
…It’s the same for their teaching that Christ could have sinned and the real God would have annihilated Him.
Remember, at least for SDA’s it’s “VITAL” that they accept this teaching.
Seventh Day Adventist Signs of the Time April 2, 1940
**It is VITAL **for
every Christian to know that
Jesus Christ MIGHT have sinned. The Master was not beyond the clutches of temptation.
The Heaven-sent Gift could have been eternally lost and the doom of humanity would have been eternally sealed. Jesus Christ knew the pull of evil. “In that He Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able to succor them that are tempted.”
Because it supports the following.
Review and Herald November 14, 1854
Again, where it is declared, that there are none good except the Father, it cannot be understood that none others are good in a relative sense;
for Christ and angels, are good, yea perfect, in their respective sphere; BUT
that the Father alone is supremely, or absolutely, good; AND
that he alone is immortal in an absolute sense; that
he alone is self-existent; and,
that, consequently, every other being, however high or low, is absolutely dependent upon him for life; for being. This idea is most emphatically expressed by our Saviour himself; " For as the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself." John v, 26. This would be singular language for one to use who had life in his essential nature, just as much as the Father. To meet such a view, it should read thus: For as the Father hath life in himself, so hath the Son life in himself
If as Trinitarians argue, the Divine nature of the Son hath life in himself (i. e., is self existent) jusl the same, and in as absolute a sense, as the Father, why should he represent himself as actually dependent upon the Father for life ? What propriety in representing the Father as conferring upon him a gift which he had possessed from all eternity ? If it be said that his human nature derived its life from the Father, I would answer, It does not thus read; 01 even if it did, 1 would still urge the impropriety of the human nature of the Son of God representing itself as being absolutely dependent upon the Father for the gift of life
Ellen White backs the above up by making certain the SDA flock understands…
…That’s Christ’s Deity was “on loan” or “conditional” from The Father.
…And that Christ was free to “keep it” so long as He towed the rope.
Ellen White
Though Christ humbled Himself to become man, the Godhead was still His own. **His Deity could not be lost **WHILE
He stood faithful and true to His loyalty.
Ellen White
Could Satan in the least particular have tempted Christ to sin,
he would have bruised the Saviour’s head. As it was, he could only touch His heel.
Had the head of Christ been touched, the hope of the human race would have perished. Divine wrath would have come upon Christ as it came upon Adam. Christ and the church would have been without hope.” (
Signs of the Times, June 9th 1898, see also Selected Messages Book 1 page 256)
Ellen White ruled her Arian roost with an iron fist.
Spina:
There will always be those willingly or think that they are devout or sincerely think they understand who end up distorting and misrepresenting and misimterpretating all that they read because they make Scripture fit their own brand of thinking instead of what God intends us to understand and what He teaches us to know. Thankfully ,we have the Catholic Church to guide us in not just how to understand what Jesus and the Apostles taught and what the Bible is saying to us, but to keep to the truth of what has been handed down to us from Christ.
Yes and with the Catholic Church we get all those who went before us…
…Back in time to the founding of the Church.
…We are indeed lucky.
with your understanding of the SDA belief on this. Here is a quote (and there are many many more) from Ellen White regarding this: