Gilbert Jorgensen’s Weblog

As we revel in our newfound love relationship with our wondrous Savior, and proclaim his awesome power and majesty, we are so blessed to have so many support resources at our disposal. The full freedom of the gospel, and the absolute assurance that we have been saved, and that we have been sealed by the Holy Spirit fills me with an overwhelming expression of joy and peace. No one, no demon, no person, no false doctrine, no legalism can separate us from the love, the eternal love of our dear Savior and God. We just can’t drink in enough of the "Good News". And so where do we turn to learn more? How do we sort out the weeds from our past, and replace them with sound biblical teaching?

One of my favorite support resources is the wonderful magazine called Proclamation! produced by Life Assurance Ministries. Even better is that it is free! It is available both online, and in hardcopy by mail. You can also order additional copies at no charge for your Adventist relatives and friends. Richard and Colleen Tinker, Dale Ratzlaff and the various writers have created a veritable treasure trove of indispensible articles addressing various aspects of life after Adventism, and growing in Christ.

Today I would like to share with you a wonderful article in the May/June 2008 issue of Proclamation! called "How to be a member of the true church" by former Adventist Rodney Nelson. Rodney and his family currently live in Washington State and attend the Richland Church of the Nazarene. Rodney left the Adventist church in 1984.

As former Adventists, we were taught that Adventism alone holds the keys of truth. To leave the Seventh-day Adventist Church to join a Christian fellowship is to apostatize. Adventism’s traditional position regarding the remnant is spiritually arrogant and highly cultic. When you boil it all down, the bottom line is that Seventh-day Adventists believe they have the remnant message for the last days. They’re calling all other Christians to ‘leave Babylon and join Seventh-day Adventism, "God’s true church." The remnant will never call themselves ‘remnant.’ God gives that name from his vantage point. The Bible teaches that Seventh-day Adventism sins against the Body of Christ by claiming to be the remnant.

Rodney tells how he was baptized into the Seventh-day Adventist Church at age 15 in 1977. At that time there were 22 "Fundamental Beliefs". Since that time Adventism has seen fit to add five more (and most recently yet another one for a total of 28!) Fundamental Beliefs to its burgeoning list of membership requirements.

At the time Rodney did not fully understand the twenty-two statements of belief, especially the authority of Ellen White and the investigative judgment. The feeling of being a fully accepted member of the Adventist church, however, was appealing. He belonged to the "remnant church."

"The feeling of belonging that came with membership was both reassuring and disconcerting. What about all the people who were not Adventists? I rationalized that question with a variety of pat Adventist answers. One thing I did understand, however: membership in the church was tied to the acceptance of the right beliefs and doctrines. I knew I was a Christian by acceptance of Jesus alone, but membership in the church involved more."

Rodney was introduced to two realities; faith alone made him a Christian, but it was faith and doctrinal fidelity that made him an Adventist. How could this be? What does Scripture and New Testament church practice say about membership?

The Greek term used in the New Testament for "member" is melos (member, body, part, limb).Three plural forms of the word occur in the New Testament (mele, melon, melesin), and these are always associated with the human body and flesh, either in whole or part. This word’s reference to the human body makes it a powerful symbol of believers in Christ as members (parts) of the church, the body of Christ (Romans 12:4-5; 1 Corinthians 6:15; 12:12, 27; Ephesians 5:30).

Melos further describes believers as having a function in Christ’s body, the church (Romans 12:4-7; 1 Corinthians 12:27-31). As one body, the church has many parts, each fulfilling different roles and functions.

In the New Testament,"member" never refers to someone who receives status or prestige as a result of being initiated into an organization. Rather, the word "member" refers to one who has a function within the church (one body, many parts or members). There is never a differentiation between the importance of persons in the church. Only roles or functions are differentiated.

So what, according to the Bible, is the true church, and how does one become a member? We will see what the Bible says about this important subject in part 2.

We each have a conscience. We may not be able to analyze it, and we certainly cannot control it, but we know we all possess one.

As Pastor Ray Stedman observed in his excellent commentary on Hebrews,

Conscience is that internal voice that sits in judgment over our will. There is a very common myth abroad that says that conscience is the means by which we tell what is right and what is wrong. But conscience is never that. It is training that tells us what is right or wrong. But when we know what is right or wrong, it is our conscience that insists that we do what we think is right and avoid what we think is wrong. That distinction is very important and needs to be made clear.

Conscience can be very mistaken; it is not a safe guide by itself. It accuses us when we violate whatever moral standard we may have, but that moral standard may be quite wrong when viewed in the light of God’s revelation. But conscience also gives approval whenever we fulfill whatever standard we have, though that standard is right or wrong. And conscience, we have all discovered, acts both before and after the fact — it can either prod or punish.

As we "former Adventists" are all too aware, our Adventist heritage deeply instills in us the mistaken belief that the Sabbath is the seal of God, while worshipping God on Sunday is the mark of the Beast. How many of us have come to the conclusion that Adventism is loaded with unbiblical doctrines, and so we began looking to mainstream Christianity to see what the Bible actually teaches?

Our natural tendency, as Adventists seeking a fellowship that taught Biblical truths, was to try to locate a Seventh-day Baptist or Messianic Jewish congregation to "dip our toe into." In the absence of such a nearby congregation we had no choice but to look at Christian fellowships that met on Sunday, the next most likely day of worship.

I began by attending a Wednesday night bible study at a local Lutheran church. That was "safer" because it wasn’t on Sunday. My Adventist conscience told me I had not yet "apostatized." After a few weeks I thought I would attend a Sunday morning worship service at nearby Evangelical Free Church to see what it was like. It felt so strange, and yet logically I was going to worship the Lord, wasn’t I? What was so wrong with worshipping God on Sunday — or any other day of the week for that matter? And yet my Adventist conscience told me that this was a sure sign that I was apostatizing!

I got up my courage and walked into the worship service. What a surprise! What a joy. Here was a group of vibrant Christians studying directly from the Bible — not proof-texting to support a particular cherished belief, but actually in deep Bible study, allowing for a diversity of viewpoints.

The worship service was more expository Bible study. What a shock! We studied more of the Bible in this one service than in an entire month at the SDA Churches I had previously attended. And still my Adventist conscience told me that I was on "dangerous ground". I was in danger of "loosing" my salvation. I was perilously close to apostatizing.

As Pastor Ray Stedman noted, our conscience is trained to tell us what is right or wrong. The believers in the Strong City cult (SDA offshoot) sincerely believe what they practice. Over time their consciences have been trained to believe that Michael Traversser is the Messiah, and that he needs naked virgins to be "spiritually consumated" to him. This is an example of people’s consciences trained to believe this is right. Adventism promotes a whole host of cultic beliefs that our consciences were trained as children to believe are right.

When we make another human being, be it Michael Traversser, Ellen White or Joseph Smith, our interpreter of what is right and wrong we make them our "spiritual compass" instead of Jesus. But there is hope. Jesus is in the business of fixing "broken consciences."

He says,

Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. Revelation 3:20 (KJV)

What does Jesus do? He stands at our heart’s door and knocks. It is then up to us to open our heart’s door, and let Him in.

One of the main tenets of the Protestant Reformation was that man can approach God — that he does not need an infallible interpreter to help him understand what God has to say. And as yet  Adventists, we so desperately wanted to have a human guide — even if it was a dead one. We retrained our consciences to believe that she alone had the correct interpretation of Scripture.

We want our idols. We want our human guides. That has been man’s human tendency all through the ages.

But we have no excuse. If we are truly "born again" New Covenant Christians, the Holy Spirit fills that role. We are His temple. We are where God dwells. God in us. He is our compass. He is our conscience. Not the writings of Ellen White, but the gospel of Christ. Do our actions and our beliefs reflect that? Do we truly believe that the gospel is God’s final word, beyond which there is nothing to be said or experienced, and that there is no way of going on from hearing the gospel to some more profound or fuller knowledge of God?

It is training that tells us what is right or wrong. But when we know what is right or wrong, it is our conscience that insists that we do what we think is right and avoid what we think is wrong.

Accept no substitutes. Jesus Christ is the total answer to every human need!

References: Ray Stedman, A Clear Conscience (A study of Hebrews 9:1-23)

Gilbert Jorgensen

The book of Hebrews is my favorite book. It is a miniature of the entire Bible compressed into one message — that Jesus Christ is the total answer to every human need.

No book of the New Testament focuses upon Christ like the book of Hebrews. It is the clearest and most systematic presentation of the availability and adequacy of Jesus Christ in the whole of the Bible.

It presents Christianity as the perfect and final religion, simply because the incomparable person and work of Jesus Christ permits men free and unrestricted access to God. In every age that is man’s desperate need. There is no hunger like God-hunger.

The writer declares that God has spoken to man in Jesus Christ. This is the theme of the epistle. The very nature of that word indicates that:

1. Christ is a stronger word than came through the prophets;
2. He also has a greater name than that of the angels;
3. He himself is a surer word to man than the Law.

The author of Hebrews tells us,

Hebrews 1:1-3 (ESV)
1 Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets,
2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.
3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,

We see that the word which now comes to us in Jesus Christ, both by what he said and what he was, is a stronger and more inclusive word than God ever spoke through the prophets. When you read the Old Testament you are reading the Word of God. All of it is of God, but all of it is incomplete. It never brings us to ultimates and absolutes.

As Pastor Ray Stedman notes,

But when you open the pages of the New Testament and read the four-fold picture of Jesus Christ, you find that all the Old merges into one voice, the voice of the Son. The syllables and phrases by which God spoke in the Old Testament are merged into one complete discourse in Jesus Christ. Therefore, God’s word to man has been fully uttered in the Son. There is nothing more to be said. Jesus Christ is God’s final word to man.

Therefore, the word through the Son is greater than that through the prophets because it includes and surpasses theirs. It is also greater because the Son forms the boundaries of history. The writer says, "Whom he has appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world." In that phrase, "the heir of all things," he is looking on into the future as far as the eye of man can see.

More than that, in the final statement here, his word comes with superior force because he redeems man and nature.

"When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high" (Hebrews 1:3 RSV)

As we have seen, the gospel is God’s final word, beyond which there is nothing to be said or experienced. There is no way of going on from hearing the gospel to some more profound or fuller knowledge of God.

Jesus Christ is the total answer to every human need.

 References: Ray Stedman, The Final Word (A study of Hebrews 1:1-2:4)

Yesterday I was pondering the last two cries that Christ uttered from the cross.

When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, "It is finished," and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. John 19:30 (ESV)

Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!" And having said this he breathed his last. Luke 23:46 (ESV)

Immediately, he gave up the ghost. In those last words he is still a sacrifice, having completed the work that the Father gave him to do.

The writer of Hebrews tells us,

27 He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself.
28 For the law appoints men in their weakness as high priests, but the word of the oath, which came later than the law, appoints a Son who has been made perfect forever. Hebrews 7:27-28 (ESV)

If we look at these three passages as a whole, we will get the complete thought of the writer of Hebrews here. Not only did Christ offer up himself as the perfect sacrifice, but he did it "once for all" — forever.

Pastor Ray Stedman notes,

That means the cross is a timeless event. It is not simply an historic occurrence that we may look back upon and study as we would the Battle of Waterloo or Gettysburg. It is an intrusion of eternity into time. It is timeless. It is as though it is going on forever and had been going on since the foundation of the world. It is therefore eternally contemporary. Christians are quite accurate when they speak of a cross as "a contemporary experience."

Every age can know for itself the meaning of this cross. It reaches back to cover all history so that it can be said that Jesus is "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world," (Revelation 13:8 KJV). Thus all those of the Old Testament who had not yet known of the historic presentation of Christ could be saved, just as we are saved today, for the cross reached backward into time as well as forward. The cross of Jesus Christ, from God’s point of view, is the central act of history, everything flows from that. From that great event all hope is flowing, all light is flaming, it is to it that all events must look for meaning.

This is what I mean when I say that Christ ministers in a new dimension, an eternal dimension, performing a contemporary act that is always meaningful.

Hebrews further tells us,

1 Now the point in what we are saying is this: we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven,
2 a minister in the holy places, in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man.
3 For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices; thus it is necessary for this priest also to have something to offer.
4 Now if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law.
5 They serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things. For when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God, saying, "See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain." Hebrews 8:1-5 (ESV)

Pastor Ray Stedman further observes,

As the writer says, the point of emphasis in what he has been saying is not duration but location! The question is: Where is this kind of ministry of Jesus Christ available? Where do you find it? He answers that it comes from the risen Christ who is at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, a minister of the true sanctuary which God made and not man.

Now if the picture you get from that is that we are poor struggling mortals left here on planet Earth, and Christ is somewhere out in space in heaven, "out there", then you miss the entire point of the argument of the writer here. I confess that for many years this was the concept I held, and, therefore, I greatly missed the whole point and blessing of what the writer says.

It is true, of course, that Jesus Christ is in heaven, but where is heaven? Well, heaven is not "out there" somewhere, remote in space. It is not some spatial location which can be pinpointed on some other planet in some distant galaxy in the great reaches of space. Heaven is within. Heaven is this new dimension which is as present on earth as it is anywhere else. "The kingdom of heaven," Jesus said, "is within you," Luke 17:21).

I propose that Adventism does God a great injustice by proposing that God resides in a far, far away place called heaven accessed by going through Orion, and that since Christ’s resurrection 2000 years ago He has been confined to a small physical building in heaven called the heavenly sanctuary. What kind of God is that? May I suggest that God is not restricted to our notion of time and space?

It is my belief that there is a spiritual realm that we are but dimly aware of. Adventism, in its attempt to produce a physical application to everything including Christ’s ministry points us in a totally wrong direction. It puts heaven far away, but we are told that God will dwell with his people. Not in some far away place, sequestered till the second coming in a 24-hour a day review of people’s records, past, present and future — for the past 163 Years, 6 months, and 29 days!

There is so much more to this subject of where heaven is, but I would like to leave you with one additional thought.

The writer of Hebrews tells us,

Hebrews 3:1-6 (English Standard Version)
1 Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession,
2 who was faithful to him who appointed him, just as Moses also was faithful in all God’s house.
3 For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses—as much more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself.
4 (For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.)
5 Now Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later,
6 but Christ is faithful over God’s house as a son. And we are his house if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope.

Notice that last sentence, "And we are his house …"

Where is heaven? Where does God dwell? By looking for a physical sanctuary in heaven we totally miss the spiritual message God has for us, and its illustration. By looking for a physical heaven somewhere on the other side of Orion we totally miss the point that God lives outside the confines of time and space. As New Covenant Christians, he dwells within us. We are His house. We are each temples of the living God.

Here you have just a little taste. In future posts I would like to explore this thought futher.

References: Ray Stedman, The New Constitution (A study of Hebrews 7:27-8:13)

 While there is certainly much to cover pertaining to Ellen White, and the influence she had (and still has) on the Seventh-day Adventist Church, what I really get excited about is the precious opportunity that God gives us as New Covenant Christians. That is indeed the "good news".

I like to leave Ellen White behind, and focus on God’s wonderful truths — the reason why we as Christians have much to be excited about — the good news of the gospel.

As I study my Bible, I learn that the "good news" is not about the Sabbath being the Seal of God (instead of the Holy Spirit), the Mark of the Beast, the Great Controversy, the Investigative Judgment, the 1844 Sanctuary Message, the "Spirit of Prophecy", the Seventh-day Adventist Church being the one and only "Remnant Church" — God’s elect, or many of the other unique doctrinal permutations I was taught as a child in Sabbath School.

It is all about Christ, and what He has done for us. The focus is not on us, and our works. It is on Him, and His unfathomable grace. As one of my favorite preachers, former Seventh-day Adventist pastor Clay Peck of Grace Place Church, likes to say, “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing, and the main thing is the gospel.” — simple but profound.

And two of my favorite books on this subject are Romans and Hebrews. These two books are so simple that even a child can understand them. One Saturday this past winter, my 12-year old son and I sat down and diagrammed the following chart from Romans 8. Isn’t this fascinating! 

 Which would you prefer? This is so simple that a child can even understand it! And yet have you ever heard an expository sermon given on this subject?

I am reminded of Christ’s admonition

"And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 18:3 (KJV)

If your Seventh-day Adventist upbringing was anything like mine, the Covenants were a subject that you probably never heard much about either from the pulpit, or in Sabbath School class. Now that I am focusing on studying 1-1/2 inches of Bible, instead of 6 feet of Ellen White’s writings, I am making up for lost time. God’s Holy Word is so fascinating, isn’t it!

What a beautiful message. How exciting! The gospel of Jesus, and the Law of the Spirit is indeed good news! Why wouldn’t we want it? As Clay Peck says, "The main thing is the gospel."