Greetings Le
I liked the Watson passage you posted,
“
as far as closeness to the Father he had to by faith reach beond the veil of his flesh.”
Yes indeed !
“Even on the cross he felt that he had been abandoned.”
Yes I agree. My two pennies is the first death is defined as a temporary separation from God (ie you sleep) and the second death is a permanent separation from God (ie you cease to exist) . Jesus experienced a separation from God for 3 days and nights.
Funny in the work shed I asked a colleague (not a Christian) what he thought of death? He said we still become matter,
so in a way we still exist? Hmm? I said to him where does matter come from? Einstein relates matter to energy. E=mc2. Ok where does energy come from and go to? Nobody knows. We tend to call this God.
If Mrs White calls death a “dissolution of nature”
It was the sense of sin, bringing the Father’s wrath upon him as man’s substitute, that made the cup he drank so bitter, and broke the heart of the Son of God. Death is not to be regarded as an angel of mercy. Nature recoils from the thought of dissolution, which is the consequence of sin. {3SP 161.2}
So if the Father is living energy and the Son living energy and the Holy Spirit living energy, how can energy die? Mrs White does not suggest energy dies, but
become separation from each other and in this sense “dies” just as a flat car battery “dies” when discharged.
I would appreciate your thoughts, you are always kind in your replies
You say
"I believe I have mentioned the way to deal with these "propensities" is to reckon them dead and buried Jesus has already dealt with them. Romans 6.
Hmm? we have some different views here?
Explain this verse than for me?
Ex 23:29 I will not drive them out from before thee in one year; lest the land become desolate, and the beast of the field multiply against thee.
30 By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou be increased, and inherit the land.
With this verse
Ro 6:6 Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.
7 For he that is dead is freed from sin.
Are you saying once you are baptised into Jesus, the old man of flesh dies and we become a new man of the Spirit?
Are you saying the process of
removing your propensities is immediate as death is immediate?
How you do bring this in harmony with
land, weeds and propensities?
Removing weeds (propensities) takes time and earnest effort.
The best way to remove weeds (ie propensities) is the fill the land with God’s plants, crowding out your soul (living energy)
Christ represents the condition of the church members. Five of them were wise and five of them were foolish. The foolish took no oil (grace) in their vessels with their lamps. How will this state of things so alarming continue? Will the one-half of the majority ever remain in ignorance and bondage to doubts and to fear and to temptations, ever confessing their bad habits and continue [in their] sins but never forsaking them? Wasting their own precious probationary time and keeping the minds of others in uncertainty, squandering their moral forces upon picking flaws in them, doing mischief, spoiling souls and churches by their talking of the inefficiency of laborers. But when their own field is examined, notwithstanding, they obtained their own wisdom as superior to any other. There are found tares, cockles, and poisonous weeds. They are tearing to pieces, sowing seeds of doubts, but contributing nothing of spiritual gospel work to strengthen the things that remain. They are Satan’s right-hand managers, and they flatter themselves because of propensities to find out and condemn, calling it spiritual eyesight. It is exactly of the quality the devil has possessed since he was expelled from Eden. They have changed captains and do not know it. {Ms60-1890.}
Mrs White is suggesting the foolish ones are not removing their weeds because they have changed to Satan as their ruler rather than Jesus as their Saviour.
For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin. {AUGleaner August 19, 1903, par. 5}
The natural mind, the old man with his deeds, has not been crucified, and they have not put on the new man. {Ms2-1875.}
The carnal mind works out, developing enmity, wrath, malice, hatred, strife, and ungovernable temper. Such things can never proceed from a renewed heart. Here is the weakness of the San Francisco church. Self lives, self rules, judgment and reason are overborne.
I get the impression the old man crucified is the human nature that lives and do’s using human powers of self.
The new man is a different arrangement, we live and do using human powers combined with Jesus Divine Powers, so we live under divinity because we asked for this.
Without the transforming process which can come alone through divine power, the original propensities to sin are left in the heart in all their strength, to forge new chains, to impose a slavery that can never be broken by human power.—The Review and Herald, August 19, 1890. {Ev 192.3}
This transformation occurs when we ask, using faith in Jesus, to appropriate to ourselves His divine powers, because we ask for faith promises.
I do not see genuine faith in power with Jesus removing all your propensities in a single day just because you are baptised once in the Lord. Paul speaks of dying daily and many pious Jews baptised themselves daily, however I see the word “transform” “regeneration” etc
as a process over time.
You say
"But again remembering that they are overcome already is the important thing.
Yes correct. If you do genuine faith, you can ask to remove your sins, but it may take time to know which faith promises remove which specific sins in your life.
You state: "
When we take hold of what he sees then true repentance can occur and he can blot them out.
As a process, how is this achieved?
You post "
A true believer is surrendered to their death.
Rob” What does this mean Le?
Those who wait till death before they make a disposition of their property, surrender it to death rather than to God. {CS 325.1}
It is always right to remember that all minds are not constituted alike, and it is like a death struggle for some to surrender their wills in submission to those who are placed over them. {BEcho December 9, 1901, par. 8}
My two pennies is when you “ask for a faith promise to provide divine power from Jesus to yourself, because you asked for this, you are surrendering human powers to die, and for divine powers to replace your human power with divine power” Hence this is a death here in genuine faith - i
t is the death of self based human power.
You say "
We are building a house for them so I have to keep working to accomplish it.
What? You haven’t retired yet ? LOL Like me, but the Government keeps raising the age to retire - I am a gardener in a mining motel with 500 rooms.
You post "
DA 161 A careful reading of that page explains it all.
Desire of Ages page 161
.
From eternal ages it was God’s purpose that every created being, from the bright and holy seraph to man, should be a temple for the indwelling of the Creator.
No man can of himself cast out the evil throng that have taken possession of the heart. Only Christ can cleanse the soul temple.
When divinity flashed through humanity,
Like the offering of Cain, they did not express faith in the Saviour.
I see no defining the term “spirit” ?
“his spirit” 5700+ hits in EGW writings
[“his spirit” medium ] has 18 hits
What constitutes the sin against the Holy Ghost? It is willfully attributing to Satan the work of the Holy Spirit. For example, suppose that one is a witness of the special work of the Spirit of God. He has convincing evidence that the work is in harmony with the Scriptures, and the Spirit witnesses with his spirit that it is of God. Afterward, however, he falls under temptation; pride, self-sufficiency, or some other evil trait, controls him; and rejecting all the evidence of its divine character, he declares that that which he had before acknowledged to be the power of the Holy Spirit was the power of Satan. It is through the medium of His Spirit that God works upon the human heart; and when men willfully reject the Spirit and declare it to be from Satan, they cut off the channel by which God can communicate with them. By denying the evidence which God has been pleased to give them, they shut out the light which had been shining in their hearts, and as the result they are left in darkness. Thus the words of Christ are verified: “If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!” Matthew 6:23. For a time, persons who have committed this sin may appear to be children of God; but when circumstances arise to develop character and show what manner of spirit they are of, it will be found that they are on the enemy’s ground, standing under his black banner.92 {CCh 81.1
How do you read this passage?
He is the medium through which the knowledge of the love of God is imparted. John writes, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” [John 3:16.] God so loved us that He gave His well-beloved Son. It is not that He gave Christ, and therefore He loved us; but that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us as a manifestation of the Father’s compassion. {Ms 40a, 1890, par. 58}
In this passage I understand Jesus to be a medium for carrying the Father’s love into us via the medium of the Holy Spirit.
I have yet to find the term “spirit” referring to some actual substance of describing the shape of the Father for example, nobody know His shape, or form or even to use the word “spirit”.
You Post :
"I don't think we speak the same language all the time as you use terms or words from Greek or Hebrew and I get lost in the esoteric meaning. No condemnation it is just a break down in communication.
Rob replies” Point taken, I will use more English than, but sometimes the KJV translations are fuzzy. Hence the reason why God supplied us with a Hebrew English translator, (EGW).
You post "
As I read it would seem that the energy here spoken of is strength or power, not the divine Being itself. Just as a battery is not energy but it stores and gives off energy.
Rob” I would agree with you. Reading verses in Hebrew Intent is hard. What is energy? Nobody knows? So if Mrs White uses terms such as the energy as a power, than she is also describing something that is a source of that power.
But nobody knows how energy as a shape is, or anything about the nature of the Father, in terms of things we understand, but we are told in Rom 1:20 we have things in Nature known to us, so that no-one is without excuse. The creation of Adam and the building of Eve is a very good simile of what the Godhead is like. We are made in His image.
Shalom
spiritualsprings.proboards.com
(KJV)