COMMENT ON DR. DESMOND FORD'S STATEMENT AGAINST THE INVESTIGATIVE JUDGMENT ON THE ATODAY FORUMS!
The following is a brief explanation in order to demonstrate that Dr. Desmond Ford did not answer the points that were posed to him by Adventists supporting the Investigative Judgment truth. If you want to understand the situation more comprehensively, please visit our home page and scroll down to the links between the two flaming torches. You can go more quickly to the meat of the Adventist reply against the Jesuit attack upon our institutions from this link. This link is the first link listed between the two flaming torches on our homepage dealing with some of the perplexities of Adventism.
We now get to the meat of the problem of what was formerly shown us on the home page taken from Dr. Ford's statements made on the Atoday Forums (in our interpretation, it is the Atoday Cell Groups.)
AToday: QUESTION #21. In the open and frank discussion on the AToday Forum, it has become apparent to many after reading your interview and searching the scriptures that the New Testament does NOT support the traditional SDA view of the Investigative Judgment.
The New Testament doesn't reveal
the particulars about the actual time for the Judgment to start. What it does
say is that the Judgment will take place at the end of the world:
Heb. 9:26
For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but
now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice
of himself.
27 And as it is appointed unto men once to die,
but after this the judgment:
This does not mean that
the New Testament doesn't "support" the Adventist view of the Investigative
Judgment truth as if it is not true. The New Testament does not give the particulars
about the timing--except that the Apostles believed that the Judgment started
in their day. Notice above how Paul classes the death of Christ with the end
of the world. Paul, the Disciples and all the other Apostles believed that their
day was the last days and that Christ's coming was imminent.
The New Testament therefore does
not define as much about the Judgment to allow God's people to defend this position
using it.
However, some have taken
the position that regardless of this obvious lack of New Testament support,
the Investigative Judgment doctrine can still be supported from the Old Testament
ALONE. They state that this unique doctrine need not have any New Testament
support for it to still be valid. They argue that this "special truth"
has recently been revealed (unsealed) in the last days to God's church. So,
they say, this would explain why the Apostles were never informed of the 1844
date and why there is no clear reference to this doctrine in the New Testament.
For the sake of argument, assuming that one could make a case for 1844 from
the Old Testament, would this logic have any theological validity? How important
is the New Testament in determining prophecy and doctrine for us today?
Dr. Ford:
IF THE INVESTIGATIVE JUDGMENT COULD BE SUPPORTED FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT ALONE,
IT WOULD BE MIRACULOUS, BUT NOT SUFFICIENT! We are not literal Jews but spiritual
Israel, and the New Testament always has the casting vote on doctrine. Hebrews
1:1 contrasts the revelation through Jesus with the inferior previous revelations
through the prophets. Jude 3 talks of "the faith once for all entrusted
to the saints," which is a reference to the New Testament gospel, which
came from Christ and the apostles.
Sorry, but this is a blatant
and deliberate fib. Jude 3, telling Christians that they must earnestly contend
for "the faith once delivered unto the saints" does not refer to the
new scriptures which were written by the Apostles. Just by the frequent actions
of the Apostles who had to minister first to the Jews about Christ, shows you
that they did not present to those Jews any kind of New Testament scripture
to be the greater light in order to back up their statements. The New Testament
at that time was a lesser light. The Apostles went into the synagogues and contended
with the Jews using their scriptures (the Law and the Prophets [The Old Testament]).
If even today you wanted to present Christ to a Jew, what scriptures would you
use?
2 Tim. 3:15 And
that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make
thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.
Which were the only scriptures
that existed when the Apostles were children? We are here being shown that the
Gospel was in the Old Testament, and so was Christ (Heb. 4:2). Doug Batchelor
reported in Net NY 99 that ten percent of everything Christ said was taken from
the Old Testament. Check it out for yourselves if you don't believe him.
Dr. Ford continues:
When Jesus repeatedly affirmed
, "But I say unto you," He was not contradicting the Old Testament,
but transcending the way His contemporaries interpreted it. The Bible admonishes
us seven times that, "In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every
word be established." No solitary text in either Testament is sufficient
to make a valid doctrine, and the Old Testament without the New, is not the
Christian's guide. On the Mount of Transfiguration, Moses and Elijah vanished
and the apostles "saw no man but Jesus only." The word is for Moses
and Elijah the law and the prophets only make sense interpreted through the
Christ and the testimony He has delivered through the apostles.
The statement made is contradictory.
The Transfiguration occurred in the New Testament, but nothing is mentioned
about it in the Old. Is the story about the Transfiguration therefore true?
Secondly, the precept that out of the mouths of two or three witnesses, then shall a word stand had been instituted because men can tell lies. God cannot lie. That principle does not hold for the scriptures. Something in the scripture can be mentioned only once, and it must stand.
Yet Christ did make some changes to the civil laws of the Jews as it was understood in old time. He did this to prepare His children for the Christian dispensation where they will not be led as a nation any further, but will have to be under the domination of other governments. They were told that they must not render the "eye for an eye" precept any longer. They were no longer to be a nation with their own methods of legal enforcement anymore. This does not mean that Christ contradicted what was stated before. Even when Christ stated that it had been said by them of old time to love your friends and to hate your enemies, is there anyone who can find that in the Old Testament scriptures? That particular precept was added over time extrabiblically by the Jews.
The problem is that too many quote these changes that Christ has made as first justification to institute changes of their own upon everyone. THESE NEED TO FOLLOW THEIR OWN PRECEPTS AS THEY TOLD US TO CONCENTRATE ON OUR OWN SPIRITUAL LIVES AND FORGET ABOUT WHAT EVERYONE ELSE IS DOING!
We see that the best way to accomplish
the changes Dr. Ford and his great invisible army has not rested in years because
of their insatiable desires is by first presenting themselves as desirous of
free thought and opinion before the establishment is force-changed to their
preferences. Nothing new in the history of the world we have seen with despots.
If 1844 cannot be supported
from the New Testament, then it cannot be considered a valid Christian doctrine.
It cannot, so it is not!
Notice here that Dr. Ford
does not care if you disagree with him.
What Dr. Ford is therefore saying, is that Christ wasted His time to deliver His messages to Daniel. Remember keenly that Daniel was "greatly beloved" of heaven. When Christ sent messages to him, if Christ did not appear Himself, he would send His highest messenger to speak with Daniel. The problem was thence that Christ revealed the secrets of the prophecies containing the Investigative Judgment to Daniel, and when Daniel asked what the meaning was, Daniel was not beloved enough to be informed by the Lord the meaning. Daniel inquired of the Lord:
8
And
I heard, but I understood not: then said I, O my Lord, what shall be the end
of these things?
And the Lord answered:
9
And
he said, Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the
time of the end.
The explanation for why the Lord withheld these things from Daniel is answered on the links dealing with Adventist perplexities. But yet we see that Christ stated that a prophecy will be sealed till the end of the world.
Now we know that there are some people who hate that prophecy. Is there some way they can prevent that egg from hatching so that the information remains away from the people permanently?
We discover that the Apostles did not live at the end of the world, but only when the world was two-thirds what it currently is today. All that time the Apostles were teaching for most of their lives that Christ was going to appear imminently, and that did not happen.
What then therefore happens to that prophecy that was given to Daniel by the Lord? When and how will it unhatch? Can Dr. Ford and others in the conspiracy actually have the power to convince us that a direct prophecy of the Lord must die even before it was fulfilled out of imagined respect for the New Testament?
No! The prophecy was just as much sealed away from the Apostles as it was from Daniel. Christ still yet commissioned the Apostles to teach and preach that His coming was imminent.
Dr. Ford is essentially telling us the prophecy must die. That was the major problem the Protestants had with their papal persecutors: the papists always claimed the prerogatives to be above scripture or to silence or even to destroy it entirely or portions of it. The last chapter of the Revelation was written in order to address just such people. It tells us that anyone who takes away from the words of the book of prophecy will be removed from the records of heaven and participation from the Holy City. Woe unto anyone who challenges even the purpose for why Christ took the time to reveal the prophecies to His people--who come telling us that the Gospel demands that we ignore or reject entirely what Christ has sent to us for a purpose. Adventists didn't create the law nor the prophecies, nor the scriptures which demonstrate the time prophecies: God did. The complaints are being directed against the wrong personalities here.
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