In this issue:
The Legacy of Christian Liberty
The Two Adams
David Clayton
Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus: (Eph 1:1)
The phrase , in Christ , appears several times in the book of Ephesians. For much of my Christian life, I never paid much attention to this phrase, but as I began to understand righteousness by faith, it took on deep significance.
When people ask me about the life in Christ sometimes I will say, “read the books of Ephesians and Colossians very carefully, and when you read, ask yourself, ‘do I believe what I read here?’” In several instances, people who have done that, have had their lives changed. This happened simply by reading these books and asking themselves, “is this really the truth?”
Ephesians 1:3 for example says,
(Eph 1:3) Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:
God has already blessed us with all spiritual blessings. Do we believe that? But there is a qualification. Where are these blessings? They are in Christ. There is only one way to obtain these blessings, we have to be where they are. Eph. 2:6 says,
And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: (Eph 2:6)
Notice how strong Paul’s statement is. He says we are actually sitting in heavenly places. We look at ourselves and say “it is not true, I’m sitting here on earth, reading this paper.” What does Paul mean? He is emphasizing the fact that the Christian’s life is united with the life of Christ. The same life which is in my toes is also in my finger so wherever my toes go, the life in my fingers also goes there. That is what Paul is trying to say. He is saying, “if Christ is your life, wherever Christ is that is where you are.”
In 1 Corinthians 15:45 we have an interesting statement:
And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. (1 Cor 15:45)
In order to correctly understand what it means to be in Christ, we first need to understand what it means to be in Adam. Notice, the verse speaks of two Adams, there is a first Adam and there is a last Adam. The last Adam of course, refers to Jesus Christ, but the question is, why is Jesus called the last Adam? Now we know Adam was the first man, he was placed in a garden, he was given a beautiful wife. But none of these things applied to Jesus, yet he is called “the last Adam.” God is trying to say something to us. When we look at Adam we can learn something about him that helps us to understand something about Christ. In Romans 5:14, Paul says:
Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come . (Rom 5:14)
Here it says Adam was a, “figure of Christ,” There is some way in which Adam and Christ are similar. Romans 5:19 gives us the key to understanding why Jesus is referred to as the last Adam. It says,
For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. (Rom 5:19)
Look at the verse again, it says, “By one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, but a little word was left out when the translators of the KJV translated this verse. In actual fact, the verse should read, “By one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners.” This is the way it is translated in several translations.The verse is not just saying that some became sinners, it is comparing two sets of people, on one side there is the one , and on the other side there are, the many . Who is the one ? The one is, Adam! And who are the many ? The many are all the rest of humanity.
When one man disobeyed, what happened to the many? They became sinners . According to the verse, was it what they did that made them become sinners? No! It was by one man’s disobedience that the many became sinners. Now that doesn’t seem to be fair or just, but it is not about what is fair and just, it is the reality of the law of consequence working in the universe, causing one man’s choice to affect all his descendants. It does not seem fair, but it is reality, and God is doing everything that He can to deal with that unfair reality. But he cannot reverse the consequences of what mankind chose, through our foreparent Adam.
When you and I were born it was not our fault that we were sinners but we had the disease and we had to deal with it. If a child is born with AIDS it cannot be his fault. It has to be his parents’ fault somewhere. It is not a question of who is to blame but it is still the reality which that child has to live with.
God created one man and when he created this one man all human life was in that person. God created all men, but not directly. All of them were created when Adam was created. God created only one human life and that same life has been multiplied and passed on over the centuries. We are all partakers of Adam’s life, and in this sense we are all in Adam. In other words, if we consider that Adam’s existence is wherever his life exists, then since we are all partakers of that life, then we are all a part of Adam’s existence.
But if we are all a part of Adam’s life what kind of life do we expect to have? If something is born from a goat would we expect it to be a cat? Adam could only beget in his own image. Although he was originally made in the image of God, he perverted that image and this perverted image is the only thing he could pass on to his children. It is interesting to consider that after Adam sold the world to Satan and perverted humanity, he himself repented, but having sold the world to Satan he could not repent on behalf of the world and bring the world back to God. He could only make the decision for himself.
Now, as Ellen White says, “We are the lawful prey of Satan.” We have no right to be born with the life of God anymore, so we are all born without God’s spirit. This is the heritage that we have received from Adam and it is important for us to understand this. The reason why humanity in its natural state does evil, is not because men don’t try to do good. It is just simply that men are living the reality of what Adam’s life. The life in us is a corrupted life and it is not possible for us to live any other life than the one which we have. It is in this sense that the Bible says we are made sinners by what Adam did. It does not mean that we are made guilty by another man’s sins. What it means is that we are made sinful and helpless, unable to do anything good. We became a kind of being called, “sinner.”
Many years ago I attended a graduation service. The speaker kept saying, “you are becoming what you are.” As I listened, I thought, “what is this guy talking about? How can you become what you already are?” At the time, it did not make sense to me, but now as I have come to understand the truth of the two Adam’s, I realize that there is truth is what this speaker was saying. If we all inherited Adam’s corrupt, incapable life, then the fact becomes inescapable: As long as all we have is the life of Adam, as long as we are “in Adam,” then the longer we live, the more effort we make, all we can do is manifest more fully, the life which we already possess. We can only become, what we are. Nothing that man can do or has ever done has ever been able to change human nature. It has never produced new life.
Men have tried. They have gone into the laboratories and tried to make life in a test tube. It has never worked. Only one human life was ever created. Even Eve herself came from that life by way of Adam’s rib in which life already existed.
Acts 17:26 says,
And (God) hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; (Acts 17:26)
We can see how perfectly true it is. It is not only spiritually, but also physically that we are brothers and sisters. If we could go back far enough in time we would find that all of us have the same grandparents, but in spite of this family kinship, we often fight against each other, because that is the nature of Adam’s life. There is no peace in that life, no harmony. Like a cancer in the body, Adam’s life fights against itself.
I once saw a video of a dog chewing a bone whose behaviour seemed to be crazy. As this dog was eating the bone, his hind leg started to move towards his mouth as though it had a mind of its own. The dog began to growl at his own foot, but as the foot moved closer to the bone he turned around and started to bite his own foot. It happened over and over. I looked at this dog and I thought, “that is just like the behaviour of the human race.” The thing is, we can tell that the behaviour of this dog is crazy, but often, mankind does not realize that this is exactly how those who possess the life of Adam, behave, fighting against their own life. This is the natural behaviour of the fallen life of Adam.
The main point is this: Why are we the way we are? Is it because we try to be this way? The answer is, no! It is not because of our efforts, or even because of our choice. It is because we were born this way. One man did it to all of us!” Condemnation rests upon the entire human race because of one man. What do we have to do to be condemned? We only have to be born!
When I say “condemnation,” I don’t mean that God condemns us, I don’t mean that we are guilty of what Adam did. In order for a person to be guilty he has to make a choice to break a known law. God does not condemn us for what somebody else did, but our condition condemns us. The child born with AIDS is condemned to die, the disease in the child condemns the child. In the same way our condition condemns us. This is what the Bible means when it says,
“…by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation …” (Rom. 5:18).
In this state, it is impossible for us to live a righteous life, and sooner or later, unless something happens to give us a new life, we will die in this lost condition. It is the life which we possess which condemns us.
If God’s grace, in Christ, had not intervened the very moment that Adam picked the fruit, he would have dropped dead. When the life of God was removed spiritually, physical life would have ended immediately, the entire human race would have died in Adam. But Jesus stepped in between mankind and eternal death, He took the curse upon Himself and he obtained a period of probation for all of us. By His sacrifice, He said, “though they are spiritually dead, preserve their physical life for a time, give them a chance to find their way back to spiritual life.” That is why we all have seventy or eighty years to live, a chance to find our way back to life, through Christ, because we were all born dead. Somebody else killed us and we could do nothing about it!
God never promised to repair Adam’s life, for the life of Adam is one that has been sentenced. It has to die. The Christian life is not a remodeled life. If any man is in Christ, he is a new creation! Old things are passed away, all things have become new.
The Christian’s life is not a modification or improvement of the old, but a transformation of nature. There is a death to self and sin, and a new life altogether. This change can be brought about only by the effectual working of the Holy Spirit. {DA 172.1}
This is what God’s word says and as Paul says, “Let God be true but every man a liar.” If my experience as a Christian is different from this it is because I don’t believe the word of God!
As we are born, in Adam, our great need is to have a new life! The old one is condemned and cannot be repaired. It has to die! But where are we to get this new life? In order for life to be passed on there has to be an original source of life. Adam was the source from which all human life was passed on. Now that we need a new life, what does God give us? He gives us a second Adam! He gives us somebody else who is the source of a new life. Now if we can understand this we can know why Jesus is called the last Adam. Not because he was put in a garden with a beautiful woman but because He is the source of a new life, He is the Father of a new race of people.
Only by birth
Now as we consider what it means to be in Christ there is another principle that we need to understand: Life is passed on from one person to the other by birth and only by birth. The only person who has ever broken this rule is Eve, because she was not born. She received her life through Adam’s rib.
I always wondered when I read Isaiah 9:6 why Jesus is called, “the Everlasting Father”. Trinitarians say it is because He and the Father are a part of the same Being, but it is evident that this is a confused interpretation. Even in the trinitarian concept, Jesus is not the Father in the godhead, He is the Son. But this concept of the two Adams makes it clear what the true meaning of this verse is. Jesus is the Everlasting Father, but of whom? He is the Father of all who make up the new creation, the new human race! He is the second Adam and from Him there comes a new race of people who have been born into His life. In this sense He is their Father, the last Adam.
Let us consider what this means. There is a parallel between both Adams. One brought us into sin, one brings us into righteousness. When Adam took the forbidden fruit, none of us was born, we had no consciousness, but our life was there and when thousands of years later we were born, naturally we began to live the fallen life of Adam. Did we have any choice? No, we simply obeyed what our natures demanded that we should do.
Now consider the second Adam; does His life work in the same way? If you are born into the second Adam, what is it that now determines how you live? It is His life! It is not your effort! Your effort was not what determined how you lived when you were in the first Adam. It was nature working its course which made you what you were. Likewise when we are a part of the second Adam our effort does not produce the life we live, our behaviour is the natural result of our new nature taking its course.
The life in Christ
All the qualities which Jesus possesses are a part of His life. There is no sin, there is no condemnation in Him. This life is in Christ, on the right hand of God, the place of infinite power and privilege, far above all principalities and powers. These are the qualities which are an intrinsic part of this life of Christ. We don’t need to struggle to obtain these wonderful things, they are already ours, present in Christ. The one question is, whose life do we have? That is the only question. Our deliverance and victory does not depend on what we have done, but on whose life we have inherited.
Now notice that what Adam did, was done before anybody was born. Likewise, what Christ did was done before we were born. But when we were born into Adam, the behaviour which appeared in our lives was simply a manifestation of what Adam had already done thousands of years ago. In the same way, when we are born into Christ what appears in our lives is simply a manifestation of what Christ already did two thousand years ago. So Paul could say, “I am crucified with Christ,” and every Christian can say the same thing. If you ask me, “when were you crucified, when did your old life of Adam die?” I will say, “two thousand years ago,” for the life that I possess, was crucified two thousand years ago. If you ask me, “what is your relationship to God?” I will say, “we are one.” The life I possess is one with God’s life, for the life which I possess is the life of Christ himself.
When poor David Clayton was praying, my question was, “who am I to talk to God?” No matter how I tried, it was hard to believe that I was heard, because I was so unworthy, I could hardly ever believe that I could get an answer. But when Jesus prays, His prayer is perfectly acceptable. There is no obstacle standing in the way of God’s answering His prayers. There is great power in prayer when we pray, in Christ. In terms of how God deals with us there is no difference with how he deals with Christ, it is the same life in which we live. We are truly, one. It is something wonderful to think about, it is even more wonderful to believe.
So in these two Adams. The lives we live were already determined, even before we were born. This is why the Bible tells us that one man made us all sinners (Rom. 5:19). As soon as we were born we began to live like sinners, because this is what we already were. We could not help ourselves.
Now on the other side inorder to experience the life of Christ, we have to be born again. How do we become born again? On the side of the first Adam our life is passed on by means of a sexual relationship. But how is life passed on, from the second Adam? It is by faith. It is by the holy spirit that his life is passed on, yes, but our involvement is that we believe God. So even though Christ has done all of this, if we are to experience it, we do have to be born again, and faith takes us into that experience.
Adam accomplished condemnation for all men. He did it for us all, but nobody will experience it unless he is born. In the same way, although Jesus accomplished deliverance for us all no one will experience it unless he is born again into Christ.
So Jesus said,
For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. (18) He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. (John 3:17-18)
What do we have to do to be condemned? Nothing! We just have to remain the way we are. We are born in unbelief, all we have to do is just continue to not believe and we will continue in that condemnation where Adam had already put all mankind.
We are not standing here in the world in a neutral position, free to choose between two sides. Some have the idea that we are in a kind of neutral, in-between ground, and that we can freely choose one side or the other. This idea is a false one. This may have been true in a sense, of Adam, but we are not standing in his place. We are born, and live our lives, already on Satan’s side. Our only choice is to escape from that side, and the only way to escape is to believe. If we don’t believe, we remain in our condemnation, but if we believe, our faith takes hold of the life of Christ and we escape the condemned life.
Finally, what are we to believe, what is the gospel in essence?
And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed. (Gal 3:8)
The gospel was preached to Abraham, and what was this gospel? Look at what it says, In one man all the world is blessed. That is the gospel. Our lives, our blessing, everything, is in one person!
When I read the Bible I realize that in a sense, God is only going to save one man. All of us will partake of that salvation, but God’s plan was to save us all as a part of one person. There is one righteous man, one who deserves God’s favour, one who conquered sin. Our only hope is to join up to that life.
And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. (1 John 5:11)
Baptism
Alex Stefanescu
I have discovered from personal experience how difficult it is to come out of the fundamental errors that legalism and apostasy brought into the teachings of the Second Advent movement. At first I, like many others, believed that baptism makes us God’s children. Later on, when I studied only the Bible on the subject of baptism, I learned that the baptismal ceremony is not different from the marriage ceremony. In both these ceremonies the real unity between the two parties (man and God, or man and woman) has to have been obtained before the ceremony takes place. Why then do people put all the stress on the external ceremony? Can the water and the baptiser produce this union between God and man, or is this something which only God can do?
The confusion began when God’s place was taken by human leaders as D’Aubigne – the great historian of the Reformation – pointed out,
“Human systems had taught that salvation is of man….Christianity disappears.. for we cannot exalt the priests of the Church or the work of the faithful without lowering Christ …The Church was in the beginning a community of brethren, guided by a few of the brethren. All were taught of God, and each had the privilege of drawing himself from the divine fountain of light. (John 6 : 45). The Epistles .. did not bear the pompous title of a single man – of a ruler. But these very writings …already foretell that from the midst of this brotherhood there shall arise a power that will destroy this simple and primitive order.”
D’Aubigne refers to the gospel order brought by Christ at His first advent as being “simple and primitive” because that is the order of heaven, in which “the head of every man is Christ.. and all are brethren.”
From very early in the Christian church mistakes were made. Even the Council of Jerusalem took a few missteps which contributed to the mistake of dethroning God. First they made Paul’s teaching accountable to them, and his apostleship dependent on their authority, exactly as the disciples and Sanhedrin wanted to make Christ to be. (We can trace also in the Second Advent Movement that the General Conference did the same with Jones, Waggoner, Fifield, and other inspired pioneers).
Did the Council of Jerusalem call Paul to “obey man more than God?” Of course it did! The words of those leaders to Paul were,
“Do therefore this that we say to you ….” (Acts 21:23)
Unfortunately, on at least one occasion, Paul submitted and allowed men to be his head.
Ellen White made the same mistake when the General Conference directed her to go to Australia. Through this principle of submission to man rather than God, the Papacy was able to form itself within the very heart of the apostolic church and later, the Advent church. Speaking about that symptom within the Second Advent Camp, Ellen White said: “Rule, rule, has been their course of action. Satan has had an opportunity of representing himself.” TM 363.
Prompted by God, and together with Jones, in the General Conference of 1901 she worked to demolish the Papal-Mosaic (hierarchical) order. But in 1903 those who loved to rule brought it back for good. What we can see today is the fully matured “high-handed power” of the leadership completely trying to enslave the laity.
Baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and the teaching of the word are areas in which leading men are asserting improper supremacy over the souls of their brethren. They claim through these avenues to have been entrusted the monopoly of divine power and authority (like in the papacy). But Protestantism acknowledges only one authority, the Bible, the Word of God administered by the holy spirit. Men who take that word in the heart take Christ with it.
D’Aubigne’s words may very well have been a description of the degenerating process of the First Advent movement:
“It was by small beginnings that both the imperial and Christian Rome advanced to the usurped dominion of the world.” “The bishops of Rome considered as a right a superiority which the surrounding churches had freely yielded.”
When a Church becomes organised like a state, it unites its religion with the state’s principles, like in king Saul’s time. Such a system predisposes each soul to receive the sign of the beast on its forehead, because it obeys men more than God, and surrenders to the guidance of finite and fallible man, “lording over God’s heritage.” (TM 361). We may confine the mark of the beast only to the last generation, but its principles have always been there, ever since Adam and Eve obeyed a creature more than God. Man who is trusting in man is cursed, but this is a lesson which it seems that man never learns, and, unfortunately, humans are always eager to stay connected with the religious and civil leaders at all costs, especially in the case of those movements which God Himself started.
When Papal leaders usurped autority over other men, salvation was then offered via “the external organisation” as D’Aubigne calls it. A small elite claimed to have the monopoly of truth and of salvation over souls, and to be able to introduce the believers, by certain external ceremonies into God’s eternal kingdom. One of these external ceremonies by which the leaders assert their supremacy, is baptism.
Christ’s Teaching
What did Christ teach us about baptism by His own example? The representatives of “the high-handed power” generally quote the Bible when they preach about baptism, but they do not place the word in the setting of Christ. Christ is set aside under the disguise that He is exalted, exactly as the Pharisees claimed to be defending God, while setting His word aside at the first advent of Christ. In reality, the leaders claim to have the ability to connect you and me to Christ and to God, by a work done with their mortal human hands, by immersing us under water in the baptismal ceremony. They even give a certificate of baptism like the State gives newborn babies a birth certificate.
Looking to Christ, we are able to understand the real meaning of baptism. Let us notice that Christ was baptised only as a person who was already, “born from God”. He didn’t start His walk with God by means of any ceremony performed by a man (John the Baptist). The baptism added nothing to Him. He was already “born after the will of God, not after the will of man.” He was “Emanuel, …God with us.” (Matthew 1:23). If we learn from Christ we cannot put baptism before the new birth. He alone is our perfect example.
The work of John the Baptist
As John the Baptist prepared the way for the First Advent of Christ he baptised many in the river Jordan.
But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? (8) Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance: (9) And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. (10) And now also the ax is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. (Mat 3:7-10)
Why did John the Baptist refuse to baptise the Pharisees and Sadducees? He knew that what he was doing was just an external ceremony in which the candidate “confesses before many visible and invisible witnesses that he himself was born from above.” When the Pharisees and Sadducees came to be baptised with water, John sent them to go first to be baptised (without hands) through what Paul calls the “washing of regeneration”.
“Not by works of righteousness which we have done (baptism, church membership, etc), but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost.” Titus 3:5
“That He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word.” Ephesians 5:26.
The word of Christ
The Lord spoke His word with the power of God’s spirit, not void of the spirit like the Pharisees did: Christ said,
“Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.” (John 15:3).
“The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” (John 6: 63).
He explained very clearly to the Samaritan woman that no one can worship God without first being baptised with His Spirit.
“God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” (John 4:24)
The same truth was revealed to Nicodemus:
Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. (8) The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. (John 3:7-8)
Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born? (John 3:4)
This Pharisee could not see anything else as the way of heaven than the work that was passing through a human, in this case through a mother. He was like all the other Pharisees who thought to enter God’s kingdom by being baptised of John.
Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things? (11) Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness. (12) If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things? (13) And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.(John 3:10-13)
Thus Christ explained clearly that to enter God’s kingdom, we have to repeat His experience. As He came down from heaven into the human form, so He has to come down from heaven into each one who wants to be God’s children. (“Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Colossians 1: 27).
“He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.” 1 John 5:12.
It seems evident that John the Baptist, who had the spirit of God, could discern the hearts of these men who thought that they could take his water-baptism as a saving act. He openly revealed their true situation, that they were, “a generation of vipers.” Thus John revealed in inspired words what Jesus also revealed to them: that their father was not God, but Satan. (John 8:44)
The Baptist refused to deceive them by the water of baptism, but sent them to God first, to receive “the spirit of adoption” from Him, and thus to be “delivered from the carnal mind” (the spirit of Satan).
A consistent truth
Christ revealed the same principle many times and in many ways. Here is another instance of it:
“You search the scriptures (for 1500 years they searched it); for in them ye think (this was their thinking, their training) ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life.” John 5: 39, 40.
God revealed clearly that Jesus’ experience is to be our only pattern of Christianity. Jesus started His Christian walk only by being, God incarnated in the flesh. We also cannot enter in God’s kingdom just by a legal act performed by the hands of a baptiser, but only by “Christ in us..”
No man can enter the kingdom of God through an external act (of a bath in a baptism given even by the Baptist, or by the putting on of hands, or by an theoretical assent of the doctrines as in the SDA, or by being accepted of a congregation or in a congregation, etc….)
A Papal characteristic
In fact, one main characteristic of the Papacy is that it makes baptism a saving act, calling it a, “saving sacrament,” administered by Church leaders, by means of which, “original sin is erased.” Thus salvation is ascribed to the Church on the basis of what it does through its elite body of leaders, not to what God Himself does without hands, by His divine spirit and word.
I quote from the Catholic Catechism published in 1994, and you will be able to see that it teaches the same corrupt, magical, superstitious, and mystical teaching that SDA preachers are preaching today:
“Baptism, by imparting the life of Christ’s grace, erases original sin and turns a man back toward God.”
“The catechumenate (the preparation for the baptism) therefore occupies an important place. This initiation into Christian faith and life should dispose the catechumen to receive the gift of God in Baptism, Confirmation, and the Eucharist. The catechumenate, or formation of catechumens (candidates), aims of bringing their conversion and faith to maturity, in response and in union with an ecclesiastical community.”
“Every person not yet baptised (in childhood) is able to be baptised.” “Born with a fallen human nature and tainted by original sin, children have need of the new birth in baptism to be freed from the power of darkness and brought into the realm of the freedom of the children of God, to which all men are called…
Baptism is the Sacrament of faith. But faith needs a community of believers. It is only in the faith of the Church that each of the faithful can believe…Baptism is the source of that new life in Christ from which the entire Christian life springs forth…
The ordinary ministers of Baptism are the bishops and priests, in the Latin Church, and the deacon. In case of necessity, any person, even someone not baptised, can baptise, if he has the required intention. The intention required is to will to do what the Church does as she baptises, and to apply the Trinitarian baptismal formula…
By baptism all sins are forgiven, original sin and all personal sins, as well the punishment for sin… Baptism not only purifies from all sins, but also makes the neophyte “a new creature,” and adopted son of God, who has become a “partaker of the divine nature,” member of Christ, and co-heir with Him, and a temple of the Holy Spirit…
Having become a member of the Church, the person baptised belongs no longer to himself, but to him who died and rose for us. From now on, he is called to be subject to others, to serve them in the communion of the Church, and “to obey and submit” to the Church leaders, holding them in respect and affection. Reborn as sons of God, the baptized must profess before men the faith they have received from God through the Church, and participate in the apostolic and missionary activity of the People of God… Baptism constitutes the foundation of communion among all Christians, including those who are not yet in full communion with the Catholic Church… “Baptism is indeed the seal (?) of eternal life.” (St Irenaues). “Baptism is a bath of water in which the “imperishable seed” of the Word of God produces its life-giving effect.”
St. Augustine said concerning Baptism: “The word is brought to the material element, and it becomes a sacrament.” Augustine was teaching that in the act of baptism, the water becomes the divine womb that gives birth to a new creature. So according to this view, God cannot give the new birth through His spirit, but only through the water. Can that be true? The truth is, there is no ceremony that has any intrinsic value before God.
In God’s plan, baptism replaced the ceremony of circumcision. Abraham was first circumcised in the heart, and only after that in the flesh. When a priest, a preacher, or a believer considers that in the ceremony of baptism the heart is circumcised, is that true? Isn’t that belief just another way that transubstantiation is preached? Is Christ incarnated in the believer through water? Is Christ incarnated in the cookie, in the Eucharist ceremony performed by a man? In this idolatrous system, the Church, the water, the priest, and the act of the believer become more important than God and His invisible work upon the heart. The focus is on creation and on creatures, not on the Creator. The Lord God is made subject to His creatures and to their acts.
It is not difficult to see the identical equivalent of Catholic dogmas in the present SDA teachings. The water, or the cookie, the preacher, the baptism, all these ceremonies are presumed to change someone who performs them. The “dry rod”(See Numbers 17), which symbolizes me, and every other sinner, can never “bud and bring forth fruit” when all it receives comes only from such an earthly source.
Brain Food
Contributed by
Lenworth Frankson
The foods you eat directly affects the performance of your brain. It has been proven that by eating the right food, you can boost your IQ, improve your mood, be more emotionally stable, sharpen your memory and keep your mind young.
If you give your brain the right nutrients, you will be able to think more quickly, have a better memory, be better coordinated and balanced and have improved concentration.
The three key elements which contribute to boosting your brainpower and keeping your brain healthy and your mental processes operating effectively are nutritious food, water and oxygen:
Thinking is a biochemical process. For brain cells to communicate effectively with each other, to create neural pathways, they require chemicals called neurotransmitters. Neurotransmitters are the ‘messengers’ carrying messages from neuron to neuron.
Neurotransmitters are found in the food we eat, which is why some foods are called ‘brain foods’.
Neurotransmitters are made from amino acids found in protein foods
Vitamins and minerals are needed to convert ordinary amino acids into these powerful neurotransmitters.
Protein
Foods rich in protein include meat, fish, milk, nuts, grains and soy beans. Of course, some sources of protein are more healthful than others. Protein provides the building blocks for most of the body’s tissues, nerves, internal organs (including brain and heart). Proteins are used to make neurotransmitters and are essential to improving mental performance. Vegetarian sources of protein include the following:
Soyfoods (tofu, tempeh, TVP, soy milk, “new generation” soyfoods such as “soysage,” ready-grounds, etc).
Beans & legumes (chickpeas, black beans, lentils, kidney beans, ad infinitum), especially in combination with whole grains.
Nuts & seeds (including nut butters).
Seitan (wheat gluten).
Carbohydrate
Carbohydrates enhance the absorption of tryptophan, which is converted into serotonin in the brain. Within about thirty minutes of eating a carbohydrate meal, you will feel more calm and relaxed. The effects will last several hours. Grains, fruits and vegetables are key sources of carbohydrates. Digestion causes the breakdown of carbohydrates into glucose (sugar) which is the brain’s primary source of energy. If your glucose levels fluctuate too much, you may experience mental confusion, dizziness and if severe, convulsions and loss of consciousness.
Fat
The brain is more than 60% fat. This is because the brain cells are covered by the myelin sheath which is composed of approximately 75% fat. Fats also play a crucial role as messengers. They regulate key aspects of the immune system, blood circulation, inflammation, memory and mood.
Omega-3 fatty acids are essential to the optimum performance of your brain. Lack of omega-3 fats in your diet can lead to depression, poor memory, low IQ, learning disabilities, dyslexia, ADD and other mental disorders.
At the top of our list for increasing omega-3 fats would be flaxseeds and walnuts. One-quarter cup of flaxseeds contains about 7 grams of omega-3 fatty acids while one-quarter cup of walnuts contains about 2.3 grams. In either case, the amount is pretty substantial. Therefore by combining one-quarter cup of walnuts with a tablespoon of flaxseeds you will add close to the recommended 4 grams of omega-3 fats to your diet.
Flax seeds and walnuts are not your only choices, of course! One cup of soybeans, navy beans, or kidney beans provides between 200 and 1,000 milligrams of omega-3s (0.2 to 1.0 grams). A four-ounce serving of tofu will provide about 0.4 grams of omega-3s. Therefore, these foods provide between 10% and 50% of the National Institutes of Health (USA) recommendation, and a substantial step up from the average U.S. adult intake.
Vitamins & Minerals
Vitamins and minerals are essential for the growth and functioning of the brain. The ‘B’ complex vitamins are particularly important for the brain and play a vital role in producing energy. Vitamins A, C and E are powerful antioxidants and promote and preserve memory in the elderly. Minerals are also critical to mental functioning and performance. Magnesium and manganese are needed for brain energy. Sodium, potassium and calcium are important in the thinking process and they facilitate the transmission of messages.
Water
Water makes up 83% of the blood and acts as a transport system, delivering nutrients to the brain and eliminating toxins. Your brain needs to be fully hydrated so that the circuitry works well and functions at optimum levels. Water is essential for concentration and mental alertness. Studies have shown that most people are permanently, partially dehydrated. This means that their brain is working considerably below its capacity and potential.A study by Trevor Brocklebank at Leeds University in the UK discovered that schoolchildren with the best results in class were those who drank up to eight glasses of water a day.
No Regrets
David Clayton
A few days ago I received a curious call from a friend in America. This person wanted to know if it were true that I was now teaching that Babies had to be sprinkled before they could be saved.
My first reaction was one of uproarious laughter, insomuch that my friend seemed to be somewhat bemused by my mirth. The truth is, I just couldn’t help it. It is amusing to see the lengths Satan will go to by means of his agents in his efforts to discredit truth.
When I finally stopped laughing, I asked my friend where this information had come from and was told that a person in attendance at a campmeeting had given this information to her husband.
This experience is typical of the misinformation and lies which have circulated all over since Restoration Ministries started focusing on the issue of Righteousness in Christ. Not that it is a surprise, for I would not expect Satan and his agents to be quiet while his goods are being disturbed and his kingdom is in danger.
The thought that the righteousness of Christ is imputed to us, not because of any merit on our part, but as a free gift from God, is a precious thought. The enemy of God and man is not willing that this truth should be clearly presented; for he knows that if the people receive it fully, his power will be broken. {RH, December 24, 1908 par. 2}
Every effort has been made to discredit the message which we have been presenting for the past three years in spite of the fact that it is nothing but the plain truth of the Bible.
I never set out to discover this truth. For thirty years I studied the subject of righteousness in Christ and thought I understood it. But as long as I taught what everybody else taught, the same dry empty ideas that never brought a revival and never ever will bring one, everybody was happy. I preached what I knew, but I often wondered if this was all that this “precious message” had to offer. The fact is that none of the books I read, the sermons I listened to, the people I discussed it with, had anything to give which looked even remotely like it would bring a revival, but I kept on teaching what I then understood, for it seemed that there was nothing else.
Three years ago in the providence of God, new thoughts were introduced into my mind. New insights into the Scriptures opened up my mind to areas that I had never considered before and suddenly, the Scriptures took on an entirely different meaning. Suddenly I appreciated Christ and understood His work like I never had before. Suddenly, everywhere I turned in the Scriptures, there was new understanding. The Scriptures took on a new life and meaning.
As I began to share these thoughts with friends, associates, co-workers, I discovered that not everyone shared my joy and enthusiasm. I was shocked and somewhat dismayed to find that there was an unexpected caution and resistance in places where I had never expected to find it. What was even more surprising was the fact that the opposition and resistance was not founded, for the most part, on Biblical objections, but were mostly based on fear of something new, based on misrepresentation, based on the fact that what I was teaching was being associated with other teachings and names of people whom I had never met, never studied with and never heard of in some cases.
Some cautioned me to cease teaching this doctrine until others had approved and accepted it, others advised me to modify it so it would be more in keeping with what I, and others had always believed and taught previously.
It was a most frustrating time. I thought and prayed and agonized about the issue. I was thrilled with the beauty of the truth which I had found. I was overjoyed to discover that I had found a key which was enabling me to live the life of Christ more perfectly. I was happy to find a message which seemed to be making real changes in people’s lives.
At the same time however, I was troubled by the fact that some of my best friends and fellow Christians were becoming increasingly more opposed to what I taught and were becoming more vocal in resisting and opposing it.
What was I to do? I had a choice. I could decide to keep quiet, stop presenting the message which I was convinced that God had given, and go back to preaching the same messages I had always preached. My very nature recoiled at the thought.
Alternatively, I could tone down the message, modify it so it would be more acceptable to those who opposed it. Maybe if it were expressed less drastically it would find more friends. This was equally repulsive to me for I had little admiration for those who feared and respected man more than God.
The other option was simply to ignore what people thought, to ignore the consequences and to simply continue preaching the truth which God had given, and to let the chips fall where they may. This was really the only choice which I could make if I was really a servant of God and of course, this is what I chose to do.
What have been the consequences? Well, as in the case I mentioned at the beginning, there has been misrepresentation, misunderstanding and sometimes plain lies and slander. but to be honest, this is exactly what I expected. I have lost friends, supporters, and some doors have closed against me, and Restoration Ministries. Some have simply stopped communicating, others have expressed strong (often misinformed disapproval), while others have set themselves to oppose the message. Of course, this is only to be expected. It is unrealistic and not in keeping with the revelations of God to believe that the critical truth for this time will be allowed to progress without determined opposition from the enemy.
In 1888 in the General Conference held at Minneapolis,Minn., the angel of Revelation 18 came down to his work, and was ridiculed, criticized, and rejected, and when the message he brings again will swell into a loud cry, it will again be ridiculed and spoken against, and rejected by the majority. (Are Seventh-day Adventists Doing God’s Will?, p.10
But in all of this I have noticed something which has caused me a lot of joy and encouragement and the assurance that God is working in all of this for the good. For every friend that I have lost, I have made another one; for every person who has rejected the message, there is another one or two who have embraced it with great joy and wonder. The fact is, there is no person who understands the message properly who has not embraced it with open arms and rejoicing. Just a couple of days ago I received the following email, which is typical of the response of those who truly understand the message:
God Be Praised,
I finally get it! I am in Christ and His Spirit is in me revealing Christ in me. And as Paul says in Gal. 2:20, “…the life I now live I live by the faith of the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me…for it is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me.” This is the best news ever.
May God Bless you brethren as you continue to minister and preach this wonderful Good News!
In addition to this, my attention has been drawn to something which I find very interesting. In response to this emphasis which we have been presenting, there has been a growing revival of interest in the subject of Righteousness by faith, even among those who previously had no interest in the subject. Now it seems that even the most ignorant and uninformed is going back to study, even if only to refute what we have been saying. With all of this effort to examine the doctrine of Christ and His righteousness, even if the motives are wrong, there is bound to come some good. So I echo the words of the apostle Paul and I give thanks to God.
What then? notwithstanding, every way, whether in pretence, or in truth, Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice. (Phil 1:18)
So, the truth is, I have no regrets, unless it is that sometimes, I have not preached the truth as forcefully as I should have, for fear of offending people. Recently I sat and remembered some of the experiences which I had with former friends and associates. Some of these experiences are gone forever. As humans we always remember the good and we wish we could return to the past, but as the Lord tells us,
The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the spirit of the LORD bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass. (8) The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever. (Isa 40:7-8)
There is an eternity ahead for all of us. The only question is, where will we spend it? I take my stand on the side of what abides forever. I will not stand with what fades and withers like the grass. Man comes and goes, but the truth of God is eternal.
I have no regrets.
The Legacy of Christian Liberty
P.D. Clayton
I recently read an article in a respected publication dealing with the issue of sin, which, among other things, sought to define sin.
According to the author “We reject the teaching that we are born into the world as sinners.” This, of course, is his respected right, but when we offer even an ideological commodity to the public, we should expect it to be subjected to scrutiny.
I recall that sometime ago this same publication aired a comparative evaluation of eisegesis with exegesis and cited the popular application of Psalms 51:5 as an example of the former. According to the article, David was not generalizing when he spoke about being “shapen in iniquity” and conceived in sin. The writer speculated that David’s mother could have been Jesse’s concubine and the child of their union would have been tainted with the stain of adulterous conception.
Apart from the flimsy basis for this speculation it is to be remembered that David was entering a plea for the mitigation of his guilt. It is significant that his mother’s part-responsibility was cited as beginning at the moment of his conception (“in sin did my mother conceive me,”) because medical science now informs us that the hereditary factor is supplied to the human organism at the moment of conception.
So although David was obviously subjective in his part blame of his mother for his inborn proneness to sin, his appeal showed that he was aware of genetic influence on behaviour. In the following verse (6) he emphasizes the deep-rootedness of his misdeed “thou desirest truth in the inward parts and in the hidden part” ….Hence, the only real change in his behaviour must rely on verse 10, “Create in me a clean heart O God.”
Sin or Sinning
Speaking more specifically to the more recent article it seems to me that much of it – original linguistics and all – could be covered by the Shakesparean play title “Much Ado about Nothing.” Much space is used in pursuit of original word definitions of sin, but I have been able to detect no distinction between sin (the verb) and sin (the noun). When for example, “miss the mark” is advanced as a definition of sin it would seem that there is a conceptual mix-up between the committal of sin and sin itself as a distinct entity.
The Bible is very clear in this matter. Concerning Satan Ezekiel 28:15 says,
“thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created until iniquity (sin) was found in thee.”
But John later wrote,
“He that commiteth sin is of the devil, for the devil sinneth from the beginning.” (1 John 3:8)
In the first case sin, the evil, was in the devil; in the second, he acted out the evil.
Paul similarly differentiates between the sin act and its motivation. In Romans 7:14-16 he poses the dilemma of the mind which loves God’s law, trapped in a lawless nature, and reasons, quite logically, that “If I do that which I would not…it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me .” (from Romans 7: 16, 17) The fact is that Romans 7 verses 7 to the end of the chapter is preoccupied with stressing the futility of human self effort and resolution, the reason being that, though “ I delight in the law of God after the inward man (heart/mind) I see another law in my members (the law of heredity) warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members ” (from Romans 7:22, 23)
The assertion in the article under question, that the “transgression of the law” (1 John 3:4) is the only biblical definition for sin is both scripturally unsound and a flawed net through which the legalistic may seek to escape accountability. Where, for example, can the gambler or the drug abuser find – in the Decalogue alone – condemnation for his vice? It would seem to me that a more comprehensive definition is found in 1 John 5:17, where it reads “All unrighteousness is sin.”
Enmity Against God
One significant thing about the two texts is that they were written by the same apostle – John – in his first general letter to the churches. One would not therefore expect discrepancy between them. The Greek expression “anomia,” used in identifying sin in 1 John 3:4 literally means not law and is more properly translated “lawlessness” than as transgression as it appears in the King James version.
Lawlessness as it is rendered here, is not just disobedience to a precept. It is not even the more ominous state of separation from God, alone. According to scripture sin is nothing less than hostility or enmity towards God. (See Romans 8:7). That explains why even those who concentrate on trying to fulfill the letter of the law find it such a burdensome and hazardous course.
Many years ago I read in a Readers Digest article an account of how a group of scientists placed a cat in a monitoring device called a flouroscope. As the animal slept they observed digestion of its earlier meal proceeding smoothly. Then the recorded sound of a barking dog was introduced and the whole process of the cat’s digestion went into reverse. The reaction was not deliberate or voluntary, it was the instinctive response of an animal whose nature reacted negatively to a dog’s bark, even while it was asleep.
This is how the natural, carnal human heart reacts to righteousness and the moral precepts on which God’s laws are established. Like the reputed gun gangsters of the early American West, the natural human being is an outlaw. One of the cut throat sea roving pirates of yesterday even boasted:
O my name is Captain Kidd,
And God’s law I did forbid,
And right wickedly I did,
As I sailed.
Satan, Sin and Salvation
Two brief final observations: If sin is hostility towards God, why was it necessary for Christ to die as a surrogate penalty for mankind’s sin? The short answer is that “sin when it has conceived bringeth forth death” and “the soul that sinneth it shall die.” Sin (not guilt), like HIV aids inevitably ends in death. Both are transmissible to the unborn, innocent. The critical difference is that while credible evidence about the origins of HIV aids is unavailable, the identity of the author of sin is clearly set out in the bible.
When God called the Edenic transgressors to an accounting, Adam tried to pass the buck to “the woman thou gavest to be with me;” Eve in turn tried to deflect responsibility by blaming the serpent (who) “beguiled me;” but Satan (the serpent) offered no alibi. The buck stopped with him. And the scriptures confirmed sin as being the lawless rebellious product of Satanism.
“When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own for he is a liar and the Father of it.” (John 8:44)
“He that commiteth sin is of the devil, for the devil sinneth from the beginning .” (1 John 3:8)
This pollution of the universe enticed and enslaved our progenitors, condemning them to lifelong God-enmity, and brought the death curse on themselves and posterity.
Now read again Romans 5 especially verses 6, 8-10. Verse 10 takes us from our natural animosity to a reconciliation with God through the death of our Saviour, so that no one who believes and accepts this sacrifice needs himself to be under the death sentence of sin. But the package of salvation does not only offer escape from eternal death and fellowship with heaven, but it replaces my reprobate inclination with the life of Jesus through whom I delight to do God’s will.
Any suggestion that sin is acquired only after birth must face the challenge of Jesus to Nicodemus when at the outset of their night time encounter our Saviour pronounced,
“Except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” (John. 3:3)
It must also reconcile that position with Paul’s affirmation in 2 Cor. 5:17,
“Therefore if any man be in Christ he is a new creature (creation)” (2 Cor. 5:17)
If each individual was really born a blank slate, would it not be a comparatively easy thing to erase anything written on it in the process of time? But if the material was stained glass, it would be idle to try either to impress or deface it, would it not?
Let us all take care that in every way we may be humble ministers of the gospel, rightly dividing the word of truth.
Open Face is published bi-monthly and is sent free to all who desire to receive it.
David Clayton: Editor and Publisher
P. O. Box 23 Knockpatrick
Manchester, Jamaica W.I.
Phone: (876) 904-7392
email: david@restorationministry.com
