This is how I have always treated the Bible and Ellen White's writings since I became a Christian. The Bible is the Supreme authority that everything is tested against, even Ellen White.

Well, Ellen White passed the Biblical test and continues to pass every time something questionable comes up! There aren't any mental gymnastics or anything like that involved!

There is a common problem when trying to explain the Bible to others. They are most often verbally inspired. People like to be able to simply read something and that's it! Even though that may work sometimes with the Bible, most often it will not.

Well, the Bible is thought inspired and must be studied to let the Bible explain itself. Then, and only then, can you get to the real truth of the Scriptures.

Why such a thread as this?

What is the meaning of the name of this thread?

Well, I don't know what the creator of this thread had in mind, but, I believe most Protestants today have lost their way. Protestantism doesn't follow the Bible anymore.

Lutherans are prepared to sign this document with the Roman Catholic Church later this year saying the Reformation is basically over!

This should be impossible! But, it is not.

How is this happening?!?

I really need to hear from the other Protestant Churches on this issue. They need to explain what their belief and reasoning is.

Given the above assertions it should come as no surprise that I require the same thing. In fact I recently altered my point of view after considering a comment you made about support. (EGW vs. Scripture)

That being said perhaps you would like to address the questions raised in the de-railed thread "Is the Investigative Judgement Biblical?" Found here: [url=http://www.maritime-sda-online.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=182933&page=5][/url]

The two assertions that have failed to receive adequate support are:


You may wish to review the first few pages to understand my view on "authorities" etc. My fundamental position is that the IJ doctrine (among others) of the SDA Church cannot be supported without appealing to EGW, which is its only support, as no other religion or denomination large or small (TO MY KNOWLEDGE) supports this view.

The "Investigative Judgment" is Biblical. But, it is also massive. The sanctuary needs to be covered in detail, then prophetic language and then the 2300 day prophecy of Daniel 8:14. There is quite a lot of history involved as well.

This is why everyone wants to pick on this one truth, because there isn't any easy answer. But, a diligent and honest student of Scripture will find this truth fairly quickly if they are patient.

If you can find it quickly you can explain it quickly.

P.S. That still does not address the two questions posed.

Just sayin.

I am not going to try and define quickly. It will be different for different people.

Yes, I did address the two questions you posed. I addressed both of them. The discipline needed to address such a subject as the Investigative Judgment can't be served by asking and answering a bunch of side questions. There isn't any way of knowing from your questions if you even understand them!

So, I would recommend starting with the earthly sanctuary first. Understand its structure and function first. Then, and only then, move onto what the earthly sanctuary was patterned after. Which is the Heavenly Sanctuary. Then, we can move onto the prophetic significance.

I would be interested to hear from you a brief summary, with a scripture reference or two, what your understanding of 'the judgment" is?

Nadi,

I went back and looked at that thread. Sorry, I wasn't trying to derail it for you. I had only meant what I said as an aside to the discussion.

I think your view vs the SDA view boils down to a basic difference in how the plan of salvation is viewed. In the historic SDA view God is as much on trial before the universe as we are on trial before God. Why? Because God's character was attacked by the devil and 1/3 of the angels and the human race accepted the lie about who God really is and what is He really like.

The devil is the universe's, not just this world's, greatest scam artist. His powers of deceit are immense and as God wants to wipe out sin completely, and sin is simply not trusting God, then God has to have a way of convincing everyone that He is just. Revelation 14:7 occurs before the 2nd coming and yet it says that the "hour of His judgment is come". Hour of whose judgment? God's. The "hour" of our judgment--our reading of the books and investigating the lives of those who made it to heaven and those who didn't comes after the 2nd coming. We simply verify through the meticulous record keeping of God that God has always been just, fair, and righteous.

The entire plan of salvation is the story of the war--the great controversy--between God and the devil. If someone rejects that paradigm then they will never accept the SDA point of view. They cannot because it cuts the foundation of their beliefs off at the knees. Only if a person is willing to look at the entire Bible through this paradigm, and the Bible supports this paradigm from Genesis to Revelation, can SDA theology be really understood and accepted.

This is why SDA theology is so distinctive. No other church accepts the paradigm of the great controversy between good and evil. I don't know why as the evidence for this paradigm surrounds us daily. There is always a struggle between good and evil and it is constant and ongoing. To me it is the greatest evidence that the SDA theology on this is correct. And, it is also the only paradigm that, to me, makes sense out of our completely out of control and insane world.

In regards to Gary K post above, like Nadi correctly quoted before "YOUR saying so don't make it so." Tom Sawyer.

We should be able to support from scriptures our beliefs. Not by text proofing that is often taking out of context and fitted to our interpretation gaps that scriptures doesn't say nor support.

We should be able to show that our believes stands :
a) to the test of ALL scriptures (not some portion while ignoring other that contradict our stand),
b) to the Lord's description of His plan and definitions of legal terms He gave us via His laws,
c) to their future application given to us via the OT prophets,
d) to the revelation of the NT writers who speaks according to the Law & the prophets,
e) to Jesus Christ revelation in the NT that also speaks according to the law & the prophets.

Since Nadi already provided a discussion about the IJ; I think we should further discussed the IJ in that discussion. Then there's plenty of other discussions where SDA doctrines are discussed there that we should take the time to visit and see how Biblical (or not) do we fair in those discussion.

We can bring back the summary of those studied doctrines here and see if Nadi statement is correct by saying "The Seventh-day Adventist church IS NOT a Bible and Bible only church. This puts them DIRECTLY in bed with the Catholic Church. Sorry." From my own personal studies of SDA doctrines in this forum for the past decade, I'm sorry to say that I agree with Nadi.

Here's Nadi's discussion link To discuss about the Investigative Judgment doctrine.

I have moved Gary K post there with 2 questions posed to him about his 2 main points he made above.

You may begin any time.