Comment on What does it take to be a true Seventh-day Adventist? by Sean Pitman.

@Bill Sorensen:

Like Dr. Kent, you convolute the issue of sin and guilt as he convolutes church authority. Animals are not amenable to moral law. We are not animals.

I agree that animals are not subject to moral law, but why? Isn’t it because they have not been given the mental capacity to understand the moral implications of their actions?

This only highlights the difference between humans and lower animals. Unlike animals, humans have been given the power to know the difference between right and wrong and to freely choose to do one or the other. Animals have not been given such moral freedoms of choice. Therefore, they are not free moral agents and cannot be guilty of sin – of any kind of deliberate rebellion against something they know to be right and true.

Sins of ignorance are covered by the blood of Jesus. It does not mean people are not guilty of sin just because they don’t know any better.

That’s exactly what it means. It is impossible to be morally guilty of something you didn’t know. The only reason that everyone is in fact guilty of sin is because everyone has been given a degree of knowledge regarding right and wrong… and everyone, at one point or another, has deliberately, consciously, rejected that which was known to be right in favor of what was clearly known to be wrong.

No one will have any excuse for sin because God has written the great moral Law of Love on the hearts of all mankind. Therefore, no one can honestly claim ignorance of God’s Law. Everyone has deliberately and willfully broken this Law. That is why all are guilty before the Royal Law – not because of something Adam did, but because of something each one of us did… and we all know it.

Consider carefully that if our current condition was simply due to a lack of knowledge that Jesus would not have had to die on the cross to save us. If salvation could have been achieved simply by showing us the Truth, by giving us additional information, there would have been no need for Jesus to suffer and die for our “sins of ignorance”. Jesus had to die because sin is not the result of a lack of knowledge, but a result of deliberate rebellion against what is already known to be true by free moral agents. This is what makes sin so insane and so difficult to deal with.

So-called “sins of ignorance” are not “insane” or inherently rebellious. Classifying such “mistakes” as the basis of true moral guilt misapprehends the true nature, the true insanity, of sin.

The real error of your view is you limit the atonement to man’s comprehension of right and wrong and man simply “judges himself” by his own knowledge of truth.

God is one who is truly on trial here – before the entire universe. We all judge who is right and who is wrong according to the Royal Law that has been written on the hearts of all of us. No one is going to be surprised to find out that he/she is guilty of having sinned or rebelled against God’s Royal Law and the righteousness of that Law. The consciences of everyone will convict all that all are sinners deserving of eternal death. In the end, “every knee will bow and every tongue confess that God alone is righteous”. Isaiah 45:23-24

Consider also the following passage regarding the notion that we all will judge ourselves:

For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.) This will take place on the day when God will judge men’s secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares. – Romans 2:13-16

Notice where Paul points out that even the heathen, who have not had access to the written law are still free moral agents since the real Law, the Royal Law, has been written on their hearts. Because of this, their consciences bear witness, relative to this internally written Law, in the day of judgement so that none have any excuse for their thoughts and actions before God.

God judges us by the objective law which doesn’t care what we know or don’t know.

There is indeed an “objective Law”. However, it is not true that anyone can honestly claim ignorance of this Law. Again, God judges based on the moral or Royal Law of Love (James 2:8) – a Law that has been written on the hearts of all mankind so that none can honestly claim ignorance of its requirements.

None the less, Jesus intercedes for the human family and pleads forgiveness for sins of ignorance. He does not say, “Well, Father, they are not sinning since they don’t know any better.”

That’s exactly what Jesus says – “Father, forgive them for they know not what they are doing.” – Luke 23:34

It is possible to do bad things in complete ignorance. However, for such “sins of ignorance” there is no personal guilt or moral responsibility. The guilt of such sins rests entirely upon others who did know and understand what they were doing (ultimately Satan).

And by the way, Sean, “the church ” has not ‘offically’ condemned the doctrine of original sin. Like many things, they simply admit they don’t know and don’t formulate a view. But in the end, we are not judged by what the church decides, but by what does the bible teach.

The Adventist church has presented a pretty fair view of the human condition as a fundamental doctrine. The lack of support for the concept of “original sin” is very wise on the part of the Adventist church since this concept has many erroneous implications that paint God to be arbitrary, unfeeling, unkind, and more concerned over actions than motive. The Church’s emphasis on motive is far more Biblical and in line with the Royal Law of Love than is the Catholic concept of original sin.

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com

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