The Atonement -- What is it all about?

[Soli Deo Gloria]

The roots of Graham Maxwell's theology have been taught to Adventist kids since 1957 when Graham's father, Arthur S. Maxwell (uncle Arthur) came out with the famous 10 volume colorful Bible study set. I loved those books growing up as a child. But apparently Uncle Arthur taught his son quite well.

Here is an excerpt from Volume 9 Page 70:

If you want your heart to be God's home, if you want Him to live with you and keep you all your days, this is the way. All you have to do is to love other people as much, or more, than you love yourself. And when God sees this love in your heart He will come, by His Holy Spirit, and dwell with you and be your Comforter, guide, and Friend the rest of your life
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What is wrong with this picture?

Uncle Arthur has reversed the order of salvation.

I ran across this critique of the Moral Influence Theory on the web today:

Jesus said to Nicodemus in John 3:  Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.

[newbie]

Stan,
This is correct about the bible stories  to the children and those were great books but now I realize that the writer has made an influence in many unsuspecting people.
And, I agree with your bible scriptures and reasoning here.

This is not the root or foundation of the theory...  more on that later.........

[Soli Deo Gloria]

I think I missed this text earlier. This one is similar to the one I quoted earlier in Romans 12:19

However Hebrews 10:26-31 is even a stronger verse, and is one that I would like to have Slingshot deal with.

26For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins,

 27 But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.

 28He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses:

 29Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?

 30For we know him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again, The Lord shall judge his people.

 31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
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Like slingshot, I will be very busy over the next week, but will be able to post periodically

Stan

[restoretruth]

This is a re-post of one that was made on Oct. 3 or 4, 2010. It was one of the last posts on this thread. Too bad we missed the other posts. If you all just want to start a new one, that's OK, too. I'm new so I will just kind of lay back & see what happens. My wife & I are very much in support of the Pillars of our Faith & are very interested in bringing out the truth about these teachings, because we believe they re-define & undermine  the Gospel & nearly every tennent of our Faith.

Is God's "Law of Love" a natural law or a spiritual principle?

On June 7, 2010, Tim Jennings presented his view of what he calls "The Healing Substitution Model" of salvation, or HSM. The link to this is <http://www.spectrummagazine.org/node/2416>
Here is a comment he made about God's law:

"God

[Larry Lyons]

God's love is  personal and focused. Jennings' theory of God's love as a "natural law" would seem to make it an impersonal force, like gravity to which he compared it. God's love not an impersonal force.  His 10 Commandment law is an expression of His Character and His love and it is the covenant between God and every individual who is willing to enter into the covenant with Him.  The covenant was guaranteed by God's gift of His son to die in place of each of us, for our sins.

[restoretruth]

God's love is  personal and focused. Jennings' theory of God's love as a "natural law" would seem to make it an impersonal force, like gravity to which he compared it. God's love is not an impersonal force.  His 10 Commandment law is an expression of His Character and His love and it is the covenant between God and every individual who is willing to enter into the covenant with Him.  The covenant was guaranteed by God's gift of His son to die in place of each of us, for our sins.

Yes, I agree, but it seems to me that they blend the natural with the spiritual & mental natures, which, if true, would make it a pantheistic view. They use this interpretation of love being a natural law as the basis to believe that God doesn't destroy the sinner, it happens naturally when God withdraws His protecting power. Either way God would still be responsible for the death of the sinner. But they also use this idea of love as a natural law to take away the need for Christ as our substitute to take our penalty for sin. This is one of the things which makes their teaching so dangerous. If we don't believe that Christ took our sins we have no hope of salvation. To show how this concept of love as natural law is foundational to their teaching, here is a quote from Jennings Webmaster. It is from the on going dialog in the responses to Tim Jennings post of his "Healing Substitution Model" on Spectrum Magazine.


" ... which view one has of the Law determines which atonement model one subscribes to.

"If the Law is enacted, then atonement must be based on the traditional forensic payment model, wherein sin changed God's view of humanity (that is from love to wrath) such that Christ's blood (that is his death) is accepted as a substitute in place of the sinner, who justly deserves death (non-existence) because he offended the mighty and just Ruler Who's Law they broke.

"If your understanding is that the Law is natural, the Design Principle upon which the entirety of creation was made to operate within, then sin, as the bible says, is law-LESS-ness, the state of not having, abiding, observing, bound by, outside of the law. The atonement then must be reconciliation, a bringing BACK INTO the confines of the Law, because the broken law doesn't need an imposed penalty, the penalty is inherently a natural consequence... ie, death. WE are the one's changed, not God or His love of us. Being lawless, we no longer "deserve" life, because life cannot exist outside God's law, Not because He said so, but because that's the way He designed us to be. God's GRACE, then, is His extending to us the divine miracle of life, even while we chug along, spewing smoke and foul odors, "burning" the fuel of selfishness and self-exaltation without care for others. Christ's shed blood is harsh proof-of-purchase (payment) that He chose the fuel of Love over the fuel of selfishness. THIS is the atonement. The remedy, the salvation, is God providing via HS the power of divinity to change us (rewire our brains) into the perfect mental stature Christ achieved in His humanity during the war He won between selfishness and other-centered love.

If you submit to the former view, then the latter is heresy.
If you submit to the latter, then the former is heresy.

"The question then becomes... WHICH submission is the TRUTH?

"Yes, I know that this is too simplistic a question, that it can't be as black and white as described here, but this is one of the biggest foundation stones on which the rest of one's theology is built."
.
Dean A. Scott, mfa
C&R Webmaster and SS Class Podcaster
Assoc. Prof. Digital Art, SAU school of Visual Art and Design
 
Any thoughts?
restoretruth

[Larry Lyons]

Apparantly, it is a common complaint about Maxwell's teachings that people don't really understand what he is saying. To me, that is a red flag. They seem to be saying that Jesus didn't really have to die and that God does not destroy sinners. Out the window goes over 2000 years of Christian theology. Am I exaggerating? I probably don't understand their teaching. 

It is sometimes said that the gospel can be understood by an 8 year old. If that is true, it certainly rules out Maxwell and Jennings' teachings.

[Soli Deo Gloria]

Apparantly, it is a common complaint about Maxwell's teachings that people don't really understand what he is saying. To me, that is a red flag. They seem to be saying that Jesus didn't really have to die and that God does not destroy sinners. Out the window goes over 2000 years of Christian theology. Am I exaggerating? I probably don't understand their teaching. 

It is sometimes said that the gospel can be understood by an 8 year old. If that is true, it certainly rules out Maxwell and Jennings' teachings.

I agree Larry, and it boils down to this:

Romans 6:23

 23 For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Jesus died to pay the wages of sin for us, so we don't have to die. He died in our place
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Here is the Ministry magazine article which restoretruth mentioned on the new member thread which got lost:

http://ministrymagazine.org/archive/1992/March/the-moral-influence-theory

For a review of the issues involved, this is an excellent article.

Stan

[Soli Deo Gloria]

Spectrum Magazine published an excellent article by Desmond Ford on the problems of the Maxwellian teaching. He wrote a commentary on the Sabbath School lesson for November -December 2008, and he praised the SS lesson quarterly for taking a strong stand on the atonement:

http://www.spectrummagazine.org/node/1251

I know the author is controversial but his commentary is not controversial on this topic.

Stan

[Larry Lyons]

Spectrum Magazine published an excellent article by Desmond Ford on the problems of the Maxwellian teaching. He wrote a commentary on the Sabbath School lesson for November -December 2008, and he praised the SS lesson quarterly for taking a strong stand on the atonement:

http://www.spectrummagazine.org/node/1251

I know the author is controversial but his commentary is not controversial on this topic.

Stan

It is good that Ford agrees with Angel Rodriguez' lesson, but I don't believe that Ford is controversial. He is simply an apostate. Nothing controversial about that. At least for Bible believing Adventists. 

[Raven]

Even apostates are right occasionally.  Even Satan can quote Scripture.  We know Ford's theology, so I don't feel the need to wade through his material to search for an occasional gem of truth when there are so many other good sources of truth, sources which are not suspect from the outset.

Anything from Spectrum is suspect.  They claim to be SDA, but they are not friendly to manly of our core doctrines.  In some ways they are more dangerous than Proclamation.  At least we know what to expect from Ratzlaff, et. al.; they exist for the sole purpose of attacking us.

We really have wandered off topic, haven't we? 

[restoretruth]

Apparantly, it is a common complaint about Maxwell's teachings that people don't really understand what he is saying. To me, that is a red flag. They seem to be saying that Jesus didn't really have to die and that God does not destroy sinners. Out the window goes over 2000 years of Christian theology. Am I exaggerating? I probably don't understand their teaching. 

It is sometimes said that the gospel can be understood by an 8 year old. If that is true, it certainly rules out Maxwell and Jennings' teachings.

Their belief that God's "law of love" is a natural law seems to be their basis for re-defining sin & redefining God's punishment. By redefining sin they redefine the entire gospel. Their teaching is confusing & hard to understand & as you said, a child can understand the Gospel. My wife & I have studied this off & on for about three years. Some times we feel our heads spinning. We questioned their teachings from the first time we heard them, but because a close family member is deeply involved in Jennings view, we felt the need to research it from time to time. Jennings recent post on Spectrum is the most detailed of his views that we have seen. His Statement of Beliefs on his website is not very specific. The problems are in the details. He does get specific in his blogs but you have to search the issues out. As we understand his view on Christ as our substitute He says He is, but substitute for what?

This is from his website:

"In conclusion, I believe that the

[Soli Deo Gloria]

Even apostates are right occasionally.  Even Satan can quote Scripture.  We know Ford's theology, so I don't feel the need to wade through his material to search for an occasional gem of truth when there are so many other good sources of truth, sources which are not suspect from the outset.

Anything from Spectrum is suspect.  They claim to be SDA, but they are not friendly to manly of our core doctrines.  In some ways they are more dangerous than Proclamation.  At least we know what to expect from Ratzlaff, et. al.; they exist for the sole purpose of attacking us.

We really have wandered off topic, haven't we? 

Raven,
My intent was not to wander off topic. If you read the article in question, it is right on topic. When time is spent attacking messengers, then we go off topic.

Let's look at a few points that are made that are right on topic:

Most readers around the world will not know that what this lesson is teaching is quite contrary to what has been taught for generations at one of our educational centers. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of our physicians have been given

[Raven]

Raven,
My intent was not to wander off topic. If you read the article in question, it is right on topic. When time is spent attacking messengers, then we go off topic.

L

 I found the article while doing a google search for the Ministry magazine article above and thought it contained important points to understanding the atonement. Sorry for any offense.

Stan

No offense taken.  I just have an aversion to Spectrum, and am not inclined to peruse anything from Ford.  I have too much on my plate already as it is.  As for wandering off topic, I'm as guilty as the next person.  I was talking to myself, too when I posted that.  I'll try to behave myself and stay off this thread. 

[Larry Lyons]

Stan, I agree that Ford made statements that present clearly the vital doctrines that Maxwell and Jennings undermine.