Vol. 28, No. 7-8 Straight and Narrow July/Aug. 2019

2019 WV Camp Meeting Report

The theme of the 2019 West Virginia camp meeting was “The Dimensions of Salvation.” The first two articles in this issue of Old Paths are from presentations by Pastor Stump and Sister Holt. One comment that was repeatedly voiced throughout the meet-ings was how all the messages were dovetail-ing together, despite the speakers not having had prior interaction among themselves.

Four new speakers were present this year. They were Brothers Dustin Butler and Vasko Belovski of Pioneer Health and Missions, Brother Micail Aubourg from Canada, and

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Pastor Martin Barlow from Georgia. They brought many fresh perspectives to our at-tention.

Pastor Martin Barlow brought us valuable biblical preaching.

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Congregation

Baby dedication for the Belovski family

While justification was studied, sanctifica-tion was a theme in many of the discourses, and the desire to be fully ready for the com-ing of Christ was evident.

We are thankful for Todd and Rhonda Brown, who, with help from Christy White-hurst, led out in the youth class. This class in-

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cluded some very practical hands-on training, including gardening and bread making, and I was blessed to be a recipient of one of their delicious loaves of whole wheat bread.

Special music by Joshua, Suwannee, and Chelsie

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Brother Jim Rollinson sharing his testimony

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Brother Andy White being baptized

We are also thankful for the help of Raquel Akens with the children in Cradle Roll and Kindergarten.

During the week we were graced with sev-eral musical selections, and we were espe-cially thankful to Sister Chelsie Boreman, who played the piano, and Brother Joshua Brown, who ran the camera and did our recordings.

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Sabbath afternoon we had a very interest-ing question and answer session. All of the speakers were available to answer questions concerning their presentations and other questions of either a general or a specific na-ture.

The meetings were all recorded but due to a very heavy summer speaking/camp meeting schedule, including going to Europe and to the Philippines, the posting of the camp meeting videos may be delayed. We will try to post them as soon as possible and will let you know as progress is made.

All the presentations were recorded and have been posted on our YouTube site. The link for the play list is:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsE-5c918fZH2mwB3B7a33_SRc5QgFGn8

Allen Stump

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The Dimensions of Salvationby Allen Stump

If you ask most people what the dimensions of space are, you will get the answer of length, width, and height. For centuries hu-manity has been measuring these dimensions using simple and, later, complex items.

The first measuring instruments were body parts, such as the cubit, which was the dis-tance from the tip of the hand to the elbow. The span was about one-half a cubit.

In construction, the Romans would use sim-ple but effective tools, like folding rules and gromas for precision.

To compute distances for surveying, metal chains were used. To compute measure-ments, devices like the slide rule were cre-

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ated in the early seventeenth century, based upon logarithms developed by John Napier.

For sea navigation, the sextant was in-vented and when combined with a compass and an accurate clock, the ship’s precise lo-cation could be determined.

Later electronic calculators, computers, and lasers with GPS took over much of the measuring for humanity.

In 1905, when Albert Einstein published his special theory of relativity, a fourth dimen-sion of time was added. The measurement of time had been developed over the centuries, increasingly becoming more precise, from the simple sundial to fire clocks, hour glasses, the pendulum clock, followed by John Harri-son’s pocket watch, and finally quartz move-ment watches and atomic clocks!

In 1915 Einstein published his general the-ory of relativity and explained how gravity works. He introduced the concept of space-

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time, where the mass of an object warps the fabric of space-time.

Einstein’s work prepared the way for quan-tum physics with string theory, which pro-poses that there are not three or even four di-mensions but eleven dimensions, and the mathematics supports the theory!

For centuries humanity has expended great effort to measure our surrounding environ-ment and even the universe. Science tells us that our sun is about ninety-three million miles from the earth. The nearest star to our sun (Alpha Centauri) is over four-light years away.

It’s difficult to conceptualize such vast distances, but a popular analogy sets the Sun at the size of a grapefruit. If you wanted to get from your grapefruit-sized Sun to a grapefruit-sized Alpha Centauri system, you would have to travel about 2,500 miles, which is about the distance

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from coast to coast on the continental United States. And that’s just to the Sun’s closest neighbor! (https://www.skyandtele-scope.com/astronomy-resources/far-clos-est-star/)

And the Andromeda Galaxy (the closest to our Milky Way) is said to be over 2.5 million light years away!

While humanity has endeavored to measure the earth, sea, and sky, we want to undertake the greatest of quantifications—the measur-ing of the plan of salvation. We want to begin to explore a greater frontier than humanity has seen or, for the most part, tried to com-prehend, a frontier whose width and depths are so great that we will study it throughout eternity and never exhaust it. The apostle Paul writes:

O the depth of the riches both of the wis-dom and knowledge of God! how unsearch-

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able are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! (Romans 11:33)

Ellen White adds this:

Since God is infinite, and in Him are all the treasures of wisdom, we may to all eternity be ever searching, ever learning, yet never exhaust the riches of His wis-dom, His goodness, or His power. (Educa-tion, p. 172.2)

So, while the righteous will study God and the plan of redemption for eternity because his ways are past finding out and he is infi-nite, we will never exhaust our study.

In this current study we want to look at the totality of humanity’s salvation, heaven’s steps of salvation, and, finally, the larger is-sues.

The totality of man’s salvationIn Ephesians 3:14–21, the apostle speaks of

his prayer for the believers at Ephesus:

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For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, That he would grant you, accord-ing to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to com-prehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God. Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abun-dantly above all that we ask or think, ac-cording to the power that worketh in us, Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen. (Ephesians 3:14–21)

Paul even begins with a proper posture for his prayer. He says, “I bow my knees.” He

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wants to give a proper address before the Fa-ther, to do all in his power to be sure his prayer is heard. What Paul is about to pray for is so grand, so lofty, and so overwhelming that he knows he cannot do it in human strength or wisdom, so he gets on his knees, and he pleads with the Father of all creation!

Paul is seeking great things for the believ-ers at Ephesus and for those who would later read the inspired epistle. He prays that God will grant them great things, according to the riches of his glory. In what ways? Firstly, to be strengthened deep inside their hearts. He pleads with God to make them men and woman of conviction! Secondly, that Jesus would live in their hearts through faith. Paul wants them to be rooted and grounded in Christ’s love. They are to be men and woman of maturity, rooted and grounded in the love of Christ, so that they are unmovable, un-shakable, in their faith! Thirdly, Paul fer-vently prays that the believers might be able

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to comprehend the breadth, the length, the height, and the depth of God and his love. Paul wants them to know the love of Christ and to grow throughout their entire lives, be-coming enthralled by the grand scope of Christ’s love for them. Paul wants them to be people who are enamored only by Christ and his love!

The greatest and infinite wisdom and riches of God was not just a New Testament theme but a theme from the earliest part of the old-est book of the Bible. Job said:

I would seek unto God, and unto God would I commit my cause: Which doeth great things and unsearchable; marvellous things without number: (Job 5:8, 9)

On November 26, 1922, when Howard Carter, the discoverer of King Tutankhamen’s tomb, made a small breach in the doorway of the tomb, his financier, Lord George Herbert

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Carnarvon, asked Carter, “Can you see any-thing?”

Carter replied with the famous words: “Yes, wonderful things!” But the wonders of King Tut’s tomb, with its solid gold coffin and other artifacts, is nothing compared to the “marvelous things without number” that God has for us to study!

While God’s wisdom and riches are un-searchable and without number, we are to begin somewhere, or we would never be growing. We can begin, and as we study and search out more and more about God, our love for him will grow deeper and deeper.

Though God’s greatness and love will never be exhausted, they are to be understood. Paul, writing to Timothy, stated:

And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of an-gels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed

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on in the world, received up into glory. (1 Timothy 3:16)

Paul writes about the mystery of godliness. The Greek word translated mystery is μυστήριον (mustērion). Some Greek experts have commented on mustērion as follows:

The saying distinguishes the disciples from those who are without comprehen-sion and are thus taught in parables alone. (Kittel, G., Friedrich, G. & Bromiley, G. W., Theological Dictionary of the New Testa-ment, Abridged in One Volume, p. 617)

. . . the content of that which has not been known before but which has been re-vealed to an in-group or restricted con-stituency—‘secret, mystery.’ ὑμῖν δέδοται γνῶναι τὰ μυστήρια τῆς βασιλείας τῶν οὐρανῶν ‘the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you’ Mt 13:11. There is a serious problem involved in translating μυστήριον by a

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word which is equivalent to the English ex-pression ‘mystery,’ for this term in English refers to a secret which people have tried to uncover but which they have failed to understand. In many instances μυστήριον is translated by a phrase meaning ‘that which was not known before,’ with the im-plication of its being revealed at least to some persons. (Louw, J. P. & Nida, E. A., Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testa-ment: based on semantic domains. p. vol. 1, p. 344)

So, the great mystery of godliness is not something that God wishes to hide but is a deep truth he wills for the enlightened ones to understand. Paul used the word mustērion in several places:

How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery; (as I wrote afore in few words, Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mys-tery of Christ) (Ephesians 3:3, 4)

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Paul states that by revelation Christ re-vealed the mystery to him, and he wanted the believers at Ephesus to understand his knowledge of the mystery of Christ. Continu-ing in the same theme, Paul, near the end of his epistle, wrote:

Praying always with all prayer and sup-plication in the Spirit, and watching there-unto with all perseverance and supplica-tion for all saints; And for me, that utter-ance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel, (Ephesians 6:18, 19)

Paul is praying for the saints that he would be able to boldly and properly utter the mys-tery given to him by Christ.

Writing at about the same time to the Colossians, Paul noted:

Whereof I am made a minister, accord-ing to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you, to fulfil the word of

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God; Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: (Colossians 1:25–27)

This mystery Paul says had been hid from ages and generations but was now mani-fested to the saints. That greatest of myster-ies, which even the Gentiles were enlight-ened with, was “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” By the grace of God this mystery can be realized in the life of even the most desti-tute of the believers. It is the great efficacy of Christ’s atonement that makes this possible. Paul boldly declares:

Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make inter-cession for them. (Hebrews 7:25)

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Christ is able to save completely, in every case! An example is seen in the life of Jacob. He was a thief, who deceived his father and cheated his brother; yet, he later became an overcomer and a prince with God (Israel). Many centuries later, however, God brings us the name of Jacob, not Israel, and associates his holy name with the name Jacob. In Psalms 20:1, we read: “The LORD hear thee in the day of trouble; the name of the God of Jacob defend thee.” God associates his sacred name with Jacob to tell us that he is a God who is willing to keep bad company and lift that sin-ner out of the filth in which they struggle.

The Bible is full of stories of some of the worst souls who were washed by the blood of the Lamb. In Hebrews 11:31, we read:

By faith the harlot Rahab perished not with them that believed not, when she had received the spies with peace.

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Rahab had been a harlot! She sold her flesh for profit, but news came to her one day. She might have been visiting the caravans which crisscrossed that area, looking to sell her trade, but this day is different. She hears about a God and his people. This God is so great that he set over two million slaves free from Egypt by opening up the Red Sea. She hears about a God who rained bread from heaven. She hears about a God who kept the people’s clothes from wearing out even after forty years. And, she hears about a God who wants his people to serve him in holiness and offers them pardon and forgiveness. Rahab hears that this great company of people are heading for the Jordan and will be across from Jericho very soon. Faith begins to come alive in her heart, and she run home and tears up her little black book. She washes her face and strips off the ornaments, which are the markers of her trade, and waits. God sees this woman of faith and allows his spies to be in contact with her. They promise her safety,

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if she will help them. She does and before the spies leave, they instruct her to “bind this line of scarlet thread in the window,” and it would be the sign that all in that house would live. The cord was to be scarlet, a symbol of salvation. Isaiah writes:

Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. (Isaiah 1:18)

Later when Jericho was destroyed, only Ra-hab and those in her house lived. It was something wonderful of God to take this har-lot and save her, but that is not all he did be-cause we also read:

And Salmon begat Booz of Rachab; and Booz begat Obed of Ruth; and Obed begat Jesse; And Jesse begat David the king . . . (Matthew 1:5, 6)

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This woman, who had known many men, be-came such a good woman that a good man married her, and she became a progenitor of David. When you follow the genealogy, Jesus Christ is of the seed of David. In other words, our God is so great that in the family tree of Jesus Christ there is a whore who, by faith, was washed in the blood of Christ and made pure!

Our sins are great, but that is not the issue with God, for in Romans 5:20 we read that “where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.” First John 4:4 says, “Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: be-cause greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.”

Christ is infinitely greater than Satan, and his righteousness is infinitely greater than sin! The grace and goodness of God can heal our separation from God and from all other groups of people. In Galatians 3:28, we read:

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There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.

Today our world is rocked with prejudices and hatred between various groups, but we can all be one in Christ by the power of the gospel.

The totality of salvation is seen in God’s de-sire to redeem the entire person. In 1 Thessa-lonians 5:23, we read:

And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The Greek word we translate wholly is from holotelēs, and it means the complete, or the entire, of something. Paul goes on to express God’s desire to have our “whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless.” Why would Paul write spirit, soul, and body? Ac-

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cording to the Bible, is not the soul the union of a body and a spirit?[1] Yes! Even under in-spiration Paul seems to be struggling with trying to express, in its entirety, the com-pleteness of the salvation God offers to man, with nothing left out!

Paul also speaks of this completeness in Ro-mans:

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable ser-vice. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. (Romans 12:1, 2)

In verse 1, he speaks of presenting our bod-ies as a living sacrifice to God. To do this we must care for our body temples, or we will only be able to offer God a dead sacrifice.[2]

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In verse 2, Paul moves to the mind, or spirit, that must be renewed so that we might be able to do the perfect will of God. He is specific. We are not to be conformed to this world. The Greek word translated conformed means to assume a certain form, such as when a potter molds clay. If we allow the world to have sway in our lives, it will cer-tainly mold and form us to its image. But, as John writes, the world is the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life; and it is not of God but doomed to pass away, while those who do the will of God will abide.[3]

Paul next speaks about being transformed in our minds. The redeemed will be trans-lated by the renewing of their bodies, but they are first transformed by the renewing of their minds, and they are new creatures in Christ.

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away;

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behold, all things are become new. (2 Corinthians 5:17)

Heaven’s steps of salvationChronologically, the counsel of peace, spo-

ken of by Zechariah (6:13, 14), between the Father and Son is the first step revealed to man of the plan of redemption. Before cre-ation, the Father and Son covenanted to a plan which could redeem sinners. This coun-cil was only open to the Father and Son. We are told:

The Sovereign of the universe was not alone in His work of beneficence. He had an associate—a co-worker who could ap-preciate His purposes, and could share His joy in giving happiness to created beings. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God.” John 1:1, 2. Christ, the Word, the only begotten of God, was one with the

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eternal Father—one in nature, in charac-ter, in purpose—the only being that could enter into all the counsels and purposes of God. (Ellen White, Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 34.1)

According to Early Writings, pages 126, 149, this counsel resumed after man sinned. The next step was for Jesus to come to this earth in the incarnation. According to Luke 1:35, “that holy thing” would be called the Son of God. A closer look at the verse reveals a beautiful truth.

And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall over-shadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. (Luke 1:35)

Usually in the King James Version supplied words are italicized, but in this verse the word “thing,” though a supplied word, is not

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italicized. Is thing correct? Some translations say one; a French version says infant. But if there is no word after holy, how are the translators to know what translation is best? It should be noted that the Greek word for holy is hagion. Hagion means holy, but this form of the word, as used in the verse, is an adjective and, like all adjectives, it must mod-ify a noun or a pronoun. Like all forms of ha-gios, the root and lemma is neuter in gender, which means it must modify a neuter noun or pronoun. Unless context clearly would pre-vent it, the standard rule would be to find the nearest prior neuter noun or pronoun in the verse and use that word. In Luke 1:35 there is only one neuter noun or pronoun, and that is the Greek word pneuma, which we trans-late as spirit, or, as in Luke 1:35, ghost. Thus, the power of the highest would come upon Mary, and that Holy Spirit would be called the Son of God. This is stated another way by Inspiration:

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Think of Christ’s humiliation. He took upon himself fallen, suffering human na-ture, degraded and defiled by sin. He took our sorrows, bearing our grief and shame. He endured all the temptations wherewith man is beset. He united humanity with di-vinity: a divine spirit dwelt in a temple of flesh. He united himself with the temple. “The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us,” because by so doing he could associate with the sinful, sorrowing sons and daughters of Adam. (Ellen White, The Youth’s Instructor, December 20, 1900, par. 7)

Jesus, the Word, was made flesh of the seed of Abraham (Hebrews 2:16). He “was made of the seed of David according to the flesh” (Ro-mans 1:3). He walked as we must walk so that we could overcome in all things as he did.

But can we truly live as Jesus did? We are told:

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Christ overcame the temptations of Sa-tan as a man. Every man may overcome as Christ overcame. (Ellen White, Selected Messages, bk. 3, p. 136)

Some people believe that the only way Je-sus could live victoriously was to have access to a power that we do not have access to. However:

He [Christ] had only the advantages in the battle which are the privilege of fallen man. He was tempted in all points like as we are, but he met Satan with the weapon of God’s word, saying, “It is written.” (Ellen White, The Youth’s Instructor, Octo-ber 10, 1895)

So, Jesus lived a perfect life of obedience to God’s law, and in him was no sin. He could si-lence the accusing Jews, when he asked: “Which of you convinceth me of sin” (John 8:46)?

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After living a perfect life, Jesus must die and offer a complete and perfect sacrifice upon the cross for our sins.

For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; (1 Corinthians 15:3)

Christ’s death is most strongly told in Isa-iah 53. There we read repeatedly of his death. That death is the great magnet of the gospel—God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son to die for our sins.

If Jesus had been born in our flesh, lived a perfect life, and even died for our sins but was not raised from the dead, we would still be lost in our sins. Paul noted:

For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in

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Christ are perished. (1 Corinthians 15:16–18)

Because of the great emphasis placed upon the resurrection by many evangelicals, espe-cially connecting it to Sunday, Adventists have, at times, not placed the emphasis upon the resurrection of which it is worthy. We cannot let someone else’s unbalanced posi-tion cause us to be unbalanced. Paul says that God demonstrated his mighty power by raising Jesus from the dead:

And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, accord-ing to the working of his mighty power, Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, (Ephesians 1:19, 20)

Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we can be raised not simply from physical death, but also from spiritual death.

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Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the like-ness of his resurrection: (Romans 6:3–5)

Believers are to be baptized, symbolizing spiritual death to self, and then they are raised with Christ, who is the hope of glory. This spiritual death to self, and only this, can bring a new life in Jesus to the believer.

The next step in the plan of salvation is the high priestly ministry of Jesus. After the res-urrection, in accordance with the type, he as-cended to the first apartment of the heavenly sanctuary.

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For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. (Hebrews 4:15)

Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which en-tereth into that within the veil; Whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an high priest for ever after the or-der of Melchisedec. (Hebrews 6:19, 20)

Some have tried to tear down the biblical doctrine of a two-phase sanctuary ministry of Christ by using Hebrews 6:19 to say that at his ascension to heaven, Jesus entered within the veil of the most holy place. This cannot be, according to the typology of the Old Tes-tament. Furthermore, the text does not say second veil, and later in Hebrews 9:3, Paul mentions the second veil with the context clearly describing the most holy place. The

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veil of Hebrews 6:19, therefore, is the first veil into the holy place.

In line with the typology, Christ entered the most holy place of the heavenly sanctuary on October 22, 1844, in exact fulfillment of Daniel 8:14. This movement is depicted in Daniel 7:

I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of days did sit, whose gar-ment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool: his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire. A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him: thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him: the judgment was set, and the books were opened. . . . I saw in the night vi-sions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. (Daniel 7:9, 10, 14)

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The scope of the work is also foretold in the first angel’s message of Revelation 14:7, where we are told that “the hour of his judg-ment is come.”

This is the first phase of the judgment, com-monly known as the investigative judgment. All fair judgments have three phases. Firstly, there is an investigation of the accused, to find out if he/she is guilty of the charges which have been brought. Secondly, there is a judicial, or penalty, phase, where the penalty is determined, if the accused was found guilty in the first phase of the judge-ment. This is followed by the third phase, the executive phase, where the penalty is carried out.

Shortly after the investigative judgment comes the hope of all the ages, the second coming of Christ. Paul calls it the blessed hope:

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Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; (Titus 2:13)

Jesus promised to return (John 14:3) and take us to himself so that we might ever be with our Lord. At that time the dead in Christ will rise and, with the righteous, join our Lord in the air and ever be with the Lord.

For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. (1 Thessalonians 4:16, 17)

This will be the greatest reunion ever! The saints from all ages will unite in praise and glory to the Lamb who has redeemed them.

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After the second coming, when Christ gath-ers the saints, Christ takes his people to heaven to live and reign with him a thousand years. This is the next part of the plan of sal-vation—the one thousand years, or the mil-lennium— when the second phase of the judgment happens. Remember Paul said, “Know ye not that we shall judge angels?” (1 Corinthians 6:3). The fallen angels are yet to be judged:

And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. (Jude 6)

This is not the investigative judgment for the angels but the second phase of the judg-ment, to be quickly followed by the third phase of judgment. Also, during the millen-nium the penalty against the fallen of human-ity will be decided, in unison with the saints’ input.

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This brings us to the next important point of the plan of salvation, the destruction of the wicked, which is the third phase of the judg-ment. Revelation 20:11–15 declares:

And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, ac-cording to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

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Now all sin and sinners are gone forever from the universe. “And there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him” (Revelation 22:3). But there is one more thing! The earth must be made new.

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. And he

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that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faith-ful. (Revelation 21:1–5)

The great controversy is ended. Sin and sinners are no more. The entire universe is clean. One pulse of harmony and gladness beats through the vast creation. From Him who created all, flow life and light and gladness, throughout the realms of illim-itable space. From the minutest atom to the greatest world, all things, animate and inanimate, in their unshadowed beauty and perfect joy, declare that God is love. (Ellen White, The Great Controversy, p. 678.3)

The larger issuesWhile the salvation of man is accomplished

in the plan of redemption, there is truly a larger issue that is resolved, that of clearing

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the Father and Son of the charges which Sa-tan brought against them.

The Bible speaks of war in heaven:

And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which de-ceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. (Revelation 12:7–9)

The war that began in heaven did not finish there. Satan and his demons were cast to this earth, where they have been carrying on their warfare against God. Not only has Satan been hard at work to try to destroy humanity but he has continually brought charges against the goodness and character of God. God has, in effect, been put on trial. This is a

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theme that is clearly found in the Bible. Paul writes:

God forbid: yea, let God be true, but ev-ery man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged....To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Je-sus. (Romans 3:4, 26)

Paul says that God will be justified in what he says and overcome when he is judged! God will demonstrate that he can justify the sinner and be just in doing so!

Revelation 14:7 speaks about the hour of God judgment, and we understand this to have reference to the investigative judgment, which began in 1844, but in a secondary sense, it is the hour of the judgment of God to clear his name and character.

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The basis for Paul’s pronouncement in Ro-mans 3:4 is found in Psalm 51:4: “Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justi-fied when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest.”

The death of Jesus would not only pay the price for our sins, but it helped to vindicate the character of God:

Satan had accused God of requiring self-denial of the angels, when he knew noth-ing of what it meant himself, and when he would not himself make any self-sacrifice for others. This was the accusation that Satan made against God in heaven; and af-ter the evil one was expelled from heaven, he continually charged the Lord with ex-acting service which he would not render himself. Christ came to the world to meet these false accusations, and to reveal the Father. (Ellen White, The Review and Her-ald, February 18, 1890)

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. . . . the plan of redemption had a yet broader and deeper purpose than the sal-vation of man. It was not for this alone that Christ came to the earth; it was not merely that the inhabitants of this little world might regard the law of God as it should be regarded; but it was to vindicate the character of God before the universe. To this result of His great sacrifice—its influ-ence upon the intelligences of other worlds, as well as upon man—the Saviour looked forward when just before His cruci-fixion He said: “Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all unto Me.” John 12:31, 32. The act of Christ in dying for the salvation of man would not only make heaven accessible to men, but before all the universe it would justify God and His Son in their dealing with the rebellion of Satan. It would establish the perpetuity of the law of God and would reveal the na-

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ture and the results of sin. (Ellen White, Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 68.2)

It was the marvel of all the universe that Christ should humble Himself to save fallen man. That He who had passed from star to star, from world to world, superin-tending all, by His providence supplying the needs of every order of being in His vast creation—that He should consent to leave His glory and take upon Himself hu-man nature, was a mystery which the sin-less intelligences of other worlds desired to understand. When Christ came to our world in the form of humanity, all were in-tensely interested in following Him as He traversed, step by step, the bloodstained path from the manger to Calvary. Heaven marked the insult and mockery that He re-ceived, and knew that it was at Satan’s in-stigation. They marked the work of coun-teragencies going forward; Satan con-stantly pressing darkness, sorrow, and

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suffering upon the race, and Christ coun-teracting it. They watched the battle be-tween light and darkness as it waxed stronger. And as Christ in His expiring agony upon the cross cried out, “It is fin-ished” (John 19:30), a shout of triumph rang through every world and through heaven itself. The great contest that had been so long in progress in this world was now decided, and Christ was conqueror. His death had answered the question whether the Father and the Son had suffi-cient love for man to exercise self-denial and a spirit of sacrifice. Satan had re-vealed his true character as a liar and a murderer. It was seen that the very same spirit with which he had ruled the children of men who were under his power, he would have manifested if permitted to con-trol the intelligences of heaven. With one voice the loyal universe united in extolling the divine administration. (Ibid., p. 69.3)

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How sure is the rest of creation about the work of God and Christ? Humanity is the only part of God’s creation that has fallen into the snares of Satan. The rest of God’s creation has lived in obedience to God’s law. In Early Writings we read:

The Lord has given me a view of other worlds. Wings were given me, and an an-gel attended me from the city to a place that was bright and glorious. The grass of the place was living green, and the birds there warbled a sweet song. The inhabi-tants of the place were of all sizes; they were noble, majestic, and lovely. They bore the express image of Jesus, and their coun-tenances beamed with holy joy, expressive of the freedom and happiness of the place. I asked one of them why they were so much more lovely than those on the earth. The reply was, “We have lived in strict obedience to the commandments of God, and have not fallen by disobedience, like

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those on the earth.” (Ellen White, Early Writings, p. 39.3)

Ellen White also writes that these other worlds had a test with a tree of knowledge of good and evil, but they never have eaten of that fruit. With their loyal obedience, they have served God, and yet God will take sin-ners and change them into saints, even trust-ing them to be in his government. But can the beings of other worlds trust us? Will they be able to trust us that we will not re-infect the universe with sin?

I like to backpack and when you are hiking for several days at a time, it is impossible to carry enough water from the beginning of the trip to last the entire time you are out. I have a special water filter I use with total success to purify water from streams, springs, and pools along the trails. It filters dirt and grime from the water, and it also removes the bac-teria from the water. I have taken muddy wa-ter from small pools along the trail and fil-

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tered the water to be clear, clean, and pure. I have drunk hundreds of liters of water using this filter, and I use it with perfect confi-dence. Yes, the water sources have, at times, has been terrible, but after filtering, it is safe to drink and satisfying to the thirst. My confi-dence is not in the water source. I know it is usually bad, but my confidence is in the filter. I know it always will work and do its job.

The confidence of the other worlds is not in humanity. They know the source is bad. Their confidence is in the blood of Jesus (the sin fil-ter). They can trust in the final atonement work of Jesus Christ to know that the sinners of humanity have been made white in the blood of the Lamb and are now safe to in-habit heaven! They know that God’s word is true and when he promises “affliction shall not rise up the second time” (Nahum 1:9), it will be a reality.

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In the heavenly bliss, we will continue to understand deeper and deeper the love, glory, and goodness of God.

There, immortal minds will contemplate with never-failing delight the wonders of creative power, the mysteries of redeem-ing love. There will be no cruel, deceiving foe to tempt to forgetfulness of God. Every faculty will be developed, every capacity increased. The acquirement of knowledge will not weary the mind or exhaust the en-ergies. There the grandest enterprises may be carried forward, the loftiest aspirations reached, the highest ambitions realized; and still there will arise new heights to surmount, new wonders to admire, new truths to comprehend, fresh objects to call forth the powers of mind and soul and body.

All the treasures of the universe will be open to the study of God’s redeemed. Un-fettered by mortality, they wing their tire-

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less flight to worlds afar—worlds that thrilled with sorrow at the spectacle of hu-man woe and rang with songs of gladness at the tidings of a ransomed soul. With un-utterable delight the children of earth en-ter into the joy and the wisdom of unfallen beings. They share the treasures of knowl-edge and understanding gained through ages upon ages in contemplation of God’s handiwork. With undimmed vision they gaze upon the glory of creation—suns and stars and systems, all in their appointed order circling the throne of Deity. Upon all things, from the least to the greatest, the Creator’s name is written, and in all are the riches of His power displayed.

And the years of eternity, as they roll, will bring richer and still more glorious revelations of God and of Christ. As knowl-edge is progressive, so will love, rever-ence, and happiness increase. (White, The Great Controversy, p. 677.2–4)

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Truly the redeemed will be able to sing:

Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to re-ceive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and bless-ing. And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever. (Revelation 5:12, 13)

[1]. See Genesis 2:7; James 2:26.[2]. In 1 Corinthians 3 and 6, Paul speaks of our

bodies as the temple, or dwelling, of God’s holy spirit and the need to keep them from defile-ment. The context is spiritual defilement, but God wants us to glorify him in our bodies in ev-ery way we can; thus, we have a health message to aid in the restoration of not only our bodies but of our minds (spirits), as well, because of the way that the body and mind sympathize with each other.

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[3]. 1 John 2:15–17

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Onenessby Onycha Holt

In the year 610 Muhammed went to a mountain near his home for meditation and prayer, and supposedly the angel Gabriel ap-peared to him, bringing information for him from heaven. These revelations continued for approximately twenty-two years, until Muhammed’s death. They were later gath-ered into what became the Qur’an, but Muhammed did not write them down himself, for he was illiterate; instead, he told them to a few friends, who wrote them down or who memorized them. For the first three years he kept these supernatural experiences mostly private, but then supposedly God commanded him to go public with them, which he did, and he began preaching.

At first he was accepted by his tribe, but when he denied the existence of all gods ex-cept Allah, most of his clan and most of those

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in his tribe turned against him, for they were polytheistic. Leaders of other clans in his hometown of Mecca refused to trade with his clan because it harbored him, and they re-fused to allow marriages between their clans and his.

Muhammed then promised the outpouring of hellfire upon them and ordered his follow-ers to raid tribal trade caravans as they re-turned to Mecca. Soon war broke out, and ji-had became a reality.

The word ihad means struggle, and it can represent more than one kind of struggle. The struggle can be a mental, or an internal, one, and it can also be an armed, physical struggle against all non-Muslims, the purpose of which is to spread Islam, a word which means submission. Today, we see jihad most often in the countries of the Middle East, but it is a terror that has reached into America and around the globe.

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Christian churches are burned and its mem-bers killed in the name of Allah. If you are an infidel and are captured, there are only three options for you—conversion, ransom (which, in reality, is a form of submission to Islam), or death. Ransom can include the forfeiture of all of your possessions—even your home and the clothes on your back—and after you gain release, you are always subject to recap-ture in a future jihad and face the three op-tions again. At no time has there been a sub-stantial peace between Muslims and non-Muslims, and at no time have mainstream Is-lamic authorities taught the equality of non-Muslims with Muslims. Non-Muslims are al-ways substandard, and since the time of Muhammed, there has always been jihad. Why?

Individuals engage in jihad for three main reasons: the promise of glory in paradise, the promise of angelic help during jihad, and the threat of terrible punishment if they do not

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participate, i.e., they will “be tortured like no other sinful human” in hell,[1] but why does Islam teach jihad in the first place? It is be-cause, to them, there is only one true God—Allah. All other gods are imposters, and all who believe in them are worthy of death be-cause they insult Allah. One of the most rep-rehensible crimes in Islam is to claim that Je-sus, the Son of God, is also God, which, to a Muslim, is polytheistic.

On this backdrop we will consider the bibli-cal concept of oneness. The Bible teaches oneness in many places, and we will consider some of them, but Islam also teaches one-ness. Bin Laden said:

We are the children of an Islamic Na-tion, with Prophet Muhammad as its leader, our Lord is one, our Prophet is one, our Qibla [the direction Muslims face dur-ing prayer] is one, we are one nation, and our Book is one. (Tayseer Allouni’s inter-view with Usamah bin Laden, “A Discus-

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sion on the New Crusader Wars”; quoted by Robert Spencer in The History of Jihad, pp. 322, 323)

The theology of Islam is a theology strongly infused with oneness, and Islam itself is a sa-tanic masterpiece. It has been formed over the past one thousand five hundred plus years into the world’s second largest religion. There are 1.8 billion believers, all believing in the importance of oneness and in the impor-tance of being willing to die to defend and to extend the geographic boundaries of that oneness. Jihad will not stop until the whole world submits to Islam.

Satan has the rest of the bases covered, also. He is behind all forms of trinitarianism, tritheism, etc., so that whether the belief is in one god or in three, he has snared most of the religious world. And when you add in Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, and all other religious-isms, plus atheism and other belief-isms, what is left? You and me. Surely you

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can understand we are a little flock and that Satan is determined to crush us into oblivion. He sees us as standing between him and his desired rulership of this world. You and I are under the last desperate attack of Satan.

Oneness between the Father and the Son

When we consider the biblical concept of oneness, John 10:30 may come to mind, which speaks of the oneness between Jesus and his Father:

I and my Father are one. (John 10:30)

Ellen White adds:

God is light; and in the words, “I am the light of the world,” Christ declared His oneness with God . . . (Ellen White, The Desire of Ages, p. 464.3)

What kind of oneness is this? John 17:21 ex-plains it this way: “as thou, Father, art in me,

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and I in thee.” Inspiration also tells us it in-volves being one in heart and soul:

Brethren are to be one in heart and soul, even as Christ and the Father are one. (Ellen White, Testimonies for the Church, vol. 8, p. 232.6; all emphasis in this article supplied unless otherwise noted)

And in seeing eye to eye:

… earnest supplications went up to heaven that God would help us to see eye to eye, that we might be one as Christ and the Father are one.(Ellen White, Testi-monies to Ministers and Gospel Workers, p. 25.1)

Seeing eye to eye means having the same mind and same judgment:

God would have His people disciplined and brought into harmony of action that they may see eye to eye and be of the same mind and of the same judgment.

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(Ellen White, Mind, Character, and Per-sonality, vol. 1, p. 269.2)

And it means speaking the same things:

The very countenances will shine with the glory of God. We shall all see eye to eye. We shall speak the same things, and be of the same judgment. (Ellen White, General Conference Daily Bulletin, April 13, 1891, par. 34)

Seeing eye to eye will occur in the last days:

Thy watchmen shall lift up the voice; with the voice together shall they sing: for they shall see eye to eye, when the Lord shall bring again Zion. (Isaiah 52:8)

And that it is the purpose of God to re-store the unity of the church in the last days, is abundantly evident from the prophecies. We are assured that the watchmen shall see eye to eye, when the

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Lord shall bring again Zion. Also, that in the time of the end the wise shall under-stand. When this is fulfilled, there will be unity of faith with all that God accounts wise; for those that do in reality under-stand aright, must, necessarily, under-stand alike. (Ellen White, Spiritual Gifts, vol. 1, p. 12.3)

Watchmen are to watch for spiritual dan-ger, and they are to be on guard now, before probation closes, for when the seven last plagues fall, there will be no need of a watch-man. All will have been decided by then. It is now that the watchmen need to sound the alarm, and it concerns us to think of how few watchmen there are. In a sense we each must be a watchman, watching and praying for our own spiritual safety and for the safety of oth-ers.

Satan is playing the game of life for the souls of men and women, and the pro-fessed Christian world is asleep. The day

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of God is right upon us, and there are few who are awake to prepare a people to stand in the great day of God. (Ellen White, Lt90–1898.13)

Upon what will the watchmen be seeing eye to eye? The great truths God has given us as a people.

The oneness of their gloryAnother oneness about the Father and the

Son is their glory. The glory of the Son is equal to the glory of the Father, and this equality substantiates Christ’s claim of being one with the Father:

. . . when He comes the second time, di-vinity is no longer concealed. He comes as one equal with God, as His own beloved Son, Prince of heaven and earth. He is also the Redeemer of His people, the Lifegiver. The glory of the Father and the Son are seen to be one. His claim to being one with the Father is now substantiated. His glory

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is the glory of the Son, and the glory of God. Then shall He shine forth before His ancients gloriously. (Ibid., par. 26)

But what is this glory?

It is related to Christ’s authority in heaven and earth:

When Christ passed within the heavenly gates, He was enthroned amidst the adora-tion of the angels. As soon as this cere-mony was completed, the Holy Spirit de-scended upon the disciples in rich cur-rents, and Christ was indeed glorified, even with the glory which He had with the Father from all eternity. The Pentecostal outpouring was Heaven’s communication that the Redeemer’s inauguration was ac-complished. According to His promise He had sent the Holy Spirit from heaven to His followers as a token that He had, as priest and king, received all authority in heaven and on earth, and was the

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Anointed One over His people. (Ellen White, The Acts of the Apostles, p. 38.3)

It is also the light of God’s presence:

Had He appeared with the glory that was His with the Father before the world was, we could not have endured the light of His presence. That we might behold it and not be destroyed, the manifestation of His glory was shrouded. His divinity was veiled with humanity,—the invisible glory in the visible human form. (White, The De-sire of Ages, p. 23.1)

And it is his character. We read in Exodus 33:18, 19 and 34:6, 7:

And he said, I beseech thee, shew me thy glory. And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will pro-claim the name of the LORD before thee; and will be gracious to whom I will be gra-cious, and will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy. . . . And the LORD passed by

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before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.

And his character of love is the glory of God that is revealed in the face of Jesus Christ:

For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (2 Corinthians 4:6)

In the following quotation, Ellen White tells us the glory of God that Jesus came to reveal is his love:

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“The light of the knowledge of the glory of God” is seen “in the face of Jesus Christ.” From the days of eternity the Lord Jesus Christ was one with the Father; He was “the image of God,” the image of His greatness and majesty, “the outshining of his glory.” It was to manifest this glory that He came to our world. To this sin-darkened earth He came to reveal the light of God’s love—to be “God with us.” Therefore it was prophesied of Him, “His name shall be called Immanuel.” (Ellen White, Reflecting Christ, p. 15.2)

It is because of his love that the Father gave his son to us, and this love shone in the face of Jesus, as he went about doing good for those in darkness and proclaiming truth to all people, including the deceitful rulers of Israel. As the development of God’s character occurs in us, this character of love will also shine from us:

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The Lord Jesus Christ is the author of our being, and He is also the author of our redemption, and everyone who will enter the kingdom of God will develop a charac-ter that is the counterpart of the character of God. None can dwell with God in the holy heaven but those who bear His like-ness. Those who are to be redeemed are to be overcomers; they are to be elevated, pure, one with Christ (Letter 55, 1895). (Ellen White, The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, vol. 6, p. 1105.5)

The redeemed will have no spot or wrinkle:

That he might present it to himself a glo-rious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. (Ephesians 5:27)

They will have made their robes white in the blood of the Lamb:

And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which

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came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. (Revelation 7:14)

And, as we read earlier, they will be over-comers:

And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testi-mony; and they loved not their lives unto the death. (Revelation 12:11)

There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to es-cape, that ye may be able to bear it. (1 Corinthians 10:13)

They will shine forth in the glory of the Fa-ther and of the Son, and that glory is the per-fection of their character:

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On Christ’s coronation day, He will not acknowledge as His any who bear spot or wrinkle or any such thing. But to His faith-ful ones He will give crowns of immortal glory. . . .

In that day the redeemed will shine forth in the glory of the Father and the Son. The angels of heaven, touching their golden harps, will welcome the King and His trophies of victory—those who have been washed and made white and tried. A song of triumph will peal forth, filling all heaven. Christ has conquered! He enters the heavenly courts accompanied by His redeemed ones—the witnesses that His mission of suffering and self-sacrifice has not been in vain. (Ellen White, Ms168–1902.26)

But long before this day of jubilation and triumph, war occurred in heaven. Lucifer was jealous of the oneness between the Father and the Son, and this jealousy led to war; and

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when Jesus was in agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, Satan hoped to strike his death blow, and it was on this issue of oneness:

As Christ felt His unity with the Father broken up, He feared that in His human nature He would be unable to endure the coming conflict with the powers of dark-ness. In the wilderness of temptation the destiny of the human race had been at stake. Christ was then conqueror. Now the tempter had come for the last fearful struggle. For this he had been preparing during the three years of Christ’s ministry.

Everything was at stake with him. If he failed here, his hope of mastery was lost; the kingdoms of the world would finally be-come Christ’s; he himself would be over-thrown and cast out. But if Christ could be overcome, the earth would become Satan’s kingdom, and the human race would be forever in his power. With the issues of the conflict before Him, Christ’s soul was filled

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with dread of separation from God. Satan told Him that if He became the surety for a sinful world, the separation would be eternal. He would be identified with Sa-tan’s kingdom, and would nevermore be one with God. (White, The Desire of Ages, p. 686.5)

Oneness between Christ and his peopleAnother oneness taught in the Bible is

found in John 15:4, 5, where we read about Christ’s desire for oneness between himself and his people:

Abide in me, and I in you….I am the vine, ye are the branches (John 15:4, 5)

The branches in the True Vine are the believers who are brought into oneness by connection with the Vine. (Ellen White, The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commen-tary, vol. 5, p. 1143.3)

Referring to verse 7, Ellen White says:

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The indwelling of the words of Christ makes all men one with Him. He has the mind of Christ, the attributes of Christ, and there is perfect harmony between his will and that of the Father. (Ellen White, Ms66–1897)

Accomplishing oneness between us and Je-sus is the work of redemption:

To bring humanity into Christ, to bring the fallen race into oneness with divinity, is the work of redemption. Christ took hu-man nature that men might be one with Him as He is one with the Father, that God may love man as He loves His only-begot-ten Son, that men may be partakers of the divine nature, and be complete in Him. (Ellen White, Selected Messages, vol. 1, p. 250.3)

The perfection of the professed follower of Christ consists in the oneness of his own

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will with the will of God. (Ellen White, Lt22–1872.24)

This is how important oneness with God is. It is the only way perfection occurs. We are also told how close this oneness is:

Divine culture [cultivation] brings per-fection. If in connection with God the work is carried forward, the human agent, through Christ, will day by day gain victory and honor in the battle. Through the grace given, he will overcome, and will be placed on vantage ground. In his relation to Christ he will be bone of His bone, flesh of His flesh, one with Christ in a peculiar [singular] relationship, because Christ took the humanity of man. (Ellen White, Lt5–1900.5)

The work of redemption involves our wills being one with God’s will. We become sym-bolically bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. We are closely one in every way. This is

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what perfection is, and this is to be our expe-rience.

It is a oneness that even the angels cannot know:

Man must pass over the ground over which Christ has passed. As Christ over-came every temptation which Satan brought against Him, so man is to over-come. And those who strive earnestly to overcome are brought into a oneness with Christ that the angels in heaven can never know. (Ibid.)

Christ dwelling within us is connected with our perfection and is symbolized by the phrase bone with his bone and flesh of his flesh.

Enoch was one with God. The Bible says he walked with God (Genesis 5:22, 24). Ellen White says his life “was a wonderful life of oneness. Christ was his Companion. He was in intimate fellowship with God” (Ellen White,

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The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commen-tary, vol. 1, p. 1087.9).

Christ so closely identifies with his people, that when they suffer, he suffers, and when they help one another it is as if they were helping Christ. We read about it in Matthew:

Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. Then shall they also answer him, say-ing, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. (Matthew 25:41–45)

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Inspiration explains:

Jesus here identifies Himself with His suffering people. It was I who was hungry and thirsty. It was I who was a stranger. It was I who was naked. It was I who was sick. It was I who was in prison. When you were enjoying the food from your bounti-fully spread tables, I was famishing in the hovel or street not far from you. When you closed your doors against Me, while your well-furnished rooms were unoccupied, I had not where to lay My head. Your wardrobes were filled with an abundant supply of changeable suits of apparel, upon which means had been needlessly squandered, which you might have given to the needy.

I was destitute of comfortable apparel. When you were enjoying health, I was sick. Misfortune cast Me into prison and bound Me with fetters, bowing down My spirit, depriving Me of freedom and hope, while

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you roamed free. What a oneness Jesus here expresses as existing between Him-self and His suffering disciples! He makes their case His own. He identifies Himself as being in person the very sufferer. Mark, selfish Christian: every neglect of the needy poor, the orphan, the fatherless, is a neglect of Jesus in their person. (Ellen White, Testimonies for the Church, vol. 2, p. 25.3)

Lucille is not her name, and the following story is only a parable. It takes place at Lu-cille’s first camp meeting with this group of people, and she loved it. She stayed in one of the cabins that encircled a lake so small it was almost a pond. A road went around the lake, forking as it came to the lake and going in both directions around it to connect the cabins and the lodge, where meetings were held.

It was a lovely spot, nestled among the trees, with trails going off into the woods. On

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Sabbath the campers hiked to a picnic area for lunch, but now the meetings were over. People were packing their cars, cabins were closed and locked, with the keys being dropped into a dropbox, and Lucille was sit-ting in the grass at the fork of the road, wait-ing for her ride.

Dusk fell, and in the woods darkness settles quickly. Lucille became worried. What was she to do? Everything was quiet now, as most people were gone, but she saw headlights, as she peered across the lake, and thought, I’ll ask them for help, and she started off briskly, in order to catch them before they, too, left.

But, wait. The lights were moving. They were leaving. Oh no—and they are going the other way out. I’ve got to catch them, she thought. She whipped around and ran at a fu-rious pace. They were her last hope. I might not catch them, she worried. “Stop, stop,” she yelled, thinking at the same time, They’ll never hear me. They’re probably all talking

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at once as they are getting settled, but she kept yelling, even screaming, and running as fast as she could in the deepening darkness.

And they both reached the fork in the road at the same time. With one last gulp of air, she yelled “Stop!”, waved her arms above her head, and then nearly collapsed, catching herself on her knees.

And they stopped. And a window rolled down.

“What do you think I should do?” she asked, between quick breaths. “My ride hasn’t come yet, and it is almost dark.”

‘I—really—don’t—know,” came a friendly drawl from behind the steering wheel on the far side, “but—I’m—sure—your ride will come.”

“But I have no way to reach anyone after you leave.”

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“Well, you don’t want to go home with us,” said a voice at the window, lightheartedly. “We live in opposite directions.” And she smiled condescendingly.

Lucille’s words came out with a creeping fearfulness: “I have no flashlight…no water…no shelter if it rains…and no cell service up here.” And the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach started to freeze over.

She was in a terrible predicament, and I ask you, what should the driver and the pas-senger do? All of us are tired at the end of camp meeting. All of us want to return to the comforts of home.

Jesus’ counsel is:

Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. (Matthew 25:40)

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Blessed is he that considereth the poor: The Lord will deliver him in time of trou-ble. (Psalm 41:1)

And to all the Lucilles, God says:

Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness. . . . For I the LORD thy God will hold thy right hand, Saying unto thee, Fear not; I will help thee. (Isaiah 41:10, 13)

God wants us to bear one another’s bur-dens and to help, even if it involves weariness and delay. He will uphold our right hands also.

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Oneness between us and both Jesus and the Father

A oneness is also to exist between the Fa-ther and the Son and us. Jesus prayed for this:

That they all may be one; as thou, Fa-ther, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may be-lieve that thou hast sent me. (John 17:21)

That which is meant by the phrase “that they all may be one” should be clear from the context. Two thats are used in this verse. The second, “that they also may be one in us,” ex-plains the first, “that they all may be one.” It is a reiteration, with the clarifying “in us” added. Not connecting the two thats allows for the possible interpretation of one with one another in the Father and Son. The verse does not say one with one another in the Father and Son, but it can be implied, if the thats are not connected. The Seventh-day

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Adventist Bible Commentary on this verse fo-cuses on unity among believers—a unity of spirit, objectives, and beliefs, with no striving for supremacy—and not on a oneness with the Father and the Son:

There would be diversities of gifts (1 Cor. 12), but there was to be unity of spirit, objectives, and beliefs. There were to be no strivings for supremacy such as had recently plagued the Twelve (Luke 22:24–30). The unity springing from the blended lives of Christians would impress the world of the divine origin of the Chris-tian church. (The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, vol. 5, on John 17:21)

Before there can be unity among Chris-tians, however, there must be unity with Christ. Ellen White says:

Brother will be bound to brother by the golden bonds of the love of Christ. The Spirit of God alone can bring about this

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oneness. He who sanctified Himself can sanctify His disciples. United with Him, they will be united with one another in the most holy faith. (White, Testimonies for the Church, vol. 8, p. 243.3)

In other words, first comes union with Christ, then comes union with one another. Oneness with God will result in oneness among the members of God’s people:

Unity with Christ establishes a bond of unity with one another. (Ellen White, Ms111–1903.9)

But oneness with God will never occur if one adheres to doctrinal error.

We have a testing message to give, and I am instructed to say to our people, Unify, unify. But we are not to unify with those who are departing from the faith . . . With our hearts sweet and kind and true, we are to go forth to proclaim the message, giving no heed to those who lead

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away from the truth. (Ellen White, The Re-view & Herald, April 19, 1906, par. 23)

We cannot surrender the truth in or-der to accomplish this union; for the very means by which it is to be gained is sanctification through the truth. . . . truth is God’s basis for the unity of his people. (Ellen White, Gospel Workers 1892, p. 391.2)

John 17:21 is often used to promote ecu-menism, based on the interpretation that the verse is teaching unity with one another and not unity with the Father and the Son.

This verse is a favorite of promoters of the present ecumenical movement….Jesus was not praying for the unity of a single, worldwide, ecumenical church in which doctrinal heresy would be maintained along with orthodoxy. (The Bible Knowl-edge Commentary on John 17:21)

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In summary, there is a oneness between the Father and the Son. There is a oneness be-tween Christ and his people. There is a one-ness also between the Father and the Son and their people, and there is to be a oneness among us as individual members of God’s church. Godly oneness is a concept taught throughout the Bible.

Other examples of oneness include:

A oneness between the shepherd and his sheep:

As a shepherd seeketh out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered; so will I seek out My sheep . . . (Ezekiel 34:12)

As the shepherd leads his flock over the rocky hills, through forest and wild ravines, to grassy nooks by the riverside; as he watches them on the mountains through the lonely night, shielding from robbers, caring tenderly for the sickly and

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feeble, his life comes to be one with theirs. (White, The Desire of Ages, p. 479.1)

A oneness truth running as a golden thread through the Bible:

All scripture is given by inspiration of God . . . (2 Timothy 3:16, 17)

The truths of the Bible are as pearls hid-den. . . . The illuminated soul sees a spiri-tual unity, one grand golden thread run-ning through the whole, but it requires pa-tience, thought, and prayer to trace out the precious golden thread. (White, Se-lected Messages, vol. 1, p. 19.4)

A oneness within the law of God:

In His teaching He ever presented the law as a divine unity, showing that it is im-possible to keep one precept and break an-other; for the same principle runs through all. Man’s destiny will be determined by

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his obedience to the whole law. (Ellen White, Christ’s Object Lessons, p. 377.4)

When the instruments and voice became one in praise to God, the glory of the LORD filled the house of God at the dedication of Solomon’s temple:

It came even to pass, as the trumpeters and singers were as one, to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking the LORD; and when they lifted up their voice with the trumpets and cymbals and instruments of musick, and praised the LORD, saying, For he is good; for his mercy endureth for ever: that then the house was filled with a cloud, even the house of the LORD; So that the priests could not stand to minister by reason of the cloud: for the glory of the LORD had filled the house of God. (2 Chronicles 5:13, 14)

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The church in heaven and the church on earth are one:

The church of God below is one with the church of God above. Believers on the earth and the beings in heaven who have never fallen constitute one church. (Ellen White, Testimonies for the Church, vol. 6, p. 366.1)

Even the language on earth was one until the Tower of Babel.

Oneness has always been God’s plan for the universe. The history of rebellion in heaven and the current state of affairs on earth show the terrible consequences that have come from the fracturing of oneness with God, but oneness will be restored through the process of salvation.

In spite of being responsible for the contin-ued attempt to destroy man’s oneness with God, Satan, himself, desires oneness. Re-

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member, Lucifer’s desire was to be like the most High, and so he has his counterfeits.

Different individuals around the world, for example, have experienced what they call a cosmic consciousness—a life-changing expe-rience of ecstasy that comes from a feeling of oneness with the universe—a cosmic one-ness. It is a supernatural, once-in-a-lifetime experience that comes to the person unex-pectedly from somewhere deep within the cosmos. In this experience the person learns that there is no past and no future, just the present moment, and there is no sin and guilt, just a love for yourself and for others of such epic proportions that it consumes you and changes your outlook forever. Death is not feared because there is no death, and there also is no God, just this force of the cos-mos. Even atheists who have had such experi-ences become believers, not in God, of course, but in a oneness with the universe. May God protect his people from such Sa-

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tanic witchcraft, and an even worse counter-feit has already been mentioned—Islam, which teaches there is only one God, Allah, one prophet, one book, etc., and that to be-lieve that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is also God is blasphemous.

Oneness with SatanThe ultimate counterfeit oneness, though, is

becoming one with Satan, and most people will.

Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. (John 8:44)

From the first presentation of Christian-ity to the world, there has been a deadly warfare instituted against it. Its messen-gers have been hated, pursued, imprisoned and put to death, because they would not yield to the power of apostasy, and be-come one with Satan and his angels. (Ellen White, The Bible Echo, March 12, 1894, par. 6)

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And inseparably connected with becoming one with Satan is becoming one with the world:

Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. (1 John 2:15)

The heavenly principles that distinguish those who are one with Christ from those who are one with the world have become almost indistinguishable. The professed followers of Christ are no longer a sepa-rate and peculiar people. The line of de-marcation is indistinct. The people are subordinating themselves to the world, to its practices, its customs, its selfishness. The church has gone over to the world in transgression of the law, when the world should have come over to the church in obedience to the law. Daily the church is being converted to the world. (White, Christ’s Object Lessons, p. 315.3)

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Oneness with the Seventh-day Adventist denomination

Another oneness we need to consider is a oneness that some people maintain with the Seventh-day Adventist denomination. Per-haps many of you grew as Christians in this church. I was raised in it and attended Ad-ventists schools for twelve years. I learned to pray in Adventist schools; I learned honesty and integrity in Adventist schools. My teach-ers were either former missionaries, spouses of General Conference leaders, or seemingly godly people who invested in me. My Sabbath School teachers invested also, as did Pathfinder leaders. I remember one particu-lar teacher in academy who met me at the li-brary after school to tell me about Ellen White and her prophetic gift and about the balls of fire she saw falling upon houses:

Last Friday morning, just before I awoke, a very impressive scene was pre-sented before me. I seemed to awake from

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sleep, but was not in my home. From the windows I could behold a terrible confla-gration. Great balls of fire were falling upon houses, and from these balls fiery ar-rows were flying in every direction. It was impossible to check the fires that were kin-dled, and many places were being de-stroyed. The terror of the people was inde-scribable. (Ellen White, Lt278–1906.5; reprinted in Evangelism, p. 29)

I had never heard of such a thing, not even in Bible class, but God provided this godly teacher to go beyond the classroom to teach me, and for that I am grateful because my parents were far from God. These resources of school and church were all I had to link me with heaven. It was a different educational system then, though not perfect, but it is far from perfect now. God has continued to with-draw his blessing. Yet today, there are seem-ingly nice, kind, concerned-for-others people who are one with the denomination. Maybe

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you are one of them. And how can it be? Books of a different order have been written, a new philosophical theology has taken over, and our foundational pillars are being recast right before our eyes, yet it does not seem to be noticed by most of those in the denomina-tion. I think of Daniel:

At the very outset of their career there came to them a decisive test of character. It was provided that they should eat of the food and drink of the wine that came from the king’s table. In this the king thought to give them an expression of his favor and of his solicitude for their welfare. But a por-tion having been offered to idols, the food from the king’s table was consecrated to idolatry; and one partaking of it would be regarded as offering homage to the gods of Babylon. In such homage, loyalty to Je-hovah forbade Daniel and his companions to join. Even a mere pretense of eating the food or drinking the wine would be a de-

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nial of their faith. To do this would be to array themselves with heathenism and to dishonor the principles of the law of God. (Ellen White, Prophets and Kings, p. 481.2)

He and Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah could not eat the king’s food, not because it was unhealthy, which it was, but because it would have demonstrated that they were one with idolatry, for at least a portion of the food and drink had been consecrated to idols. Do you think it is any less required of us to not be associated with idolatry? We may not per-sonally be involved in worshipping an idol, but if we associate with those who do, then we are doing something that Daniel, Hana-niah, Mishael, and Azariah could not do. Ob-viously, Seventh-day Adventist churches do not have literal idols lining their hallways to which members bow and give worship, but the theological errors embraced by the Sev-enth-day Adventist denomination is just as

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much idolatry because it is chosen above God’s word:

It is as easy to make an idol of false doc-trines and theories as to fashion an idol of wood or stone. Satan leads men to con-ceive of God in a false character, as having attributes which He does not possess. A philosophical idol is enthroned in the place of Jehovah...(Ellen White, The Signs of the Times, July 4, 1899)

And they of the denomination are happy to have it so, just as the Israelites were happy with their false prophets:

The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so: and what will ye do in the end thereof? (Jeremiah 5:31)

But Jesus has been calling his people out of Babylon. Why? That they be not ONE with her sins. It is true this call has been, and is being, given predominately because of the vi-

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olation of the fourth commandment, but the call to come out of Babylon is not over the desecration of the Sabbath alone. Babylon is “the habitation of devils, and the hold of ev-ery foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird” (Revelation 18:2), whether the devils, the foul spirits, and the unclean birds be the dictates of Islam, Buddhism, Ro-man Catholicism, apostate Protestantism, or apostate denominational Adventism; and her sins, plural, have reached unto heaven (verse 5).

The time will come when those who love God supremely can no longer remain in connection with such as are “lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.” (Ellen White, The Great Contro-versy, p. 390.1)

Why have I classified mainline Adventism as apostate? First of all because some pillars of its original faith are gone (that the papacy is

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the man of sin, for example), secondly be-cause others are changed (the investigative judgment and the final atonement, for exam-ple), and thirdly because new interpretations of biblical doctrines have in filtrated its belief structure, but let us focus on the first com-mandment:

Thou shalt have no other gods before me. (Exodus 20:3)

You could say that the broad context of the Ten Commandments is the recent exodus of the children of Israel from Egypt, and since Egypt was polytheistic (Ra, the sun god; Nut, the goddess of the sky; Shu, the god of the air, etc.), you could understand God to be ad-dressing this kind of idolatry, especially so because the next commandment connects to the first by forbidding the making of any graven image and the bowing down to it. And this is true; God is addressing literal false gods, but, remember, false gods can be philo-sophical, as well.

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Ellen White makes many applications of the first and second commandments to the hu-man condition and not to literal false gods only. She does not limit the human condition to the specific context of the polytheism of Egypt or of any other nation. A few examples of applications she makes are the worship of Herod as idolatry (The Acts of the Apostles, page 151); self-serving, love of ease, the grat-ification of appetite and passion as idolatry (Ibid., page 317.1); the teaching that the di-vine statutes are no longer binding upon men as idolatry in its effect upon the morals of the people (Christian Education, page 220.1), and covetousness as idolatry (Patriarchs and Prophets, page 496.4). In addition, the follow-ing quotation reveals that science and educa-tion refined and made attractive the spirit of idolatry that was rife in 1889:

Though we do not pay homage to hea-then gods, yet thousands are worshiping at Satan’s shrine as verily as did the king of

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Israel. The very spirit of heathen idolatry is rife today, though under the influence of science and education it has assumed a more refined and attractive form. (Ellen White, Testimonies for the Church, vol. 5, p. 192.3; published 1889)

We can understand the first commandment to be a prohibition on worshiping any hea-then so-called gods, but the first command-ment can also be understood as a prohibition on anything we put in the place of Jehovah, anything we worship as a god. It can be fash-ion, possessions, money, power, science, the theory of evolution, and it can also be false concepts of God, such Allah, the pope, and the trinitarian doctrine, which elevates God’s spirit to co-equality with the Father. With the trinitarian doctrine, Satan holds most of pro-fessed Adventists themselves and the corpo-rate structure, as well, in his evil clutches; thus, Babylon includes the Seventh-day Ad-ventist denomination, and the denunciation of

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Revelation 18:1–5 about being the hold of devils, foul spirits, and uncleanness applies to her. Please understand she is not the hold of every devil and of every unclean spirit be-cause she does not teach, for example, the immortality of the soul and the horrors of hell. You and I have grown as Christians in the great truths the denomination has taught, and you and I cherish the great gift of the Spirit of Prophecy given to us, for these last days, during the early days of the Adventist Church, but the corporate church now mixes truth with error in Babylonian confusion.

Yet, inspiration counseled in 1893 not to call the people of God Babylon:

God is leading out a people. He has a chosen people, a church on the earth whom He has made the depositaries of His law. . . . The message to pronounce the church Babylon and call the people of God out of her does not come from any heav-enly messenger, or any human agent in-

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spired by the Spirit of God. . . . I will say in the fear and love of God, I know the Lord has thoughts of love and mercy to restore and heal them of all their backslidings. He has a work for His church to do. They are not to be pronounced Babylon, but to be as the salt of the earth, the light of the world. They are to be the living messengers to proclaim a living message in these last days. (Ellen White, Lt16–1893.12, 15)

God has a people in which all heaven is interested, and they are the one object on earth dear to the heart of God. Let ev-ery one who reads these words give them thorough consideration; for in the name of Jesus I would press them home upon every soul. When any one arises, either among us or outside of us, who is burdened with a message which declares that the people of God are numbered with Babylon, [we will see below that it is fallen denomina-tions that are Babylon] and claims that the

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loud cry is a call to come out of her, you may know that he is not bearing the mes-sage of truth. (Ellen White, The Review & Herald, August 29, 1893)

We agree that the denomination was not Babylon in 1893, for in 1893 it was securely established upon the pillars of faith that God had given it. The denominated church was not Babylon then, but it soon began a down-ward spiral, and in 1931 the denomination presented to the people a trinitarian doctrine, published for the first time in the 1931 Sev-enth-day Adventist Yearbook and in the church manual.

We are not to think that the chosen ones of God who are trying to walk in the light, compose Babylon. The fallen denominational churches are Babylon. Babylon has been fostering poisonous doc-trines, the wine of error. This wine of error is made up of false doctrines, such as the natural immortality of the soul, the eternal

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torment of the wicked, the denial of the pre-existence of Christ prior to his birth in Bethlehem, and advocating and exalting the first day of the week above God’s holy, sanctified day. These and kindred errors are presented to the world by the various churches, and thus the Scriptures are ful-filled that say, ‘For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.’ (Ibid.)

And one of the kindred errors is trinitarian-ism, which the Catholic Church began to for-mulate at the Council of Nicæa in AD 325 and completed at the Council of Constantinople in AD 381, and which the Roman Catholic Church now teaches as a principal and funda-mental belief, upon which all other beliefs are founded:

The mystery of the Trinity is the princi-pal and fundamental doctrine of Christian-ity; to reject it would be to deny the Chris-tian Faith. The Incarnation, which is the

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source of all grace and blessing to us, is in-conceivable without the Trinity. In the name of the Blessed Trinity the Church ad-ministers all the Sacraments; in the name of the Blessed Trinity she consecrates and blesses persons, places and things; in the name of the Blessed Trinity she begins and ends all her prayers. In the name of the Blessed Trinity we were received into the Church by Baptism. As often as we make the sign of the cross or repeat the Gloria Patri we profess our faith in this mystery. When our last hour draws near, the priest accompanies our departing soul with the words: “Though she has sinned, yet she did not deny the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.” In the name of the Blessed Trinity our mortal remains are consigned to their last resting place. (John Laux, A Course in Religion Part One: Chief Truths of Faith, p. 78; emphasis in original)

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The Doctrine of the Trinity is the central doctrine of the Catholic faith. Upon it are based all the other teachings of the Church. (Handbook for Today’s Catholic, p. 11)

Is it also the central doctrine of the Adven-tist denomination? It is at least close. The doxology is sung in many Adventists worship services, creation is taught to have been ac-complished by all three members of the sup-posed trinity, all three are taught to have been present at the baptism of Jesus, and it is the second fundamental belief of the Adven-tist Church, preceded only by its fundamental belief on the Scriptures.

Many people do not understand that leav-ing a denomination that is teaching error, be it Sunday-keeping or Sabbath-keeping, is a matter of life and death. Often you will hear phrases like the ship is going through or don’t leave the church because it is going through, and the church IS going through,

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but the denomination is not because of the poisonous doctrines it has officially em-braced.

Trinitarianism is one of those poisonous er-rors, but this doctrine only points to a greater issue. The Adventist denomination has re-jected God’s Spirit as his spirit and has ac-cepted the Catholic Church’s transformation of it into an independent god, co-equal and co-eternal with the heavenly Father, in defi-ance of the first commandment. This makes it part of Babylon, and the only recourse is to come out of her.

Oneness in marriageAnother oneness we should also consider is

the sacred oneness between husband and wife, a oneness that has also been attacked since creation and that is often perverted.

In Judges 19 we read about a certain Levite and his concubine. The Bible calls the Levite her husband. They were on a journey when

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tragedy befell her at the hand of her hus-band.

But the men would not hearken to him: so the man took his concubine, and brought her forth unto them; and they knew her, and abused her all the night un-til the morning: and when the day began to spring, they let her go. Then came the woman in the dawning of the day, and fell down at the door of the man’s house where her lord was, till it was light. And her lord rose up in the morning, and opened the doors of the house, and went out to go his way: and, behold, the woman his concu-bine was fallen down at the door of the house, and her hands were upon the threshold. And he said unto her, Up, and let us be going. But none answered. (Judges 19:25–28)

What kind of theological mindset—he was a Levite, and he was on his way to the house of the LORD—accepts and even engages in this

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kind of behavior? By the time of this Levite, the beautiful marriage relationship God es-tablished in the Garden of Eden had eroded to include polygamy, but polygamy was actu-ally practiced long before this. In fact, it was one of the great sins of the antediluvian world:

Polygamy was practiced at an early date. It was one of the sins that brought the wrath of God upon the antediluvian world. Yet after the Flood it again became wide-spread. It was Satan’s studied effort to pervert the marriage institution, to weaken its obligations and lessen its sacredness; for in no surer way could he deface the im-age of God in man and open the door to misery and vice. (Ellen White, Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 338.1)

But after the flood, it re-emerged and about four hundred years thereafter, Abraham es-poused a second wife, Hagar, and much later, Solomon’s polygamy went off the charts. But

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is polygamy, as bad as it is, so bad that it con-tributed to the destruction of the world, more reprehensible than a husband giving his de-fenseless wife to the wolves of the night in or-der to protect himself?

How can we explain away the godless be-havior of the unnamed Levite? We cannot. With a mental arrow, we can point the Levite’s evil behavior back in time to the be-ginning of polygamy, but polygamy is not the cause of his senseless behavior. No, we have to go farther back, back to the separation that occurred between man and God in the Garden of Eden. Prior to sin, man and woman were one, bone of bone and flesh of flesh, so to speak. They were perfectly happy, but sin separated them—cracks occurred, stress fractures, so to speak, and by the time the Levite in our story came along, he, the hus-band, no longer cared if his wife was happy, cared for, or protected. It is a very real illus-tration of what sin leads to.

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God designed a oneness in the marriage union. Male and female were created in the likeness and in the image of God, and this likeness includes physical, mental, and spiri-tual aspects:

When Adam came from the Creator’s hand, he bore, in his physical, mental, and spiritual nature, a likeness to his Maker. “God created man in His own image” (Gen-esis 1:27), and it was His purpose that the longer man lived the more fully he should reveal this image—the more fully reflect the glory of the Creator. (Ellen White, Ed-ucation, p.15.1)

Once again, the glory shining in man is sim-ply the reflection of the glory of God residing in him or her, and the oneness intended to exist between Adam and Eve is revealed by the phrase, bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh, as we read in Genesis 2:

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And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. . . . And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his fa-ther and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. (Gen-esis 2:18, 21–24)

A prerequisite for being one with Christ and one with the Father is a love of Christ and of the truth:

I would ask you to read the seventeenth chapter of John, and see that last prayer of Christ, with His disciples, and see if you

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are framing yourselves to love Christ and the truth, so that you can be one with Christ and one with the Father. (Ellen White, Ms138–1906.51)

And it is the same prerequisite in the mar-riage relationship. Before you can be truly one with your spouse, you must be one with God. You must love Christ and the truth, and as you both do this, then sweet oneness can occur, but what does it mean to be a help meet? And what does it mean in Genesis 3:16 to rule over?

The Hebrew word transliterated mashal and translated rule in Genesis 3:16, means to rule, and it clearly implies subjection.[2] A woman’s position after the fall is one of sub-mission to her husband, not to all men, but to her husband. Mashal, however is not the same word used to describe rulership over the animals, referred to in Genesis 1:26, 28. That word, radah, means to tread down or have dominion over, but mashal does not con-

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vey dictatorial power. Distinction is main-tained in the Bible between dominion over the animals and the husband’s rule over his wife. Mashal implies a servant leadership of protection, care, and love. A divine sentence was given of subjection of the wife to the hus-band as a result of sin, but this sentence is designed to lead back, as much as possible in this world of sin, “to the original plan of har-mony and union between equal partners.” (Davidson, Ibid.)

Prior to the fall woman was equal to man. Both she and he were to have dominion over the earth, and the term help meet, which was used before the fall, never implied or taught subjection or hierarchy.

Help meet is mainly composed of two transliterated Hebrew words—’ezer, which means to aid, to help, and neged, which can mean counterpart or corresponding. One ver-sion translates the phrase ’ezer kenegdô as a helper fit for him and another as a helper

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suitable to him. “These words have often been taken to imply the inferiority or the sub-ordinate status of woman” (Davidson, Ibid.). Even John Calvin considered woman to be a “kind of appendage” and a “lesser helpmeet” for man (John Calvin, Commentary on Gene-sis, vol. 1, pp. 217, 218).

“The word ’ezer is usually translated as help or helper in English,” but this can be misleading “because the English word helper tends to suggest an assistant, a subordinate, an inferior; whereas, the Hebrew carries no such connotation” (Davidson, Ibid.). In fact, the Old Testament frequently employs ’ezer for God as the helper of Israel, but ’ezer does not imply superiority either. It is a term of re-lationship and not of rank.

The second part of the term, meet, conveys the idea of being a counterpart. A literal translation of kenegdô is: like his counter-part, corresponding to him. Used with ’ezer, it indicates an equality: Eve’s position was

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one corresponding to Adam’s. Patriarchy or hierarchy was not involved. It was a side-by-side relationship, with both looking out to-gether on the world God had made.

Eve was created from a rib taken from the side of Adam, signifying that she was not to control him as the head, nor to be trampled under his feet as an inferior, but to stand by his side as an equal, to be loved and protected by him. A part of man, bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh, she was his second self, showing the close union and the affectionate attachment that should exist in this relation. (White, Patri-archs and Prophets, p. 46.2)

God desires perfection in his people not just in the keeping of the Ten Commandments but in the restoration of the beauty of the perfect marriage relationship. This is not only in what others can observe but also in the har-mony and beauty shown to each other in the home. It will be seen by the universe that the

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beauty and holiness of oneness in marriage is possible in the most wicked of worlds, under the most terrible of circumstances. Think of all the perversion the world floods us with to-day, but we can walk through it, with eyes heavenward and with the angels of heaven by our sides. Christ will have a little band of twos becoming one, as lights encircling the globe, revealing the beauty of agape in the home and in all the endeavors of the godly couple. They will shine with the glory of God in the beauty of holiness and in the beauty of oneness.

Satan declares onenessOne last oneness to consider is when Satan

finally bows in agreement with God:

Satan sees that his voluntary rebellion has unfitted him for heaven. He has trained his powers to war against God; the purity, peace, and harmony of heaven would be to him supreme torture. His ac-

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cusations against the mercy and justice of God are now silenced. The reproach which he has endeavored to cast upon Jehovah rests wholly upon himself. And now Satan bows down and confesses the justice of his sentence. (Ellen White, The Story of Re-demption, p. 427)

In no uncertain terms Satan has, in every possible way, tried to disrupt the holy one-ness that once filled the universe. This has been his one aim and his determinedly hostile effort since iniquity was found in him, and we who will be living when Jesus returns will have as our one true aim the restoration of that holy oneness—oneness in the truth; in doing our part in restoring the oneness be-tween Jesus, the Father, and ourselves; in restoring the oneness within the body of Christ; and for some of us, in restoring the oneness in the sacred marriage relationship.

We want the beauty of oneness with God to pervade our lives; we want to be Enochs and

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walk with God. Only then can we cross over into Canaan land and gather with the saints at the river.

[1]. Raymond Ibrahim, Sword and Scimitar, p. 6; quoting from The Intensification and Reorienta-tion of Sunni Jihad Ideology in the Crusader Pe-riod, by James Lindsay and Suleiman Mourad, page 71

[2]. Credit is given to Richard Davidson for some of the information in the next five paragraphs, gleaned from “Headship, Submission, and Equality in Scripture,“Women in Ministry, Nancy Vyhmeister, ed

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Invitationby David Sims

Go up to the mountain, and bring wood, and build the house (the Lord’s house); and I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified, saith the LORD. (Haggai 1:8)

A home church does not necessarily desig-nate a church that meets in a private home. Especially in some countries, it can also des-ignate a group that is not formally recognized as a church by a conference entity, whether or not they are formally organized or have a designated church building.

Recently we have seen God’s unmistakable hand in the beautiful and surprising ways He leads us while we are seeking to do His will.

We were in Dumaguete, communicating with brethren in preparation for the upcom-ing camp meetings. As we continued contact-ing people in organizing the upcoming

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camps, one of the prospective speakers we spoke with, (Joe Buhia) was someone that I had re-baptized a couple of years ago, but we had not stayed in contact. We were surprised to find out that he was living just about four hours away—a three hour ferry ride, followed by less than an hour by car—and that with him is a small group of new believers in ref-ormation and the truth about God. A couple of elders from a mainstream church in the countryside, close to their place, have ac-cepted the message and in their small church, in defiance of the wishes of the dis-trict pastor, temporarily Joe and his group are welcome to worship and share from time to time.

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Pastor David Sims and Joe Buhia

We arranged to meet with Brother Joe and his group,  and I was asked to speak. The messages throughout the day on the battle for the mind, the place of organization in the church, and excerpts from my new book on the office of the Holy Spirit,  were well re-ceived. We found these precious souls hun-gering for truth and with open and sincere spirits. We sensed a genuine conversion in Brother Joe, who, some time ago, stepped out in faith, working for the Lord without any

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promise of support from anyone. God has providentially opened one door after another, and after raising up a group of believers in Palawan, he has also raised up this small group in Dipolog, where we were now visit-ing.  They are just meeting in homes (and Brother Joe doesn’t even have his own home, but that is another story) for Sabbath fellow-ships, but there is really no proper place for a bigger group for worship. The believers are growing, and the elders from the small coun-tryside churches are eager to worship sepa-rately from their mainstream churches, as the pressure from their district pastor and other members from the surrounding main-stream churches mounts. Hence, their earnest desire for their own church building, where they can freely and properly hold wor-ship services. They have not had the means to buy property but have been actively work-ing in harmony with their faith and looking for a suitable property for almost a month. Brother Joe had been earnestly praying that

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if someone will make contact with him, then he will express their need. Unbeknownst to us, God was answering this brother’s prayer when we initiated contact with him.

They had found property they felt was the right place, with good access by a paved road, central location to the believers, utili-ties available, and a quiet and beautiful sur-roundings. Sunday morning we planned to take the 10 a.m. ferry back to our place, but it was canceled, so we arranged to take the 2 p.m. ferry, instead. This delay gave us a few extra hours, so we decided to visit the pro-posed property. We had discussed things the night before, and had decided to help them get a church and, after prayer, had agreed to offer just over half the asking price and if it was accepted,  to take that as a sign that this was the place God wanted us to have.

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Church Lot

Ferry ride

So, on Sunday morning, Marrah and the brethren viewed the property. (I absented myself so that the color of my skin would not cause the price to be raised.) The brethren had planned to return later to make the offer,

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but as they were leaving, the owners saw them and asked them to discuss things. Dur-ing the discussion, the offer was made, and it was accepted. The amount was a little over half of the asking price and very reasonable, compared to the selling prices of properties in the area. We are excited that these brethren can have a church building, and it can even serve as a location for regional gatherings for the brethren.

Worship in country chapel

We would like to invite you to be able to participate and let these brethren know that they are not alone in this faith, by helping us

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with funds to build a simple, country style church. We will need about $6,000 to $8,000 for the building.

Speak unto the children of Israel, that they bring me an offering: of every man that giveth it willingly with his heart ye shall take my offering. (Exodus 25:2)

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Worship service

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Mainstream Adventist country chapel

I hope that your heart is willing, like the children of Israel, to do something special for his work. You can make your donation through the regular channels, by donating to Seventh Day Home Church Fellowships. See details on https://7thdayhomechurch.org. Please mark the purpose of your donation or make arrangements to do a direct deposit to our bank in the Philippines, when, for exam-ple, you are sending from another country and don’t want to lose money by having it

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converted twice, first to U. S. dollars and then to Philippine peso.

It is fitting that after four years of process-ing and waiting, one day after making the ar-rangements to purchase the property for a church for our brethren,  the paperwork has finally been cleared to obtain the title for the property where our home (and planned fu-ture church and missionary school) is located .

In the love and service of Christ,

The Sims Family

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The Good News about Urolithin A

You may have never heard of urolithin A (UA), but it is a compound that helps to clean defective mitochondria from our cells. Mito-chondria are responsible for energy produc-tion, and their breakdown occurs when there is damage to the cells or when the cells are under stress. As we age, we become less effi-cient at cleaning our cells of undesirable mi-tochondria, and the accumulation of them in skeletal muscle cells has been closely linked to slow walking speed and poor muscle strength in elderly individuals. The benefits of UA, however, may not be limited to the el-derly, for in studies with rodents, UA has been shown to improve the endurance capac-ity of both young rats and old mice, yet we know of no food that contains this compound.[1]

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You might, then, expect us to say that exer-cise produces this compound, but it doesn’t. Some foods, however, contain ellagic acid, the precursor to UA, and when we ingest el-lagic acid, the bacteria in most people’s di-gestive systems will do what is needed to pro-duce UA. A few of us, however, will not pro-duce UA, no matter how much ellagic acid we ingest because the breakdown of ellagic acid into UA depends on the right combination of flora being in the digestive tract. If we do not have the needed components, ellagic acid cannot be broken down. While we have no way of knowing if our systems can break down ellagic acid, it is still to our advantage to eat plenty of UA-producing foods for their other benefits.

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Golden raspberries are an excellent source of urolithin A

Pomegranate

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The food with the highest amount of ellagic acid is yellow raspberries. They contain 1900 mg of ellagic acid per 100 g of fresh berries. Black raspberries, on the other hand, contain only 90 mg per 100 g of fresh berries. Pomegranates contain 270 mg of ellagic acid per 100 g of fruit, but pomegranate juice con-tains a much higher amount—811 mg per 100 g of juice—and one cup of liquid weighs ap-proximately 250 g. Walnuts and pecans con-tain lesser amounts, 59 mg and 33 mg re-spectively per 100 g of food, and strawberries and blackberries contain 78 mg and 150 mg per 100 g respectively.[2]

This is new research concerning mitochon-dria, just out in the 2019 article in Nature Metabolism, referenced below; however, we have known about the antioxidative proper-ties of UA for a number of years. Because of these helpful properties, UA has been pro-moted as a cancer cure, but this claim has yet to be proven; however, UA does seem to have

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some anti-cancer properties. UA-producing foods have many beneficial qualities, among them the ability to help clear out defective mitochondria from our cells. We hope you will consider increasing your intake of these delicious foods, for both young and old will be blessed by them!

O taste and see that the Lord is good. (Psalm 34:8)

Onycha Holt[1]. See Pénélope A. Andreux, et al.,“The mi-

tophagy activator urolithin A is safe and induces a molecular signature of improved mitochon-drial and cellular health in humans,” Nature Metabolism, 14 June 2019.

[2]. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urolithin_A

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NEWS NOTES• Due to a busy summer camp meeting

schedule, we have combined the July and August issues of Old Paths into this cur-rent issue.

• Due to space constraints this month, the Youth’s Corner will be continued in the next issue, and we plan to have an animal story, also, at that time.

• We want to give the last call and reminder about the 2019 Pacific Northwest Camp Meeting, being held August 28 – Septem-ber 1. The subjects will be the truth about God, the sanctuary, and last-day events, including the seal of God and the mark of the beast.

• Pastor Stump will be in Europe and the Philippines during the last half of July and most of August. He will be speaking and traveling with Pastor Jean-Christophe Bolotte from France. Your prayers will be appreciated.

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Publisher InformationOld Paths is a free monthly newsletter/study-paper published monthly by Smyrna Gospel Ministries, 750 Smyrna Road, Welch WV 24801-9606. U.S.A. It is sent free upon re-quest. The paper is dedicated to the propaga-tion and restoration of the principles of truth that God gave to the early Seventh-day Ad-ventist pioneers. Duplication is not only per-mitted, but strongly encouraged. This issue, with other gospel literature we publish, can be found at our web site. The url is: http://www.smyrna.org. Phone: (304) 732-9204. Fax: (304) 732-7322.

Editor: ...................................... Allen Stump

Associate Editor: ...................... Onycha Holt

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