Translated by Zoran Veleski
This the third article in a series regarding the dangerous theology of Adelio Pellegrini in Italy.
Pellegrini’s theology is more attractive to liberals than you might think. Let’s review some of his moral and ethical arguments against the Adventist concept of the atonement:
The numbers that follow correspond to the original pdf file of the EUD file : https://adeliopellegrini.com/valutazione-eud-di-perche-gesu-e-morto/
From the horse’s mouth:
(2) “In the Bible is not found the word Atonement.”
(4) “Shedding blood does not mean doing an atoning sacrifice, but one which purifies or forgives. The day of Yom Kippur… is the Day of Great Forgiveness. It is just the opposite of the concept of atonement. But the Adventists Theologians don't want to understand this.
The shedding of human blood was from God forbidden many times. How can one get to the absurd idea that God needs the human blood of the Son of man to be able to forgive and satisfy his law?”
(5) “Forgiveness is not achieved by inflicting punishment! At Golgotha there were executioners who have crucified Christ. The Father was in Christ to suffer with Him the crime that the serpent carried out with the bite of him.”
(6) “Certainly the Bible states that Jesus came to achieve salvation. He did it because he died forgiving!”
(7) “Jesus brought forgiveness not because he suffered the punishment that was due to men, but while dying he continued to love man as he has taught. And his death, the crime we have accomplished at Golgotha, testifies that he and the Father continued to love us. Perhaps the theologians who wrote the answer to me, have not understood that I believe that Jesus saved us.”
(8) “The sin offering and the sprinkling of blood on the lid of the ark attested that the believer accepted forgiveness from God, so the blood of Christ cleanses our sins if we acknowledge Him as Savior.”
(10) “What happened at Golgotha is the expression of madness of man. Its authors were: Judas, «Lk 22:53 this is your hour (priests, the elders, the scribes), this is the power of darkness (i.e. of the adversary) » Crucifixion is a sin. Jesus he says to Pilate: «Jn 19:11 Who gave me in yours hands is more guilty than you – he commits a sin even greater – he has greater guilt – he has a fault bigger than yours."
If the crucifixion wanted it the Father to make him atone for our faults, for sin than the Father is even greater! The Father suffered our rebellion in the Son. Jesus is the Savior.
(11) The sacrifices were means that expressed the grace of God.
(12) He did not accept Cain's offer because it did not testify of God's grace. He expressed no gratitude. He expressed: “I give you, you give me.”
(20) Atonement and forgiveness are not synonymous, but opposed. A forgiven sin is not atoned for. An atoning sin needs no forgiveness. Words cannot be related to sacrifice because the word is not in the biblical text atonement.
Atonement is not the translation of the Hebrew term. For Jews, atonement means forgiveness, purification.
(21) Either it's atonement or it's forgiveness. After being punished and maybe even killed for the fault committed, the legal authority cannot say: "We forgive." The fault is expiated or the fault is forgiven. In no language of the West and suppose even in the East, atonement is synonymous with forgiveness because they are antithetical expressions.
(27) The theology of vicarious substitution it is a juridical monstrosity, it kills the innocent for to forgive the culprit by betraying not only the thought biblical but depicting the Father as Dante's Cerberus (a mythological monster guarding hell).
(30) Blood is related to forgiveness and not to atonement. Sure Jesus gives forgiveness. When the Israelite made the sacrifice he testified to accept God's grace and forgiveness. When the Israelite made the guilt sacrifice attested that the damage, the cheating caused had been fixed.
When a men gave the sin offering, he said that the sin committed was forgiven by the God of Mercy and the sacrifice attested forgiveness of the Eternal. When you don't understand, you don't understand.
(31) He would produce the forgiveness of sins, not because the Father needed the sacrifice of the Son who atoned for our punishment with his death deserved, but He forgives not because the man looking at the cross does make Jesus the scapegoat (his death = my life), but he realizes that his sin causes the death of the Righteous, the Holy, the Good, the Truth, of Life. It is not God who needs the cross to forgive, but is man who thanks to the cross understands God's need to forgive, and to revitalize our lives.
(32) God is merciful even before a man returns to God. He is merciful even if the man does not return to God. It is not the return that makes God merciful. God is Merciful because his name it is Mercy. It is because God is merciful that prior to Isa 55:7, he had said what is written in Is 44:20….
(34) At Mt 9:2; Luke 5:20; 7:47 Jesus says, "Your sins you are forgiven." He doesn't say: wait for the 14th of Nisan because Pilate instigated by the Sanhedrin will crucify me and since I am innocent, without sin, I die to atone for your sins, then your sins will be forgive yourself.
(36) Jesus did not die instead of sinners. He is dead because he did not escape arrest; he is not escaped. He died because he gave himself into the hands who arrested him. If Jesus had to die at place of the sinner then it is not true that Judas is the son of perdition (John 17:12) because he betrayed, sold the Christ. Jesus said to Pilate: who delivered me into your hands committed the greatest sin (Jn 19:11).
The greatest sin would have been committed by the Father whether he wanted or needed the death of Jesus to save sinners.
(37) Jesus does not die because the wages of sin is the death. No text says that Christ must die instead of all mankind to suffer the wages of sin of humanity. Jesus dies because in the day of Golgotha the ancient Serpent, the Devil, Satan, through the Sanhedrin and Caesar managed to bite the heel of the Son of the woman (Gen 3:15).
Death is a natural consequence of actions thoughtless of man is not an ineluctable need of God's punishment on man.
(38) He was pierced for our faults, crushed for our iniquities." It must be noted that the Hebrew preposition is not "for", but "from" “pierced by our faults, crushed by ours iniquity." There is a certain difference: "for us" denotes an idea replaced (“in our place”), while “from” expresses an idea of causality: "because of our sins", expresses its solidarity and not substitution. «The punishment for which we have peace has been upon he." A person who atones through his own suffering the sins of others, is an unknown idea in the Old Testament But it is very strong in Christian theologians.
Isaiah with these words does not mean that the punishment that we deserved was hijacked on him as if he were punished in our place. If so would then be in fragrant contradiction with the sacred principle according to which «Ex 34:7 (God) will not hold the guilty innocent” and “Pr 17:15 He who acquits the offender and the one who condemns the just / are both detested by the LORD."
Isa 53:10 If we take this text literally we must have the seriousness to say that the Father is a monster of iniquity.
My Response
The argumentations that Pellegrini brings here and in his books and articles are not superficial, and this is what makes them dangerous. They appear to have elements of the Omega of Apostasy predicted by EGW. The only safety is the Spirit of Prophecy. Let’s keep very dear that Gift.
May the Lord support His people as they walk in Faith and not in theologically anthropocentric rational arguments.
Answers from Pellegrini to the EGW quotes the EUD sent him
Source: EUD document found in a page of his website https://adeliopellegrini.com/valutazione-eud-di-perche-gesu-e-morto/
Translated by Zoran Veleski
EGW: “Through Jesus, God’s mercy was manifested to men; but mercy does not set aside justice. The law reveals the attributes of God’s character, and not a jot or tittle of it could be changed to meet man in his fallen condition. God did not change His law, but He sacrificed Himself, in Christ, for man’s redemption. God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself.” 2 Corinthians 5:19. – {DA 762}
“Looking upon the crucified Redeemer, we more fully comprehend the magnitude and meaning of the sacrifice made by the Majesty of heaven. The plan of salvation is glorified before us, and the thought of Calvary awakens living and sacred emotions in our hearts. Praise to God and the Lamb will be in our hearts and on our lips; for pride and self-worship cannot flourish in the soul that keeps fresh in memory the scenes of Calvary”. – {DA 661}
Pellegrini: Mercy is not opposed to justice. The law is the expression of mercy. To observe the law is to benefit from the good that it expresses. God does not change the law, but the sacrifice it is not the antithesis of the law, but it is to reach man where he is. Forgiving is not an act of injustice (indeed the opposite is true and not to do so is means to sin!
EGW: “Upon Christ as our substitute and surety was laid the iniquity of us all. The guilt of every descendant of Adam was pressing on His heart. All His life Christ had been publishing the good news of the Father’s pardoning love, but now with the terrible weight of guilt upon Him He could not see the Father’s reconciling face. This pierced His heart with a sorrow that can never be fully understood by man. So great was this agony that His physical pain was hardly felt”. – {HLv 502}
Pellegrini: How is it possible that the mistakes or the merits of one person can be attributed to another? It is not possible! It is possible, normal and consequent that mistakes and merits of a person can fall into advantage or disadvantage for another person, but that does not mean whether there is a transfer of merits or demerits. Christ because of suffering could not see or not feel love but this not it to means that the face and love of the Father towards him and/or towards all had changed.
EGW: “He gave Him not only to bear our sins, and to die as our sacrifice; He gave Him to the fallen race. To assure us of His immutable counsel of peace”. {DA 25}
Pellegrini: God does not ask the Son for anything and the Son as the Father on the cross expresses his nature of love towards his creatures.
EGW: “Christ was treated as we deserve, that we might be treated as He deserves. {DA 25}
Pellegrini: By whom Christ was treated as we deserve? Not from the Father, because we too are not and will never be treated as Jesus was treated. Not from the law, because the law is good, holy and just. From us yes, in fact we did it. But we did not do to then be able to be treated as he deserves. The theologians built this language and many, in good faith, without thinking too much about it, they believed it. Jesus in the Gospel also tells us that the picture of the Golgotha has been depicted since the hour of darkness (Lk 22:53) and already in Eden God had said that the serpent would have bitten the heel of the Son of the woman (Gen 3:15).
EGW: He was condemned for our sins, in which He had no share, that we might be justified by His righteousness, in which we had no share. He suffered the death which was ours, that we might receive the life which was His. With His stripes we are healed.” – {DA 25}
Pellegrini: Nowhere in Scripture is it said that Jesus would have been condemned for our sins. The thought that is expressed here is not of Scripture but of Luther who wanting to exalt the Reformation principle of justification by faith, which has altered the justice of God thus disfiguring even grace.
"And the condemnation we deserved by the judgment of God. As in ancient times the curse of man was thrown on the sacrificial victim, so Christ's condemnation was our acquittal, *Martin LUTHER, II Epître aux Corinthiens, p. 579.
and for his plagues we have been healed (Isaiah 53:5)… We are righteous before God because Christ was made a sinner. Because he took of our person for him to be made guilty in our name, and he was judged as sinner: not for his sins, but for the sins of others others, although he remained pure and free from all impurity, and bearing the penalty that was not his due, but he was due to us."
Explaining Joel 3:13 he wrote: "He clothed himself of our person, he put our sins on his own shoulders and said: “I have committed the sins that all men have committed”… *Christ lies to save man. Of course nobody believes him.
So Christ became a curse to us, and is become a sinner deserving of God's wrath. From this fortunate exchange with us, He took upon himself our sinful person and exchanged it for his innocent and victorious person".* Martin LUTHER, Lectures on Gallates, LW 26, 283,284; cit. La RONDELLE Hans K., Salvation and the Atonement; a biblical Exegetical Approach, in Journal of the Adventist Theological Society, 3/1, 1992, p. 35.
EGW: “Never before in His earthly life had Jesus permitted such a demonstration. He clearly foresaw the result. It would bring Him to the cross. But it was His purpose thus publicly to present Himself as the Redeemer. He desired to call attention to the sacrifice that was to crown His mission to a fallen world. While the people were assembling at Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover, He, the antitypical Lamb, by a voluntary act set Himself apart as an oblation. It would be needful for His church in all succeeding ages to make His death for the sins of the world a subject of deep thought and study. Every fact connected with it should be verified beyond a doubt. It was necessary, then, that the eyes of all people should now be directed to Him; the events which precedes His great sacrifice must be such as to call attention to the sacrifice itself. After such a demonstration as that attending His entry into Jerusalem, all eyes would follow His rapid progress to the final scene”. – Ch 63 commentary on Mat 21:1-11{DA 571}
Pellegrini: We have not found such a thought in the Gospels. The author (Ellen White) introduces this idea having imagined it as a result of her theological convictions.
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There you have it. Examine for yourselves and judge if these teachings by a Seventh-day Adventist ‘pastor’ warrant dis-fellowshipping.