Saturday, November 27, 2021

SDA Issues- Calvinism vs. Adventism

Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord... Acts 3:19

"For Calvinists, their Five Points' yardstick controls all aspects of their soteriology. 
--Their understanding of the utter depravity of mandkind rests on
their notion of original sin and, thus, the companion doctrine that all men and women are born sinners. 
--Their only explanation for the sinfulness of mankind was simply to declare that we all are sinners because Adam sinned. 
-- Because of their controlling "sovereignty of God" principle, mankind could not possibly have free will and thus any responsibility. 
-- If anyone were to be "saved," it would have to be due to God's sovereign choice, not man's response.

*Therefore, for the Calvinist, if Jesus is man's Savior, He would have to die for those who are already elected to be saved. 
Further, our Lord could not have inherited, as we do, the genetic stream of His ancestors, because, if so, He too would have been born a sinner. 
The Calvinistic solution: Jesus had to be "exempt" from all inherited tendencies to sin—just as Roman Catholics had concluded. 
Thus, to make their major premise work, the elect would be those who were "given" faith and thus the "ability" to profess gratefulness for Christ's substitutionary atonement. Because they had been foreordained to be saved, the elect could not fall out of grace; they could never be "unsaved." 
 
*Obviously, Seventh-day Adventists should have great difficulty trying to harmonize their understanding of salvation with their
Calvinist friends, no matter how nuch linguistic gymnastics they could muster.....when Jesus paid the indebtedness of the repentant sinner, He did not give him license to continue sinning but to now live responsibly in obedience to the law. Calvinists are not able to process this fundamental thought.
 
Uriah Smith added a theological dimension to the Adventist criticism of Calvinism. In his discussion of the atonement, he argued that the Calvinist teaching that the atonement was completed at the Cross can be valid only if one accepted the Calvinist concept of predestination. Since Adventists and the rest of the Arminian world do not subscribe to the doctrine of predestination as taught in Calvinism, Smith asserted that it is wrong to say that the atonement was completed at the Cross. 
Then he connected the Arminian doctrine of free will and atonement with the Adventist teaching of the investigative judgment. He argued that the Cross was only a prerequisite of the post‑1844, antitypical atonement taking place in the Most Holy Place of the heavenly sanctuary. Therefore, it would be erroneous to state, as the Calvinists do, that the atonement was completed at the Cross." 
Herbert Douglass/PerspectiveDigest