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This episode is sponsored by Bible Bricks. They've created a brick building set of the wilderness sanctuary.
A deep dive into the Seventh-day Adventist sanctuary doctrine, focusing on its meaning, relevance, and challenges around the 1844 investigative judgment.
Key Takeaways
- Many Adventists lack a clear understanding of the sanctuary doctrine and its significance.
- The 1844 investigative judgment is a complex and often divisive topic within Adventism.
- Sanctuary themes provide a profound insight into God's character and ongoing ministry.
- There is a need for clearer, more relevant teaching of the sanctuary doctrine in Adventist communities.
- Spiritual and emotional relevance of the doctrine can be overshadowed by intellectual debates.
Summary
- The video is part two of a discussion on the sanctuary doctrine with Ty Gibson and hosts from Seeking What They Sought.
- It explores the biblical presence of the sanctuary throughout scripture and the significance of Jesus entering a new phase of atoning ministry in 1844.
- Hosts discuss the varied understanding and acceptance of the sanctuary doctrine among Adventists, noting many have little clarity or reject it.
- The conversation touches on the investigative judgment and 2,300 days prophecy, which often leads to intellectual and apologetic challenges.
- The sanctuary doctrine is rarely preached or clearly explained in many Adventist pulpits, leading to confusion or disinterest.
- Ty Gibson presents sanctuary themes through a psychological and spiritual lens, emphasizing its relevance to understanding God's character.
- The discussion critiques the disconnect between the sanctuary doctrine and the gospel message as perceived by some Adventists.
- The hosts reflect on the emotional and spiritual impact of the sanctuary doctrine beyond just intellectual understanding.
- The video includes candid, informal banter that highlights the hosts' personal experiences with Adventist teachings.
- Listeners are encouraged to watch part one for foundational context before engaging with this deeper exploration.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction and Sponsor Message
- 04:56Understanding the Sanctuary Doctrine in Adventism
- 11:19Challenges with the 1844 Investigative Judgment
- 24:22God’s Judgment and Human Understanding
- 30:23Emotional and Spiritual Implications of the Doctrine
- 42:21Theological Perspectives and Apologetics
- 51:52Jesus’ High Priestly Ministry Explained
- 56:11Practical Relevance and Final Reflections
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
Yep, the one from Exodus. With around 1,200 pieces, custom mini figs, and instructions that explain each part of the tabernacle as you build.
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Visit them at biblebricks.com to learn more and maybe buy yourself a set. How's it going, everybody? Welcome to Seeking What They Sought. We are here doing part two of our sanctuary conversation with Ty Gibson. Ty, we were just talking about colonics and
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Dr. Adventist, Adventist Amish. And so I just want to give people a hint about the things that we talk about behind the scenes.
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Talk about normally. So, um, our pre-recording banter. No context. Just just leave it at we're not going to give any context.
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Bit of mystery. But now let's talk about the sanctuary doctrine and stuff. Amen. So thank you, I brought him back. Nice.
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So I brought him back. Okay, we got the, we got the little horn. He even has a little horn on there. It's hard to see with the Sean and Sean. If you know where to get those plushies,
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you really should give me one of those as a gift. He's showing us his plushy of the dragon, the dragon beast from Revelation.
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The beast. Or is it from Daniel? I think it's the one from Daniel. From Daniel.
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Um, so we have already talked about the first part of the sanctuary doctrine that kind of highlights the presence of the sanctuary all throughout the narrative of scripture. But there is the kind of second part of the doctrine
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that talks about how in 1844, at the end of the prophetic period of 2,300 days, Jesus enters the second and last phase of his atoning ministry. Um, so there's this feeling that I experienced growing up of, um, what does any of this mean
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or have to do with me or anything else? Um, I know of a line of thought within Adventism that's totally bought into this. Um, I think that would be probably the majority of Adventism.
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But, um, amongst the people that I've grown up with, there's a mix of people who are like, yeah, I see it. I think I see it.
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Probably more people who are like, I just have no idea. Like, I don't really understand it. I don't know how meaningful or useful it is. And then there is a subset of people who are just like, I'm totally, totally don't believe
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in it. Um, all across the board. So we want to get into this specific section of it, 1844. Why does Jesus shift phases? What's the point behind all that? Um, but yeah, I don't know if you guys want to say anything else, Sean or Anthony. I'll just pop in and say, oh yeah, Anthony, go for it. Hi Ty. I wasn't
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here for part one. So good to be—No, you weren't, and I was told the reason why is because you hate my gut and I took it personal and I was in the fetal position later that evening just wondering why
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you don't like me. Never, Ty, never. No. I don't even—I forget what I was doing. I think I had an appointment, but at least that's what I'm telling you guys.
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They did, they did inform me that you are among the group, you are a space cadet, so I am not surprised at all that you don't know what you were doing. I will accept that, man. I was out of your sight now.
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Although I will say I always remind—they always forget that of the three of us, the one who's missed the least episodes—Oh, is that true? Absolutely true. Wow, they threw you under the bus big time.
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Oh man. Only ever missed two ever, and that was the second one. These guys are hypocrites.
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It down so I could have my receipts. Oh wow. This is actually wild. I feel called out.
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Is he telling the truth, you guys? Is he telling the truth? I—On the truth. I couldn't tell you. I, I, I believe him. Anthony is a truth teller.
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I, I think it's probably true. It's probably true. Wow, okay. He's there. Anyway. Anthony, what are your thoughts on this?
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Um, yeah, I, I think I would resonate with Jesse's take. I think, um, obviously, you know, the sanctuary doctrine as it's written in the 28 fundamental beliefs, right? That's the consensus the church has come to, but I definitely
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think as a pastor and as a person, I've encountered far more people who either have a lack of clarity, I would say, on like what it is or just outright reject it totally because I think—and I think really the
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core reason is because of a perceived inconsistency with the gospel message, I would say.
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Um, some sort of—and then I would say probably a secondary reason is just not quite seeing the biblical data, understanding the biblical data, or finding the biblical data that's presented as compelling. In fact, even last night I
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was at a Friendsgiving with a bunch of friends, and something I did in this most recent sermon series at church was I kind of was rewriting some of our core beliefs, like the five S's, through the lens of the love of God.
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And I kind of liked what you did, Ty, for us when we were doing what is an Adventist, but one of the young adults I had a Friendsgiving with, and she was like, so what's that sanctuary one?
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Like she had no idea what I was talking about. She had never heard. She's like, is that 1844? Like, what did you even mean? Like, what are you talking about?
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And I think there's just, you know, you have Adventists who grew up in the system, they went their whole life to Adventist church, they've done everything, and they're still unable at the end to articulate or even really
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understand what it is that we say we believe. Yeah. I'm convinced 90% of Adventists have no idea what the sanctuary doctrine is. Like that, that I know that sounds wild. I, I know that. I just feel like no one
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I've talked to, very few people that could say anything substantial about what it is that scholar class that I think. It's, yeah, it's the pastor scholars and those Adventists who are just—they just love to, um, you talking about the Adventist
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YouTubers? The armchair, armchair scholars, like just love it. You know, and I don't mean that in a negative way, but just like they're so into it. And outside of that, I just feel like a lot of people don't see it as relevant.
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I think Sean is correct not only in his statement regarding just general Adventist membership, but also would you guys agree that even though Anthony said it's, you know, the scholar class for pastors, I don't think it's even
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preached from very many Adventist pulpits, and I would guess that there are—I don't know how many, of course, but some significant number of Seventh-day Adventist ministers who don't feel properly equipped to even break it down in a way that's meaningful
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or, and they probably just steer clear of it. I don't know. I'm just, yeah, guessing. No, I think you're—I think in part one you summarized why you felt the sanctuary doctrine itself, like when you look at the theme of sanctuary in
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scripture, whether we're looking at the Psalms through David, um, looking at—you brought up a whole new paradigm, like an idea, a way of looking at sanctuary as a psychological lens that really fascinated me too, and if you haven't listened to part
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one, go back and listen to part one before you get here. Um, but you made a compelling case for why it matters. Why it matters to know the sanctuary ways because it most vividly, you know, summarizes who God is and the way
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that he operates and what's happening on a big picture, uh, level. I think where people especially get caught up, they might, like Jesse said last time, people might actually buy into what you offered, Ty, not even just Adventists, there'd be
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people that would be drawn into that message. Where people get stuck is what we're going to talk about: investigative judgment, 2,300 days, 1844. It feels like it's almost impossible to get into that discussion without getting into the
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apologetic weeds where it becomes an intellectual exercise. So, so I guess maybe my central question for you as we get into this discussion is, is there any—comparing what you did with part one where it felt like there was a lot of
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spiritual emotional relevancy for me to k
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spiritual emotional relevancy for me to know the sanctuary doctrine. Is there anything that actually matters when it comes to specifically the investigative judgment part of the sanctuary that I need to know that's beyond just apologetics work.
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Yes. Ty before you get into that Sure. I I just wanted to tag on and agree with you and say I think amongst pastors I think that's absolutely the case because I remember graduating from theology undergrad and I don't
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I definitely could not have articulated the sanctuary doctrine at the time and and and I could have made an attempt like you couldn't sure yeah. What a guy.
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Well I was going to tag Well I I was going to tag on I don't know of any of our me Jesse and my like colleagues who graduated in our in our time at Walla Walla who that I know that could really
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articulate it well and like give a compelling case for really the big picture of like what is this saying? And I think maybe that's part of my question. And it it and I don't think it was even until seminary that I even got
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close to understanding like oh I think I finally understand what this is saying here like what what's the big picture here you know.
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But but that connects Anthony to what I was asking there too is just I don't think anyone fully buys in like maybe no one says it up front but Ty we're going to let you finish here. Is why why does this matter? Does it
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actually matter beyond just we need to prove that Adventism matters because we exist because of 1844 and Ellen White had to be right so that's our reason for believing it beyond like this actually I should spend my time getting to know
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this. Why does that matter? Well, first of all, um it was you and then Anthony and then you again. So, I'm going to go back to Anthony and say something briefly and affirm what he said and simply point out
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that um Anthony is on to something when he had earlier said that the reason for the lack of relevance or sense that it has any relevance is because there's been a kind of bifurcation between doctrine and gospel. So, from my
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perspective the thing has been reduced. The sanctuary doctrine, the investigative judgment has been reduced to what Shawn called an apologetic argument. And as such, um I think I think that the lack of interest in it is symptomatic of a deeper issue in Adventist history
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and and Adventism currently. And that is that we have we have tended, not everybody, you know, I'm not going to speak, you know, about you and every person. I'm simply saying there is in Adventism somewhat of a tendency to
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divide doctrine and gospel. So, so you might have an evangelistic series in which the gospel is night three or night seven or night 12.
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Whereas from from the biblical perspective in and my perspective, and I think this is from the Bible and that's that's why it should be our perspective.
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There's only one topic. The gospel. Yeah. It's called the gospel commission. It's not the anything else commission.
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And so, the topic night by night if I'm just using an evangelistic series as an example, right? Any series, any pastor, you guys are pastors, one of these is a teacher. Um you're going to launch into a series on anything. The topic is
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always the same topic from various different angles. So, I want to affirm that that that that what what what Anthony is hinting at is that the lack of interest in the sanctuary and the investigative judgment is symptomatic of
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a and then this this bifurcation of doctrine and gospel has generated historically a a series of steps that gave us You've all heard of the great Advent movement. Well, we have the great Advent pendulum.
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You know, Adventism has wings. It has a a a left-wing and a right-wing. And the the conservative wing exists to refute and correct the liberal wing and the liberal wing exists to refute and correct the conservative wing.
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What I've been trying to suggest throughout my time in Adventism, and I plan to stay, um but I'm a convert to it, you know, but what I've been trying to suggest during my my stint in Adventism is what about the gospel wing?
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Uh why Why like someone if someone asked me politically, and this isn't our subject, hey Ty, politically speaking now, are you a conservative or a liberal? My general answer is yes.
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Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What what's the topic that you're talking about? It depends on what I don't have to identify with a wing of the political insanity. I'm going to pick principles from wherever they derive and assemble my own perspective based on
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principles. And I think it's true of theology in Adventism. So, for me the question is not and never has been what does Adventism say or teach?
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The question is what does the Bible actually teach? And if Adventism is holding to or teaching any unbiblical doctrine, I believe we should give it up. I don't think we should be holding on to something that is patently false
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just because we've believed it for many years or as Shawn said, because Ellen White said it, therefore we're obligated to it. Now, I'm going to full disclosure, I'm going to say I don't believe that's the case. I believe the
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investigative judgment doctrine is sound. I think it's biblical. I am uh persuaded that it has intellectual or rational relevance, that it has emotional relevance, and that it has relational relevance. That it has impact for all dimensions of our existence as
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human beings. And I believe the Bible bears this out. But we as, you know, any given Seventh-day Adventist at any given moment might not know that it has rational, emotional, and uh relational relevance.
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If if if we're stuck in a kind of, you know, parameters where all we're familiar with is, you know, the version of the thing that's reduced to an apologetic argument.
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That's not the version I'm interested in. I'm interested in what the Bible actually teaches on the subject, and I think it's I think it's it's just mind-blowing and beautiful.
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And so, I full disclosure, I do believe very strongly that the Bible does teach uh this doctrine. And thank you guys for being willing to explore that and give me a give me a chance to explain it to
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whoever might tune into this. So, thank you for for allowing this to happen. So, I am I I'm I'm really excited to hear that that element of how how it has that relevance. I just wanted to name before
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[clears throat] we dive into that just a couple of things that I know people have felt from how the belief is stated.
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Which is a lot of people have felt um the investigative judgment piece of it is the piece that's maybe thrown them the most because at least the context is in 1844 Jesus changes apartments in the in the heavenly sanctuary and is now
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judging the judging the world. And therefore, um if you're looking at uh at this timeline we're in where the end end is close, Jesus is judging you, um writing all of your mistakes down. And therefore, if that's the case, then all
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you all you really have is fear of that God that that results from that. So, like from an emotional and relational standpoint, that's their experience of of a of a being, you know, that then and no one wants to be around that other
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than for the the blessing that that person that being can give you at the end, which is eternal life and happiness right?
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Yeah. Yeah. So, that's it's a weirdly transactional and fear-based experience of God. Um on the other hand though, I've heard people be like investigative judgment is nonsense. I remember hearing a very progressive pastor, one probably one of the most progressive pastors I've ever
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known, um who is but is also on the on the older side of things and very wise.
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He was like, yeah, investigative judgment's all over the Bible. I mean, you see God come down and look at the Tower of Babel. Like that's investigative judgment. He's he is he is a way it's a um knowledgeable judgment
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that he's doing. I'm going to investigate [clears throat] what's going on and then make a judgment based off of that. He's not just arbitrarily making making judgment calls. I was like, okay, I can totally get behind that. So, I I'm
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behind the concept of investigative judgment. But then there's also that experience that people have. So, I'm not necessarily asking you to go back and refute that as much as I know that's an experience a lot of people have and why
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people will write it off pretty quick. What what is this all about? And maybe we could start off with avoiding 1844 completely as a date and just talking about the events. That's I'm I'm curious about that. Um cuz the
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date 1844 is completely it's a completely different conversation um to some degree. Why Why is it important that Jesus changes apartments? Or maybe that maybe maybe that's less less important. What's this like second phase of atonement? What's that all about?
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Okay, so I want to begin a minute or two into what your comments were when you you brought up something that from my perspective is extremely important because um there are individuals who say, you know, investigative judgment, this is not a
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Bible doctrine. This is nowhere in the Bible. This is this is a fabrication of Adventism in general and Ellen White in particular. Investigative judgment, what the heck? Why would you Okay, first of all, you don't need the word investigative
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because it's redundant just grammatically. The etymology of the term investigative judgment um I think it's a fine term. It's just a way of emphasizing the meaning of concepts.
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The word judgment, okay, think about this. And you just brought this up, and I just want to address it.
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The word judgment itself is by definition investigative. So, so whether you say what's going on. whether you say the judgment or the investigative judgment, investigative judgment is just a grammatical way of describing the nature of the thing. The word judgment
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simply means uh discernment or someone you might hear somebody say, I have a friend friend named named Debbie, and she has really good judgment about grocery stores.
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Well, she she's not judging them in any kind of condemnatory sense. She's got discernment. Judgment is discernment.
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The word judgment means just take on board the nuance of the word itself. The word judgment means full disclosure.
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The word judgment means total transparency. The word judgment means the discovery of what is true versus false in any given case. The word judgment means impartial discovery of facts in any given case. So, the judgment is simply a character trait of God, if you think
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about it. So, so for me, as you guys know, cuz cuz you you know me, for me everything is traceable to the character of God. Every doctrine, if it has any value, is saying something about who God is and
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how he operates, how he relates. God is a God of open books. He's an open books kind of God. He's not the CEO of the company who won't let anybody see the financial records uh because maybe something dastardly's going on that he's not proud
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of. God is a God of full disclosure and total transparency. That's the kind of person you want to be married to.
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That's the kind of person you want to be your pastor. That's the kind of person you want to be your your leader in any corporation. That's the kind of person you want to be your God.
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So, for me to say to put the doctrine of the investigative judgment on the table is to say do we want a God who is a God of transparency and full disclosure, or do we want a God who simply rules by power and control
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and says, "I'm God, you're not. Shut up and sit down. I'm the one that calls the shots around here. It's my universe. How dare you ask me for information?" Yeah.
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The judge The investigative judgment is just bringing all information, all data to the table regarding every person in the universe and throughout history, including God. I don't know if you guys are aware of this. I think you probably
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are because you are, you know, you're studying on this, but some of the people that are listening might not be aware of this. The Bible not only says that that that God will and has throughout history engaged in a full disclosure process, a
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transparency process in which which God assesses situations and says, "Oh, look what's going on here. And my opinion as God about this is X, Y, and Z." That's judgment, and it happens throughout scripture. But, a lot of people aren't aware that it it runs the
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other direction, that God himself God himself subjects himself to judgment. Look at Isaiah chapter 5 where where God through Isaiah tells a parable. He says, "Let me tell you a story about my beloved.
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My beloved, I love my beloved very much, Yahweh says. I planted a vineyard for my beloved, and and and then I built a tower for my beloved in order to watch for enemies.
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But, my beloved, this is Israel, the people of God, my my beloved has not loved me back. My beloved has not treated me with the same kind of integrity and covenantal love that I've treated my beloved.
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And then this line, this is this absolutely mind-blowing. The God of the universe, Yahweh says to the reader of Isaiah 5, "Now then, judge judge between me and my beloved." And then God poses a question, and you can feel the emotional weight of
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it. God says, "Hey, everybody, look at Israel and how they've treated me. Look at me and how I've treated Israel.
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Judge between me and my people." And then God asks this very deep question. Is there anything more I could have done for my beloved that I have not done?
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Please bring that to the table. Please tell me if I could have loved you better.
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Please tell me if I could have been any more in any way for you that would have not caused you to treat me in the way that you're treating. Please judge me, Yahweh God. I want you all to assess me.
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This is Yeah. beautiful. To have the most powerful person in the universe, almighty, omnipotent God say to human beings, "I want you to assess me. I want you to judge me." Judge God? I can't judge God, and yet
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God says, "No, I want you to. I want you to to to help me understand if if Is Is there any way I could love you better?
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Because I really want you. I want you to spend eternity with me. Have I treated you fairly?
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Have I been good to you? So, I mean, so investigative judgment, I don't care if we use the word investigative or not. The word judgment is enough for me because I understand the word. The word means to investigate. So, add the word, take the
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word away, it doesn't matter. It's just a It's just a grammatical redundancy um that is helpful, I think, to describe the nature of the event, of the thing.
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It's investigative in nature. I've heard someone say say it as like informed judgment. It It's It's God is not like language.
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It's It's not arbitrary. It's not just like, "Oh, random." It's It's God is is showing, "I know why I'm making these decisions, and you can see it, too." Hey Hey, it's it's a kind of DOJ.
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Are you referencing Elon Musk right now? guys Do you guys got it, or you didn't get it? I'm sorry.
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Oh, yeah. For sure. I'm totally missing it right now. No, I'm with you. DOJ is the the I'm in the dark.
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of Government Efficiency where where where they said, "Hey, we need to launch an investigation into all government agencies." A lot of investigation? Yeah, we need to launch an investigation.
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So, so we all know as hu- We know as human beings, don't we, that investigation is vital. Judgment is vital. We do it every day. You walk in a grocery store, you're like, "These oranges look good. These do not look
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good." You're constantly in assessment mode. The The most popular verse in the Bible is a judgment text. Listen to it.
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"For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son Wow. whoever believes in me, in him, will have everlasting life." The next verse.
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"For God did not send his son into the world to judge to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved." So, so here the whole premise of John 3:16 is "I have loved you Mhm. so sufficiently
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that if you examine me, you'll believe in me." To believe That's good. presupposes that you have engaged in a cognitive, rational, emotional evaluation process by which you're going to judge whether or not you find God attractive sufficiently to
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believe in him. He says, "I have so loved you. Do you believe in me?" So, you have to assess his character in order to believe in him. You have to You have to investigate the claims of the gospel. I mean, we're preachers, you
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guys. We're We're We're preachers. What What Why do you stand ever in a pulpit at all? You stand in a pulpit to describe the beauty and goodness of God's character and to ask people to investigate the claims of the gospel,
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and then you say, "Hey, is it believable?" Ty, that's that that feel I think for a lot of people that's a paradigm shift because for many of us, I think, growing up in church, especially if you're an Adventist, the word judgment itself, I
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think, it evokes the the you know, the judge on the chair with the gavel.
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Right? That I think that that's often the metaphoric imagery that comes to mind for many of us who grew up, and that's the you know, like guilty or not guilty. That's it's black or white.
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That's what it there is a dimension of that, is it is there not? Think about this for a minute.
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Judgment for for, you know, in any given these oranges or these ones involves favor, disfavor. I'm buying these ones.
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Right? So, so there is a favor, disfavor aspect to it. But, but but here's what's important to realize. Jesus himself is the one who taught this this process by which assessment and distinction will occur. Okay, so let's just go straight
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to Jesus. Straight to Jesus because a lot of people are kind of allergic to the investigative judgment doctrine because they think, "Okay, this sounds negative. This sounds like God is is is going to say yes, no to individuals, right? Favor, disfavor."
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Okay, so but check this out. Here's Jesus in Matthew chapter 7. "Judge not that you be not judged.
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For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged, and with what measure you measure, it will be measured back to you." Jesus is describing a psychological reality here. He's saying, "Listen, the parameters of judgment that you set
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up in your mind will make it either possible or impossible for you to discern my love for you, my favor, my forgiveness. He's not saying if you if you treat me if you treat people Here's what God is not saying, Jesus is not
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saying, "If you treat people badly, I'm going to treat you badly, too." Mhm. He's not saying if you judge people with condemn if you're condemnatory a judge a micromanaging miserly judgmental person who's like judging people in a negative sense, well, then I'm going to
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adopt your character toward you. Mhm. I'm going to treat you the way you're treating everybody else. What? Is God going to adopt my bad character in relation to me?
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Actually, what this is saying is Jesus saying "Listen if you're condemnatory toward people, you create in your mind psychological parameters beyond which you can't see my forgiveness when you need it." I read it I read something on a bathroom
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wall one time. There's all kinds of wisdom on bathroom walls. So So, I'm I'm in Ireland and I go into a public restroom and in Ireland they're really into poetry, limericks, you know? So, here's this thing on the
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wall in the bathroom. It says, "If you forgive if you refuse to forgive someone, you burn the bridge over which you yourself must pass someday." That's That's Matthew chapter 7.
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toilet. Yeah. Yeah. Matthew [laughter] 7:1. Jesus is saying that the same measure with which you measure will be measured back to you. If you perceive God as condemnatory toward you, you will have condemnation for others.
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And to the degree that you keep living in judgmental condemnation of others, the day is going to come when you will need God's forgiveness, but you won't be able to perceive it because you've been so negative toward everybody around you.
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You're You're judging others and so now you can't see God's love for you. But then Jesus goes on in verse 15 and he says, "Beware of false prophets." Cuz this topic here starting with verse 1 is judgment. Beware of false prophets.
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What's a prophet? A prophet's a religious figure who come to you in sheep's clothing. Well, these are These These are not atheists.
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These are These are not These are These are not drug smugglers. These are Christians in {quote} marks.
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These are Christian leaders, in fact, because they're false prophets. They're in a prophetic role. They're coming to you in sheep's clothing. They look like Jesus on the exterior.
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Mhm. But inwardly, he says, they are ravenous wolves. And you will know them, verse 16, by their fruits.
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What? So, Jesus is saying that with it Now, here's a very crucial point, you guys. Within the parameters of professed Christianity, judgment must occur. Why?
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Well, because not everybody, to use the words of Paul, "They are not all Israel who are of Israel." This is Paul in Romans. They are not all Israel who are of Israel?
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What? Everyone who says, "I'm a Christian" isn't necessarily a Christian. Jesus says, in fact, there are ravenous wolves who are wearing Christian guises.
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They show up in pulpits. They teach things. They're on television. These people are ravenous wolves, some of them, and the only way you'll know them is by their fruits, which implies what? You should assess.
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You should judge. You should investigate by their fruits. So, this is happening within the parameters of Christianity.
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And the reason I bring this up is because there are a lot of Not a lot, I don't know. I've had some people say to me, "I can't do the investigative judgment doctrine because because God doesn't won't judge Christians."
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Well, well, Jesus says that Christianity is a mixed bag. Christianity's So, look at Look at verse 21.
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"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven." Apparently, God's going to decide with disfavor on some some ravenous wolves that that have some fluffy lamb clothing on, right? They won't enter the kingdom of heaven even
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though they're saying my name. But he who does the will of my father in heaven.
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Mhm. Someone says, "Oh, no, no, no. I don't believe in salvation by works. I don't have to do the will of God to get into heaven." Okay, your beef is with Jesus, not with me. I'm just reading scripture here.
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[laughter] Not everyone who says me, "Lord, Lord," will enter the kingdom of heaven. Now, watch this. But he who does the will of my father in heaven. Many, not a few, but many will say to me in that day,
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'Lord Lord have we not prophesied in your name?" This is Christian activity. Yeah. cast out demons in your name, Jesus?
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Have we not done many wonders in your name, Jesus? We're all about you, Jesus.
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We're talking about you. We're using your name when we We end our prayers, we say, 'In Jesus' name.' We prophesy. We do all kind of stuff. And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you.
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Depart from me, you who work iniquity or practice lawlessness in the New King James version." What? Have mercy. Okay, so this is Jesus. And according to Jesus, the judgment does actually Let's just draw a circle in our imagination. Here's a circle and this is
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everyone who names the name of Christ doing things in the name of Jesus, the church. Adventists, Baptists, Presbyterians, Catholics, everybody who names the name of Christ in this circle.
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And then there's the wide world out there of unbelievers. Well, some branches of Protestant Christianity have collapsed the judgment into All of us here in this circle are off-limits.
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Nobody in here is going to be judged. The judgment isn't for people who name the name of Jesus. It's It's for human traffickers and drug smugglers and atheists and and and and and and you know, and and and negative bloggers.
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That's what's going on out there. Adventists have done the opposite. It's like it feels more intense to be like an Adventist in the end times cuz it's like, "Yeah, everything that I'm doing is under is under scrutiny." Well,
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brother, there is no doubt there is no doubt that that we as a a people historically and and currently in some ways, although a moment ago we agreed that nobody's preaching it. So, Apparently Apparently, we we're not we're not saying a whole lot about it
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anymore. But it is true that historically we we have overemphasized parts of the judgment doctrine so that a genuine, you know, you know, a 23-year-old lovely committed Christian girl named Lucy who loves Jesus with all her heart, but
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but she made a mistake the other day and the investigative judgment means to her that, "My [clears throat] goodness, I'm not going to make it cuz I made a mistake the other day." The judgment really isn't for the investigative judgment doctrine
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Think about it like this. The invest investigative judgment doctrine, according to scripture, says that the Lord Let everyone who Hear the words. Let everyone who names the name of Christ depart from iniquity.
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And then And then scripture says, "The Lord knows those who are his." Now, I'm not in the position to judge because I don't know what's going on in people's hearts in in in their inside of them. Okay? But apparently,
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God knows who the wolves are and who the sheep are. Who Who Who the wheat are and who the tares are, which is another judgment scripture. Or Matthew 25, who the goats are and who the sheep are.
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Jesus, not Paul or anybody else, but Jesus says, and it's under in my version, which is I use mostly the New King James version, in Matthew 25, starting with verse 31, the title that the translators have put in there or the
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printers or whoever did this, it says, "The Son of Man will judge the nations." Mhm. And then it's a judgment text. He says, "When the Son of Man comes in his glory with all his angels, he will sit on the
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throne of his glory and he will judge the nations. All the nations will be gathered before him and he will separate them one from another the as a shepherd divides the sheep from the goats." And then it's all And he
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goes on and he says, "I'll tell you I'll tell you how I'm going to know who's who.
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I was hungry and you fed me. I was naked and you clothed me. I was in prison and you visited me." And some will say, "Oh, what? If we had known If we knew it was you, Jesus, we would have we would have
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showed up." But we just thought it was Yeah. So So So, that's the whole point Jesus is making. He's saying, "Listen, the point is is that you are your motive is to just get yourself in, but your motive isn't to help people." So, Jesus
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apparently is going to actually evaluate sheep and goats and say, you know, some people were treating me, Jesus, well in the person of suffering humans.
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Because, you know, that's what he's saying. He said He's saying I'll summarize the whole passage. He says, "Anything you do to anyone, it's like you did it to me.
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And anything you don't do for someone, it's like you didn't do it for me.
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Because I am so empathetically intertwined with every human that everything that is done to everyone I take personal." Right. Like And I think Ty Yeah. But and Ty, you said something last time in in part one that really
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helped me, which was that, you know, our our kind of fear I I think a lot of us the the investigative judgment produced this very You described it as egotistical. It was self-centered like am I in or am I out? This kind of
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works-based fear like I have to be good enough to to enter heaven. I need to have done these things. And And even those verses like you you described like, you know, those who cry, "Lord, Lord," you know, but he says he doesn't
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know them. I I remember as a kid internalizing that like I'm just fearful of like did I do enough for God to know did for Jesus to know me? And I I twisted it into that. And I know I
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wasn't the only one that did that, right? That the idea of like the second coming, the the the judgment. It was just this idea of like do I measure up?
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Did I do enough things for God? Did I read the Bible enough? Did I, you know, was did I not think of these bad things enough or, you know, whatever it was, right? And it was just this constant
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burden. Instead of what you're describing, which is that it's it's moving on from that. Like being able to know like what Jesus did for me is complete. And because of that, it causes a response to build the kingdom, which
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is the sanctuary message. I think that has sometimes been lost in the plot of what Adventism is trying to teach. And it's so easy to go over the edge. Even when you were describing it just now, I could I could see in my brain where I
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could easily have gone over the edge into legalism with the things that you [clears throat] were saying. Not not Not that you worded anything wrong. It's just it seems to happen so easily within our denomination to just twist it
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or go over the edge of like Oh, I you know, I know there's a judgment. So am I am I good enough? Am I am I ready?
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And And it was always this kind of, you know, we twisted the urgency side of Adventism like the imminent return of Christ into this works-based like you better have your act together cuz you don't know when he's going to come.
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That's just not it. That's That's That's what would be called in a certain class of literature hyper-scrupulosity.
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Um And this is This is a human trait and it shows up, you know, in all kinds of communities, not just in Adventism.
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Adventism [clears throat] just has its own version of that level of unhealthy self-analysis. And yet there is healthy self-analysis, you know? Um I do need to to, you know, What does the Bible say? Examine yourselves to see whether you're in the faith. Well, I
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could be lying to myself and I I probably should figure it out. I should probably know whether or not I, you know, it I it's the real deal for me.
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But what you described, um that version of the investigative judgment that you uh were familiar with and raised with or however you encountered it through Adventist education or just by osmosis through sermons here and probably all kinds of
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different sources of this this approach, um that's not healthy. That's psychotic. That you will be on You will be teetering on the edge of, you know, Yeah, you'll be like, "Uh I don't know if I want I can keep hanging around here
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because Okay, let me say it to you this way. Shawn, what you described is not sustainable spiritually, psychologically, theologically. You can't live like that very long. So you'll do one of two things. You'll either You'll either swing to the left
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and abandon the idea altogether as a self-preservation mechanism against the, you know, the the sense of ominous like there's no way I can make it. Jesus is going to come. Oh, no, I prob- I'll try, but I probably won't
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cut the mustard, right? You'll either just jettison it altogether or you'll lower the standard. And this is a very interesting perspective. People think that on the right end So that's the left end of the spectrum, which will take
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you, you know, in a very bad direction. On the right end of the spectrum, people think over there they have the high standards. Not so.
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They lower the standards to behavioral conformity in order to pull it off. To feel like they can actually pull it off. So really there's only Really there's only two religions in the world. We talked about this before.
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There's the gospel and every everything else. And everything else is just so many different versions of legalism.
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There's just the gospel and legalism. And on the legalism side, there's conservative legalism, salvation by maximum requirements, long-list legalism, and then there's liberal legalism, short-list legalism.
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And you'll hear You know when you're encountering short-list legalism when there's an obsession with All I have to do All I have to do to be saved.
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All It's a short All It's just a little bitty list. It's All I have to do to be saved is these two, three, four things.
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It's still the same thing in substance, right? So So what the conservative end of the spectrum does is they lower the standard to a manageable level.
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I can pull I can I can definitely be careful, you know, what I put on my plate at the potluck. I can monitor that. I can I can ask whether or not there's lard in the beans at the
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restaurant. I can pull that off. I can I can manage my relationship with God by making sure that I don't do don't do don't do X, Y, and Z, A, B, and C.
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Okay, so that's not it either. That's not it either. Can I play devil's advocate really quick? Cuz I'm going to say I I read through cuz I was given this as a response from someone. When we were talking about investigative judgment, I
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I I was brought like this chapter to light like What do we do with Ellen White? That's And I'm just going to briefly mention this just because this is one that can paint the the picture.
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So this is This is Great Controversy chapter 28. And this is one that's used I've heard from multiple people as a response to what you just said.
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So this is just This is just one paragraph of it. And And I'm not saying Ellen White is saying this 100% like I'm saying this is how it can be easily interpreted and why I felt this way. And I think why people have
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interpreted it. So this is what he what she says. She says, "Every man's work passes in review before God and is registered for faithfulness or unfaithfulness. Opposite each name in the books of heaven is entered with terrible exactness every wrong word,
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every selfish act, every unfulfilled duty, every secret sin, with every with every artful dissembling, heaven-sent warnings or reproofs neglected, wasted moments, unimproved opportunities, the influence exerted for good or for evil with its far-reaching results, all are chronicled by the recording angel."
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So me I'm just going to tell you, when I read that or when I when I've heard that shared with me in that concept, it terrifies the living crap out of me.
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Uh I I I again, I know there's probably a response to like I know I got this.
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I'm just telling you I'm just telling you I'm just telling you My My only point is is it is it not and I don't want to digress on Ellen White too long, but I want to say that it
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there is a certain component of the way that she words things can that can come across in a way that that feels like in opposition of what you just described, which was a healthy response to my reflection.
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And that that comes across as nitpicky to me. So I'm I I again, I'm not saying we have to do a whole unpacking of Ellen White here. That's a whole other But I want to I want to I want to unpack a little bit
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if you don't mind cuz because I Okay. Yeah. Yeah. But one of you I heard someone was about to say something.
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I feel like we Jesse and I both have follow-up questions, but Okay. Well, let me let me Yeah. I just want to talk on this a little bit.
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Well, all I was going to say is I I There's two two factors that I We just talked about this as a church staff.
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There's There's one factor where I was mentioning that Ellen White's style of writing is is pretty intense like at times where you're just like, "This doesn't feel nice." Um What's funny is I actually don't disagree with the substance of what
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she's saying from like a a relational standpoint, but the way that she writes it down sounds so intense. But I mean, if you think about it, for all of us, we clock everything that other people do, whether we know it
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or not. Like everything that we can see goes through our head and we recognize it, internalize it. It's It's information for us. And so Yeah, when someone looks bored slightly, I clock it. I don't necessarily judge the entirety of their existence from
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that one moment, but I know that, you know. And so I I think that the substance of what she's saying isn't false from like how we act as how we live as as human beings. We bear the image of God. I
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mean, we we we we take in all this information, but I do think that the style of writing, which was informed by a very different time, is very intense. And so that's kind of an interesting I don't know. That Those are just a
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couple thoughts to add to it. It's like if you had a friend I'm just saying this. If you had a friend that said that pastorally in a sermon, you'd probably be like, "Hey, that rhetoric isn't helpful right now."
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Yeah, and true. Like I'm not even saying she's wrong. I'm All I'm pointing out is that the rhetoric has caused Mhm.
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challenges. And that's that's my only point is the tone and the rhetoric Sounds about right. All I have to do to be saved is Yeah. Yeah, anyways, that's my That's my only point is I think it's just the
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fruit of that that has led to so many to a fear-based system. Sure. Um so that's my only thing. I I'm I'm not trying to disprove it. I I think I agree with Jesse. I'm I just wanted to
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point that out. Okay. Um so I do have a perspective on this and I want to say at a bare minimum two things.
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One is that Okay. That what you just read is definitely intense. If you read the whole chapter, the intensity, you know, compounds.
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It's a very The whole investigative judgment chapter in the book The Great Controversy is pretty intense. Okay, so I'm going to make a point and here's my point.
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I'm going to read something to you and I want to ask you how intense you think this is. Okay, this is On a scale of 1 to 10.
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On a scale from 1 to 10, okay? This is uh from the Lord Jesus Christ.
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And he says this. Listen, listen. He says, "I say to you that every idle word that men speak they will give an account thereof in the day of judgment." Okay, what is an idle word? An idle I mean, we've done some of them while
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having this conversation. We definitely did a lot of them before we actually pushed play and and jumped on here.
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There were idle words in the Okay, every idle word that you shall speak they shall give an account of in the day of judgment. Okay. So Okay, so check this out. The investigative judgment paragraph that you read in the in the whole chapter is
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simply Ellen White expounding on that statement by Jesus and a few others in the Bible from a hundred different angles. She does it elongates the concept, but in substance of of nature and intensity, there's no difference.
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Jesus says that that "Every idle word that men speak, they will give an account of in the day of judgment." Ellen White says, "Whoa, let me expound on that." And then James chapter 4:17, "To him who knows to do right
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Mhm. but does not do it, to him it is sin." So now we're talking about the concept that was in that paragraph and is in that chapter.
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Not only I did something wrong, but you could have done something right in a situation, but you didn't do it.
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So so So all I'm pointing out, I hope you guys hear this. All I'm pointing out is Some people look at the investigative judgment chapter by Ellen White in Great Controversy and they say, "Well, that's not biblical." Well, no, it actually is
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biblical. She's simply doing with the biblical material exposition with you know, she's just saying it a hundred different ways. So there's no wiggle room. I mean, I could do it myself right now. I could say I could quote these verses and a few more to you
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that say essentially the same thing that literally every thought, word, and deed thought, word, and deed and everything I'm in scripture now. I'm not in Ellen White. Every Every thought, word, and deed and everything you could have done
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that was good that you didn't do, every person in prison that you didn't visit, every person that was hungry that you didn't feed, every person that was thirsty that you didn't give water to, this is all Bible. So So Ellen White's
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simply expounding the idea, but but I want to make an additional point and Jesse brought this up. Do you know who else writes like this?
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Charles Spurgeon, John Wesley, Yeah. John Calvin, oh my. For sure. Martin Luther, oh Yeah. I can't get through much of these guys without feeling the intensity level turning up like the the volume is going up on the stereo
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system and you're like, "Oh my goodness, Martin Luther, John Wesley, you know, dial it back a minute here." So So Jesse made an extremely important point.
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Ellen White was writing in the style of her times just like we communicate and write in the style of our times.
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The Seventh-day Adventist Church does not subscribe to the view the the notion of verbal inspiration.
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Who wrote that chapter in Great Controversy? God or Ellen White? Ellen White wrote it. In fact, she tells us in the introduction to the book, which by the way is the only book of all her books that she wrote an introduction to.
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The Great Controversy is the only book Ellen White has an introduction that she wrote. And in that introduction, she explains, "Hey, just so you know, what you're about to read is pretty intense.
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But I want you to know I want you to know that the way inspiration works is the same way the incarnation works. This is Ellen White in the introduction to the book Great Controversy. Inspiration works the way the incarnation works. There's
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the human element and the divine element. And it's true and it's not just, you know, this book, but it's true of the Bible. Isaiah wrote the book of Isaiah, not God.
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He wrote the book of Isaiah under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Listen to Peter's language. "Holy men of old spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit." So So who's doing the speaking? The man, the prophet is the one who's crafting
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the language, the sentence structure, the the the way of conveying the idea, the artistic, stylistic, you know? And Ellen White is a product of her time just like you and I are products of our time. Or think about it like this.
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Think about it like this. In within the parameters of Adventism, you guys know and probably others who are listening to this know that God actually tapped two individuals prior to Ellen White for the prophetic role.
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You guys remember this in in your Adventist history? Hey, hey, God was like, I mean, I'm simplifying this, but God tapped this, "Hey, would you be a spokesperson for me?" And he said, "Nah." Another guy Hey, "Okay, how about you? Will you do
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it?" "Nah." O- Okay, Ellen, will you do it? Okay. So there were two guys prior Two guys prior. Now here's my point. Here's my point.
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Hypothetically, if one of those dudes would have said yes to the prophetic role, to the prophetic ministry, would we have the same body of writings?
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Mhm. No, we wouldn't have the same body of writings. We have a body of opposite direction.
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Watch this. I said I said theoretically, yeah, but [laughter] I was the in the complete opposite spot as you. Okay, so do you guys hear my point though? It's It's a point regarding the nature of inspiration and I'm riffing I'm riffing on what Jesse
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said earlier, which I regard to be extremely important and that is literary style. Literary style. Okay, so if one of those other guys had said yes to the prophetic call, would we have the same books that we have that we got from Ellen White?
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No, we'd have an entire different body of writings. Would the same subject matter show up?
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Yes, because there's a message that God is trying to communicate to the world. It's called the gospel of Christ.
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Would the same subject matter be present? Yes, but would would would one prophet communicate the subject matter in the same way as another prophet? No, no, no, no, no. We have Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. They got the same subject matter, but they
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said it in different ways. John doesn't even care about the genealogies and all the other three guys are like, "Genealogy, that's where we're beginning." And John's like, "In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God." Are you
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feeling me? Are you feeling me? And then he's going Yeah, he's starting with He's starting with He's starting with Greek ontology.
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Philosophy. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Right? Okay. So So my point is simply this. Let me Let me loop back.
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My point is this. The Great Controversy chapter on the investigative judgment is just Ellen White expounding on the biblical concept of judgment and the biblical concept of judgment is every thought, word, and deed and everything you didn't do as well as things you did
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do will be taken into account. Is that heavy? Yes, it's heavy. But it's not heavy because Ellen White made it heavy.
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It's heavy because the Bible made it heavy and she just wrote in the style of her times.
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In a very very I mean, she was just like writing it out. Just read in Charles Spurgeon on the judgment. Read in John Wesley on the judgment.
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John Wesley was short in his shorts. That's true. All I'm hearing Ty is that we got we got our a bench prophet. We got we got third string prophet is what I'm hearing, so.
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Oh, no, no, no, no, no. That's not what you mean. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding.
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No, that's not the That's not the point. The I would suggest to you guys that the point that Jesse's making, not just with regards to the investigative judgment doctrine, but with regards to a lot more that we as a people need to process,
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that the point that Jesse is making is extremely important for the nature of inspiration, which by the way, I'm just going to say this and I'm not going to expound on it. If from my perspective, the with a capital T H E, all uppercase,
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the foundational issue that lies at the base of all Adventist ills is the nature of inspiration.
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Yeah. I'm totally with you. That topic Yeah, I I agree. That Now we're talking about the thing behind the thing behind the thing behind the thing behind the thing behind the thing that really needs That's the nut that needs to be cracked because
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I mean, you read that paragraph, Sean. And it definitely makes you quake in your boots, right?
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Mhm. Okay. Can we understand Can we just read it and say, "Okay, this was written 150 years ago by a a woman who was under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, but had her own vocabulary, her own style of writing that was the product of
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her times, and not and not in no way is a threat to her prophetic gift?" Of course. Of course.
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This is This is This is This is integrated into Adventist thinking, but we don't emphasize it. So, you can emphasize a thing You can emphasize a thing to the point that it becomes false.
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Mhm. Yeah. itself can be true, but you can say it with with You can If you say one thing to the If I preach, for example, justice to the exclusion of mercy, I can make justice a heresy.
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Right. If I preach mercy to the exclusion of justice, I can make mercy a heresy.
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Absolutely. Yeah. Can I actually bring that back to to this concept of judgment that we've been talking about? We we spent a while talking about the investigative judgment piece of the judgment piece of it. And I think that at the core of it is we
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actually desperately want a God who's going to pay attention to to everything. Um we we don't like that.
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beautiful way to say it. That's That's Yeah, we want a God that pays attention to everything.
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Yeah, like I I like I think of my kids and I think like I want I want They want a dad and they want a mom who is going to see the things that are unjust that are done to them. And they're going to
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want to see They're going to want a parent who sees all of the ways they're trying really hard. And they're going to want to see it. They're going to want a parent who can see all the things they're doing that are like top-notch.
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They they want all of that. The The thing that we struggle with as humans is that we want someone to see all the unjust things that are done to us, and we want them to see the people who are doing that to us
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because that's impacting us. The problem is is that when that's shifted around back to us who happen to also be the perpetrators of injustice towards others, that's the point at which we go, "I don't really like justice that much
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because it's it's Yeah, it's it's uncomfortable and directed at me." And yet there when we have people in our lives who we know that the core of their being is a total orientation towards us in in in the in the best sense of the
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word word, then you will hear people say, "And that person always told me the truth, even when it was hard to hear." talking. That's when it goes That's healthy, right? That's healthy. Exactly.
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unhealthy. And so it And it And it's relational. And so that's the part of like judgment that I'm like, "I actually deeply want this." The problem that I run into is when when I when I hear stuff like like Ellen White's um
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passage there cuz And I agree with everything that you've been saying so far. The problem is is that that's the stuff that get emphasized in in intensely. And because of that, because of the way it was written, because of
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how that starts to feel relationally, which is you don't always many don't have that feeling of of surety of God's orientation is totally towards me.
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Everything that he's done has proved his faithfulness and his kindness and his compassion towards me.
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Yes. Exactly. Then there's the other side of and he sees everything. Yes. And then it goes, "Actually, I desperately want that, and I want a God who's going to see all of the places I'm not getting it right, and yet still has a
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compassionate kind heart towards me." The problem is that when we attached it directly to do I get into heaven or not?
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Yeah. And then because of that, it starts to create this like, "Oh, no. God doesn't like me. Therefore, I won't get there." And And now we've like warped the whole thing where it's like actually his whole the whole trajectory of
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scripture seems to be, "I want I want to um I want to be in a relationship with you where I am the I am the perfect one.
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Every I'm I'm the one who has has already done all of this. I've gone ahead of you, and I am drawing you into into looking more and more like me. So, you are aligning more and more with what
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I made you to do. And as a result of that, you will want to be in the kingdom. You will want to be part of this thing that I'm doing where the sick and the poor and the naked, they're the
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ones who who have my heart, and they have yours, too. That's the trajectory. Yeah. And And we want a God who can see the whole picture. So, all of that like when I when I think of justice I go or
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judgment, I think, "Yes, I want a God who judges. I want a God who sees everything, the good, the bad, the middle, the how how hard I'm trying, how how I'm in how other people are impacting me, how I'm impacting others."
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I want I want all of it. The thing that is is in this belief, though, um that is stated I'm I'm I'm looking at the written belief right now, number 24.
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Uh it says that Jesus enters into this second phase of atoning ministry. And and it's this work of investigative judgment. And then it directly ties Last three paragraphs are all directly tied into those who among the dead are actually
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deemed worthy to have part in the first resurrection. The second paragraph, it also makes manifest those who among the living are living in Christ.
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And And then ready for ready to go to heaven. Then this judgment vindicates the justice of God in saving those who believe in Jesus. And so it's all directly tied This whole thing that he's doing directly tied to going to heaven.
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And that's the part maybe where I I think I I feel the most dissonance. The word worthy creates this Yeah, doing a lot of work.
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Yeah, that, too. But not because I disagree with it in concept, but because it emphasizes that the whole part of the investigative judgment is purely about translation into the the age to come as opposed to a work that God has been
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doing all along, and that this might simply be the culmination of So, it might just be a wording issue.
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Yeah. No, I'm glad you took us in this direction because um you know, before we before we we end this, I was hoping that that we would go this direction cuz cuz I don't know You guys are unpredictable.
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You don't know One of you might just say, "I'm out of here cuz I got to go have brunch or something." There isn't there one of you that does brunch randomly? Okay. So, so um That was That was Anthony Anthony was
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the one who did it last week. So, so, so I do want to address you know, before we before we end this, I do want to address what you're bringing up in a couple of things. First of all, on
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the the the 24th fundamental belief and the idea of, you know, atoning work being having a trajectory or two phases or something of that nature, I do want to call our attention to a few things that I think will will be helpful and get to
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the emotional relational dimension of this, which for me is the most important for producing healthy followers of Jesus. Okay, so um Are you guys familiar with the fact that a bunch of theological work is being done outside of Adventism in Protestant
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scholarship that is exactly what it is that the 24th fundamental belief talks about and what Jesse was just mentioning.
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Okay, so there is a a very significant uh Protestant theologian scholar named David Moffitt, and another one named N.T. Wright. You can see he wrote the forward for this book. And you'll notice the title of this book is Rethinking the
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Atonement. So, this dude David Moffitt, he was educated at Duke University, and he uh currently teaches at St. Andrews University. These people have nothing to do with Adventist Adventism, Adventist theology. These are just Protestant scholars, right? N.T. Wright and David
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Moffitt. Now, watch this. This is very interesting. This book came out in 2022. So, you know, it's it's a couple years old, right? But this book The whole point of this book is to rethink the atonement. Meaning what? Why Why are
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these guys rethinking the atonement? I thought I thought that Protestant Evangelicalism has already figured it out. Jesus died on the cross. The atonement happened. Done deal. It's it's over, right? Well, interestingly enough, when N.T. Wright writes the forward to the book, he says,
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check this out. He says, "Theological inquiry and popular preaching regularly assume that salvation and atonement have to do mainly with Jesus' crucifixion." Sound familiar? Of course it does. Thus, the word atonement, N.T. Wright says, itself now suggests to most Christians
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the idea however interpreted that it was specifically Jesus death that dealt with the sin with the human sin problem and that achieved past tense done deal achieved reconciliation between God and humans and that ultimately accomplishes full not the language salvation.
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Particular theories of the atonement have been advanced particularly within the Protestant churches as to how this death atonement idea works such some such interpretations have attained the status of official church dogma. He goes on to say not true. None of this is true and then so
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that's the introduction. Could I could I just really quick uh expand on that uh uh could I just really Well I'm not done with that unless you're going to shift gears on the atonement. On the atonement theories I'm
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just going to expand on it. okay. Just to let people know that that there's a lot of different perspectives on the what happened when Jesus died and so you have things like called the ransom theory satis- substitution theory
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Christus Victor moral influence. There's all these different perspectives on what exactly happened there and what exactly Jesus death accomplished. And the the thing that N.T. Wright seems to be referencing there is that especially and we've run into this Anthony I remember
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you and I talking with with guys from like the reformed tradition it's like that's the main thing what happened at the cross is the entire like everything's leading to that everything looks back at that that's the point.
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And so and and Adventism has gotten a bad rap because it's like oh well you're saying there's more than that.
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Because we believe in two stages of atonement. table. Yeah. Because there's a second stage of atonement and then so that people are like oh you're adding to the whole thing. So I'm just kind of giving some people some background to Yeah thank you
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that's that's that's good. Good yeah good perspective. Okay so that's the that's the forward to the book by N.T.
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Wright right where he's he's essentially saying you know hey there's this idea that I just read. Well then you get into the body of the book by the scholar David Moffitt himself where he's the author of the book and you come to this
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chapter on chapter nine starting with page 135 and you guys notice the notice the title of this chapter.
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It is not finished that's crazy. Okay okay so check this out check this out.
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That's a very Adventist title. Okay it is not finished he says. Well what's not finished bro? What what what?
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Are you going to are you going to okay. So he says it is not finished is the title. Here's the subtitle of the chapter in this Evangelical Protestant scholarly book.
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The subtitle Jesus perpetual atoning work as heavenly high priest. [laughter] in Hebrews That's exactly what I was going to say.
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Read it read it read it read it read it. He didn't make it up. Okay Okay now wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait no no Jesse I'm not going to no no watch
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this watch this. Just hold your thought just for a minute here. Okay. So then the whole point of this chapter and really the whole point of the book is this.
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The first paragraph the ongoing see if this language sounds familiar to you bro. The ongoing high priestly ministry of Jesus in the heavenly tabernacle stands among the most neglected aspects of New Testament Christology and soteriology in much modern biblical and theological
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reflection. Jesus cry in John's gospel it is finished has taken on a life of its own becoming a proof text in certain circles for the view that the full and final completion of Jesus sacrificial and salvific work occurred past tense
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as he expired on the cross. And this brother goes on to essentially say listen we as evangelicals and Protestants have neglected the fact that no it was not finished at the cross.
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There is a heavenly high priestly ongoing ministry of Jesus in the heavenly sanctuary says that is going on right now.
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So so let me ever so briefly state the Adventist view after Jesse Jesse you had a comment and then I want to state the Adventist view.
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I want to catch people up on why like this matters to you to a someone who's not super into the the theology of all this. So the basic idea is if if everything was finished at the cross which it there is an aspect of
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that that is completely true. If everything is finished at the cross then there have been some interesting outgrowths of that I think that I've seen at least which is okay so Jesus died for my sins therefore like sin
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isn't a problem anymore. Yeah. And you're like but you look all around you and you're like but sin is still it like it's still an issue it's still happening right now. Um or you get people who say well I I believed in Jesus and because
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of that because I believe he died for my sins therefore like I'm I'm in heaven and I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm going to be saved. It's like that's true that's totally true but what what about the bigger the bigger issue that
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you're still experiencing living in sin. What about the bigger issue? What what is done like what is what is going to happen to sin as a concept? And so there's some of those things that that we don't necessarily always think
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of it's not always like right in front of us as we're just living our our day-to-day life but these are some of the bigger issues that are at play in Christian thought and that's why admin is Adventism has always had this like
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there's there's something more and that's why this such a big deal that this scholar is saying oh Mhm. we've only ever looked back at the cross and said done.
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And that's totally true like sin has been dealt with in a in a very explicit way at the cross and yet there seems to be there's going to be some sort of continuing and final finishing of the whole thing in the future. So sorry
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that's just some more context for for people. Yeah so so what we have on the table in front of us is that while we as Seventh-day Adventists are over here on a podcast and in all kinds of venues
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um critiquing our view our traditional doctrine of the atonement while we're over here having that discussion Evangelical Protestant scholars are taking it on and saying it's true.
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I mean think that through for a minute. People of no less gravity than N.T.
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Wright and David Moffitt are saying yeah there's something that we as Protestants have missed. Now so I'm just going to articulate in the briefest of forms and then and then we can expound on it what the Adventist view is. The Seventh-day
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Adventist view is that the atoning sacrifice for sin was made past tense done deal and totally made at the cross of Calvary.
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We do not believe as some I'm I'm not talking about what any given Seventh-day Adventist in the pew may you know have misunderstood we're assessing theology here not any individuals dysfunction.
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Okay but officially on paper what we're believing as Adventists is that Jesus sacrificial atonement was made on the cross and it is in fact complete. There is no additional sacrifice to use the words of the book of Hebrews once and for all.
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And for all. What once and for all. So so so no additional no additional sacrifice can be made and that's why we as Protestants in general and and Adventists in particular we push back on transubstantiation you know and and the idea that that
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every every week that the priest actualizes the body and blood of Christ in the in the in the wafer and the and the the the wine and he sacrificed again and again and again no with Luther with Calvin with Zwingli with Huss we
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Adventists say no no no no the sacrifice for sin was made at the cross and it is total and complete and nothing can be contributed to it. Or think of this language of the Apostle Paul in Romans chapter three.
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Romans speaks and I love this language so much. He speaks of the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
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Mhm. So so so it's already thank you. It's already there it's a done deal it's an accomplished fact or you could say it this way. You could say it this way.
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Nothing that you or I could do by way of sacrificial works like doing something good keeping the ten commandments in anything that you or I might do by way of take up your cross and follow me anything we might do adds no new data to
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the salvation portfolio. We don't contribute any merit we don't earn anything no contribution can be made by Ty to Ty's salvation. Can't do it. Jesus did it all in that sense. Okay, now watch this.
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But as we said in last episode, and I'm just going to bring it up now because of these guys and because of the 24th fundamental belief that you've quoted, it is not finished. Why is it not finished? Because when Jesus watched it,
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here's the gospel. Jesus died and Jesus was buried. He was resurrected and according to the New Testament, he ascended to the right hand of the Father to the victory position.
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Right? The right hand, not the left hand. Remember the judgment that Jesus talked about, I will say to the sheep, you come to my right hand and I will say to the goats, no, you come to my left
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hand. This is favor, disfavor. Jesus is at the right hand of the Father, which is the victory position. And watch this, watch this. Paul says that Jesus, God in the flesh, fully God, fully man, hypostatic union, Jesus is like a priest. He's he's a
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hybrid. He is fully human and he's fully God and he is at the right hand of the Father. No, no, no, don't lose it, don't lose You got to have an illustration. Okay.
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Okay. Jesus is at the right hand of the Father. Now watch this. All of humanity is, according to Paul, in him. In Christ.
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Right, in Christ. In Christ. He is the He is the He is, according to Paul, the second Adam, the last Adam. The word last there is eschaton. He's the eschatological man.
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He is the final rendering of man. He is man as man was always meant to be if Adam hadn't [clears throat] blown it.
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So, Jesus is at the right hand of the Father and is now the new representative head of the whole human race. And Paul says that anybody who says, I'm done with this other Adam, the one who blew it, Jesus is my new
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Adam. He's my man. He's my, what Paul calls, the new man, singular. He is the one new man in whom all humans are now properly represented and he's at the right hand of the Father. He's in the favor position. Yeah. According to
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Paul, anybody who says yes to Jesus, which which is the Bible's way of describing this yes posture, is the word faith. Faith.
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Anybody who says Trust. yes to Jesus is is is now experientially represented. We're all objectively represented in Jesus, every man, woman, and child that has ever lived. Jesus, the sacrifice was made in total for all.
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Mhm. Mhm. Not after after you do something. He did it for us before we did anything, right?
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But then by faith I say yes to Jesus, now subjectively I began to receive what sometimes in Adventism is called receiving the benefits of the atonement. What does this mean? This means This means that according to, you know, N.T. Wright
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and Moffatt and according to according to Adventist theology, Jesus is in fact at the right hand of the Father as our heavenly high priest.
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He He's our our heavenly high What does this mean? This means that the atoning sacrifice that was made is to become reality for me.
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John chapter 17 is the high priestly ministry prayer of Jesus before he leaves the earth. He says, let me tell Let me pray out what I'm going to be doing for you at the at the right hand of the Father as your
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heavenly high priest. I pray, Father, that they may be one He did. with me as you and I, Father, are one. This is all atonement language.
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Father, you and I are one. There's no separation between you and I. There's no guilt and shame and sin separating us.
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We're one and I want them to be one with us the same way that you and I are one.
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And And Jesus says, Father, may they be one with each other the way you and I are one with one another. So, this is all Jesus saying, hey, let's work out the implications of my sacrifice in these people's lives.
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I, at the cross of Calvary, loved them to the end. John chapter 13 verse 1. He loved them to the end. To what end? To the utter end of himself. So, Jesus I loved them so much that I sacrificed the
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totality of my life for them. Now, wouldn't it be incredible if we could all begin loving one another the way he loved us? So, Jesus says, I'm now going to send you the Holy Spirit, a parakletos, one that is like me but not
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me, and he'll continually be be nudging and you and and and and and caressing you and and and and working in your conscience to bring you into union with the work that I accomplished for you at Calvary. Don't
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you So, when I hear the the the the the high priestly ministry of Christ doctrine, the judgment doctrine, do you know what I hear? I hear, do you want to love like God loves?
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Do you want Do you want the love of Jesus to be replicated in your life?
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Yes, I do. I want I want to be one with God the way Jesus is one with God and I want to be one with Shawn and Anthony and Jesse. I want to love you guys well.
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I want to love you the way Jesus loves me. And that's atonement. Atonement is at-one-ment. It is It is It is the bringing together of broken apart pieces or entities or individuals. Let's face it, you guys.
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We're we're broken apart. I I have not been good to you. You have not been good to me.
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And Jesus doesn't just want to save us in the postmortem sense. Okay, so you get to go to the good place rather than the bad place when it's all said and done. He says, I want to save you now
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in the way you in the way you process reality and people, the way you see people and and and and Is my salvation constantly on the line? No. It's not the occasional good deed or misdeed that determines my eternal destiny, but the
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general trajectory of my life as I'm responding to Jesus. My salvation was accomplished in Christ and now he is ministering to me the benefits or the achievements that he made at the cross.
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He's saying, hey, let's just do some kind of drip drip drip drip drip of my love into your experience until it takes up all the psychological and emotional and relational space inside of you. So that you Now Now, oh no, oh no, am I
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going to be lost? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You've already said yes to Jesus. He's your savior. You have an advocate with the Father. Now I can look at Jesse and say, hey, Jesse,
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Jesse um Jesus is my savior. Jesse, Jesus is your savior. Let's have a hard conversation, bro, because I hurt you the other day and and I need to apologize. I need to make that right. I don't want to be unreconciled
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from you. I don't want to hurt you and I'm sorry I did. That's atonement.
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That's atonement. Real time on the surface of the earth in my life. Can I Can I summarize real quick? And And I was going to do the same thing.
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I just want to briefly just understand. So, we have attached the investigative judgment and the sanctuary doctrine to the transferring from this life to some future saved existence in heaven. That That's how we've we've traditionally thought of it. What you're claiming is that the
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whole the whole idea of the atonement is not so that our sin problem can can be taken care of in theory and then we can If we believe that, then we get to go there someday. But there's a whole piece
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that's been missing and Adventist theology has tried to address that this whole time and other people are kind of getting a handle on this in their own way, which is that um God is not just Okay, cool. Like sin is dealt with,
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you're done. That's it. It's that he also the work of atonement is also his his resurrection, his victory over these things that have held us captive, his ascension to the place of authority and power on our behalf as well. We're in
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seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. We're also effectively there even though we're not physically there. And um and then last that he has sent his spirit into our lives to be in a transform us from the inside out, to
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bring us into alignment with how we're actually made to be and who he's inviting us to be. And then all of that is simply fully realized in the kingdom to come Yes absolutely.
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we're waiting for that to happen. I could add a Yeah, I just wanted to summarize. If I could add another piece, you're also seeming to be saying, Ty, that like the work Jesus is doing as a our high priest in that moving spaces,
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you know, or even prior to moving spaces, you know, prior to us even getting there, you're saying that this this work, this high priestly intercessory work, it's really it's Jesus doing intercessory work on our behalf, praying this prayer, a prayer
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like John 17, that those things would happen, that he like right now as I'm in Keene, Texas in 2025, Jesus is in heaven and he's praying for me that these things would happen for me.
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It That's what you're saying. That's what you're saying. incredible. I Why wouldn't Why wouldn't anybody want to I'm And I Now I know that it's been misrepresented and we need to, you know, we need to unscramble the eggs,
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you know, but but it's it really is a good thing for me and Shawn to love each other in a way that to the to the best of our ability and our brokenness and woundedness replicates what Jesus did for us at the
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cross. So, the atonement the atonement must be more than just a legal transaction that happened in bookwork in heaven, it needs to be something like me seeing my brother Shawn through the lens of the sacrifice that Jesus made on our behalf at Calvary and
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then if I hurt Shawn, I think that the ongoing work of atonement is is for the Holy Spirit to convince me and say, "Hey, you hurt Shawn Ty.
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You hurt him. He's your brother. Make it right. Clear Clear Yeah. Clear that And do some In investigate that, Ty. And Yeah. Why wouldn't you want that?
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And it's not salvation by works. Yeah. Yeah, but that's the thing is we're we're not talking about salvation.
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We're talking about um you're talking about atonement, which is the idea that reconciliation reconnection um is a work of those who have received salvation. Who have Who know that it's it's through my assurance of salvation.
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This is the great irony of Adventism is the biggest thing I've heard against Adventism is we don't have assurance of salvation because of our two-phase atonement. The greatest irony seems to be that if this is what it is, we should
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have more assurance of salvation than any other Christian I 100% because it it which is a great irony because if I if I buy into this, then when I try to reconcile with you, Ty, or reconcile something I've done, it's not rooted in
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fear and shame. I can I can be assured of my salvation. It's because of that assurance that it compels me to do something about what's not my identity in Christ.
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Yes. So, it's not it's not it's not about me saying, you know, "Oh, I'm just the sinner that I I need to get to get back in the good graces of God." It's actually, "No, because I've been forgiven, because I have been past tense
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saved, and there is an element of it is finished because he did that at the cross, now I am compelled to work this out now while we're going through this process of where Jesus is going to eradicate sin. We're We're past the
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altar of sacrifice. We're entering into this this holy place. We're trying to enter into the presence of God. And it is it is through that effort for I, you know, that I love God and love others, the two greatest commandments, that I
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can most tangibly express that I have been saved. Yeah, bro, [clears throat] it's basically it's basically God saying to you and me, Jesus saying to you and me, "Hey, I've I've sacrificed my life for you. I And I've
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I've accomplished your salvation on your behalf. Would you enter into therapy with me now? It Would you be willing get Would you be willing to get healthy?
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Because I already said Now I do a lot of like counseling with people over the years as you guys do in pastoral ministry. You're with people a lot and they they have, you know, trauma and there are things that need to be worked
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out. And so, there's a sense in which, yeah, we're ministers and preachers, but also we're therapists sometimes. And we live in a culture right now where a lot of people are in therapy. Well, what is therapy? Therapy is investigative
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judgment. That's what therapy is. Ther- Therapy is essentially Therapy is essentially doing the hard work of getting healthy in the light of the truth about my story, my background, everything that I've been through, right? So, the God of the universe, Jesus and the
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Holy Spirit, are saying, "Hey, we want to We want to help you get healthy." He is, after all, called in scripture, among other things, he's the Rose of Sharon, he's the Bread of Life, he's the Light of the World, but he's also the
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Mighty Counselor, the Mighty Therapist. He is the one who can work through our issues with us, and he's the most He He's so good at it. Why?
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Every good therapist or every good pastor knows that the best way to do therapy with someone is you have to create an environment in the relationship between the two of you where there's where there is a sense of safety. Like
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you're safe with me because whatever you tell me, I will not write you off for it. I will not judge you for it in a condemnatory way. I'm not I'll tell you the truth. I'll say, "Hey, that you
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know, at the right moment, I won't even tell you everything you need to hear right this minute because you can't hear everything right now. Jesus even operated this way. There are many things I would tell you, but you cannot bear
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them now. So, I'm going to go to heaven and do your high priest and I'm going to keep telling you things, right? So, every good therapist and pastor knows that you've got to create an environment that's that's a combination of two
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factors. To be fully loved and fully known simultaneously. This is a mantra in my preaching for my whole my whole If I If I If someone would say, "Hey, Ty, could you summarize in a single sentence what you're trying to say?"
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Fully loved and fully known simultaneously. This is what I've been saying on repeat forever and ever. If I know that Anthony loves me and is committed to me and he's not going anywhere, that he's not going to break
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the relationship, right? The more I feel emotionally at rest with him, right? The more he and I can have some introspective conversations in which I might discover some things about myself that are unpleasant. But I'm able to discover the unpleasant things about
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myself because Anthony loves me. Okay, so just take that. That's the micro level. That's just a couple of po-dunk humans.
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Take that to the macro level. Jesus and the Holy Spirit are in this joint work inside the citadel of our minds, what we called last session, the most holy place. And that's why I was trying to say [clears throat]
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in the last session that the sanctuary depicts a psychological journey of self-realization and and and self-discovery and "Search me, oh God, and know my heart and try me and know my thoughts and see if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the
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way everlasting." God, I want to get back in to most holy place intimacy with you, but I got some stuff going on in my heart, my mind, my life. I got some shame, I got some guilt, I got some
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trippy stuff going on inside of me. So, God, you're going to have to coach me along and you're going to have to you're going to have to keep reminding me of your grace and your love for me so
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I have the courage to face the dysfunctions inside of me that make me feel like running and hiding from the whole world, let alone from you, because God, you're God.
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I know you know everything about me. And so, I have to know that you love me.
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I can't know that you know everything about me and not know that you love me.
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Jesus is "I love you. Now let me tell you the truth about yourself gradually, incrementally as you can bear it." That's the investigative judgment.
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That's the, you know, call it two-phase atonement. We do have a bunch of theologians and so, yeah, we're going to use I'm a theologian. We like this language. There's a two-phase atonement.
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Well, what does that mean? It means that what happened in Jesus at Calvary is now being dripped into my life like hormone replacement therapy or something, you know? I'm getting I'm on an IV, right? I'm I'm showing up
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constantly with Jesus so that he can keep [clears throat] saying Yeah. Jesus Jesus is constantly saying, "I love you.
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Now in the light of my love for you, can I tell you something that's not cool about the way you treat people?
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Because you're Ty Ty, you're hurting people and you don't even know it." Wow. So, I feel like we need to like what you how you framed this is I think a paradigm shift for a lot of people, right?
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Like even the step of like Jesus as my high priest in the sanctuary, I don't I think most your average Adventist I don't think even understands what that is, let alone the moving to the next compartment. So, what you're saying
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is extremely compelling. You're essentially making a case for like if we were to use the model of you and Jesse having an altercation, like if I'm God, I'm praying for Jesse and I'm praying for Ty and my heart is that they would
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have reconciliation. And I'm I'm praying to the Father, "Father, please, would you move Would you send the spirit?
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Please move Ty's heart to move towards it. Would you please move Jesse's heart to be open? Would you please And then and then when that happens, when that actually happens, then you guys have that conversation, then you're saying
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the investigative part is the therapy part where God is actually he's he's concerned not only with that that happened, but he's concerned with the state of who you are fundamentally.
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Yes. Would it be Why wouldn't he be? Why wouldn't he be? Would it be fair to say that like I'm I'm for this this is mapping on to to my own personal experiences in life in a way that
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Yeah, this is Yeah, that just seem really interesting. Like because um I'm just imagining going into a therapist's office and this is like Jesus isn't just our therapist, but there's he's there's very nuanced thought process in my head of going into
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your therapist's office for the first time and just having tons of fear because of previous experiences about how this person is going to perceive you and there's a whole work that has to be done to draw you into a space of trust with
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that person, of safety with that person. Mhm. Yeah. Seems to be the work that God has been doing from Genesis 3 Yeah.
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It's culminated at the cross. to to his him being raised up on the cross and all men being drawn to him that there is there is this work Sorry, this is mapping on in a way I've never thought
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of before that God has been proving himself consistently the whole time and through that there's been different things that he's been doing with us at at one point he he says all of you I I have an incredible work for you. Here's
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what I'm going to do for you. Let's work together on this. Here's what I need you to do. I need you to follow what I'm inviting you to I'm trying to teach you how to live.
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And they go, "Okay, yeah. Like I'm going to do it. I'm I'm in the therapist's office. Yeah, I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it." But the whole time I'm still terrified of this of this God,
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this this therapist in front of me cuz what if I get it wrong and all this stuff or I just want to do things my own way and the whole time this therapist has been process or has been walking through this
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with me until the point where I finally get to um until the point where I finally get to just trust and safety or Yes. there's other things that we might go into which is No, okay. This therapist will like me if I just go do
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everything that I'm supposed to do and the therapist is seeing right through everything I'm doing. Like you're just trying to gain my my approval, but you still want to continue doing all the harmful things you've been doing your whole life.
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You're not actually shifting your life. This isn't better for you. You're just trying to get me to to deliver you from something without without it being earned. That that's that's that's not working for you.
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Um and then all also you could just be like, "Yeah, I theoretically want this relationship with you, but actually I just want to go do my own thing. I actually don't care about these therapy sessions at all." There's all of that
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that seems to be going on through the Old Testament, all these different characters in it. The the people who seem to get God the most are people like David who just trusted that God was who he said he was. Yeah. And it's like, "I
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get you." And that's why God seems to be able to work with Moses and with David and with the prophets. They're like, "We just we're going to trust that you are who you say you are." So they have that
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place of safety. That's why it seems like David has such a internally healthy experience with God because he's been so changed by God because he's acting as if God is actually who he says he is. But then as
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it goes on then you finally get to this place where where Jesus says, "So many have just never gotten it." And I'm going to actually put myself in your situation. So it's like the therapist stepping out of the office and
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into your life Mhm. walking alongside you in your life and you're doing all these harmful horrible things in in in your life and they're walking trying to talk through that with you and all the other people in your life until finally
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gets to the point where um they step into the most harmful thing that you possibly been doing in your life Yeah. and they experience the full brunt of your actions against them.
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Yeah. You step back in the therapist's office after that and you go, Well, I trust you now.
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I I have zero doubt or at least the invitation. I have zero doubt that you are who you've been saying you are the whole I'm getting chills the whole time.
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Mhm. And now as a result of this Are you ready? Now the true healing can begin on the other side of actually addressing and bringing you more in line with who you're made to be, who Praise God. you can Sorry, this is just
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mapping on in a way Don't be sorry, God. You you are articulating this very clearly. Yeah. Bro, my wife is the investigative judgment. My wife is the investigative judgment.
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Yeah, here's here's why my wife is the investigative judgment. I mean in microcosm, in type.
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Because she loves me and she tells me the truth. I'm like, "Oh my goodness." When we when we first got married there are things that she would tell me Mhm. that I couldn't bear. I was just like, "Nah, that's not true. I'm
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awesome." Right? [laughter] And she No, you're not awesome. You're not as awesome as you think you are cuz you just you know, did blah blah blah.
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Okay. So but here's the thing about here's the thing about my relationship with my wife.
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She loves me and I know it and that has become increasingly more and more indelibly clear through our marriage, right? So I know she's not going anywhere.
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Yeah. We're not we're not getting married. We are married. It's done. I'm not getting saved. I am saved and I am with Sue in a relationship that presupposes lifelong commitment. That's God. That's Jesus. Presuppose a lifelong commitment.
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He's committed to you forever. Right? And then now that he's committed to you forever, you mentioned David so I cannot help but David committed his double crime of murder and power rape.
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Okay? Have mercy upon me, oh God, according to your loving kindness. Have mercy upon me according to the multitude of your tender mercies. Blot out my transgressions. Watch this.
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Wash me thoroughly Mhm. thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgression and my sin is always before me.
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Against you and only you have I sinned. He goes on and then he says this amazing thing.
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He says you desire truth Mhm. in the inmost being. most being. Yeah. Okay, this is the most holy place of the human temple.
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You don't just want me to be content with Hey. Courtyard, sacrificial altar. Jesus died for me. Check. I'm good. Now I'm going to get on with my life. I know I'm going to the the right place after after this
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is all said and done. Mhm. You don't want me just to hang out in the courtyard. You want me to enter into Jesus died for me. This sacrifice is awesome. Now I'm going to enter into the holy place. What's going on there?
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I'm going to feed you. There's bread. I'm going to illuminate you. There's light. And I'm I'm going to pervade you.
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There's incense. Mhm. The ancient Hebrew people regarded the holy place, the first apartment as the trysting place with a Y. You know what a tryst is? You all you all know what a tryst is? A tryst is it's it's it's a romantic rendezvous.
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It's two people who love each other getting together to cultivate their intimacy. So the ancient Hebrew people they they thought, "Oh, the holy place, that's where we cultivate intimacy with God preparatory to the day of atonement." So so we're going to get to know him.
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He's going to feed us, illuminate us, pervade us. Table of showbread, candelabra altar of incense and then we're going to penetrate one last veil Mhm. into the most holy place where the Shekinah glory of God is, where he's
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been wooing and drawing me all along. I'm going to penetrate that final veil into what Adventists have traditionally called the final atonement or what Moffatt and N.T. Wright call full atonement. These guys will say, "Yeah, the atonement the sacrificial aspect of atonement was
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complete and full at the cross. But full atonement is not made yet because there's a high priestly ministry that is going on and we need to move on in our relationship with Jesus into the most holy place because he's our high
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priest and he's inviting us in. You guys, I'm not making this up. This is exactly what is described in the sanctuary service and it is described in Hebrews chapter 6, Hebrews chapter 10 and John chapter 16.
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All of those passages describe the incremental developmental process of the atonement becoming more and more vivified and alive in my actual experience as a human until I finally end up in face-to-face communion with the Shekinah glory and I feel perfectly
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at home in God's presence. Wow. Th- Th- Th- Th- Th- This is why it's a journey. It's a It's It's It's a journey that is depicted in the sanctuary. Yeah, you're talking about intimacy. Right? Yes. Yeah, that's what
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you're talking about. This is why by the way This is why the the holy place is the trysting place, the place where you cultivate the romantic relationship with God and this is why the Hebrew people saw the most holy place, this is
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mind-blowing, as the marriage. Mhm. The most holy place is a wedding. The day of atonement is a wedding. It's atonement. It's union. It's It's being brought back together with no veil between, right? It's penetrating the veil into intimacy with God. And this is
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why the ancient Hebrew people thought that the Song of Solomon, by the way, was the most holy place correspondence of scripture.
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Mhm. They believed that the most the most intimate picture of the relationship that God wants with his people is the Song of Solomon.
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Mhm. Mhm. Because it corresponds to the most holy place in in Hebrew thought. Mhm.
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Now, I don't know how much time you guys have, but but you tell me how many minutes we have left, and [laughter] I think that we should Well, if we can, okay, maybe we can't, we should talk about Daniel 7 and 8. And
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need a part three, y'all. I That's a part three, Ty. I think we need a part three. Would you Okay, let me ask this.
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Are you guys willing to do Daniel 7 and and 8? 100%. Let's do it.
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Yeah. But not now. that the thing that that we Yeah, cuz I I I think Sean has to go. And and I think this actually demands deeper explanation or explanation.
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Um the reason I the [clears throat] reason I um or I just want to I just want to tell people what you're talking about. Daniel 7 and 8. This is talking about the the 2300 days prophecy. It's how we arrived
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at 1844 and how that all maps on. So, that's a bigger thing. If we were to take out I'll just be honest. I I I've expressed this to people. I've expressed it on the podcast specifically, but I've always um had a challenge with the 1844
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specific like piece of this of this doctrine. And the 2300 days prophecy. Outside [clears throat] of that, I think that you've presented one of the most um because we haven't talked about that yet.
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I When I when I look through through this doctrine, I feel like this is the most compelling expression of this doctrine that I've heard to to date. And um Can you replace the word compelling [clears throat] Would you be willing to replace the word
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compelling with the word beautiful? Yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, it's it's uh it's It's it's it's it's rationally attractive, is it not?
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Yeah. Yes. I mean, the the what I'm what I'm trying to express is is we have Sean brought it up. We have the made this an apologetic conversation for so long. Mhm. And and I've noticed this. I've I've said this I've started
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to say this about reading Paul, for instance. Like I I think Paul is writing about a deeply relational God using logical argumentation. Mhm. And the problem is that we have gotten into the weeds of his logical argumentation instead of trying to see the God he's
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trying to describe on the other side of that, who he is experiencing an intimate relationship with. He's trying to express that through his logical argumentation. I think it's similar when we go through the Old Testament and we're reading like Leviticus and stuff.
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This is expressing how to do these things, but it's trying to invite you into to see the God who's alive behind it all. Mhm. And to be in intimacy with that God. Not not just doing all these things and then and only really thinking
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about the things, not the God. Well, you used a word earlier, Jesse, that I think you need to that we need to recover at this point of your explanation. You said You said that it's it's not healthy for it to be
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transactional. Yeah. a very good word to bring to the table because because our good works have no purchasing power with God.
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We don't get God to be better than he is by anything Yeah. like God God's not a vending machine that you put in the appropriate coins and you get the thing you want. It's not transactional. It's relational.
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Mhm. Ty, I just love the idea that that I I'll just finish this. I just love the idea that God loves us just because he does. Like that's that's just the reality of it. And all of this work
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that God seems to be doing is drawing us into an alignment with how life really is lived. Like as as an abundant life.
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Yeah. Both when he says like truth in our innermost being. It's if we're living out of false realities, it doesn't work. We're we're just going to keep hitting the walls that way. Um but that the whole work of this is not
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to get God to love us. It's love God loves us and is drawing us into alignment with with who we really are and who he made us to be and who he is.
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Mhm. Wow. I I I I know I know Sean has to go. Um I'm going to make him slightly late with this question cuz I just I think it goes full circle to how we began. And I wondered if you could
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answer just really briefly. Which And this is the question. Do you think we have some repentance to do as a church because of the way we have presented And And just We're actually doing it.
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We're doing it right now as as leaders. You guys are leaders. I I guess I now working out that repentance by reframing this doctrine in the light of the the gospel.
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I I ask this because like Jesse I'm Jesse and Sean and I've known each other a long time since eighth grade, ninth grade.
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Sean, don't leave. Don't leave. This is brief. I I got I know. I got to It's got to I got to go. All right, I'm going to have to do some repentance.
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We We We've been We've journeyed together a long time. We were together in high school in the dark days when I remember being 14 and being addicted to pornography and promising God I would never look at it again and then I would
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look at it again the next day and thinking I'm in the investigative judgment. God is going to send me to hell. It's over.
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And as a pastor pastoring mostly younger people for the majority of my career, the list of young adults and teenagers of 11-year-olds, of 12-year-olds, of 13-year-olds who have wept in front of me and said, "I'm terrified of God. I hope God doesn't
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come back. I don't I'm scared. I don't know what to do." I I think the the the bodies that we the trail of bodies that we've left um is heavy. And and and so that's why I I asked that question.
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Yeah. Well, my answer is yes. And that You said a short answer. That's a short I do think we need to repent and reframe. So, Sean, do you want to have a closing prayer for us so that you can skedaddle? And uh Yeah,
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let's do it. But I just want to [clears throat] say thank you. Thank you for uh this conversation. It's been extremely helpful. And yeah, thanks for having me.
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Hey friends, you've just been listening to another episode of Seeking What They Sought. I'm one of your hosts, Anthony Lightner, and on behalf of all the guys, we just want to say a big thank you to all of you who have come alongside us in
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our journey to have honest conversations about Adventism. We appreciate each one of you. As usual, if you haven't already, give us a follow on Instagram. It is kind of like our home base social media wise.
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And if you'd like to stay up to date on the episodes that we're posting or just different things that we're doing, you can follow us there. We're also kind of like low-key a meme account, and we post silly videos and other stuff. So, give
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Speaker A
So, to each one of you, a big thank you. And if you'd like to follow us on Patreon, you can. There's a link in our Instagram bio if you'd like to support us. Thank you so much. Last but not
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least, if you could, could you leave us a review on iTunes or Spotify, wherever you listen, because it really helps us actually in the algorithm to help new people get their eyes on the podcast. Um so, if you could just go in, give us a
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little hopefully a five-star review. Um but, you know, be honest. That really helps us just in the algorithm the way that, you know, these things work these days. So, we really really appreciate it. All right, I think that's it for
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now, friends. So, we will see you next time on Seeking What They Sought.
Topics:Sanctuary DoctrineSeventh-day Adventist1844Investigative JudgmentTy GibsonTabernacleAdventismBible BricksProphecyGospel Message
