Christmas season draws together brothers and sisters in Christ from all denominations to celebrate our common faith. Despite doctrinal differences, believers around the world unite in appreciation for the gift of our Savior. However, some Christians feel duty-bound to abstain from such inclusive fellowship. They imagine that interfaith interaction betrays their own biblical distinctiveness. I regret that more than a few of my fellow Seventh-day Adventists fall into that exclusivist mindset. 

Invariably they quote Ellen G. White in holding themselves aloof from fellowship with the larger Christian community. It’s true that Ellen White initially was a separatist who shared the “shut door” mentality of ex-Millerite Sabbatarians. But as she matured in her theology over the years, she extended herself into connectivity with the wider Christian community. (This is an aspect of her ministry strangely overlooked by most of her fervent followers.) 

For example, in the 1880s Ellen White joined forces with the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, a group of Protestant prohibitionists. She spoke at their rallies and even recommended that some of our best Adventist talent should work for that organization.

In 1892, she braved much criticism from narrow-minded Adventist brethren when she entrusted her signature book, Steps to Christ, to non-Seventh-day Adventists for initial publication. Few today are aware that she contracted with Dwight Moody’s brother-in-law, Fleming Revel, to print that treasured book. 

Even her controversial “borrowing” from non-Adventist authors, in writing her later books, is a form of collaboration with Christians outside our denomination. The enemies of Ellen White allege plagiarism, while her friends point out that copyright standards back then were much more relaxed than they are today. Lost amid this arguing is the undeniable reality that Ellen White thought so highly of non-Adventist theologians and historians that she incorporated their insights—not just their language—into her own books. This amazing fact is highly instructive for Adventists today who wish to quarantine themselves from Christians outside our denomination.

Many of my exclusivist Adventist friends want Sabbath worship services to include only songs from the official SDA Hymnal, to preserve denominational distinctiveness. I’m wondering . . . do they realize how many songs in the SDA Hymnal were composed by non-Adventists (including contemporaries of our good brother Dwight Moody—the most popular Sunday-keeping preacher in Ellen White’s day)? Think of it! Every time we hold Sabbath services, we are effectively welcoming non-Adventist influences into our worship. 

Like it or not, we are one body in Christ with fellow believers of the larger faith community. Thus I’m dismayed and ashamed that some influential Adventists are restricting fellow Christians from speaking at our youth rallies, women’s groups and other church meetings. No matter how sincere their concerns, I believe they are guilty of the inconsistencies already cited here regarding worship music and the example of Ellen White. Moreover, I fear they are quenching God’s Spirit, who operates throughout the general body of Christ. They also limit the sovereignty of God, who exercises His right to anoint anyone He chooses for ministry, whether or not he (or she) carries Seventh-day Adventist credentials. And so God is blessing the songs, sermons and books of many Christians outside our Adventist community.

Some may wonder: “Well then, if God is working everywhere, why should I be a Seventh-day Adventist?” Because this is the only denomination on earth where we don’t have to sacrifice biblical convictions that are dear to us. All Seventh-day Adventist doctrines—when (and only when) they are interpreted properly—are special truths about Jesus for these last days. 

That said, I affirm again that God is alive and well throughout the general Christian community. Despite the exclusive mentality of some Adventists, there is much benefit to keeping our minds and hearts open to the ministry of faithful people outside our community. Just as Ellen White was enriched by fellow Christians (Sunday-keepers!), Adventists today may be likewise blessed.

Speaking personally, the folks at Logos Bible Software are dear to me and friendly to Adventists (they recently published the digitized version of Andrews Study Bible). My friend Pete Heineger at Logos told me that he attended a meeting at Saddleback Community Church where Rick Warren affirmed all the good Seventh-day Adventists are doing in Africa through medical missionary work. Warren’s books Purpose Driven Life and Purpose Driven Church have been a major blessing to me. So have books by other non-Adventists such as Phillip Yancey and Lee Strobel (The Case for a Creator, etc.). Every evening while driving home from work, I listen to Chip Ingram’s “Living On the Edge” broadcast—nobody explains Christian living to me better than he does. I get his podcasts on my iPhone along with “Just Thinking” from Ravi Zacharias, perhaps Christianity’s finest advocate against atheism and secularism. Although I can’t agree with everything I hear from these esteemed fellow believers, neither do we Adventists see everything alike.

If you remain unconvinced that fellow Christians have anything good to offer Seventh-day Adventists, I’ll let you borrow my scissors so you can get to work on the official SDA Hymnal. And while you’re clipping away, maybe you can explain why Ellen White collaborated with non-Seventh-day Adventists whose descendants some of us feel we must shun.

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    Few Christian virtues are more important—or less respected—than joy. Within the fruit of the Spirit, joy is right there at the top of the list: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, cheerfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Gal. 5:22-23).  Joy in its purest form is the quiver that electrifies our hearts when we encounter Jesus in a deep, unexpected way—like the believers in the upper room at Pentecost. The filling of the Spirit brought them so much joy that concerned or curious outsiders thought they were drunk. They had never seen religious people so happy!

     To read the rest of this blog post, click here and access Outlookmag.org, a website of the Mid-America Union of Seventh-day Adventists, where Martin Weber is communication director.

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How should Adventists relate to fellow Christians?

The following article by Martin Weber appeared in the NAD edition of Adventist World magazine, Sept. 2011.

Are non-Adventist churches our rivals or our friends when it comes to evangelism?  To faithfully and effectively present the unique last-day truths entrusted to our church, need we be confrontive rather than collaborative?

Postmodern culture supremely values inclusiveness and tolerance—to a fault. Anything appearing partisan or divisive is automatically dismissed as unworthy of belief. What succeeds is a humble yet confident sense of doctrinal identity communicated in an inclusive, winsome spirit. This approach emerges: If it weren’t for fellow Christians who prepared the way, we Adventists wouldn’t exist. Join us for the rest of the journey.

I propose that we brand Seventh-day Adventism as the final chapter in a shared story; our prophetic movement is the last step in a joint journey of recovering truth that sincere Christians (including many Catholics!) have been traveling through the centuries.

But does such an approach diminish Adventism’s unique message? Not when each doctrine is framed in the context of the faith in Jesus that fellow Christians already have, as the next logical step in their discipleship journey. Unbelievers respond too.

Historically, however, Adventists have tended toward confrontational outreach. A century ago and more, Adventist evangelists often were master debaters. They arrived in town, pitched a big tent, and challenged local preachers to doctrinal debates. Quick on the draw with silver bullet proof texts, the Adventist won the spiritual showdown. He carried much of the crowd into subsequent evangelistic meetings. Before leaving town, he planted a church.

This approach, while successful in its time, left a bitter aftertaste. Churches founded on confrontation with fellow Christians were unwelcome in the community. Moreover, these congregations tended to be internally contentious, with Sabbath keepers fighting each other over nuances of doctrine, diet and assorted lifestyle issues. Many century-old churches still haven’t attained the unity for which Christ died. Contention is in their DNA, transferred from generation to generation. I know a little church that nearly split amid a nasty discussion about mushroom dishes at “fellowship” dinners.

We might learn from Ellen White. Her teaching and example admonished nineteenth-century Adventists who contended among themselves and their Sunday-keeping neighbors. In 1888, delegates convened in Minneapolis for a General Conference Session. Not surprisingly, a big debate ensued. Ellen White famously rebuked the contentious spirit—but what is less known is that while in Minneapolis she collaborated with non-Adventist Christians. She spoke at a rally of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union—fellow Christians who at that time were agitating for a national Sunday law. Obviously Ellen White didn’t agree with them about that. But she did unite with them on common ground in seeking moral reforms in American society. She became quite popular at these non-Adventist rallies—to the consternation of Sabbatarians more interested in being “peculiar people” than loving and collaborative neighbors.

Ellen White even entrusted her signature book, Steps to Christ, to non-Adventists for publication. She awarded initial printing rights to Dwight Moody’s brother in law, Fleming Revell. In writing other books, she often borrowed the language of non-Adventist authors, effectively collaborating with their teaching.

Ellen White’s approach speaks directly to our time. We too may mingle with fellow Christians regarding areas of common faith without compromising unique Seventh-day Adventist doctrine.

I finally learned this in my own pastoral ministry.  Joining the non-Adventist ministerial association provided opportunities to preach at a holiday celebration. People viewing me on local Christian TV greeted me at the mall as a brother in Christ. Pastors invited me to visit their churches and pray during services. One had me mediate a dispute among his elders. I joined a community Christian music group (no great contribution there, I assure you, but I did have fun and made friends for my church). The pastor of the city’s biggest church, who previously disliked Adventists, sponsored me as a law enforcement chaplain—connecting me with people in crisis whom otherwise I could never invite to church. Fellow chaplains teased me about being a vegetarian—then wanted meatless recipes. Nobody accused Adventism of being a cult.

Meanwhile Sabbath attendance doubled. The key was collaboration with the Christian community while preserving a distinctly Adventist message and mission.

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Recently a pastor called seeking advice about an issue causing controversy in his congregation. The obviously sensible solution also seemed fully compatible with Biblical principles. Then somebody found an obscure statement from Ellen White that appeared to point in another direction. What should be done when Ellen White’s writings apparently conflict with the Bible?

Let’s start with common ground. Adventists everywhere teach that the Bible is the foundation of all spiritual gifts, including the gift of prophecy. We also agree that Ellen White’s writings are not an addition to Scripture. This ought to settle the matter—but it doesn’t. Many Adventists use her writings as a referee over the Bible, thus making her the lord of God’s Word. They would be horrified to realize it, but this is what they actually do.

Think about it. If Sister White comments on anything, they take it as God’s final word. Woe to anyone who wants to “search the scriptures continually to see whether those things are so” (Acts 17:11). But is the gift of prophecy intended to make us lazy Bible students?

To clarify: I believe that Ellen White was a prophetic messenger to the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and that her writings are a continuing and an authoritative source of inspiration. And yet the Bible stands alone as the supreme authority and sole determiner of truth. Ellen White herself said: “God will have a people upon the earth to maintain the Bible, and the Bible only, as the standard of all doctrines, and the basis of all reforms” (The Great Controversy, p. 595 [emphasis supplied]).

So all doctrine—and all attempts at reformation—must be founded and focused upon Scripture. This would include the current “Revival and Reformation” initiative within Seventh-day Adventism. Church leaders are calling for renewed focus on the writings of Ellen White—this is a good idea if it does not divert us from searching the Scriptures. And it doesn't need to.

One Sabbath, after some intensive Bible study (using Logos 4 software, my favorite), I turned to Ellen White's Testimonies. I read “The Death of My Husband” (vol. 1, p. 105-11), which is her testimony of undying determination, despite deep bereavement, to carry on with her ministry until the coming of Jesus. So moved was I by her devotion to advancing the cause of “present truth” that I found myself sobbing (so much that the cat on my lap actually became alarmed).

Like Ellen White, I want to be faithful unto death in advancing the Adventist mission and message, for the sake of the Gospel. This includes carrying forward the torch of present truth—in our own context, which is quite different from Ellen White’s culture. She was profoundly relevant within her 19th century context, which was Protestant and primarily agrarian. Is she also relevant to our post-Christian, metropolitan society?

Yes, but not in the same way. For example, her book Great Controversy teaches the timeless truth of Christ’s coming in the context of Protestant America—a place that no longer exists. Great Controversy also heralds the 1755 Lisbon earthquake as a compelling fulfillment of last day prophecy. Well, it was indeed for Ellen White’s world—but not for ours. To connect with people today we must point to contemporary fulfillments beyond what we read in Great Controversy.

Thus our scenario of final events in the 21st century will be different than what Ellen White envisioned a century ago. Will there be a Sunday law? Certainly. (See a proposed scenario on this website by clicking the tab "Issues" and then "Final Events."  

Will Rome still have a key role? Yes, according to Bible prophecy and also by acknowledging the fact that the pope is the premier representative of Christianity in the world. But any credible end-time today scenario must include the mortal clash of civilizations between America with its Western allies against radical Islam in league with leftover Communism.

I've observed that some of us seem afraid to learn anything new about Bible prophecy that Ellen White didn’t know a century ago. Did the Holy Spirit stop communicating to God's people when she died in 1915?

Yet some Adventists seem enslaved to a 19th century perspective. They are even tied to the methods of yesteryear. More on this later.

Martin Weber, DMin

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This week (Mon & Tue the 6th & 7th) I am making four presentations to pastors and lay people at West Point School of Evangelism, sponsored by the Pacific Union Conference, Adventist Media Center and other church organizations. Titles are 1) Postmodernism: an Adventist Opportunity; 2) Postmodernism and Ellen White; 3) Postmodernism and the Sanctuary/Judgment; 4) Postmodernism and the Sabbath/2nd Coming. Please pray that everything will be communicated and received in the Spirit!
-- Martin

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“Don’t curse the darkness. Light a candle.”

End-time Adventists can find value in that time-honored advice. As the world’s moral midnight deepens around us—greed, lust, war, unbelief, and so on—it’s easier to condemn the darkness than to strategize about how Christ’s light of truth might shine more brightly through His church.

Consider the DaVinci Code, that bestseller turned blockbuster which assaulted Christ’s deity and the integrity of Scripture. Many Christians counterattacked by damning DaVinci. But some believers recognized an opportunity to dialogue with unsaved friends about Jesus, as Paul did when the gospel was slandered in his day: “Whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed; and in this I rejoice” (Phil. 1:18). While others cursed the darkness, Paul illumined it with the light of truth.

DaVinci is Exhibit A of the postmodern assault upon Christian faith. Before explaining the bad news of postmodernism (and there is much to denounce about it: theistic evolution for starters), let me share some good news: Postmodernism provides Adventists opportunities for evangelism that we’ve never had before. In fact I believe that of all faith groups, Seventh-day Adventism is best positioned to connect with the postmodern world—if we wake up to the opportunity and contextualize our message without compromising it.

That’s quite a statement and I’m prepared to support it. First we must know a bit about postmodernism and its background.

 

Rise of modernism

Let’s travel back to medieval days, when the church told everyone what to believe. If you were born, you were baptized—simple as that. Individual freedom of choice was burned at the stake.

Then came the Renaissance, when the courageous and the curious insisted on thinking for themselves. Ancient literary classics were recovered and translated, including the Scriptures. Armed with the invention of the printing press, an explosion of knowledge resulted. The truth set Europe free from church-state shackles, unleashing the Protestant Reformation. Meanwhile, the world of science experienced its own rebirth through the discoveries of Newton, Galileo, Copernicus and others.

That’s basically how the medieval world gave way to the modern age, which during the last several centuries has been marked by:

1)    Individualism: following personal conscience, making your own choices;

2)    Knowledge focus: facts, not faith, are what matters most, and knowledge is inherently good;

3)    Rationalism: through human powers of reason and observation, we have access to everything worth believing. The scientific method and secular philosophy replaced the Bible and the church as the test of truth.

Faith suffered much under the reign of modernism. For some, the symbolic Goddess of Reason replaced the miraculous virgin Mary. Then Charles Darwin devised a theory of origins that disowned divinity. Many who managed to maintain faith in God during modernism tended to gravitate to one of two extremes: radical liberalism that denied the miraculous in the quest of the “historical Jesus,” or rigid fundamentalism that clung to religious preconceptions whatever the facts might be.

Amid this religious discord, Seventh-day Adventists gave the trumpet of truth a certain sound. Our church has fared well under modernism. In an age of individualism, we’ve challenged people to stand alone for God amid their Sunday-keeping friends. In a knowledge-focused world we launched many churches by winning debates with our amazing facts about Bible truth. During the reign of rationalism we proclaimed a reasonable and convincing system of doctrine that withstood both liberalism and fundamentalism. Adventism was progressive and intellectual enough to flourish amid liberalism yet conservative enough to woo fundamentalists.

No wonder Adventists today tend to be modernists to the core. So how can we meet the challenge of postmodernism? Adventist outreach still thrives, but mainly in places and among people where postmodernism has not yet spun its web. In America, sustainable growth has nearly flatlined among Whites and declined among all but first-generation ethnic groups.

Why?

 

Demise of modernism

Postmodernism undermines our foundations of faith by denying that absolute truth is knowable or even desirable. This mindset did not happen overnight. Some scholars believe modernism began slowly sinking with the Titanic—that floating memorial to human knowledge. One person famously boasted that God Himself couldn’t sink that ship. Yet down it went, and with it the notion that knowledge never fails.

Two years later World War I proved that knowledge is not inherently good. Scientific expertise gave us mustard gas and the machine gun. Millions were efficiently murdered by knowledge gone awry.

Then came World War II, in which the meisters of scientific knowledge invented the Holocaust. After that, the Bomb. Society became disillusioned about the goodness of reason and knowledge. Since the revolution of the ‘60s, the Western world has sought refuge in postmodernism:

1) Individualism is giving way to community because we need to transcend our selfishness and isolation and work together to save society. Interdependence is better than independence. It takes more than a single parent to raise a child; it takes a village—a community.

2) Knowledge is no longer the foundation of reality. Perceptions and even feelings are considered equally valid as facts—which themselves are no longer absolute. Now, “everything is relative.”

3) Rationalism has given way to the realization that we cannot figure out everything. Some things, like a sunset, must be experienced rather than explained.

The bottom line in the postmodern world is that concrete knowledge has succumbed to nuanced insight. “I feel” and “I think” are interchangeable—and beware of saying “I know.” Now one person’s—or denomination’s—view of truth is no more valid than another’s.

Prove the Sabbath from Scripture and your workplace associate shrugs and says, “So what? Explain how it matters. Show me how it makes my world a better place.”

 

Adventism’s power in postmodernism

How can we Adventists make our case for truth amid the challenges of postmodernism?

            The key is in the word narrative. “Tell me your story” is a favorite conversation starter for postmodernists. They care about human experience more than impersonal propositional truth. At first glance that’s bad news for Adventists with our 28 fundamental beliefs. But we also have the story of all stories in our Great Controversy narrative. Every Adventist belief, properly understood, synchronizes with the grand story of Eden lost to the earth restored.

The Great Controversy narrative is uniquely Adventist in both content and scope. Other Christians can tell with us the “old, old story of Jesus and His love,” but they don’t connect Christ’s mission on earth 2,000 years ago with the relevant story of what He is doing now in heaven’s sanctuary on behalf of human suffering. Others may talk about saving our planet, but nobody has our vision of heaven on earth made new for all eternity. Fellow Evangelicals may explain the origin of sin, but they offer no resolution to the sin problem—their doctrine of hell eternalizes sin and suffering. Besides, postmodernists are passionate about social justice; for them the popular notion of endless hell inflicted indiscriminately on unbelievers is abhorrent.

By contrast, our Adventist view of the future provides merciful closure, particularly when we teach the investigative judgment in the context of a God providing answers to the questions of His celestial universe. (Adventism’s much maligned and abused doctrines of investigative judgment and the sanctuary, cleansed of legalism and clothed with narrative, provide our strongest bonding points with postmodernists, as I hope to show in next month’s Outlook.)  Also appealing is our doctrine of the millennium in which we humans get our own questions answered from God before sin and sinners are destroyed. When hell is framed in the context of justice executed upon oppressors and hypocrites, administrated fairly and briefly, postmodernists often embrace it eagerly.

It’s true that most postmodern believers share the age-old misconception of life immediately after death. But they also view humanity holistically, rather than dualistically as did the ancient Persians and the Greeks, who taught false dichotomy between body and spirit. This is an open door for Adventist truth about death (and also an entering wedge for our holistic health message and our health system, which was launched by Ellen G. White with her eight natural remedies). Moreover, Christ’s second coming is in the context of community—we’re not ascending individually at death as disembodied spirits. We are going together when Jesus comes. What a blessed hope for the hopelessness of postmodernism!

And what of the Sabbath? Adventists under modernism emphasized the Sabbath as a Mosaic proposition. But it’s also the climax of the human story of creation. What’s more, the Sabbath is all about community. Other Christians might spare a couple hours for church time before football games, but Adventists value community with God and with each other so much that we give it a whole day every week. That says a lot to postmodernists.

What about God’s law? Well, “love is the fulfilling of the law” (Rom. 8:10). Love fosters good human relations, which makes for a good narrative.

Everything we believe can be framed in the context of story. Everything! Even prophecy is narrative in advance, a spotlight into future events from a loving God who guides the universe.

In summary, no other church can offer what Adventists have for the postmodern world. Our life and death task is to shift emphasis away from presenting doctrine as a series of propositions, which appeals only to modernists. To evangelize a postmodern world, we must show our fundamental beliefs in the context of our unique Great Controversy narrative. Since the Bible itself is basically narrative, this should not be a problem for us.

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         Young King Hezekiah “trusted in the Lord God of Israel, so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor who were before him” (2 Kings 18:5). What was so different about Hezekiah? Godly kings before him had cleansed the temple of pagan worship relics. What Hezekiah did that nobody before him had dared to do is to tear down and destroy Moses’ bronze serpent, which had become an idol for God’s people.

         Imagine the gall of a 25-year-old, new on the scene, to take away and destroy a centuries-old memorial of the beloved leader of the Exodus. The godly elders no doubt demanded: “What do you think you are doing, young man! God gave us that artifact!”

         Hezekiah protested: “It has become a distraction from worshiping God. Worse, became an idol worshiped in place of God. It lost its purpose—the devil co-opted and corrupted it. It had to be destroyed for true worship to be restored.”

         “Sorry, Hezekiah,” his pious opponents may have retorted. “We could support you when you destroyed the high places and idolatrous images, but this is different. Moses built that according to God’s blueprint. It’s a divine symbol of salvation—‘Look and live,’ remember? God used it miraculously! Who do you think you are, young man, destroying that sacred symbol of salvation from God through our beloved founder! Do you think you are better than Moses? Do you think you are better than God?”

“That artifact was just a symbol of the unseen God whom we are supposed to be worshiping,” Hezekiah tried to explain. “Yes, God established it and worked through it. But then the devil took it over. It had to go.”

And so it went, much to the disappointment and fury of Judah—not only the evil ones who were worshiping it but the good people who were enabling them by preserving their object of idolatry.

Meanwhile, Hezekiah “kept [God’s] commandments, which the Lord had commanded Moses” (verse 6). He knew the difference between obedience and false worship. He had divine discernment about what to keep and what to get rid of. So Hezekiah wasn’t the enemy of Moses. Ironically, he was the only one who truly honored their founder by sustaining his example of obedience rather than corrupting his heritage through religious idolatry.

 But it wasn’t easy for young Hezekiah. The only reason he survived was that “he held fast to the Lord” (verse 6), clinging tenaciously in the face of opposition not only from the evil people but from the religious establishment that thought itself honoring God but in reality was sustaining an idolatrous system. It may have been in those tumultuous early days of Hezekiah’s ministry that his only support came directly from God. Indeed, “the Lord was with him; he prospered wherever he went” (verse 7).

Thought question: What holy artifacts may have become idols for Adventists today?

I asked that of one lady and she replied: “I don’t there is any such idolatry in the Adventist system.”

But let not the church of Laodicea so flatter itself. Can even our God-established institutions themselves become an object of idolatry? If so, how can we preserve what is genuine while cleansing it from what is not?

What about our understanding of Ellen G. White? God obviously led us with her prophetic gift, and that blessing remains in our day. But have idolatrous traditions also developed over the years? I’m thinking specifically of the proclivity of some Adventists who refuse to accept anything the Bible teaches unless it harmonizes with what Ellen White already wrote about that text or topic—thus effectively giving her authority over the Word of God. I’m afraid that those who have succumbed to such extremist and cultic thinking have made Ellen White their idol. They urgently challenge fellow Adventists—do you believe in the Spirit of prophecy?

First, let’s be clear that the Spirit of prophecy is the Holy Spirit who inspired the prophet—not the prophet herself or her writings.

Let’s also emphatically clarify that Ellen White was not God’s message! She was His  messenger. There is a huge difference. And that difference is the distinction between inspiration and idolatry.

Finally, let’s make Jesus Christ is the object of our faith, not any human messenger.

I urge my fellow Seventh-day Adventists to do a searching and fearless theological inventory and then take careful but decisive action, like Hezekiah did, to ensure that no gift from God ever becomes a focus of faith or an object of adoration.

The Pharisees of Christ’s day turned God’s messenger into their message, and in so doing rejected God’s grace and truth. Let us beware of doing the same today.

Martin Weber will be editor of the daily newsletter for global delegates at the upcoming SDA General Conference Session in Atlanta.

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The cross of Jesus Christ will be our science and our song for all eternity—and that begins here and now, before the trumpet sounds and Jesus comes again. I’m intrigued today with a subtle but significant difference in a five-word phrase we find in Mat. 27:43 in contrast with its OT parallel, Psalm 22:8. It’s the difference between the words “since” and “if.” And I believe that this intensified the terror and torment Jesus felt on the cross.

In Psalm 22, the “Psalm of the Cross,” we find the words, “He trusted in God, let God deliver Him, since He delights in him” (verse 8). This is the Psalm Jesus Himself quoted while hanging on the cross. But note how the religious demoniacs who crucified Him twisted Christ’s words of confidence by throwing them back into His face with taunting doubt: “He trusted in God, let God deliver Him, if He delights in him, for He said, ‘I am the Son of God’” (Mat. 27:43). “If” instead of “since” is the difference between fatal doubt and persevering faith.

“If He delights in him”—what five words could have been more vexing to both Father and Son at that particular moment? Ponder the trauma of that demonic taunting.

For the Father, how much those words must have tempted Him to zip down from heaven and zap the tormentors of His beloved Son, rescuing the One of His eternal delight from that (literally) hellish experience.

For the Son, how much those words must have intensified His fear on the cross of eternal separation from the Father (having “become sin for us,” [2 Cor. 5:19], “a worm and not a man” [Ps. 22:6], cursed while hanging on the tree [Gal. 3:13]). At that crucial moment, picture Jesus hanging there with that terrifying taunt flung in His face in stereo—wicked clerics from below, thieves on either side (Mat. 27:44).

Just ponder how the word “if He delights in Him” (verse 43) perverts the confidence built into the Psalm of the Cross. That this doubt may have afflicted Christ’s soul is suggested three verses later when Jesus cries out in despair, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me” (verse 46)—reciting the same Psalm from which the devil was deriving those five fearful words.

In a real sense, we know that Jesus on the cross was indeed forsaken by the Father, so God could accept us sinners. But Christ’s cry may have reflected even more than that fundamental fact of salvation. It may have conveyed fear that the Father had rejected Him to the point that He (the Father) no longer even desired Him (“if He would have Him”). Had Jesus so fully identified Himself with fallen humanity that He had become too cursed to be redeemed from the tomb at the appointed time Sunday morning.

As Ellen White says in Desire of Ages (p. 753): “Satan with his fierce temptations wrung the heart of Jesus. The Saviour could not see through the portals of the tomb…. He feared that sin was so offensive to God that Their separation was to be eternal.”

So it was that five demonic words comprised a spear that pierced the heart of God at Calvary: “If He would desire Him.” Satan's twisting of that Psalm, I believe, intensified the suffering and thus the sacrifice of both Father and Son while Jesus hung on the cross.

What wondrous love is this, O my soul!

 

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Is Stephen Hawking’s theory of something out of nothing based on science or supposition?

He relates “the tale of how the primordial universe of hydrogen, helium and a little bit of lithium evolved to a universe harboring at least one world with intelligent life like us.”

Let’s use some of that intelligence to evaluate Hawking’s belief that primordial nothingness managed to evolve into material somethingness. Also to ponder: what is it about the nothingness of a “little bit of lithium” that differentiates it from the nothingness of helium and the nothingness of hydrogen?

One need not be a scientist to conclude that three nameable chemical elements, each distinguishable from the other, can’t qualify as mere nothingness.

Another inconvenient question lurks in Hawking’s primordial universe with its threefold nothingness: What action or condition triggered and then coordinated the interaction of those chemical elements? Hawking points to the laws of gravity and quantum theory—but their existence only adds to his difficulties: What (or who) designed these laws to exist in a universe of nothingness?

To resolve skepticism that our exquisitely calibrated, inhabited world is the product of happenstance, Hawking would persuade us about a “multiverse” of parallel universes. The multiverse notion is not merely speculation on steroids, it is demonstrably impossible mathematically—when computing the timeframe (used by scientists themselves) required for random selection to meander its way through the process of materializing Hawking’s imagined multiverse (or even the observable universe, for that matter).

The impossibilities of Hawking’s multiverse evolving from nothingness are compounded by the miracle of DNA—not only its complexity but the fact that it comes frontloaded with coded genetic information. Complex coding, by definition, comes not by undirected happenstance but by intelligent design. How could one argue otherwise from science rather than supposition?

All told, Hawking’s theory of cosmology cannot be demonstrated by the scientific method—nor be explained by logic, which has as a foundational principle: ex nihilo nihil fit: “out of nothing, nothing comes.” So nothing can logically prevent a librarian from classifying Hawking’s “tale of many chapters” as science fiction.

Martin Weber, DMin

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“He saved others”

Millions of Christians around the world are worshiping their Lord in a special way this weekend. The world with its Easter bunnies thinks we are strange. Stupid, in fact—how could the death of a poor carpenter 2,000 years ago give joy and purpose to our lives today, and then secure heaven for us with God in eternity?

To the world, the nicest thing to be said about Christ on the cross is this: He was a very good man having a very bad day. But we who believe in Jesus understand what was happening on Good Friday: “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not counting our trespasses against us” (2 Cor. 5:19).

Like many of you, this weekend I’m reading again the Gospel account of our Lord’s death and resurrection. Each time something new seems to pop into focus, doesn’t it? This morning I’m captured by the irony of something Christ’s mocking enemies said in Luke 23:35 as He hung on the cross:

“And the people stood by, watching, but the rulers scoffed at him, saying, ‘He saved others; let him save himself, if he is the Christ of God, his Chosen One!’”

“He saved others?” You betcha—He sure did! He saved me!

Overwhelmed at the delightful irony of that reality, I started laughing and crying at the same time. This was a little too intense for my cat, who had been resting on my lap. She jumped off and took refuge on top of the couch. And from that safe vantage point she stared at me as if I’m crazy today.

That’s OK, cat. Paul says we are fools for Christ’s sake. And the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength.

Glory to the name of our Lord Jesus Christ!

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