Some Challenging Questions For a Challenger of Our Faith

Welcome with open arms fellow believers who don’t see things the way you do.
And don’t jump all over them every time they do or say something you don’t agree with
– even when it seems that they are strong on opinions but weak in the faith department.
Remember, they have their own history to deal with. Treat them gently. Romans 14.1: The Message

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#130579 - 06/19/07 09:58 PM Some Challenging Questions For a Challenger of Our Faith
A_G_Brito Registered: 04/28/07 Posts: 127	A Few More Things About The Mirras’ Testimony Learn what are the two deadly blows on the semi-antinomian theology of the so-called New Covenant Christians Going back to the Mirra’s (Paul and Terry) testimony of how they “discovered” the true meaning of the covenants as they left the SDA Church, I would comment a few more things of their also poor articulation of the Pauline writings regarding the subject of the covenants. Mrs. Terry, again, who seems to be the most extensive Bible commentator of the family, alleges at certain point: “[God’s] ‘seal’ on us had nothing to do with our allegiance to the Sabbath. . . it was an internal security not dependent on what I did! As truth started to become clear, 2 Cor. 3:13-18 made sense. It states that a veil remains when the Old Covenant is read, because only in Christ is it taken away”. First error in this brief exposition is that God’s seal is presented as allegiance to the God of the Sabbath, not to the Sabbath. When God says that the Sabbath is the “sign” between He and His people (Exo. 31:16; Eze. 20:12, 12) it’s because those who are faithful to Him will be characterized as those who honor Him especially as the Creator of “the heavens, the earth, and the sea and the springs of water” (Rev. 14:7). Interestingly, the Brazilian Baptists, of the main Baptist organization (the National Baptist Convention) in their “Doctrinal Statement”, make clear that the Sabbath commandment is the sign between God and His people, in the footnotes of Topic XV—“The Christian Sabbath”. To serve as Bible backing of what is said on the subject, they quote, among other texts, Exo. 31:14-18. Even though they reinterpret the principle applying to Sunday, it makes sense, because atheists, materialists and lax Christians are not known as people who are willing to dedicate a whole day to the Lord. But the quotation of 2 Cor. 3:13-18 is very interesting because, once more, Mrs. Mirra missed important other texts of the context. She should mention Paul’s reference to the law in the tablets of stone (vs. 7) that brought death, in contrast to the writing of God’s law in the hearts of those who are “letters of recommendation”. This is a very misunderstood text by many who follow this semi-antinomian theology. They read about “letters on stone”, and “ministry of death” and jump to the conclusion that Paul is disqualifying the 10 Commandments, which is the only thing one thinks immediately about when reading the text that speaks of “letters written on stone” or “tablets of stone” in the Bible. However, if 2 Cor. 3 proves something, it is that Paul is repeating in an improved way the same metaphor of Ezekiel 36:26, 27. Now, if the idea is that the contents of the tablets of stone meant death, then we have a very strange God, who summoned the people of Israel for a very much solemn occasion at the Sinai, to deliver them His law, with all that careful preparation described in Exodus 19--territory delineated so that not even animals roamed around there, even the husbands on the previous night had to sleep on the sofa (Exo. 19:15)--all that for them to receive a law of death! If I were there, I would feel myself fooled and abused! Of course, the problem was not with the law, but with the people. This is made clear in Hebrews 8:8: “But God found fault with the people . . . because they did not remain faithful to my covenant”. Thus, what had to change was not the law, but the people’s hearts. What is, then, the overall meaning of Paul’s discussion in the entire chapter? He is contrasting those who accepted the new covenant with those who remained attached to the principles of the old one. The latter are the ones who stumbled in the law, as Paul describes in Rom. 9:30-32, a key text to understand all his discussions on the theme of the law: “What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith; but Israel, who pursued a law of righteousness, has not attained it. Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the ‘stumbling stone’.” For those who stumbled, the contents of the law remained on the cold tablets of stone, accusing them and not being able to convey righteousness, which was never the function of the law, instead of being written in their hearts and minds--the hallmark of the new covenant, as found in the other key text of Hebrew 8:6-10. Now, one very special feature in that chapter, that is a deadly blow to the theories of those who teach this “other gospel” (Gal. 1:8, 9) of the abolished law, is the fact that when Paul resorts to the ‘tablets of stone/tablets of human heart’ illustration, certainly based on Ezekiel’s metaphor, he thinks about THE ENTIRE CONTENTS of the tablets of stone, not only 90% of it, transferred to the tablets of flesh! After all, Ezekiel didn’t think in terms of 90%, either. . . It would make no sense for Paul to utilize this metaphor, in case he taught that one of the commandments of the tablets of stone was somehow out of the picture! If it were so he would have to employ some other language, like, “You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stones but on tablets of human hearts in nine of the commandments of the tablets of stone”. No, no. . . That was not how Paul used the illustration, which makes very clear that he intended to say that THE ENTIRE CONTENTS of the tablets of stone (the Ten Commandments) are transferred from the cold letters on stone to the hearts warmed by God’s grace of those who submit themselves to His new covenant [New Testament]. Thus, 2 Corinthians 3 is one of these texts that backfire, being used by our opponents to deny the Sabbath principle, when actually it is a tremendous argument IN FAVOR of the validity of the commandment, one of those found in the tablets of stone and in the “My laws” [God’s] written by the Spirit on the hearts and minds of those who accept the provisions of the new covenant, according to the “superior promises” of Hebrews 8:6-10. And to reinforce this deadly blow, we can read in the following chapter, vs. 15-17 that whenever a testator dies, it is not possible to change the terms of a will. So, when the Divine Testator died, it became impossible to alter His testament, either with a change from the Sabbath to Sunday, or from the Sabbath to the nodayism/anydayism/everydayism, favored by the majority of Evangelical Christians nowadays.
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#130582 - 06/19/07 10:06 PM Re: Some Challenging Questions For a Challenger of Our Faith [Re: A_G_Brito]
A_G_Brito Registered: 04/28/07 Posts: 127	Mr. Ratzlaff’s Poor Articulation of the Theme of God’s Law Answering a letter from a reader of Proclamation magazine, Mr. Dale Ratzlaff says in its March/April issue: “Many letters we receive express a deep fear that by teaching the reign of law came in with Moses and lasted until Christ, new covenant Christians are left without any moral guides. The truth is, however, that the New Covenant Christians have a much higher and better—yes, better—moral guide than the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments are external. The law of Christ is internal”. The first error in this statement is to consider those who adopt his views as “New Covenant Christians” with a “superior” moral guide, which supposedly supersedes the “poor”, “inadequate” Ten Commandments. What Mr. Ratzlaff and his allies should remember is that these expressions of degrading the Ten Commandments don’t match with the classic, historic view of Christendom that has always stressed the 10 Commandments as the undeniable “moral law” of God, summary of all that is ethical, moral, spiritual in the universe. In the first line of his document “Against the Antinomians” Martin Luther, that great champion of righteousness by faith, calls the 10 Commandment “God’s Law”. Calvin also speaks of “moral law” and “ceremonial law” naturally, as that is also expressed in the Westminster Confession of Faith, the 39 Articles of the Church of England, the Baptist Confession of 1689 and many other confessional documents. And along the centuries Christian authors and authorities expressed the same convictions about the role of these 10 Commandments as the rule of Christian life. Confirming this we could mention Wesley, Spurgeon, Moody, John Davis, Billy Graham, James Kennedy, and so many others. In our present time we witness this new campaign in the US and other lands to highlight the importance of the 10 Commandments, like Oral Roberts who recently wrote a book exalting this divine rule as a necessity to be adopted as a national standard to save America from chaos. This prompts us a new question to Mr. Ratzlaff and his allies: * Are you, Mr. Ratzlaff and your allies, convinced of your superior understanding of this matter over all these past and present Christian confessional documents and leaders? Can Mr. Ratzlaff consider himself a new Reformer everybody should listen to, forgetting all the Christian documents and authoritative statements and instructions by the highest reputed Christian authors, pastors, and Seminary professors along the centuries, including Luther, Calvin, Chemnitz, Wesley? We have seen how our question on the passage from the Old to the New Covenant was never answered by Mr. Ratzlaff. As we addressed it to people under his influence, let’s see if we finally get any answers to it. The question deals with the most important Bible text to explain why we have the Bible as a divided book, split into two parts: Old Testament/New Testament. This text is Hebrews 8:6-10. There is no information in these texts of any new “Law of Christ” that replaced the 10 Commandments as the new Christian rule of life, as well as no “Law of the Spirit”, nor “Law of Faith”, nor “Law of Love”, nor “Law of Grace”, but MY LAWS [God’s] is referred to as those that God writes on the hearts and minds of whoever accepts the terms of this New Covenant [New Testament], according to “superior promises”. Of course God’s law incorporates all that—it’s is the law of Christ, the law of love, the law of faith, the law of the Spirit and the law of grace. But there is no information that these “My laws” are DIFFERENT from the same “laws” that Jeremiah knew, inasmuch as Hebrews 8:6-10 is simply a reproduction of what we read in Jer. 31:31-33. They are THE SAME laws, with nothing having changed in the sense that: a- God left out the Sabbath commandment; b- God included the Sabbath commandment, but transferring the sanctity of the seventh to the first day of the week; c- God included the Sabbath commandment, but leaving it as a vague, voluntary and variable principle, adjustable to the believer’s conveniences or interest (or that of his/her employer). This key text of the Bible is the exact one where this information should be clearly enunciated. Nevertheless there are no clues regarding any change of laws with the change of the covenant. Thus, the basic equation on this subject to be demonstrated, but never done so, would be: NEW COVENANT = NEW LAW Of course all the ceremonial, ritual, aspects of the law as known by Jeremiah are out. Both Paul and his primary readers of Hebrews were well aware that all the prefigurations of the ceremonial law had ended on the cross, as symbolized graphically by the curtain of the Temple being torn into two at the moment Christ proclaimed His “It is finished”. Then, we come to the *bottom line* of all this discussion: the only commandment among the 10 of the Decalogue that is said to have been abolished is the 4th. For that to have happened it had to be a “ceremonial” precept. But since we have our study “10 Reasons Why the Sabbath Is Not a Ceremonial Precept” that hasn’t been refuted, we are assured that NONE of the principles recorded by God Himself in the two stone tables was eliminated through the passage from the Old to the New Covenant. No such information is presented to us in Hebrews 8:6-10. And speaking of “internalization” of the law, no doubt, our key text deals with that alright. Again, there is no hints of this process being different from what the psalmist David had said: “To do your will, O my God, is my desire; your law is within my heart” (Psa. 40:8). We read in 1 John 5:2, 3: “This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands. This is the love for God: to obey His commands. And his commands are not burdensome”. The love factor is what produces this internalization of the law, making its obedience not burdensome, even though humanly speaking it seems so. To dedicate an entire day every week to the Lord seems a burden, as so many who wish to be faithful to God’s principles face difficulties in their workplace, lose jobs, work in activities below their professional potential, students face hard times negotiating with their teachers new schedules for examinations, etc. But when we love God above all else, the joy of obeying Him surpasses these hardships, which are challenges to our fealty to Him, burdens that are made light when we are attached to the Lord who offered us rest, not of keeping a day to follow more easily the faith in accordance to the world and its customs, but to have His salvation, which involves not only having Him as Savior, but as Lord on our lives. Another big mistake of Mr. Ratzlaff’s articulation of the God’s Law subject is when he engages himself in discussing the role of the Holy Spirit as a guide to the Christian. He says that the Spirit guides us in doing God’s will and empowers one to live producing its fruits, which is something obvious to any Bible student. But then he comes to a slippery spot as he alleges: “It is clear that the function of the Holy Spirit in the new covenant replaces the function of the law in the old”. Wrong! The Spirit is not given as a SUBSTITUTE to specific commandments given by God. At least that was not how Paul and James understood the question. Paul speaks specifically of commandments to be observed by Christians. To the Ephesians and to the Romans he mentioned naturally the 5th, 8th, 9th and 10th commandments (see Eph. 6:1-3; 4:25-31; Rom. 13:8-10). In this last case, he quotes a few of the commandments but makes clear that he is just quoting the part for the whole in vs. 9 (“. . . and whatever other commandment there may be. . .”). To the Corinthians he said--after “dividing the law”, showing that commandments that were important in the past are no more so: “Keeping God’s commandments is what counts” (1 Cor. 7:19). It’s important to contextualize the Bible statements. What his readers had in mind when he refers to “God’s commandments”? Did they think of any different ones from those who are in the Bible regarding obedience to God? In order to know that one has to just read Rom. 7:7-13. See how many times he utilizes the word “commandment”, referring to a specific one derived from the Decalogue--“Do not covet”. And in vs. 25 we have a text that is a clear embarrassment to this abolished-law-replaced-by-the-Spirit theology. Paul says: “I myself with my mind am a slave to God’s law”. Since in the context he refers to the “Do not covet” commandment, besides exalting this law as holy, good, spiritual, pleasurable, it’s incredible to see a supposed New Covenant instructor teaching this theological aberration that the Spirit was given to replace the law of God as rule of life to the Christian. That is not what we find in either Rom. 7, 8 or Hebrews 8:6-10, as well as in James 2:10-12. The same Paul had asked rhetorically before: “Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith?” He himself answers in a way to leave no doubt: “Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law” (Rom. 3:31). That is a language much different from teaching that the Spirit has replaced the law of God expressed in the 10 Commandments to guide man in doing what is right and averting what is wrong. Actually we find so many specific instructions about not doing this, and rather doing that throughout the New Testament. . . How about, just randomly browsing its pages: “whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God”; “when you come together to eat, wait for each other”; “try to excel in gifts that build up the church”; “brothers, stop thinking like children”; “do not be yoked together with unbelievers”; “do everything without complaining or arguing”; “make it your ambition to live a quiet life”; “warn those who are idle”; “encourage the timid”; “help the weak”, “be patient with everyone”; “be joyful always”. . . So many specific instructions. . . Why didn’t Paul just say: “Submit yourself to the guidance of the Spirit in all things pertaining to your relationship with one another that everything will be fine in the Church”?. . . But although he implied that, he was also specific in what to do and what not to do, which proves Mr. Ratzlaff wrong in his theological stand that the Spirit in the New Covenant replaces clear commandments of God. Finally, Mr. Ratzlaff insists that the New Covenant Christians abide by the “law of Christ”, rather than the 10 Commandments, which are “the law of God”. Well, that prompts us to recommend that he read our study and try to answer our, “10 Questions on Law of God/Law of Christ”. See the following link for both studies--that the Sabbath is not a ceremonial precept and about the question of law of God/law of Christ: http://foroadventista.com/index.php/topic,610.0.html Finally, trying to answer another question (“What is the difference between legalism and sanctified obedience?”), Mr. Ratzlaff says: “Sanctified obedience is not obedience that makes us right with God. Rather, it is the outworking of the principles of the law of love that the Holy Spirit writes on the heart of a Christian. This would include all New Testament admonitions and all the oral principles behind Old Testament laws. However, we are not to apply the letter of Old Testament law but the moral principle behind the law”. We have nothing to fear regarding this fine point of obedience nor making us right with God. That is clearly taught in our “SDA Beliefs” document, as nobody has to leave the SDA Church to know that we are not saved by fulfilling the law, but by God’s grace in Christ. We obey God’s law not to be saved, but because we love God. And we love him “because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). That is our motivation in obeying His complete law, without finding pretexts to skip any of His precept. What we have in Mr. Ratzlaff exposition is simply a clear “Herodian theology”. All the principles “behind the law” means, all the commandments such as they appear in the Ten Commandments, BUT FOR THE SABBATH, which is to be reinterpreted in the sense that they were totally abolished, and replaced by the new law of “Nine Commandments and One Suggestion”. . . As Herod wanted to get rid of just one kid in the land of Judea, but for reaching his goal he ordered the killing of all babies there, those who want to circumvent the “inconvenient” Sabbath commandment preach the end of the WHOLE Ten Commandments just to guarantee that the one they want to get rid of goes away with all the rituals and ceremonies of the Jewish law. With that he and his followers just throw out the baby with the bath water. . . And a final question to Mr. Ratzlaff and his allies: * What will you do with this campaign promoted all across the US, now reaching other countries, to promote the Ten Commandments as a truly “national salvation” resource, with even the “10 Commandments Day” set for the first Sunday of May? Are you going to participate of such a campaign? It would be contradictory to your cause, don’t you see? Do you agree with what these religious leaders of Protestant denominations in the US are proposing? [See next frame]
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