“We keep the law to be saved. And faith in …

Comment on Supreme Court Decision on Church Employment Case by David Read.

“We keep the law to be saved. And faith in Christ is part of obedience to the law and keeping the moral law by doing God’s will is also part of keeping the law.”

Bill, here’s how you should consider saying it: “We are saved by faith in Christ. And keeping the moral law by doing God’s will is also part of having faith in Christ.”

The teaching is essentially the same, but the first formulation sounds profoundly heretical to a biblically literate person, whereas the second wording sounds biblically sound. This is what I mean about modes of expression.

David Read Also Commented

Supreme Court Decision on Church Employment Case
No one is justified by obedience to the law. Whoever does not break the law doesn’t need justification, but so far no one but Christ ever has perfectly obeyed the law. So if I am not justified through faith in Christ, I’m not going to be justified, I’m going to be lost eternally. Even if I keep the law perfectly from here on out, it will not save me. I will always need the atonement of Christ. The goal of he Christisn life is to rely less and less on imputed righteousness, and more and more on imparted righteousness. But no one is justified by works, or by obedience to the law.


Supreme Court Decision on Church Employment Case
Bob, you’re right that the election of Wilson was viewed by both liberals and conservatives as a conservative course correction. I agree with that assessment. There is reason for optimism.

But the GC president has little control over non-GC institutions. That’s why the situation at La Sierra U has not appreciably improved. What is more, the somewhat inept attempts to use AAA to positively intervene at LSU are further ground for pessimism. They failed, and they revealed Dan Jackson as, if not an outright liberal, certainly not a vigorous traditionalist.

Ultimately, LSU is a Pacific Union institution, and if the leaders of the church in that region are not up to governing it—and so far they’re obviously not—then it will continue as it has been going, actively undermining Adventist faith.


Supreme Court Decision on Church Employment Case
Ron, if Darwin was right, talk of salvation is sheer idiocy, utterly deracinated and pointless. There was no Adam, no fall, no need of redemption or salvation, no point in Jesus’ death, no hope of a supernatural future free of death and disease and predation (because there was no perfect creation free of death, disease and predation). Darwinism makes utter, contemptible nonsense of Christianity.

I think Bill is profoundly misguided and unbiblical in his views about justification, but he’s much closer to sound religion than you are if you embrace mainstream science’s origins narrative.


Recent Comments by David Read

If the Creation Account Isn’t True…
Bill, it speaks poorly of us that the unconverted feel comfortable among us, and feel no need to leave the church. What kind of Christian am I, that unbelievers in my fellowship have no plans ever to believe? That the unconverted feel comfortable in my church, calling me one of them?

It is not a worse commentary on me than on them?


Board of Trustees Addresses Curriculum Proposal
Excellent and thoughtful post, Phil. If Shane is right about the three board members being critical of Wisbey, and Wisbey using the pretext of out of channels communication to get rid of them, it shows that Wisbey actually has a good deal of power over the board.

And if he could ruthlessly use his power to defenestrate the three female board members, it makes you wonder why he doesn’t use his power to do something about the Darwinist teachers.

Same goes for Ricardo Graham. If he could force the LaSierra Four to resign within days of hearing the tape and reading the transcript, he also could ask the Darwinist teachers to resign.

But neither man has done much of anything about the core problem, so far as I can tell. Apparently, for these men, subverting Adventism isn’t nearly as serious as calling someone a “eunuch” or communicating without permission. What a powerful man uses his power to accomplish says a great deal about the man. I now know more than I want to know about Randal Wisbey and Ricardo Graham.


Board of Trustees Addresses Curriculum Proposal
No surprise here. Inherent in firing the three board members was the idea that they did not proceed through proper process.

The rabbit is hidden in the phrase “scientifically rigorous curriculum.” if that means Darwinism as usual, no progress is being made. The larger church has made clear that it expects a scientifically rigorous defense of the faith, which means creationism.