17 May 2001 Editorial:
Taken to Task

Larry Kirkpatrick

From time to time we hear charges and condemnations spectacular for their fantasy-like qualities. A few of these actual quotations follow, along with a few lines of reflection. See what you think.

"...those Adventists who say you are saved by works."

Where are they? I would like to meet one--just one--since I've heard about them continuously since coming into the church--but never observed one. Really though, this is never the argument. It is insisted that there are legalists abounding on every side, behind every tree and under every bush. They speak of this inwrought legalism that we all have but refuse to admit. But who alone knows the heart? Who alone knows what motive prompts your obedience or mine? The harshest critics and most pharisiacal maniacs there are out there are always the liberals. The most works-centered are inevitably the supposedly non-works-centered.

"As soon as you start quoting Jesus' words to the effect that salvation is by faith alone, their anger becomes palpable."

Aside from the insinuation that SDAs to a man are little more than a horde of frustrated unconverted, self-control-lacking, teeth-gritting hard-heads, ready to go off when they are challenged, I have to ask where are these words from Jesus that we are saved by "faith alone"? Such words are not found in the New Testament, no, not anywhere and certainly not in the words of Jesus. Jesus will be heard to say "Your faith has made you whole," and "According to your faith be it unto you." But those are hardly words limiting salvation exclusively to "faith alone." In fact, this same Jesus speaks of the unprofitable servant who simply meets the conditions yet receives no merit. (Luke 17:1-10). Conditions are there all over the place.

Among the points Jesus sought diligently to press upon the darkened hearts of the Jews was the utter incapacity of Jewish ethnicity to save. But today it is almost as if an Adventist "ethnicity," an SDA background automatically entitles one to salvation so long as you are willing to throw out the law. Exactly contrary to the writer of the quotation we read above, Jesus often emphasized that conditions hadn't been met. He told Nicodemus that he had to be born from above; He informed the rich young ruler that still he was lacking one thing; calmly He informed His disciples that daily they must take up their cross. Never did He suggest one was saved by a forensic belief.

"I know of no place in Scripture that even remotely suggests that true believers are saved by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit."

Then get out your Bible and turn to Titus 3:5: "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." This verse and the passage it appears in directly links salvation and the presence of the Holy Spirit. Were that not enough, there is Romans 8:9: "Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, He is none of His." The same verse in its first line refers to the "Spirit of God"--clearly a parallel to the "Spirit of Christ," as they are one and the same. I counter: I know of no way of understanding salvation that could exclude the Holy Spirit from the believer and still be salvation. salvation means inward regeneration, not only external declaration. God is the God of the Living, and the living are quickened by the Spirit.

"...our salvation has nothing to do with us!!! . . . . Jesus is the reason we can experience these reactions. He has saved us completely, even without any changes in behavior! It is absolutely a done deal. We are safe in Jesus!"

If our salvation has nothing to do with us, then who has it to do with? Jesus, we are told "has saved us completely, even without any changes in behavior!" I suppose that is why there is an exclamation at the end of the sentence, for if we truly enter the kingdom of God "without any changes of behavior" then that means we are permitted to keep our darling sins. We can sin and live and still be "saved." What use such a salvation would be is not explained.

If what that person thinks is really true, then the 6000 years between the fall of humankind and today can only be a period of six millenniums of needless suffering and sin and sorrow. Truly the God worshipped by the person we quote is harsh and indifferent and uninterested in the sin problem at all. Since the cross its absolutely a done deal. We're safe in Jesus, apparently whether we are in Jesus or not.

"Any self-confessed Christ-follower who believes he must do something--anything at all--in order to 'get ready' for Christ to come in the clouds is no true Christian at all!"

Here is the depth to which the scoffer sinks. By such trite jelly-bean thinking virtually every story in the Bible is negated. The exodus from Egypt certainly didn't come off as smooth as silk. Repeatedly there were hitches along the pathway, even moments when the very existence of Israel hung in the balance. Again, this idea, like others, logically denies the great controversy theme of the Bible and replaces God's wise plan of redemption into a 6000 year period of divine indifference and unnecessity.

Is this the God who so loves the world that He gives His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish? By such surmise is the living God transformed into a mere photocopy of Baal according to the taunt of Elijah who mocked "Is your god sleeping then, or on a journey so that you need to wake him up?" (1 Kings18:27).

We are reminded of the grave distance that can develop between the one who departs from God, making light of His commandments "and teaching men so," and God. How far from home these contemporary Nineveh-journeyers wander. God grant us all a deeper concentration upon the Word of God and a firmer experience with the Spirit of God so that we may not become trapped in such embarrassing places as those we've here observed.

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Last Modified 17 May 2001