the truth remains

[skyblue888]

Whatever may be said or claimed in regard to Seventh-day Adventism or Ellen G. White or anything connected with them and their history, the truth remains and that is that the ONLY WAY to attain to righteousness (and righteousness is love and love is the fulfillment of the law,,, Rom.13:10; 5:5; Gal.5:6) we must bring to God the MERITS of the blood of our precious Redeemer.(Rom.3:25) It is that simple. All who daily come to God just as they are, sinful, helpless, dependent, trusting wholly in the MERITS of their crucified and risen Savior, are accepted of God and blessed with great grace, the grace of the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Godhead. This gift cannot be excelled as it brings in its train all other blessings. The receiver of this gift becomes one with Christ and with the Father and thus he is clothed with the panoply of Heaven making him God's fortress in a revolted world, impregnable to the assaults of Satan. Thus he may become a vessel fit for the Master's use. The Holy Spirit is to do wonderful works in and through the all-sufficient merits of the spotless Lamb of God. Thus God will have a people through whom He can finish the work and cut it short in righteousness.

Before probation closes God will have a people who will, through the merits of Christ, be enabled to keep every precept of His holy law. Thus the love and mercy and goodness of God will be revealed in full and final display and then the end will come.

sky

[Gibs]

I agree Sky all the way on the Salvation issue, and want to tell you that I appreciate that testimony.

But perhaps some different on the third person of the Godhead.

Mr 12:29 And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord:

Mr 12:32 And the scribe said unto him, Well, Master, thou hast said the truth: for there is one God; and there is none other but he:

Yes the Holy Spirit is that one and only God. And Jesus said the following, He had ought to know if anyone would.

Joh 4:24 God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

In reality Jesus is the only other person of the Godhead and with Him, Jesus, we must realize, it was the Father in Him who is Spirit. He was God the Father with us in the flesh of the body prepared for Him to come in.

Heb 10:5 Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me:

I suppose you know I strongly oppose the Trinity doctrine.

You can see from Jesus statement to the scribe above and of the scribe, none believed in Trinity back yon.

To me the following verse brings out the persons making up the Godhead,

1Co 8:6 But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him.

1Jo 4:4 ¶ Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.

[skyblue888]

"Christ determined that when He ascended from this earth, He would bestow a gift on those who had believed on Him, and those who should believe on Him. What gift could He bestow rich enough to signalize and grace His ascension to the mediatorial throne? It must be worthy of His greatness and His royalty. He determined to give His representative, the third person of the Godhead. This gift could not be excelled. He would give all gifts in one, and therefore the divine Spirit, that converting, enlightening, and sanctifying power, would be His donation." E.G. White, Bible Commentary, Vol.6,1052,1053.

The gift of the Holy Spirit cannot be excelled for "The Comforter that Christ promised to send after He ascended to Heaven, is the Spirit in all the fullness of the Godhead, making manifest the power of divine grace to all who receive and believe in Christ as a personal Savior." Evangelism,615.

And to receive and believe in Christ as a personal Savior means to appropriate His merits to ourselves:

"The only faith that will benefit us is that which embraces Him as a personal Savior: which appropriates His merits to ourselves." Desire of Ages,347.

We appropriate His merits to ourselves by claiming them.

"Unless he makes it his life business to behold the uplifted Savior and to accept the merits which it is his privilege to claim, the sinner can no more be saved than Peter could walk upon the water unless he kept his eyes fixed steadily upon Jesus." Testimonies to Ministers,93.

This is the only way the sinner can be saved. He must daily apply to the merits of the blood of a crucified and risen Saviour by claiming them.

As to the divinity of Christ. We read,

"Christ... who is over all, God blessed forever." Romans 9:5.

Even the first Person of the Godhead addressed Him as God in the highest sense:

"But unto the Son He saith, Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever; a scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Thy Kingdom." Hebrews 1:8.

sky

[Gibs]

Yes Sky I know EGW called the Holy Spirit the third person and I can't buy that as The Holy Spirit is God #1 and can be no one else. Jesus said so on that score. I have to take His Word. Joh 4:24

All power however is Given to Jesus to do His appointed task and will reign supremely until it is completed,

1Co 15:24 Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power.

1Co 15:25 For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet.

1Co 15:26 The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.

1Co 15:27 For he hath put all things under his feet. But when he saith, all things are put under him, it is manifest that he is excepted, which did put all things under him.

1Co 15:28 And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.

1Jo 4:4 ¶ Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.

[Gail]

It's pretty hard to say what God is and isn't...

After all, who are we to even know?

[Gibs]

Jesus knew though Gail don't you think, Here's what He said,

Joh 4:24 God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

There is no place in the total of His creation but what He isn't Present there.

We must worship Him in Spirit because that is what He is. Our prayers don't have to ascend nowhere as He is here and everywhere. They don't have to be spoken aloud as the commuication is by Spirit. We can pray everyplace we go and at whatever we are doing in Spirit.

That's a glimpse of how Great He is, Omnipresent.

1Jo 4:4 ¶ Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.

[Gail]

Oh yeah, I get that. We know what we can know from Scripture. My hunch is that it is only the tip of a great big iceberg that we as mortals can never fully grasp, cause God is just that big.

For me, whatever we can learn adds to our present knowledge. But as the universe is so much larger than our planet, so is the concept of God to me.

[Woody]

Oh yeah, I get that. We know what we can know from Scripture. My hunch is that it is only the tip of a great big iceberg that we as mortals can never fully grasp, cause God is just that big.

For me, whatever we can learn adds to our present knowledge. But as the universe is so much larger than our planet, so is the concept of God to me.

Amen Amen. Exactly Gail. I use the phrase that truth is over-rated although that gets me misunderstood. But it is directed at a certain few that feel we somehow much know everything.

[skyblue888]

It's pretty hard to say what God is and isn't...

After all, who are we to even know?

Gail, we know only that which is revealed. Read the statements and the passages of Scripture I have quoted again and if you take that as coming from the throne of God, you will know.

"You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free."

Right?

sky

[Gail]

Like you have said, We only know what has been revealed.

I still maintain that God is still bigger. He reveals only as much as we can handle.

Even with that much, man still wants to debate it!

[skyblue888]

As to whether the Holy Spirit is the Third Person of the Godhead, I have already quoted from Bible Commentary and Evangelism showing that He is indeed.

"Christ determined that when He ascended from this earth, He would bestow a gift on those who had believed on Him, and those who should believe on Him. What gift could He bestow rich enough to signalize and grace His ascension to the mediatorial throne? It must be worthy of His greatness and His royalty. He determined to give His representative, the third person of the Godhead. This gift could not be excelled. He would give all gifts in one, and therefore the divine Spirit, that converting, enlightening, and sanctifying power, would be His donation." E.G. White, Bible Commentary, Vol.6,1052,1053.

The gift of the Holy Spirit cannot be excelled for "The Comforter that Christ promised to send after He ascended to Heaven, is the Spirit in all the fullness of the Godhead, making manifest the power of divine grace to all who receive and believe in Christ as a personal Savior." Evangelism,615.

Here is another statement from the Desire of Ages:

"The Holy Spirit was the highest of all gifts that He could solicit from His Father for the exaltation of His people. The Spirit was to be given as a regenerating Agent, and without this the sacrifice of Christ would have been of no avail. The power of evil had been strengthening for centuries, and the submission of men to this satanic captivity was amazing. Sin could be resisted and overcome only through the Third Person of the Godhead, who would come with no modified energy but in the fullness of divine power. It is the Spirit that makes effectual what has been wrought out by the world's Redeemer. It is by the Spirit that the heart is made pure. Through the Spirit the believer becomes a partaker of the divine nature. Christ has given His Spirit as a divine power to overcome all hereditary and cultivated tendencies to evil, and to impress His own character upon His church." Desire of Ages,671.

This much we may know and that is that the Holy Spirit is the Third Person of the Godhead just as Christ is the second Person of the Godhead.

sky

[Gail]

Quote:

This much we may know and that is that the Holy Spirit is the Third Person of the Godhead just as Christ is the second Person of the Godhead.

And even this is clothed in language that we can grasp.

Praise God for the revealed stuff, but I still go, WOW! I have a feeling that I could learn about the nature of God forEVER and still go, WOW, cause it would be beyond me.

[skyblue888]

"The nature of the Holy Spirit is a mystery. Men cannot explain it, because the Lord has not revealed it to them" (A.A.52) but the fact that He is the Third Person of the Godhead has been revealed.

We will have eternity to study the Godhead but we may know in this life whether there is such a thing as a heavenly Trio or not.

"There are Three living Persons of the heavenly Trio." Evangelism, 615.

sky :)

[Gail]

Yup- for us now it's just a gathering of the revealed.

[skyblue888]

Yup- for us now it's just a gathering of the revealed.

Yes.

sky :)

[Gibs]

Sky that is the difference between us who are not trinitarians and you who are.

You see we know the Holy Spirit is not another God but is the THE GOD.

How do I know? Jesus tells me so. It' that simple.

Jesus made it clear it was the Father that dwelt in Him, that He was not another God but that THE God dwelt within.

Jesus made it clear THE God is Spirit.

My basis on this is many His testimony.

I leave you with this.

1Jo 4:4 ¶ Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.

[Gail]

Hmm- I didn't understand sky's quotes to say that the Holy Spirit was another god.

[Gibs]

Deduction, Gail, a third person and the first person would be two different ones. You see I don't and cannot see a third person.

1Jo 4:4 ¶ Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.

[skyblue888]

The truth remains continues:

"'Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness' (Romans 4:3-5). Righteousness is obedience to the law. The law demands righteousness, and this the sinner owes to the law; but he is incapable of rendering it. The only way in which he can attain to righteousness is through faith. By faith he can bring to God the MERITS of Christ, and the Lord places the obedience of His Son to the sinner's account Christ's righteousness is accepted in place of man's failure, and God receives, pardons, justifies, the repentant, believing soul, treats him as though he were righteous, and loves him as He loves His Son. This is how faith is accounted righteousness; and the pardoned soul goes on from grace to grace, from light to a greater light. He can say with rejoicing, 'Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; which He shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour; that being justified by His grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.'" (Titus 3:5-7). {FW 101.1}

So the only way one can attain to righteousness and righteousness is obedience to the law (as stated above) is through faith. By faith we can BRING to God the MERITS of Christ (as stated above) and that is faith, even living faith.

The rest of the paragraph CLEARLY tells us what happens when we bring to God the merits of Christ.

This shows clearly that our focus is to be on the merits of the Redeemer.

We bring the merits of Christ to the Father and plead them in our behalf and then:

1. God receives us unto Himself

2. He forgives us and treats us as though we had never sinned.

3. This is how faith is accounted righteousness.

4. He loves us as He loves Jesus.

5. And as we continue in this faith which is to rest in the merits of our Redeemer, we may go on from grace to grace, from light to a greater light, and from victory to victory.

So what is the only true faith that will benefit us?

"The only faith that will benefit us is that which embraces Him as a personal Savior: which appropriates His MERITS to ourselves." Desire of Ages,347.

We appropriate Christ's merits to ourselves by claiming them and that is living faith. (T.M.93; F.W.64)

Again these statements clearly show how simple the matter of salvation is.

sky

[skyblue888]

Two statements that above all others put everything into perspective are the following ones. They show the perfect relation and harmony between faith, merits, grace, works, and reward.

"We are accepted through Christ’s merits alone; and the acts of mercy, the deeds of love, which we perform, are the fruits of faith; and they become a blessing to us; for men are to be rewarded according to their works. It is the fragrance of the merit of Christ that makes our good works acceptable to God, and it is grace that enables us to do the works for which He rewards us. Our works (the works that the Holy Spirit enables us to do) in and of themselves have no merit. When we have done all that it is possible for us to do, we are to count ourselves as unprofitable servants. Luke 17:10. We deserve no thanks from God. We have only done what it was our duty to do, and our works could not have been performed by the strength of our own sinful nature.” 5 B.C.1122. *brackets supplied

This statement is a complete statement in itself.

Its declarations are so clear that none need err.

It teaches us that the grace of God which enables us to do the good works of obedience is obtained solely through faith in the merits of the Redeemer. It also teaches us that in and of themselves these good works have no merit and yet God will reward us for these good works as though we had done them ourselves. Though we do not deserve any thanks from Him, we will be rewarded for these good works.

The next one is ver similar:

"Although we have no merit in ourselves, in the great goodness and love of God we are rewarded as if the merit were our own. When we have done all the good we can possibly do, we are still unprofitable servants. We have done only what was our duty. What we have accomplished has been wrought solely through the grace of Christ, and no reward is due to us from God on the ground of our merit. But through the merit of our Savior, every promise that God has made will be fulfilled, and every man will be rewarded according to his deeds." RH, June 27, 1893 par. 15.

This is the 1888 message of the merits and righteousness of Christ in clear, distinct lines.

Let us praise and thank God for it always.

sky

*At the gates of Heaven the redeemed will confess themselves to be "unprofitable servants". (Luke 17:10) They will acknowledge that Christ and His righteousness accomplished everything and if they walk through the everlasting gates they will declare that it is solely on account of the all-sufficient merits of their precious Redeemer. And then the Father will say, "Good and faithful servants. Enter in and take possession of the Kingdom which has been prepared for you before the foundation of the world."

[Guest]

Deduction, Gail, a third person and the first person would be two different ones. You see I don't and cannot see a third person.

That's interesting, Gibs.

[Gail]

Deduction, Gail, a third person and the first person would be two different ones. You see I don't and cannot see a third person.

You already have two with God the Father and Jesus. And yet they are one God.

Except when you are talking about God, you can't think in terms of human language. I have doubts that the word person can even rightly portrays the sense correctly, but it is something that we can grasp. Not a human person, but a person.

If His witness borne with our spirits is acceptable to God, who am I to disagree? If His intercession before God WITH that of Jesus is acceptable, why isn't He to be counted?

Asscherick makes a good point when he says that how you see the Spirit affects how you think of salvation. Why? Because of sin: God the Father gives his holy law. Jesus paid the price that transgression cost. The Spirit is the way that it will become obeyed by those who follow God. It is a heart thing all the way along.

We pray to the Father, through Jesus, in the Spirit.

[Gibs]

OK, I don't see how there is any doubt about the starement Jesus made and I think I posted on Page 1, but folks you go with the Trinity doctrine, but not for me and this verse settles it for me.

Joh 4:24 God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

He is Spirit, ao must be worshipped in Spirit.

Now Jesus, the Prince is another Person and the Father dwells in Him back then and now in the Heavenly Sanctuary.

And so He is not another God, but THE GOD dwells in Him.

Now next verses, does Paul mention The Holy Spirit as another God here? No, no need of that, Jesus above defined for us what God is. Does He have a personal Presence? I would imagine so as we are in His image.

1Co 8:6 But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him.

He sure did mention the Lord Jesus Christ though.

Eph 4:6 One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.

1Jo 4:4 ¶ Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.

[skyblue888]

Originally Posted By: Gibs

Deduction, Gail, a third person and the first person would be two different ones. You see I don't and cannot see a third person.

That's interesting, Gibs.

What exactly is so interesting about the above Richard???

sky

[skyblue888]

In the book D'Aubigne's History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century, p.233, we read these words:

"At this time there arrived at Wittemberg a man who, like Melanchton, was destined to be Luther's friend all his life, and to comfort him at the moment of his departure. This was a priest named Bugenhagen, thirty-six years of age, who had fled from the severities which the bishop of Camin and Prince Bogislas of Pomerania exercised on the friends of the Gospel, whether ecclesistics, citizens, or men of letters. Sprung from a senatorial family, and born at Wollin in Pomerania (whence he is commonly called Pomeranus), Bugenhagen had been teaching at Treptow from the age of twenty years. The young eagerly crowded around him; the nobles and the learned emulated each other in courting his society. He diligently studied the Holy Scriptures, praying God to enlighten him.

One day towards the end of December 1520, Luther's book on the Captivity of Babylon was put into his hands as he sat at supper with several of his friends. 'Since the death of Christ,' said he, after running his eyes over the pages, 'many heretics have infested the Church; but never yet has there existed such a pest as the author of this work.'

Having taken the book home and perused it two or three times, all his opinions were changed; truths quite new to him presented themselves to his mind; and on returning some days after to his colleagues, he said, 'The whole world is lying in the thickest darkness. THIS MAN ALONE SEES THE LIGHT.'

Several priests, a deacon, and the abbot himself, received THE PURE DOCTRINE OF SALVATION, and in a short time, by the power of their preaching, THEY LED THEIR HEARTS BACK FROM HUMAN SUPERSTITIONS TO THE SOLE AND EFFECUTUAL MERITS OF JESUS CHRIST.

Upon this a PERSECUTION broke out. Already the prisons re-echoed with the groans of many individuals. Bugenhagen fled from his enemies and arrived at Wittemberg. 'He is suffering for love to the Gospel,' wrote Melanchton to the elector's chaplain. 'Wither could he fly but to our asylum, and to the protection of our prince.' But no one welcomed Bugenhagen with greater joy than Luther."

sky