Recently, I had the opportunity to listen to a sermon by the Nevada Utah Conference president and pastor Carlos Camacho at the Wasatch Hills SDA Church in Utah. Among the Powerpoint slides presented were the following:
There is a new covenant of grace.
Jesus is the new covenant
There is a new sheriff in town and his name is Jesus
Your identity cannot be determined by your relationship to the law.
About 17 minutes in we see this presenting with the following remarks:
“We get beat up by the devil because you wake up in the morning and you realize that you are not really able to keep the law [of God] and then you feel bad and then you are walking in life feeling all bad because you are not able to keep the Law and we forget that we have died to the Law and that now we live in Christ Jesus. The life is lived nowadays by faith in what Jesus did. Jesus was able to keep the Law, and not only he was able to do that he took our sin your sin and my sin—took it to the cross of Calvary and said is done away. That's the reason why you have died to the Law because Jesus took care of that. Now you and I live under the Covenant of Grace of Christ Jesus. That's the reason why nowadays all you have to do is believe in him. And if you believe that the sacrifice that Jesus did at the cross of Calvary in the blood that was shed covers multitude of sins like the Bible says, then you are fine. The problem is that we keep on thinking,
‘“Ah I messed up again. Oh my goodness, I did it again. You know, we do the Britney Spears” I did it again.”’ Oh that was a joke, but anyway okay. Verse six, “But now we are discharged from the Law—dead to that which held us captive, so that we are enslaved in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the written code.
What does that mean for us nowadays, what does it mean for us? Why, why is that important? Why am I talking about these things? Because the truth is that there is a New Covenant of Grace that Jesus did for all of us.”
Observations
I couldn’t help but recall the words of Ellen White who stated:
“There are many who say, “Believe, believe; all you have to do is to believe.” But faith must have foundation, and those who preach that all we must do is to believe, do not themselves know what constitutes true faith. They do not carefully search the Scriptures to know on what ground faith should rest. The advocating of faith, and the disparaging of the keeping of the commandments of God, is only another phase of the controversy originated by Satan in heaven. Indifference to the precepts of the law lowers the conception of what constitutes righteousness; and one who opposes the law at this time, places himself in a more perilous position than that in which Adam and Eve were when they disobeyed God's commandments, for they afterward repented of their sin, and turned away from their allegiance to his enemy" (ST July 14th 1890).
Some questions undoubtedly arise from such a teaching.
Is it true that our identity or status of saved or lost cannot be determined or judged by our relationship to the law manifested in our works?
While it is true our salvation is caused by faith alone, there are conditions that determine if that faith is genuine.
Over and over, the Spirit of Prophecy speaks plainly that strict obedience is the condition by which we are saved. In Revelation 20:12 we read “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, according to their works.”
The real question is, even should one concede that some obedience is possible, is the principle and mindset of abounding grace and “oops I did it again” (in the context of the close of the anti-typical Day of Atonement) a safe biblical principle to go by?
When that heavenly ministry ends, will we still be able to say “oops I did it again” and confess when there is no longer mediation for sin? Do we really believe in a quasi Calvinist “once saved always saved” sealing that places the same eternal security at the close of probation instead of baptism?
In the summation of the Three Angels’ Messages, if a man were to commit one single sin after the close of probation, would he not (in the logic of James 2:10) break the Sabbath and thereby have the mark of the beast?
The Spirit of Prophecy has some enlightening remarks about the condition of those among God’s people after the close of probation,
"The righteous, like Jacob, will manifest unyielding faith, and earnest determination, which will take no denial. They will feel their unworthiness, but will have no concealed wrongs to reveal” (GC 620).
I reached out to the Nevada / Utah President to get his thoughts on the matter and asked this question,
“Do you believe that Christ can take our spiritual journey to the point where we forsake all sin and no longer commit sin by act or thought before the day of atonement closes?”
The response from the Conference President was the following:
”My sermon had absolutely nothing to do with any of those topics. I was talking about the amazing sacrifice of Christ and what that means for us.”
If it is (LGT), Last Generation Theology that you are talking about, no, I don't believe in extra Biblical ideas, especially ones that can potentially deny the sacrifice of Jesus and the purpose of His Second Coming.”
I ask the reader, what is the meaning behind the investigative judgement if we take a Calvinist position on the cross?
What is the purpose of the sanctuary and the Day of Atonement if we do not believe in Christ removing all imperfections in our character before the close of probation?
I am reminded of what Spirit of Prophecy said,
“The Lord Jesus came to our world, not to reveal what a God could do, but what a man could do through faith in God’s power to help in every emergency.” 7 LTMS 1892 par 24.
“There was no sin Christ that Satan could use to his advantage. This is the condition in which those must be found who shall stand in the time of trouble” (GC 623).
“There will be no atoning blood to cleanse from sin” (PP 201).
Everyone who by faith obeys God’s Commandments will reach the condition of sinlessness in which Adam lived before his transgression” (IHP 146).
“Christ came to this world and lived a sinless life, that in His power His people might also live lives of sinlessness” (RH April 1, 1902).
“Not one of us will ever receive the seal of God while our characters have one spot or stain upon them. It is left with us to remedy the defects in our characters, to cleanse the soul temple of every defilement. Then the latter rain will fall upon us as the early rain fell upon the disciples on the Day of Pentecost” (5T 214.2).
If these men believe that Christ will live in the sinner (present tense), then I remind them of Ellen White’s rebuke to Kellogg,
“In Living Temple the assertion is made that God is in the flower, in the leaf, in the sinner. But God does not live in the sinner. The Word declares that He abides only in the hearts of those who love Him and do righteousness. God does not abide in the heart of the sinner; it is the enemy who abides there” (19 LTMS MS 46 1904 par 13).
We were told as watchmen to respond to such an iceberg with the admonition “meet it”.
So we shall.
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James Bowen is a member of the Seventh Day Adventist church and graduated from Southern Adventist University in 2016 with a masters degree in nursing and hails from the state of Tennessee.