zyph -

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If obedience can't get you into heaven, how can disobedience keep you out?

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Put simply, because Scripture says so, hundreds and hundreds of times. Our own human obedience can't earn our way to heaven. Only Christ's obedience can. But our own disobedience can disqualify us; the Bible writers say so hundreds, perhaps thousands, of times. There aren't many things that are more clearly, and repeatedly, stated in the Bible.

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You can't sin in the presence of God, when He is posessing you.

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Then why does John say, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9)? If we can't sin while 'possessed of God', then there's no need for John's mention of confessing our sins and being forgiven of them, after having become Christians. We have freedom of choice, and can certainly choose to sin, even while indwelled with the Spirit.

If it's true that we can't sin when God is 'possessing' us, then all the warnings in the New Testament about falling away from the truth become meaningless. Hebrews 10:26,27 quoted above is one, here are some more:

"Be not highminded, but fear: For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest He also spare not thee. Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in His goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off." -- Romans 11:20-22.

"But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is therefore Christ the minister of sin? God forbid. For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor." -- Galatians 2:17,18.

"And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath He reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in His sight: If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard..." -- Colossians 1:21-23.

"For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame." -- Hebrews 6:4-6. Language can't be any plainer. People can sin, and fall away, after having been truly Spirit-filled Christians.

"Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall." -- 2 Peter 1:10. Peter wouldn't say this if there were no possibility of falling.

"For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning. For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them." -- 2 Peter 2:20,21.

Many more examples could be produced.

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We need to get this very clear. Works are not the focus. Jesus is.

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Quite true. I haven't seen anyone here who's trying to make works the focus. To the contrary, those who are stressing works at all (myself included) are saying that it's only through the power of Christ that we can do good works acceptable to God. "Without faith it is impossible to please Him." -- Hebrews 11:6. Jesus is the focus, the source of strength. "Without Me ye can do nothing." -- John 15:5.

Faith is vital, but works are equally vital. "Faith without works is dead." James 2:20. Ellen White wrote, "Faith and works are two oars which we must use equally." -- Review and Herald, June 11, 1901. Faith comes first, then the Spirit-driven works will follow. I think you're trying to guard against the cart-before-the-horse syndrome of emphasizing works before faith; but that's not what I'm about here.

James -

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He will have the fruit of the Spirit; love that seeks no self in it. Now, he is able to love his fellow men. Now he did keep the law of God although the deeds are not done based on his own desire but the Spirit desire.

So, is there any use of the law (10 Cs) for him? None!

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This is a dangerous way of thinking. Everybody needs the law, so that they might know what sin is. "By the law is the knowledge of sin." -- Romans 3:20.

I see what you're trying to say here: that the Spirit-filled Christian doesn't need the law, because the Spirit will lead the believer to live in such a way that he/she doesn't sin. That's the same thing that those opposed to God's law have said for centuries. The fallacy here is that such a philosophy puts central emphasis on feelings. "I'm doing whatever the Spirit convicts me of, so I don't need to worry about following any law."

That might sound all fine and good; if we could never be deceived by our feelings, everything would be hunky-dory. But "there is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death." -- Proverbs 14:12.

I know professing Christians who say they don't feel any need of keeping the seventh-day sabbath, "because the Spirit hasn't convicted me about it." They're ignoring God's law as given in His word, preferring to give weight to their feelings. Therein lies the danger. We need a concrete standard against which to measure our behavior, else we're relying on our feelings only; and feelings can deceive us. We can believe we're being led of the Spirit, when the very opposite is true. Paul shows that the Christian can fall into a spirit of deception: writing to the believers at Corinth, he said, "Let no man deceive himself." -- 1 Corinthians 3:18. Many are the professed Christians who believe they're "following the leadings of the Spirit", when they're doing nothing of the sort. Witness some of the excesses of the Pentecostal movement for a good example of this.

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In a faith relationship with God through a li[f]e by the Spirit, there is no place for our own desire in obedience to the law, because this is done by the Spirit, it is the desire of the Spirit.

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I'd say there's place for both our desire to be obedient, and that of the Spirit. To wit, Christ said this: "I delight to do Thy will, O My God: yea, Thy law is within My heart." -- Psalm 40:8; cf. Hebrews 10:9. Since He's our example, this should be our attitude as well. We are "workers together with Him" (2 Corinthians 6:1); our desires should mirror His desires, as reflected in the desires of the Spirit for our lives.

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But how could the Spirit release us from the power of sin if we want to keep and obey the law, as keeping the law empowers sin in us to become stronger and exceeding sinful?

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What you're missing is that the Spirit empowers us to obey the law, so that it has no more power over us. The law only has power over those who break it, i.e. commit sin.

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Galatians 5:18 “But if you live by the Spirit, you are not under the law.” Clear and unmistakable!

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Absolutely.

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If you are led by the Spirit, you are not under any obligation to keep the law

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Absolutely wrong. Many Bible verses have been given here that show beyond all question our obligation to obey God's law; I don't see how you can continue to believe that we have none. One of the central themes of the Bible is that God's people should not sin. Sin = breaking the law, so refraining from sinning = obeying the law. It's as simple as that. We can't do this in our own strength; but we are to do it in God's strength, through the power of the indwelling Spirit of Christ, that His life might be reproduced in us. Jesus obeyed the Ten Commandments, by His own testimony; how anyone can possibly think that it's wrong for Christian believers to walk as their Lord walked, is beyond me.

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you are not under the law authority, you are not under it judgment and at last you are not under it condemnation.

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Correct, and the reason is that the Spirit helps us obey the Law! If we're not breaking it, then the law has no power over us. To use a much simpler picture, if we obey the speed limit, we won't get a speeding ticket.

Looking at Galatians 5:22,23 again: "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law."

Don't you see? What the Spirit is doing, while producing these fruits in our lives, is helping us to come into obedience to God's Law! The two processes are one and the same. That's why the apostle says that "against such [these fruits of the Spirit] there is no law".

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Read Philippians 3:6, if Paul before his conversion could keep the law perfectly, so would many others.

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The thing about it is, that Paul was not actually keeping the law perfectly before his conversion. In a Pharisaical way he was keeping the law, in the eyes of the unconverted Jews and the world he was; but Jesus showed that the Pharisees' definition of keeping the law of God was sorely lacking: "For I say unto you, that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 5:20. Jesus showed that the outward method of keeping the law engaged in by the Pharisees and other Jews did not meet God's requirement; the inner motives are much more important. Paul was himself a Pharisee, and it is this outward, hollow, inadequate, Christless way of keeping the law to which he refers in Philippians 3:6. That Paul was not obeying God's law before his conversion is shown pretty starkly by the fact that at the time, he was hunting down Christians and consenting to their deaths.

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But do you know that without breaking the law, you already live in sin?

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I'm not sure exactly what you mean there -- once we sin even the very first time, we're living in sin ever after that, yes. Until we submit to Jesus and receive forgiveness. We're born with sin-weakened natures, but we don't actually 'live in sin' until we commit a sin personally.

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Do you also know that obeying the law makes you a sinner?

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If we're trying to obey the law in our own strength, yes it does. We can't rise above being sinners by ourselves. We need the forgiveness Christ provides, and His strength through the Spirit to obey. But obeying the law through the Spirit's strength, by letting Christ live through us, does not make us sinners, not by any means. Christ Himself obeyed the law through the Spirit's strength. Did that make Him a sinner?

Avalee wrote:

"When we with our human power combine it with the divine power of Christ we will be overcomers as Christ did. We can not do this alone. We have to have the divine power of Christ. I think this is a beautiful promise. The picture that comes into my mind is the one we see where Jesus is reaching down his arm to grasp our arm. If I had a graphic of it I would put it here."

I think your statement puts the cart before the horse. Perhaps it's symantics (the curse of the English language), but I believe it would be more accurate to phrase it this way:

"When we consent to allow Jesus to combine His divine nature with our human nature, He can then empower us to overcome as He overcame."

Do you see the difference? The emphasis is on how Jesus can use us, rather than on how we can use Him.

The SOP quote Avalee posted, looking a little deeper.

Will man take hold of divine power, and with determination and perseverance resist Satan, as Christ has given him example in His conflict with the foe in the wilderness of temptation?

Isaiah 27:5 Or let him take hold <02388> (8686) of my strength <04581>, that he may make <06213> (8799) peace <07965> with me; and he shall make <06213> (8799) peace <07965> with me.

Isaiah 56:4 For thus saith <0559> (8804) the LORD <03068> unto the eunuchs <05631> that keep <08104> (8799) my sabbaths <07676>, and choose <0977> (8804) the things that please <02654> (8804) me, and take hold <02388> (8688) of my covenant <01285>;

Isaiah 64:7 And there is none that calleth <07121> (8802) upon thy name <08034>, that stirreth up <05782> (8711) himself to take hold <02388> (8687) of thee: for thou hast hid <05641> (8689) thy face <06440> from us, and hast consumed <04127> (8799) us, because <03027> of our iniquities <05771>.

02388 qzx chazaq khaw-zak’

a primitive root; TWOT-636; v

AV-strong 48, repair 47, hold 37, strengthened 28, strengthen 14, harden 13, prevail 10, encourage 9, take 9, courage 8, caught 5, stronger 5, hold 5, misc 52; 290

1) to strengthen, prevail, harden, be strong, become strong, be courageous, be firm, grow firm, be resolute, be sore
1a) (Qal)
1a1) to be strong, grow strong
1a1a) to prevail, prevail upon
1a1b) to be firm, be caught fast, be secure
1a1c) to press, be urgent
1a1d) to grow stout, grow rigid, grow hard (bad sense)
1a1e) to be severe, be grievous
1a2) to strengthen
1b) (Piel)
1b1) to make strong
1b2) to restore to strength, give strength
1b3) to strengthen, sustain, encourage
1b4) to make strong, make bold, encourage
1b5) to make firm
1b6) to make rigid, make hard
1c) (Hiphil)
1c1) to make strong, strengthen
1c2) to make firm
1c3) to display strength
1c4) to make severe
1c5) to support
1c6) to repair
1c7) to prevail, prevail upon
1c8) to have or take or keep hold of, retain, hold up, sustain, support
1c9) to hold, contain
1d) (Hithpael)
1d1) to strengthen oneself
1d2) to put forth strength, use one’s strength
1d3) to withstand
1d4) to hold strongly with

02388. qzx chazaq khaw-zak’; a primitive root; to fasten upon; hence, to seize, be strong (figuratively, courageous, causatively strengthen, cure, help, repair, fortify), obstinate; to bind, restrain, conquer:—aid, amend, X calker, catch, cleave, confirm, be constant, constrain, continue, be of good (take) courage(-ous, —ly), encourage (self), be established, fasten, force, fortify, make hard, harden, help, (lay) hold (fast), lean, maintain, play the man, mend, become (wax) mighty, prevail, be recovered, repair, retain, seize, be (wax) sore, strengthen (self), be stout, be (make, shew, wax) strong(-er), be sure, take (hold), be urgent, behave self valiantly, withstand.
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God cannot save man against his will from the power of Satan's artifices.

Joshua 24:15 And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.

Luke 13:
23 ¶ Then said one unto him, Lord, are there few that be saved? And he said unto them,
24 Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.
25 When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door, and ye begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us; and he shall answer and say unto you, I know you not whence ye are:
26 Then shall ye begin to say, We have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets.
27 But he shall say, I tell you, I know you not whence ye are; depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity.
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Man must work with his human power, aided by the divine power of Christ, to resist and to conquer at any cost to himself.

Luke 14:

26 If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.
27 And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.
28 For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?
29 Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him,
30 Saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish.
31 Or what king, going to make war against another king, sitteth not down first, and consulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand?
32 Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, he sendeth an ambassage, and desireth conditions of peace.
33 So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.
34 Salt is good: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be seasoned?
35 It is neither fit for the land, nor yet for the dunghill; but men cast it out. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.
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In short, man must overcome as Christ overcame. And then, through the victory that it is his privilege to gain by the all-powerful name of Jesus, he may become an heir of God and joint-heir with Jesus Christ.

This could not be the case if Christ alone did all the overcoming.

Man must do his part; he must be victor on his own account, through the strength and grace that Christ gives him.

Man must be a co-worker with Christ in the labor of overcoming, and then he will be partaker with Christ in His glory. {SD 156.3}

1 Corinthians 9:
24 ¶ Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain.
25 And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible.
26 I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air:
27 But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.

Psalms 20:2 Send thee help from the sanctuary, and strengthen thee out of Zion;

Isaiah 41:10 Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.

John 17:19 And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.

John 17:21 That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.

John 17:24 Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.

1 Peter 1:22 Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently:

Active obedience of God's truths has a purpose within you, but obedience takes heart work with God and from God & human efforts directed to achive that obedience. Christ's presence motivates for obedience, but does not decide for you, strengthens you as you strive to obey, but does not move your body for you. Christ involves you in the process with everything you have, or your whole heart is not there. You would be doubleminded and excluded. Everything you have is still insufficent but essential, everything Christ has is fully sufficent and essential, but unused till you co-labor on His terms. For example I could not till up an overgrown wild field with my fingers, a tractor could do it without much effort upon it's capacities. A tractor will not cultivate the field without a driver operating it. Christ is like the tractor and the experienced farmer teaching the "greenhorn", but He will never do it for you, but always with you. The things you are not expected to do, those things He does for you.

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Relooking at the SOP quote in it's specifics I think Avalee's synopsis is accuratly worded. Jesus in His battle to overcome was never a passive recipient of the grace of God. "Use it or lose" "win or lose" it seems to apply here. The first battle is in the heart of man, the next battle is with his circumstances. Conquering both battles strengthens the action of each victory in the other battle, in the heart. The heart battle with victory strengthens the person for the expectation of victory in the circumstances battle, and victory over circumstances solidifies the victory in the heart.

[ May 29, 2002, 07:02 PM: Message edited by: Edward F Sutton ]

How did Jesus overcome? Scripture, please.

From the portion that Jesus resisted the Devil with when He quoted it in the desert.

Deuteronomy 8:

1 ¶ All the commandments which I command thee this day shall ye observe to do, that ye may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the LORD sware unto your fathers.
2 And thou shalt remember all the way which the LORD thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments, or no.
3 And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live.
4 Thy raiment waxed not old upon thee, neither did thy foot swell, these forty years.
5 Thou shalt also consider in thine heart, that, as a man chasteneth his son, so the LORD thy God chasteneth thee.
6 Therefore thou shalt keep the commandments of the LORD thy God, to walk in his ways, and to fear him.

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In direct retaliation against the human desire not to starve to death, and the supernatural assault of Satan, Jesus uses the eword of the Spirit - Scripture - Scripture He was already putting into use in His own life.

Matthew 4:4 But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
Luke 4:4 And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.

What did Jesus tell us about His overcoming and compare His overcoming with ours ?

John 6:

53 Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.
54 Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.
55 For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.
56 He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him.
57 As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me.
58 This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever.
59 These things said he in the synagogue, as he taught in Capernaum.
60 ¶ Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it?
61 When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said unto them, Doth this offend you?
62 What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?
63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.

And in response to something directed at me before: (and thanks to Mike Lowe for posting this elsewhere)

Testimonies for the Church Volume Five, page 48, paragraphs 2 and 3
"Many of you are seeking honor of one another. But what is the honor or the approval of man to one who regards himself as a son of God, a joint heir with Christ? What are the pleasures of this world to him who is daily a sharer in the love of Christ which passes knowledge? What are the contempt and opposition of man to him whom God accepts through Jesus Christ? Selfishness can no more live in the heart that is exercising faith in Christ than light and darkness can exist together. Spiritual coldness, sloth, pride, and cowardice alike shrink from the presence of faith. Can those who are as closely united with Christ as the branch to the vine, talk of and to everyone but Jesus?

Firstly, in general I would comment on all of your letters that the Law (Torah) was given only to and for the Jews. Please study Romans 3:29,30 carefully and you will find out that the law is not for the Gentiles but for the Jews only for a designated time span (Luke 16:16; Galatians 3:19).

Thus, quoting all Old Testament verses regarding keeping the 10 Commandments has no meaning for the Gentiles and Christ believers after the cross. It was directed for the Jews or Israel only and not for them.

Secondly, the concept or doctrine that Christ Spirit empowers His believers who lives by the Spirit to be able to keep and obey the law is not according to the gospel of Christ. The gospel of Christ is that His believers must live by faith according to the Sprit (not to the flesh), just then they will have deeds that are in harmony with the principle of the Kingdom of God. But their deeds are not their obedience in keeping the law with the power of the Spirit, but because it is solely done by the Spirit’s who did “the willing and the doing of God.”

There is no cooperation between our desires (the flesh) for a righteous life according to the law with what the Spirit desires. What the Spirit desire is to make a change of our character from a love for self to love that seeks no self in order we might love our fellow men and fulfils the demands of the principle of heaven where we are going to go and to live till the new world and for eternity. To have love that seeks no self is our fitness for heaven.

Galatians 5:16-“This I say then, walk in the Spirit, and he shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.”

There is only 2 ways of life! Live by the Spirit or live by the flesh.
Live by the Spirit, you allows the Spirit to do “the willing and the doing of God” in you. Live by the flesh, you live according to what you desires and that includes your desire in keeping and obeying the law for a righteous life. You take away what is the responsibility of the Spirit, and there is no way for the Spirit to support you. The only desire that the Spirit might empower you if you desired to “deny the flesh”, as that is His goal through a change of character.

Our obedience means nothing to God as it is just “filthy rags” and can not fulfils the demands of His holy law, therefore all law keepers came under condemnation as the law could justify no one. For that reason Christ came and died to redeem men from the wages of sin and those who were under the law from the curse of the law. And when he justified all men with his redemption and saved them from death eternal, why should he instruct his believers (the righteous people) to keep again the law that will put them back under slavery of sin and condemnation? It doesn’t make sense and have no scriptural basic.

All of you said that you don’t keep the law to seek righteousness by the law, but don’t you try to think what God thinks of you in regards of your law keeping?

The law was given to justify those who keep and obey it perfectly with a reward of eternal life and to judge those who break it and condemns them with death eternal as the wages of their sins. Thus, all of you might say you don’t seek righteousness by the law, but that is not what the law and God think about you. The law doesn’t care you have faith or not because all what it wants from you is your perfect obedience that fulfils it demands in the spirit and in the letter for a justification that brought life. But God does care do you have faith or not in Christ, and since he has made an end to the functions of the law by Christ death on the cross, keeping it again just show your unfaithfulness.

What God asked from you is to keep the principle of the law in your heart that will make you able to “love one another.” And to have this “love” is only through faith and a life led by the Spirit, because it will be the responsibility of the Spirit to change your nature of self-love by doing “the willing and the doing of God” in you. This is what is called “faith”, trusting God that he is able to lead your life to all righteousness and holy life by a change of character even though there is no law.

The question is: have you enough faith in him? Or do you feel unsecured and might miss the mark if there is no law for you to check your performance? Did you forget that the standard of character is not the 10 Cs but love as the spirit of the law? It might be a standard in human eyes but not before God. There is no place in heaven for self-loving people because the standard of heaven character is based on God’s nature “love that seeks no self.”

And in human terms “love” was explained in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, so, even there is no law but we might know our self if we are not in accordance with the love principle as described in those verses.

There is no place for the law (Torah) in a faith relationship with God after the cross, it will only lead people away from Christ as the law was given to lead people to him, their Redeemer and Savior. Once in Him by faith, the schoolmaster is no longer the law but the Spirit, the law comes to an end in Christ (Christ is the end of the law) and in Him by faith our new schoolmaster “the Spirit” will lead us to heaven

In His love

James S.

Without the law, there would be no sin.....for "sin is the transgression of the law".

all may inherit eternity for there will be no seperation of good and evil because if there is no law we don't know what evil is. Why did Jesus have to die to save sinners, if there is no law, there is no sinners.

When jusdgement takes place in the "Most Holy Place" why is the Ark containing the ten commandments there?

qoute:

Advent Review and Sabbath Herald----DT- 08-28-94
The Obedient Approved of God

"To the law and to the testimony; if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them." Paul asks, "Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?" and answers, "God forbid." Again he asks, "Do
we then make void the law through faith?" and answers, "God forbid; yea, we establish the law." God's will is expressed in his holy law, and Jesus says, "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom
of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven." The law of God is the standard by which character is to be measured, and he whose life is in harmony with that law is worthy to be trusted, but of what value is the testimony of a man whose life and teaching contradict the law of Jehovah? He then measures himself by his own finite standard, and may claim
for himself as much as does the pope of Rome; but in the light of the detector of sin, his character may be wholly wanting. He may claim great spiritual riches, and think that he is in need of nothing, and may boast of the grace of Christ, but at the same time may have turned that precious grace into lasciviousness. This spurious character of religion is on the increase, and many whose hearts are carnal prate of the grace of Christ, while at the same time they openly blaspheme the name of the God of heaven by casting
contempt upon the law of God, which rebukes their inconsistent course and detects their unchristlike character."

end quote

James, Are you a Seventh -Day- Adventist? Just curious because of your teachings, you must be of another faith.