GYC 2007: Be

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Generation. Youth. Christ. (GYC)

Stephen Bohr - Exonerating God: the Seventh-day Adventist View of Salvation

Stephen Bohr

Exonerating God, Part 1

It's good to see you all here this morning.

My name is Stephen Bohr and the title of this seminar is Exonerating God.

So if that's not the seminar you're looking for, Now is the time to know it.

As you came in, I think that you received a material.

This is a group of quotations that I've gathered through the course of many years where Ellen White describes the cosmic conflict, the great controversy on a broader scale than just this world.

And we're going to be referring to several of those quotations as we move along in our study together.

This is all of the material that I'm going to give out in the seminar.

Actually it would be pretty practical to take notes on the back side of this material.

I am going to refer to many, many Bible verses.

In fact, we're going to begin our study by referring abundantly to the Bible and then referring to some of these quotations from Ellen White.

Before we do begin, however, we want to ask God's blessing.

We should never open the Word of God without first imploring the Lord's guidance and so I invite you to bow your heads with me as we pray.

Father in Heaven we thank you for the awesome opportunity of being here at GYC.

It's so wonderful to be among a group of people who are truly serious about finishing your work on this earth so we can go home.

And Father, as we open this seminar about the plan of salvation and the great controversy, we ask Lord for the guidance of your Holy Spirit.

We know that human wisdom is insufficient to grasp the great truths of the plan of salvation, So we ask for divine wisdom.

We thank you Father for the promise that you have given us that you will be with us always even until the end of the world.

And we thank you Father for hearing and answering our prayer.

If I ask you what is the central purpose of the plan of salvation?

Probably if you're like most people that I've asked this question of, you would say that the purpose of the plan of salvation was, of course, to save man, to save the human race.

But we're going to notice in this seminar that the plan of salvation has a much broader reach than the salvation of man.

We're going to notice that really the plan of salvation in its broadest sense has the purpose of exonerating God or vindicating God from the accusations that Satan has launched against Him.

And specifically that Satan has launched against the law of God which means that these accusations are launched against the character of God because the law of God is a reflection of God's character.

So when the devil attacks the law he's attacking God's character because the law is a reflection or a written description if you please of what God is in Himself.

Now I'd like to begin, and we're going to read the Bible abundantly in our 2 sessions this morning, and I hope that you'll stick around until the end.

If you just stay for an hour, you're only going to see the initial steps in the argument that we're going to be building.

We're going to follow the plan of salvation from the origin of sin in heaven all the way till the moment that sin is eradicated from the universe at the end of the millennium.

So if you don't stay all the way through, you're going to have a very partial picture.

This morning we're going to deal primarily with a problem, because God has a big problem on his hands.

Let's go to the book of Ezekiel, chapter 28.

Of course we all know that this chapter describes Lucifer and let's begin our reading at verse 13 28 and verse 13 speaking about this glorious being it says here you were in Eden the garden of God Have you ever read in the writings of Ellen White that actually Eden was a little piece of heaven transplanted upon the earth and that before the flood God took the Garden of Eden back to heaven?

Well here we have an indication that Eden was in heaven before it was on earth because here we're told that before Lucifer sinned he was in Eden the garden of God.

Of course he came to the garden of Eden after he sinned, when it was on earth.

So it says you were in Eden the garden of God every precious stone was your covering the Sardius, Topaz, and Diamond, Burl, Onyx, and Jasper, Sapphire, Turquoise, and Emerald with gold the workmanship of your timbrels and pipes was prepared for you on the day you were created.

Now comes the key verse that I want us to consider for a moment.

You were on the mountain, on the holy mountain of God.

You walked back and forth in the midst of fiery stones.

You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created till iniquity was found in you.

So we find that this being was the covering cherub.

Now let's go to Exodus and find a description of who the covering cherub was and where he was located.

Exodus 25 and verse 18 this is talking about the earthly sanctuary And God is giving Moses instructions on building the Ark of the Covenant.

It says in verse 18, And you shall make 2 cherubim of gold, of hammered work, you shall make them at the 2 ends of the mercy seat.

Make 1 cherub on 1 end and the other cherub at the other end.

You shall make the cherubim at the 2 ends of it of 1 piece with the mercy seat." So where were the covering cherubs?

They were in the most holy place on either side of the what?

Now in what direction were the cherubim looking?

They were looking downward and their wings were folded.

Ellen White says in sign of reverence for God's law, which by the way is at the bottom of the Ark of the Covenant because it's the foundation of God's throne.

And so it continues saying in verse 20, and the cherubim shall stretch out their wings above, covering the mercy seat with their wings.

That's why they are called, he is called the covering cherub.

Because the cherubs extended their wings and they covered the mercy seat.

And of course the mercy seat was the lid of the ark, and that's where the Shekinah descended.

It represents the throne of God, and the 10 Commandments are underneath there, the foundation of God's throne.

And of course the cherubim are looking down, and they have their wings folded in reverence for God and for his holy law.

Now let's go to Isaiah chapter 14, Isaiah chapter 14, verses 12 through 14.

We just found in Ezekiel 28 that iniquity was found in this covering cherub.

Isaiah 14 verse 12 how you are fallen from heaven O Lucifer son of the morning how you are cut down to the ground, you who weaken the nations.

For you have said in your heart, and now I'm going to underline a one-letter word that appears several times here, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God.

I also will sit on the mount of the congregation of the farthest sides of the north.

I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High." What was Lucifer's problem?

Now I'm going to give you some words and I want you to give me the opposite or the antonym.

We naturally would say love, hate, but really the opposite of love is Self.

Exonerating God, Part 2

What I would like us to do in the next hour is to take a look at several biblical passages that describe the cosmic conflict and that speak about God's solution on a cosmic level of the problem of sin, of the problem of evil.

And I'm going to be referring to several biblical texts, so you might want to write them down.

Let's begin by going to the book of Job, chapter 38, 38 and verses 1 through 7.

Actually let's read beginning at verse 4.

Here God is asking Job, because Job has talked for about 37 chapters, actually 35 chapters, so God is going to say, now it's my turn.

He says, where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?

Creation, yes now I want you to notice that in creation there were 2 groups when God created this world and they did something when God created this world it says when the morning stars sang together who are the morning stars?

When the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy.

So you have 2 groups, you have the stars, the morning stars, and you have the sons of God.

The morning stars are angels, the Bible makes it very clear that stars represent angels, But the sons of God are really the representatives of the worlds that never sinned.

In other words, you have in heaven 2 categories of beings, of course other than the Trinity.

You have the angels, the angelic host, and you have the inhabitants of the worlds, of the unfallen worlds.

Now, go with me back to Job, chapter 1, Job 1.

And by the way, if you want, I'm not going to deal extensively with the sons of God, with the meaning of the sons of God.

You'll have to accept some of the things by faith, but if you're interested in studying this more, I have a presentation that I did on DVD.

The title is God's Heavenly Council, where I deal with the biblical concept of the 24 elders.

I believe the 24 elders are the sons of God.

In other words, they're the representatives of the worlds that never sinned.

And you might want to see another 1 right before that 1.

It's really the foundation for the 1 of the 24 elders, which is God's Heavenly Council.

But notice Job chapter 1 and verse 6, Now there was a day when the sons of God, are these the same sons of God that we read about in chapter 38?

When the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord.

Do they live in the presence of the Lord?

No, because the Bible says that they came to present themselves before the Lord, so they must not live there.

Why would he come among them if he doesn't claim a right to belong to them?

Does he claim to have a right to be among them?

Verse 7, And the LORD said to Satan, From where do you come?

So Satan answered the LORD, and said, From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking back and forth on it.

Then the Lord said to Satan, have you not considered my servant Job?

So where must the other sons of God have come from?

Now why would the devil go representing planet earth?

Because Luke chapter 3 says that Adam was the son of God.

By the way, was Adam the son of God in a special sense?

Sure, because he was the son of God by creation, we are sons of God by procreation.

He's the only 1 who could really be called the Son of God.

We are technically grandchildren and great grandchildren of God.

Because we descend, we descend by procreation from Adam and Eve.

But when Adam allowed himself to be overcome by Satan, Satan took his throne, and Satan now became the representative of this world, that's why Jesus when he was about to die he says, now is the judgment of this world, Now will the prince or the ruler of this world be cast out?

See at the cross, the devil is knocked off the throne and Jesus sits on the throne until all of the enemies of God are placed under his feet and then he's going to return the throne to Adam who lost it originally.

Now let's go to chapter 2 and verses 1 and 2.

Again, there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord.

Let me ask you, if they come again to present themselves before the Lord, must they have left after the first meeting?

I mean, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out.

If they came, they must have gone back to where they came from after the first meeting.

And Satan came also among them to present himself before the Lord.

And so the Lord asked Satan, where are you from?

He says, oh I come from supervising my world, planet Earth.

Then I want you to notice, we're going to deal with this tomorrow afternoon, in the last hour that we have our seminar together I'm going to take a look with you at the book of Job.

How many of you have seen the DVD presentation that I have on the book of Job?

0 good, because I'm going to present tomorrow a study, the last hour of the book of Job, that's going to bring everything that we've studied together.

But, and 1 of the fundamental misunderstandings of this book is the idea that the devil is accusing Job.

The devil is not accusing Job, he is accusing God.

Notice Job chapter 1, once again, chapter 1 and verse 9.

Because God says to the devil, haven't you seen my servant Job?

He lives in your territory and yet he's my servant.

He's a blameless man, he's upright, separated from evil, great guy!

And then the devil says this to God in verse 9, so Satan answered the Lord and said, does Job fear God for nothing?

In other words, Job serves you for mercenary motives.

He serves you because of the loaves and the fishes.

He serves you because you're good to Him.

But then the devil says, but if you took everything that leads Him to serve you away from him, he would curse you to your face.

Let me ask you, by the decisions that Job makes, is he making God look good or look bad?

You know, we would be much more careful in the way we act when we realize that what we do makes God look bad or good.

Have you ever thought of that possibility?

Exonerating God, Part 3

Father in Heaven, as we study this afternoon about the solution to the sin problem, we ask Father that you will bless us, that you will give us your divine wisdom so that we might understand the way in which you have solved this problem and that it will be solved once and for all without any loose ends.

I ask Lord that you will help us to be able to concentrate.

It's difficult after eating lunch, but I ask Lord that you will keep us awake and alert and we might be able to understand what you have for us this afternoon.

And we thank you Father for hearing and answering our prayer for we ask it in Jesus name.

I'd like to begin by saying that the sin problem involves several individuals or groups.

The first individual, as we noticed this morning, who is involved is God.

God is definitely involved in the great controversy.

When I say God I'm talking about the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Then we have of course the holy angels are involved.

They have questions in their minds, doubts, you know, that need to be clarified.

Then we have the beings from other worlds, the unfallen worlds, that are also involved.

They are also observing very carefully the way that God handles the sin situation.

So we have in heaven God, the holy angels, and the inhabitants of the unfallen worlds.

Then we have another category which are Satan and his angels and Satan is and his angels also must be persuaded that God has been right in his dealing with sin in the great controversy then finally we have human beings divided into 2 groups we have penitent sinners that is repentant sinners and we have impenitent sinners that is sinners that do not repent and all of these groups need to be persuaded that God has been right in the way that he deals with the situation of sin in other words the loyal heavenly beings need to be persuaded, on earth the righteous and the wicked need to be persuaded, and even the devil and his angels need to be persuaded.

And we're going to study this afternoon that God persuades or convinces every 1 of these groups by performing a three-fold work of judgment.

The Seventh-day Adventist view sees the judgment divided into 3 stages.

The first stage, of course, is the pre-Advent investigative judgment, which we believe began in 1844.

The second stage of the judgment is the millennial judgment, the judgment that takes place during the thousand years.

And the final phase of the judgment is the postmillennial judgment, which has the intention of showing the wicked and the devil and his angels the reason why they have been condemned, doomed to be destroyed.

So basically the pre-advent judgment persuades the heavenly beings, the millennial judgment persuades God's righteous people, and the post-millennial judgment persuades the devil, his angels, and the wicked.

So the 3 stages of the judgment have the intention of proving God right among these 3 groups the heavenly beings the righteous and eventually Satan and his angels now I'd like us to take a look at the sanctuary service to discuss the solution that God gives to the sin problem.

And basically in the sanctuary there were 4 key places in the sanctuary.

We usually think of 3, but there were actually 4 key places.

The first of those was the sanctuary encampment.

That's the part that we usually don't consider part of the sanctuary, but obviously the encampment of Israel was part of the Hebrew sanctuary.

There's where sinners who needed the sanctuary lived.

And so the sanctuary encampment is part of the Hebrew sanctuary, those who lived around the sanctuary.

They were the ones who needed the work of the sanctuary.

And then the second part of the sanctuary is of course the court.

The court that was not covered, it was surrounded by a fence but it wasn't covered like the sanctuary proper.

And then of course you have the holy place in the tent itself and then you have the most holy place of the sanctuary and so you have 4 key locations of the sanctuary that illustrate actually 4 specific steps that God follows in solving the problem of sin.

Now what I want to do is take each 1 of those portions of the sanctuary step by step and show how each 1 of those is a step that God takes in the solution to the sin problem.

And so I invite you to go with me to John chapter 1 and verse 14.

Let's visit the sanctuary encampment first.

The sanctuary encampment, John chapter 1 and verse 14.

It says here, And the word became flesh, and dwelt among us.

By the way, that word dwelt is from the greek word skeno'o which means to build or pitch your tent it could be translated tabernacled among us So did Jesus come to live with us in the camp?

Jesus comes and he camps with us in other words he comes and lives with us in the sanctuary encampment but differently than us in the sanctuary encampment we sin all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, but Jesus lives with us in the sanctuary encampment and he doesn't sin he lives a perfect life, because we're going to notice that he is going to take the place of everyone who lives in the encampment now when we talk about the sanctuary we usually begin our focus at the altar of sacrifice you know we say Jesus died for our sins but there's something before that which is crucially important and that is that when the lamb was brought to the sanctuary before it was sacrificed the priest who by the way had no defect according to the Levitical legislation the priest had to be without defect of course physically there's no way they could know if he had cancer or anything like that but physically the priest had to be without any defect and when he brought the lamb for the sacrifice the lamb also had to be without any defect it had to be a perfect lamb.

This illustrates the fact that after Jesus lived in the encampment for 30 plus years, 33 years, He came and presented Himself as the Lamb who was perfect, who had not committed even 1 sin.

Now why is it important to understand that Jesus, by the way, was Jesus a perfect priest too?

See in the sanctuary service you needed 2 symbols in the sanctuary service you need a priest and you needed a sacrifice but in the fulfillment Jesus is both The Bible says that he offered himself, that is Jesus officiated his own sacrifice.

See the priest, you know, the priest would kill the victim and then the priest would be alive to offer the blood in the sanctuary?

Well Jesus is the priest, the perfect priest, he officiates his own sacrifice and then he's the living priest that goes into the sanctuary with his blood.

Now notice 1 Peter chapter 1 and verses 18-20 on the perfect life of Jesus, You see in the court you have the examination of the lamb and the lamb had to be perfect without defect.

Once again 1st Peter chapter 1 and verse 18.

It says, knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things like silver or gold from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers but you were redeemed with this precious blood of Jesus as what a lamb without blemish and without spot.

Go with me to the book of Hebrews we're talking about the first work in the court which was to determine that the lamb was without defect even before the sacrifice the lamb had to be perfect notice Hebrews chapter 2 and verses 17 and 18 to 17 and 18 therefore in all things he had to be made like his brethren that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God to make propitiation for the sins of the people for in that he himself has suffered being tempted he is able to have a those who are tempted and then let's go to chapter 4 and verses 15 and 16 it says for we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses so did he live in the encampment with us can he understand our weaknesses of course he lived in our midst and so it says For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.

What happens if you don't offer the law perfection?

See, it wasn't sufficient for Jesus to die for us his life has to stand in place of our life see the law, when the law sees our lives the law says, sinner, die so Jesus came and he lived the life that we should live he lived a perfect life and when I receive Jesus, Jesus presents himself before the Father and he presents his perfect life in place of my life and therefore the law no longer condemns me there is no longer any condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus Having been justified by faith we have what?

Peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

So it was vital that Jesus live a perfect life so that in him my life could be looked upon as perfect as lived in him so that he could impute his life to me if you please.

It means to reckon to credit his life to my account.

So that's the first work in the court, was to make sure that the lamb was a perfect lamb.

Now Jesus is in the court, he's been examined as the lamb, and now he's going to be executed for sin.

Of course that takes place on the altar of what?

And there are many examples in the first half of Leviticus.

If a person sins in hearing the utterance of an oath and is a witness, whether he has seen or known of the matter, if he does not tell it, he bears guilt.

Or if a person touches any unclean thing, whether it is the carcass of an unclean beast, or the carcass of unclean livestock, or the carcass of unclean creeping things, and he is unaware of it, he also shall be unclean and guilty.

Or if he touches human uncleanness, whatever uncleanness with which a man may be defiled, and he is unaware of it, when he realizes it, then he shall be guilty.

Or if a person swears, speaking thoughtlessly with his lips to do evil or to do good, whatever it is that the man may pronounce by an oath, and he is unaware of it, when he realizes it, then he shall be guilty in any of these matters and it shall be when he is guilty in any of these matters that he shall confess that he has sinned in that thing and then he brings an animal and what does he do He confesses his sin on the head of the animal.

He shall bring his trespass offering to the Lord for his sin which he has committed, a female from the flock, a lamb of the kid or of the goats, as a sin offering, so the priest shall make atonement for him concerning his sin.

So the sacrifice is spoken of as atonement.

And then notice verse 10, it says, and he shall offer the second as a burnt offering according to the prescribed manner, so the priest shall make atonement on his behalf for his sin which he has committed, and it shall be what?

So you'll notice guilt, sacrifice, forgiveness.

Person sees he's guilty, the sin is placed on the victim, the victim is slain and then the person is what?