Earlier on an internet forum Clifford Goldstein stated that this quarter’s lesson would prove the Investigative Judgment using the Bible and not relying on Ellen White. Many on the forum were skeptical and I have been eagerly awaiting this quarter’s lesson to see how well he does.
As I start my conversation about the Sabbath School
Quarterlies lessons on 1844, the Gospel and the Investigative Judgment I would
like to introduce the subject with some material from Kenneth Hart’s
Sabbath School class.
As he introduces the subject he notes that the Investigative Judgment is based upon a number of SDA assumptions. He lists a few and I will add a few more that he referenced but did not acknowledge as things which other Christians do not hold.
From Hart’s The Gospel, 1844, and the Judgment - Lesson #1 study aid:
We do, however, have one unique doctrine.
A doctrine which sets us apart from all other Christian denominations: our
belief in the preadvent judgment beginning in the year 1844. Other Christians
have made fun of us because of this doctrine. Many among us are uncomfortable
in holding a doctrine that no other Christian group believes in. So what is the
truth about this doctrine? 1) In order to accept and understand the pre-advent
judgment you must first believe in the non-immortality of the soul. This
immediately separates us from the vast majority of Christians.
If each person goes to his
reward–either heaven or hell (or temporarily to purgatory)–at the time of death
then there would be no reason for a pre-advent judgment, because each person
would have already gone to his “reward”.
Seventh-day Adventists–along with
some other Christians–believe that there are many other beings inhabiting other
parts of this vast universe in which we live. Do these other beings have
anything to do with the judgment? Do they care about the judgment? Do they care
about what happens here on planet Earth? Paul suggest that this little world is
the theater of the universe! (1 Corinthians 4:9). Why would this be?
While the rest of the universe is
not a main emphasis of the Scriptures as we have them, nevertheless these
creatures who live outside of our world are mentioned frequently. See handout: “The
Great Controversy in Scripture”. There are clearly many references to God,
his angels, the devil, his angels, and creatures who live on other planets in
the Scripture.
Do you understand the word
“theodicy”? It means literally the “judgment of God”. It is derived from two
words: theos, God, and dike, judgment. (Derived from the Greek
word deiknuo or deiknumi which means “to show, expose to the
eyes. 2 metaph. 2A to give evidence or proof of a thing. 2B to show by
words or teach.” (Compare Laodicea, laos, people, and dike,
judgment.) We are people who live in the time of the judgment. (Revelation
3:14-22) When the evidence is presented, God wins his case. (Romans 3:4).
--
1. The idea of non immortality of the soul is not necessarily the element which causes the trouble with accepting the IJ. There are certainly other groups who believe in annihilationism of the wicked. So more accurately what one has to believe for the IJ to work is the idea of “Soul Sleep” in other words they must believe that the believer rests in a state of unconsciousness until the second coming. The majority of Christians however believe that for the believer to be “absent from the body is to be present with the Lord”. The point I am making here is not what is correct or not, because clearly there is a difference of opinions on some of these issues and each side has Biblical verses for their support. The purpose here is to show just how many presuppositions the SDA makes to come to the place where he or she can accept the IJ. If you believe that as a believer when you die you go to be with the Lord then the IJ would make no sense at all. The person would have a preadvent judgment but it would not in any way be an investigative judgment.
2. While most all Christians believe in angels very few accept the idea of a universe populated by unfallen beings. They have no reason to assume that God must prove his case to unfallen beings, they have no reason to believe that these beings or angels have any doubts about God or need to have the assurance that God is only bringing people to eternity who are, “safe to save”. That Paul uses the word universe does not mean that it contains the idea of inhabited planets. Simply put at that time they had no idea about what planets really were. This is why Paul only covers the part of the Universe that had been revealed angels and men.
1CO 4:9 For it seems to me that God has put us apostles on display
at the end of the procession, like men condemned to die in the arena. We have
been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to men.
As the Expositor’s Bible Commentary foot note says:
9 Kosmos (kosmos) is used here in the enlarged
sense of "universe," introducing the dual concept of angels who
inhabit the universe and men who live on earth.
SDA’s have a different concept
here based upon Ellen White. As Hart says: “See handout: “The
Great Controversy in Scripture”. There are clearly many references to
God, his angels, the devil, his angels, and creatures who live on other planets
in the Scripture.” There are actually no references to creatures on other
planets in Scripture, however operating within the Adventist paradigm of the
Great Controversy incorporates Ellen Whites teachings as if they were
Scripture. Frequently SDA’s will refer to Job where: (Job
1:6 KJV) Now there was a day when the
sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also
among them.
However as most Bibles use the word angels here and even Ellen White refers to these beings as angels it does not really work on any level to support the concept of unfallen beings on other planets.
In Hart’s Sabbath School class which you can listen to he noted that we are living in the time period of the church of Laodecia and he interprets the name Laodecia as meaning time of God’s judgment. This takes a couple of other assumptions which are very much Adventist views. The common Adventist view is that the 7 churches listed in Revelation represent different time period through history. This is a historicist perspective which again is largely not accepted by contemporary Christians. There is no clear cut reason to see those churches as representing different times in history. The more likely view is that each church represents the condition of some Christians. When you look at historicist writing on the subject of the 7 churches you often do not find real agreement upon their supposed time periods. As different as Historicists are from Futurists thanks to Darby there is a general acceptance of these church time period view, Darby introduces them as Dispensations. A couple of examples
THE SEVEN CHURCHES
OF REVELATION ARE:
1. EPHESUS The Apostolic Church 30 AD -
100 AD.
(Letting
go)
2. SMYRNA The Suffering Church
100 AD - 313 AD.
(Anointing
Oil)
3. PERGAMOS
The Compromising Church 313 AD - 606 AD.
(Married
to Power)
4. THYATIRA
The Idolatrous Church 606 AD - 1517 AD.
(Ruled
by a Woman)
5. SARDIS
The Reformation Church 1517 AD - 1750 AD.
(Shining
Light)
6. PHILADELPHIA The Revival Church 1750 AD -
1900 AD.
(Brotherly
Love)
7. LAODICEAN
The Lukewarm Church
1900
AD - ?
(Power
of the People)
Ephesus – Apostolic church (A.D. 30-100) · Smyrna – Persecuted church (A.D.100-312)· Pergamos – Indulged church (A.D. 312-606) · Thyatira – Papal church (A.D. 606-Tribulaion)· Sardis – Dead church (A.D. 1520-Tribulation) · Philadelphia – Missionary church (A.D. 1750-Rapture)· Laodicea – Apostate church (A.D. 1900-Tribulation) Several examples here:
"Laodicea" means
"judgment of the nations"... it is the
"lukewarm church", that God is about to vomit... the church
to which Jesus does not give any praise and it will end up with the
"Judgment of the Nations"...
And it is our time!... the seventh and last one, from
Vatican Council II, in 1962-65, to the end of time... if it lasts as much as
the first period, the church of Ephesus, it will be about the year 2,000?...
Time
of the 7 periods of the 7 churches:
- Ephesus: 30 years.
- Smyrna: 250 years.
- Pergamos: 500 years.
- Thyatira: 500 years.
- Sardis: 250 years.
- Philadelphia: 400 years.
- Laodicea: 30 years?.
Some other creative views:
The likely
messengers to the church are: 1. St. Paul to the Church of Ephesus
2. St. John to the Church of Smyrna 3
Arius* to the Church of Pergamos
4. Peter Waldo to the Church of Thyatira
5. John Wycliffe to the Church of Sardis
6. Martin Luther to the Church of Philadelphia
7. Charles Russell* to the Church of Laodicea.
Branham claimed that the angels (messengers) to the 7 churches in the book of Revelation were men who appeared at various times throughout Church history bringing new revelations that led the Church into progressive stages of sanctification. As his tombstone indicates, Branham was thought to be the angel to the Church of Laodicea-the end time Church. Rev.3:14, 10:7 Ephesian-Paul; Smyrnea-Ireneaus; Pergamean-Martin; Thyatirean-Columba; Sardisean-Luther; Philadelphia-Wesley; Laodicea-Branham
The meaning of the name “people judged” is used in the description of the church that it thought itself wealthy but was not and if it did not change God would spew it out of his mouth, a judgment as of lukewarm water transported from the neighboring hot springs, a taste that does not satisfy but annoys. So certainly judgment in a sense is involved but you can find some type of judgment in most of the messages to the 7 churches. Some examples:
Condensed from Rev 2:1-7 "To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: I know your deeds, You have persevered, Yet I hold this against you: Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.
From Rev 2:8-10 "To the angel of the church in Smyrna write: Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life.
From Rev 2:12-16 "To the angel of the church in Pergamum write: Repent therefore! Otherwise, I will soon come to you and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth.
So in many of the churches there is the concept of a judgment which reflects the condition of the people. The idea of living in the Time of Laodecia may have the most widespread acceptance of the unique SDA presuppositions though the dating with mid 1800’s does not fit with many of the interpretations.
Hart in introducing his lesson study notes at lesson
1 minute 12
..Those three things are absolutely fundamental, do we agree on those three things. If we don't then we've got to go back at least closer to scratch and start over again. Because if we are not sure about the non immortality of the soul, if we are not sure about the existence of angels and beings in the rest of the universe, or if we are not sure about the fact that the great controversy is primarily about answering the questions about God that have been raised by the devil and others and so forth . Then the preadvent judgment takes a completely different angle in terms of what it says to us as to why it's conducted etc. Here Hart has introduced one of the lynch pins of the Adventist paradigm, The Great Controversy. While elements of the battle between good and evil, God and Satan, wicked and righteous are a constant background of the Bible the Great Controversy includes elements which are not present in the Bible. I have spoken with many who try to define the term and the best they usually do is reference some of Ellen Whites writings. As Hart continues at 13min 30 seconds: What I would hope is that we would all have an understanding of Ellen White's view of what this is all about which in my opinion is the fundamental Seventh-day Adventist view. Contrary to the position Clifford Goldstein took where he said he would demonstrate the Investigative Judgment from the Bible Kenneth Hart in his opening lecture acknowledges that we have several presuppositions which would exclude other Christians from accepting the Investigative Judgment and acknowledged the heavy dependence we have for this doctrine upon Ellen White and the SDA pioneers. At 15 minutes in his lesson 1 lecture In reference to Rev. 14 Hart says: When I was a child...when someone joined the Adventist church the expression was you've accepted the three angels messages in fact more specific than that we used to even say you've accepted the third angels message. What we really meant was all three. In Lesson 2 he clarifies even more what he means by the above. Minute 10-11Rev 14:6-7 and this should be ...very familiar then I say another angel and this would be... [Quotes verse and continues] now we as Seventh-day
Adventists hopefully take these verses very seriously because this is our..I don't know if I would call it our magna carta this is our…we say that these three angels messages that's that's us right? We see that this class after the original and I think useful introduction preceded to traditional SDA concepts in the class and in fact even though this class is more in favor of the larger view of the atonement as seen in Graham Maxwell's views. This class has begun the study of the Investigative judgment by not going to the Bible but by going to Ellen White and SDA tradition. And their goal is to understand it they way Ellen White does and then expand upon it from there. Because Ellen White clearly does believe in forensic, Penal, substitutionary atonement and a literal going over of the books of the righteous to determine who's sins will be blotted out and thus who will be saved. Kenneth Hart likely intends to expand upon EGW's views in the direction of the Larger View interpretation. I have still not dealt with several other areas where other Christians would not find the Investigative Judgment useful or 1844 to be of any significance. Few Christians hold to the concept of a day for a year in Bible prophecy, while it was once popular it’s failures in the past have taken it out of the respected or useful category of Bible Study tools. Nor have I dealt with those who believe in predestination like Augustine, Luther and Calvin. So we have another presupposition involved in the acceptance or rejection of the IJ. Even with all these I doubt I have covered all the presuppositions that have to be accepted before one can find any use at all for the Investigative Judgment. Hopefully it is enough to get people thinking in ways that traditional Adventism has not often acknowledged.