HOME / PROCLAMATION! MAGAZINE / 2010 / JULY AUGUST SEPTEMBER / LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

July August September 2010
VOLUME 11, ISSUE 3

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D E P A R T M E N T S

LETTERS to the Editor

 

Deeper into Christ

Greetings to you who work so hard to produce such a wonderful magazine with wonderful gospel presentations from every angle, things that even long-time gospel believers have never thought of. I just finished the "Scapegoat issue". Fantastic! Thank you to God and to you!

We've had financial straits lately, but we are going to try and give more to keep you going. We love Proclamation! It sinks us deeper into Christ every time.

Ridgeway, CO

 

Feeling brave

I have been out of the Adventist church several years now. Not until I read the April-June Proclamation! did I fully understand the truth about the scapegoat. I guess I was still believing Ellen White's teaching. I was even telling others a lie. Thank you for this wonderful issue. I will always use it for reference—I wish I had dozens of copies of it. I feel brave enough now to send it to some of my friends who are Adventist, especially my daughter who is into historic Adventism. I fear for her.

Again, this has been one of the most educational issues you have published since I started receiving Proclamation! I will read this over and over.

Mt. Pleasant, NC

 

Spawn of Satan

The final phase of the Day of Atonement Service when the sanctuary is cleansed is symbolic of the culmination of the Great Controversy when the sins of the redeemed are removed from the sanctuary and confessed upon the head of the scapegoat—representative of Satan. The scapegoat then is led out into the wilderness and ultimately perishes in the wilderness (outside of the camp). The scapegoat represents Satan who is ultimately responsible for the sins of the righteous. Satan and the wicked perish outside of the Holy City, or camp. Satan is ultimately responsible for all of the sins of the world. The wicked die in their own sins as they have neither confessed nor repented of their sins: their robes (characters) are not washed in the blood of the Lamb.

You and your authors reveal their own ignorance by not having a clue about the Day of Atonement and how it is a type or figure of the final events that occur just before the destruction of sin, death, Satan, and sinners. All of the above will be "no more".

Your April—June 2010 issue of Proclamation! by implication declares that Jesus Christ, not Satan, is responsible for the sins of the world. "[Is] therefore Christ the minister of sin? God forbid." Gal 2:17 However, you are "proclaiming" that "Christ is the minister of sin!"

TO TEACH THAT MY LORD AND SAVIOUR IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE SINS OF THE WORLD IS DAMNABLE BLASPHEMOUS HERESY.

PLEASE DO NOT SEND ME ANY MORE ISSUES OF YOUR EGREGIOUS LIES. YOU PEOPLE ARE INDEED THE SPAWN OF Satan.

I will be very surprised if you publish this letter, for it exposes you for the liars that you are.

Richland, WA

 

Editor's response: To be sure, we will publish your letter; it is an excellent illustration of what Adventists teach and believe—and the implications of these beliefs.

The Bible teaches that Adam is responsible for mankind's sin. Satan is not responsible for man's sin; he is responsible for his own sin (1 Cor. 15:22; Rom. 5:15-17).

Moreover, Ephesians 2:3 says we are by nature objects of wrath, and Colossians 1:13 says we are naturally citizens of the domain of darkness. 

The Bible never holds Satan responsible for the sin of humanity. Adam is the one blamed, and because of Adam, we are born utterly depraved and without life or hope. As Romans 3 says, there is no one who understands, seeks God, or does good. Satan is not blamed for this condition.

Jesus came to redeem man; Satan was not part of the equation at all. Jesus took responsibility for the sin of man. This doesn't make Him responsible for the cause of sin any more than it makes me responsible for my son's breaking a neighbor's window with his ball if I pay for the window. But He "became sin for us" (2 Cor 5:21). The bronze serpent that Moses lifted up in the wilderness was a symbol of the serpents that were biting Israel and killing them. Yet that serpent represented Jesus; He became sin and was lifted up—all without being a sinner. He completely took into Himself human sin and died a human death to redeem humans from death.

In brief, the Bible teaches:

• Adam is responsible for human sin, and each person is born accused of sin and condemned to hell (Eph 2:3; 1 Cor 15:22).
• Satan is the deceiver and the accuser, but he is not the originator of human sin. Adam freely and with open eyes chose to sin and thus sentenced all humanity to death.
• Jesus became sin and became a curse (2 Cor. 5:21; Gal. 3:13); He became human so He could pay a human debt to God. Jesus paid the price that He Himself as part of the Trinity demanded for sin.
• Jesus nailed both the sin with which we're born and all the sins we commit to the cross, and His blood covers us and qualifies us to become His righteousness in Christ (2 Cor. 5:21).
• All sin is removed from us when we accept Jesus—and it goes onto Him (Is. 53:6; Jn. 1:29). Satan does not carry our sin away—Jesus does.
• When we blame Satan for human sin, we refuse to admit what the Bible says about us: we are dead by nature and responsible for our own sin.
• We cannot enjoy God's forgiveness if we do not admit that we are responsible for our sin and repent.
• Finally, being forgiven of our sin results in our spirits being brought to life by the Holy Spirit. THIS life is what God requires for us to see the kingdom of heaven (John 3:3-5).

 

Dividing the body?

I am utterly amazed, appalled—baffled even—by the letters I read in Proclamation! One Adventist after another is accusing Proclamation! of "church bashing", when all of my life as an Adventist I heard the bashing of Catholics and "apostate protestants" and the downright demonization of anyone who left the SDA church and disagreed with any of its teachings. There wasn't one single evangelistic "effort" that I attended or with which I helped as an Adventist where I didn't hear this type of bashing of other churches. Now that the proverbial shoe is seemingly on the other foot, they are saying that Proclamation! is "dividing the Body of Christ". When has the Adventist church ever identified itself with Christendom as a whole? Aren't the Sunday Christians going to receive the Mark of the Beast?…Adventists who are writing in might think they can pull the wool over other people's eyes, but this former Adventist remembers everything that they teach very clearly—including how desperately they try to convert people in these other denominations into the "remnant church". Jesus had a word for people like this while He was on this earth…I believe it was "hypocrites".

Autumn McMinimy
Garden Grove, CA

 

We were so deceived

Thank you so much for all you are doing for us former Adventists. I know you don't need to be told, but I know from reading some of the letters, they can be pretty cruel. You are doing a necessary work for us by showing us where we were wrong, and it's not "Adventist bashing" as even some of my Adventist friends think. We were so deceived, and it takes someone who's been there to help straighten things out. I do lots of studying in other places, as well as my own studies, but I appreciate so much your addressing particular issues. I believe there are so many who are on the verge of leaving, and it won't take much to get them out. That's where what you're doing is so important. I give all the credit to God for His sovereign timing, but I will always have a special place in my heart for Proclamation! as it was the thing that, at the right time, started the change that led to me being born again and finding a whole new life based on Truth. I will be learning the rest of my life, but you gave me the tools to start. Eternity will know what you have done by the fruit of your lives. Thank you again and again. 

Fulton, NY

 

Fulfilling prophecy

Your Proclamation! is the greatest evidence I have seen—fulfilling the prophesy of the "shaking time". Please remove my name and address from your files.

Loma Linda, CA

 

Sorry for you

Do not send us Proclamation! no more (sic). That book makes me sick. I feel so sorry for people like you when God comes. Do you ever read the Bible?

I pray for you, to open your eyes to God's word.

New Harmony, ID

 

Of goats and Adventism

I couldn't set the last issue down until I read it cover to cover. More than one "old goat" in Adventism had this teaching screwed up royally (especially Ellen White). Thanks for the superb insights, et al.

Half Moon Bay, CA

 

Questions not welcome at seminary

My story sounds like hundreds of others. I was raised an Adventist, educated in the denomination's school system, entered denominational employment as a pastor, was intensely loyal and mission-driven, but eventually studied myself out of membership. The final straw was an enrollment interview with the Dean of the [Andrews University] seminary, Dr. Gerhard Hasel (deceased). I was entering the doctor of theology program to find answers to a number of troubling issues with Adventist doctrine (the distinctive ones, mostly). During a 2.5-hour interview with Dr. Hasel, we discussed my questions. After discovering my motive for enrolling in the program, he said that I would not be welcome at the seminary. My questions, he felt, might unsettle others with whom I would associate. His last instructive words were (roughly quoted), "Your first duty is unquestionably to accept the inspiration of Ellen White because she interprets Scripture for the denomination." I left the interview confused, frustrated, and disappointed. After a three-year examination of Bible doctrines on my own (none of my pastoral friends or supervisors had reasonable answers), I became a former Adventist. A few still pray for me.

Via email

 

You folks seem like spoiled children

In all the articles I have read in your magazine, one issue stands out. That issue is the Sabbath. You hate it, or so it seems. You could not find it in you to "enter into it's rest," so you lash out at it. You know very well that there is no authority given to a change, but you accept the world's majority opinion because you do not wish to be "different". But "different" is what Christians are called to be. To stand for the right unto death. If Adventists repudiated Ellen White, but kept the Sabbath, you'd still be unhappy. If they repudiated the Sabbath, but kept Mrs. White, you'd still be unhappy, but I think much less so. I dare say that the Sabbath is by far your biggest hangup. You folks seem like unhappy spoiled children, who because they are rebellious in heart, blame their parents for their own failings. You tried to keep the Sabbath by works and not faith, then attribute that failing to the Sabbath as somehow faulty. You seem to think that you cannot be wrong so it must be that the Sabbath is.

If the "Law", that is the virtual embodiment of the Commandments, was not given until Sinai, and Paul says that before the law came "no sin was imputed," then did God destroy the antediluvian people, except for Noah and his family, for no reason? Was God being capricious? If no law had been given, what was these people's sin? How could they sin, if there was no law? Which of the commandments given at Sinai were they free to violate? Only the fourth?…

Again, Jesus stated that "the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath," but it seems that someone thinks that they are "greater" than the creator by changing His day. Where is it that God Himself said the Sabbath was done away? Since He gave it, He would have to repeal it, personally. If the Ten Commandments are done away, He would also have said so personally. Where is that written? Where? Nowhere!!

Kingsford Heights, IN

 

Editor's response: First, it is not we who say sin was not imputed before the law was given; it was Paul in Romans 5:12-14. He states that death reigned even without the law, from Adam until Moses. Paul means exactly what he says; we cannot try to "explain" his meaning so it fits our presuppositions.

Second, Hebrews 4:1-9 explains that God set a new day called "Today" to enter His rest because Israel had not entered the weekly rest. Finally, Hebrews 7:12 states that "when the priesthood is changed [Jesus established a non-levitical priesthood in the order of Melchizedek], of necessity there takes place a change of law also." The law of the new covenant is no longer the written law; it is the "law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus that has set [us] free from the law of sin and of death" (Rom 8:2).

In the new covenant, the law is fulfilled and obsolete (2 Cor. 3; Hebrews 8:13), and we live by the Spirit instead of by the law (Romans 8). †

 

 

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Editor, Proclamation! Magazine
P.O. Box 7776
Redlands, CA 92375

Or email editor: proclamation@gmail.com

Life Assurance Ministries

Mission

To proclaim the good news of the new covenant gospel of grace in Christ and to combat the errors of legalism and false religion.

 

Motto

Truth needs no other foundation than honest investigation under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and a willingness to follow truth when it is revealed.

 

Message

"For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is a gift of God; not of works, that no one should boast." Ephesians 2:8,9

…this has been one of the most educational issues you have published since I started receiving Proclamation! I will read this over and over.

In all the articles I have read in your magazine, one issue stands out. That issue is the Sabbath. You hate it, or so it seems. You could not find it in you to "enter into its rest," so you lash out at it.