Response to The Great Controversy view expounded by many SDA’s. This is a response to an article by Jack Blanco published in 2004 in the Adventist Review.
The
recent article in the Adventist Review by Jack Blanco entitled The (Abbreviated)
Great Controversy available at
http://www.adventistreview.org/2004-1517/story1.html
is a classic example of the problems afflicting the Seventh-day Adventist
church.
Jack Blanco, retired chair of the Theology Department at Southern Adventist
University should be speaking to the church as one of the best
and brightest of the SDA church. As a Theology chair it would be expected that
the Bible would be his chief source of information.
However in this article it is clearly not from the Bible that Jack Blanco is
developing his abbreviated Great Controversy.
Blanco beginning thesis is this: our unique emphasis is to help settle the question
between God and Lucifer over the authority of Christ… in
his second paragraph we read: He [Satan] was jealous of Christ and refused to
acknowledge His supremacy and accept His authority. He began to assume command,
which belonged to Christ alone. This compelled the Father to assemble the
heavenly host to confirm in the presence of all that His Son was equal with
Himself and wherever His Son was, it was as though He Himself was present. The
word of the Son was to be obeyed as readily as His own.
While few competent religion reference works attribute Ezekiel 28 and Isaiah 14
as references to Satan yet for some reason it still seems to
be a predominate thought in the SDA church. Contextually it is certainly not
about Satan nor was it ever viewed that way by Jews, the New
Testament or the New Testament church. It was not till Jerome translation into
Latin and with the aid of Origen and Tertullian that
the Lucifer highest of angels and jealous of God became popular. Once started
like a snowball down a hill it seems to gain force by the mere
tradition of the thing. But we have to be honest and admit that the Bible does
not give us this Lucifer Myth. If we assert that it is part
of the reason the SDA church exists we are starting out with a black eye that
cannot be cured.
From the mythology of Lucifer additional non-biblical material is offered in
Blanco’s Great Controversy. Lucifer was jealous of Christ and
God had to set Satan straight. Setting aside the Biblically unsupported view
that Jesus Christ was eternally the Son of God, Blanco has
presented us with a divided Godhead, a situation where even Angels were uncertain
of who is God. Assuming a short earth history we could
calculate that for 4000 years proceeding the incarnation of Jesus Christ, God
had been trying to instruct the children of
they will “help settle the question between God and Lucifer over the authority
of Christ”. To come to such a conclusion Blanco has to ignore
that the Jews did not see Lucifer as Satan, (the Old Testament is very quiet
about Satan overall with very few mentions of Satan) as well they
would not have known that there was someone else involved, this “Christ”. To
the Jews God is One, so there would certainly be problems
presenting Blanco’s Great Controversy to them. The idea of an eternal Son of
God is more in line with the Arian and Semi-Arian view of God,
which in all practicality places Jesus Christ as a subservient God to God the
Father. The Son of God makes sense during the incarnation of
Jesus Christ but would not make much sense in heaven. Since the Great Controversy
came before even man’s existence in Blanco’s article it
would be reasonable to assume that the subject would be the same from
incomprehensible to Jews and New Testament Christians as well as many Christians
throughout history.
To document Blanco’s views he writes in the concluding line of the second
paragraph: “And together with his followers, he rebelled against
the authority of the Son He would be subject to the Father but not to Christ.”
It is not to the Bible that the footnote to this line indicates
but an extra Biblical source. Not exactly what would be expected from a top
ranked Christian Theologian. He then gives us more
extra Biblical
details: “He told the Father about his dissatisfaction that Christ should be
given preference and urged that he should have that position
The Father told him that His Son's position belonged to Him alone”. Once again
we see the Arian influence of Christ being someone brought forth by God but not
really God positioned that way by the Father rather then intrinsically always
being God. Certainly this is not what the Bible describes in John 1:1 or
elsewhere in the New Testament. In general the SDA church has been trying to
distance itself from its Semi-Arian origins, yet if it becomes part of out
Great Controversy reason for existence as a church we will always fail to
separate from
Semi-Arianism.
Blanco’s Great Controversy is pretty much destroyed by Blanco’s own recounting
of the Great Controversy. Notice what he says in the
paragraph which follows the quotes above. “It is important to understand that
closely examined, the cosmic struggle is between God and Satan over the
authority of Christ. Lucifer refused to accept Christ as his Lord and King.” By
Blanco’s own story, Satan refuses to do what God says, which
is a refusal to accept God as Satan’s Lord and King. Thus far the Great
Controversy Blanco asserts is long on non-biblical material, it asserts Lucifer
is a reference not to the king of Babylon but to Satan, it asserts Ezekiel
refers to Satan rather then the kingdom of Tyre, it asserts
that Satan did not see the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ as God and wanted
Christ’s position. Finally Blanco tells us that after close examination the
whole thing is because Satan refused to accept Christ as his Lord and King.
Close examination, is hardly the description for such doctrinal distortions.
After another meeting between the Godhead, again not recorded any where in the
Bible, God creates man and they fall. This according to Blanco’s view caused
Adam and Eve to forfeit ownership of earth, again not recorded anywhere in the
Bible. He may intend that Satan had ownership because of the temptation of
Jesus in the wilderness, offering all Christ could see to Jesus if Jesus would
only worship him, Satan. But like a lot of liars Satan did not have anything to
give Jesus in the first place. However it does seem to be one of the first
times in the article that Blanco is actually taking something out of the Bible
and using it in a somewhat contextual way.
Blanco then moves to the Seventh-day Sabbath attempting to make it a part of
the Great Controversy. “The fourth commandment makes a statement about creation
and redemption and also about God's authority and His Son's deity. The law is
there for all to see. Even in
The sad part in all this, besides the gross misapplication of scripture and the
plea to extra-biblical authority, is that there really is a
conflict between good and evil. Yet in this conflict God does not need our
contrivances to sort out the issues. Jesus Christ has left us with
the totality of God showing the good of God, the love, the forgiveness, and
reconciliation. Christ, as the Bible tells us in the fullness of the
Godhead, does all this without the need for third century myths much less the
need for a nineteenth century mythology of God and Lucifer.
http://www.adventistreview.org/2004-1517/story1.html
The Abbreviated Great Controversy
BY JACK J. BLANCO
HY
HAVE Seventh-day Adventists been brought on the scene of action at this time in
the world's history? While our mission is to take the gospel to all the world, our unique emphasis is to help settle the
question between God and Lucifer over the authority of Christ. In order to
understand the magnitude of our mission and the cosmic impact of the work we
have been called to do, we need to understand the underlying issue of the
conflict that began thousands of years ago in the throne room of God.
The Cosmic Issue Over Authority
As we know from Scripture, it all began when Lucifer, the commanding angel
standing in the presence of God, became proud and turned violent.1
He was jealous of Christ and refused to acknowledge His supremacy and accept
His authority. He began to assume command, which belonged to Christ alone. This
compelled the Father to assemble the heavenly host to confirm in the presence
of all that His Son was equal with Himself and wherever His Son was, it was as
though He Himself was present. The word of the Son was to be obeyed as readily
as His own. Lucifer bowed in acknowledgment but left the presence of the Father
filled with envy. And together with his followers, he rebelled against the
authority of the Son.2
How
long Lucifer was allowed to spread his rebellion throughout the universe we are
not told. He wanted to be like the Most High.3 He wanted to be equal
with God and have his authority be heard as if it were
God's. He told the Father about his dissatisfaction that Christ should be given
preference and urged that he should have that position. He would be subject to
the Father but not to Christ. The Father told him that His Son's position
belonged to Him alone. Then Lucifer said that he was ready to resist the
authority of Christ and to defend his position in heaven by force.4 So the war in heaven was instigated by Lucifer, and he and
his angels had to be expelled.5
It
is important to understand that closely examined, the cosmic struggle is
between God and Satan over the authority of Christ. Lucifer refused to accept
Christ as his Lord and King.
This
same issue impinges on us. No one will be in heaven who does not accept Christ
as his or her Lord and King. Throughout the New Testament Epistles we find
expressions such as: Jesus Christ our Savior and Lord. To accept Christ as
Savior is one thing, but to accept Him as Lord is another. The former brings
forgiveness, the latter calls for obedience. While the cosmic conflict has many
aspects such as Can God be trusted? Is He fair? Is He
dictatorial and arbitrary? the central issue is the
acceptance of His authority and what He said about the equality and authority
of His Son. The Father Himself speaks of Christ as God, even after His incarnation.6
So to accept or reject the authority and lordship of
Christ is to accept or reject the authority of God.7 The ultimate
question facing the universe is: Who's in charge? Monotheism
or polytheism? "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one!"8
Conflict Over a Planet
After the second meeting in heaven with the heavenly host, the Father consulted
with His Son to at once carry out Their purpose to
create Adam and Eve. Their loyalty would have to be tested to see whether they
would accept God's authority and obey Him or not.9 Eve believed
Satan, and Adam believed her. Together they disbelieved the words of God and
believed the words of Satan. Although they confessed their sin, they knew they
had forfeited all right to the garden and to the bestowed ownership of this
planet.10 The planet belonged to God. He
was the one who created it, which is explicitly stated in the fourth
commandment.11
This
ownership was challenged by Satan no more explicitly than during Christ's
temptation in the wilderness. "Again, the devil took Him up on an
exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and
their glory. And he said to Him, 'All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.'"12
This was not only a challenge to God's ownership, but also His authority and to
what He said. Because the cosmic conflict is being played out here, the
creation of this planet with its accompanying Sabbath commandment becomes the
focal point not only of God's authority here but throughout the universe.
We
can arrive at the legitimacy of the Ten Commandments without scriptural
authority. It can make sense to worship only one God, not to use His name in
cursing; to honor family, not to kill, be unfaithful, steal, lie, and be
selfish. It even makes sense to rest periodically, especially in a
stress-driven world. But on what logic or astronomical evidence must we keep
the seventh day? The Sabbath has a greater part to play in this struggle than
we may have previously thought. The seventh-day Sabbath rests on no other
authority than the authority of God. It is more than a sign of creation or even
a sign of redemption when the Lord said, "Remember that you were a slave
in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there by a mighty
hand and by an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to
keep the Sabbath day" for it is "a sign between them and Me, that
they might know that I am the Lord who sanctifies them."13 It
is a sign to the universe that God is ultimately in control. It is a statement
about who God is. He is not only a loving Father but a moral governor.14
Without ultimate authority centered in God, it calls
into question the whole moral structure of the universe. There would be no
moral absolutes. Everything would be relative.
God's Authority Made Evident
With the creation of
After
the destruction of Jerusalem the gospel went to the Gentiles, and the focus
shifted from the earthly temple to the sanctuary in heaven, which the Lord
built and not man.19 In vision John sees the temple in heaven, and
in it was the ark of the covenant.20 Ellen White also had a vision
of the temple and the ark with the Ten Commandments and a special light
illuminating the Sabbath.21 The fourth commandment makes a statement
about creation and redemption and also about God's authority and His Son's
deity. The law is there for all to see. Even in
What
a privilege and honor we have as sons and daughters, part of the royal family,
to be called to proclaim to the world, in the hearing of the universe, the
cosmic significance of the Sabbath, lifting up the Son of God as our Creator,
Redeemer, and forever King.
God's Authority Set Aside
The apostle Paul warns the believers that what the sanctuary in heaven stands
for will be challenged. A voice on earth will be heard claiming to speak for
God, exercising the authority of God.23 Paul says, "And no wonder! For Satan himself
transforms himself into an angel of light."24
Daniel speaks of God's authority being challenged and an attempt being made to
change His law, particularly the time in the law.25 Daniel further
says, "He even exalted himself as high as the Prince of the host; and by
him the daily sacrifices were taken away, and the place of His sanctuary was
cast down."26 The meaning is made evident when in the following
verses Daniel hears a "holy one" asking another "holy one"
how long this casting down will last. The answer is given: "For two
thousand three hundred days; then the sanctuary shall be cleansed,"27
or set right again. When that will take place is made clear in the following
verses in which Gabriel says, "Understand, son of man,
that the vision refers to the time of the end."28
As
the psalmist says, "It is time for You to act, O
Lord, for they have regarded Your law as void. Therefore I love Your commandments more than gold, yes, than fine gold!
Therefore all Your precepts concerning all things I
consider to be right; I hate every false way."29
God Sets Things Right
In vision John saw an angel flying in the midst of heaven taking the gospel to
the world and announcing God's final action. He gives a call to worship God,
who created heaven and earth, because judgment time has come.30 This
is a vision of a worldwide movement helping God to set things right. It speaks
of His creative power and His right to be God. The race that Satan wished to
control and destroy has not been given the privilege to make a statement
against him and supportive of God. The throne room question about God needs to
be settled. The earth is the test case. If God's authority could legitimately be
set aside here, then it could be set aside anywhere. The fourth commandment
speaks of God as Creator. It speaks to His authority and to the lordship of
Christ. The issue is more than simply one day of worship versus another, as
important as that is. It has to do with God's final statement to the universe
of who He is and who His Son is.
Those
who keep His commandments and have faith in Jesus31 are part of the
final solution, part of the final statement that is to be made to the universe
about God and His Son. When Pilate asked Christ if He was a king, He answered,
"You say rightly that
As
Seventh-day Adventists we have been called on the stage of history to help set
things right. By keeping the Sabbath we are not only recognizing God as Creator
but confirming Christ's deity and kingship as stated by His Father. It is a
statement to the whole universe answering the cosmic question that surfaced
thousands of years ago in the throne room of God and is finally being settled
once and for all.
God's Authority Restored
When this cosmic conflict is over, the rebellion put down and Satan destroyed,
then once again God will be all in all.35 There
will be a new heaven and a new earth. New Jerusalem will come down from heaven,
and God Himself will be here.36 His throne will be on the very
planet that Satan claimed as his, where sin began and the price was paid.
The
earth will no longer be at the edge of a galaxy. It will be moved out of its
place and become the center of the universe.37 With undimmed vision
the redeemed will look at the glory of creation with suns, stars, and systems
all circling the throne of Deity.38 And from one Sabbath to another
God will be worshiped.39 The seventh day will be kept not just
because of the rotation of the earth with its day/night cycle, for the city has
no need of the sun. God is its light, and there is no night there.40
There
will always be the reminder of the price paid for our redemption in the marks
of crucifixion on our Savior's head, on His side, and in His hands.41
And there will be the perpetual Sabbath as a statement of God's authority and
the right of His Son as Lord and King of creation. "The redeemed saints,
and all the angelic host, will observe it in honor of
the great Creator to all eternity."42 The entire universe will
recognize the deeper significance of the Sabbath and worship the God of heaven
and earth.
What
a privilege is ours as a church to honor the Father by speaking for Him to the
entire universe about His Son and who He really is.
_________________________
Note: All Scripture references are taken from the New King James
Version of the Holy Scriptures.
_________________________
1 Eze.
28:14-17.
2 Ellen G. White, The Story of
Redemption, pp. 13-15.
3 Isa. 14:12-14.
4 Ibid., pp. 16-18.
5 Rev. 12:7-9.
6 Heb. 1:8, 9.
7 John 14:7-11.
8 Deut. 6:4.
9 Ibid., p. 19.
10 Gen. 3:1-6, 23, 24; Ellen G. White, Patriarchs
and Prophets, pp. 55, 61.
11 Ex. 20:8-11; Deut. 5:12-15.
12 Matt. 4:8, 9.
13 Deut. 5:15; Eze. 20:12.
14 Ellen G. White, Last Day Events, pp. 240, 241.
15 Ex. 25:8.
16 Verses 16-22; Ps. 29:10.
17 Matt. 21:12-16.
18 Luke 19:41-44; Matt. 23:37-39; 24:1, 2.
19 Heb. 8:1-5.
20 Rev. 11:19; 15:5.
21 Ellen G. White, Early Writings, pp. 32,
33.
22 Ibid., p. 217.
23 2 Thess. 2:1-5.
24 2 Cor.
25 Dan. 7:25; The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary,
vol. 4, pp. 831, 832.
26 Dan. 8:11; ibid., pp. 842, 843.
27 Verse 14; ibid.,
p. 844.
28 Verse 17.
29 Ps. 119:126-128.
30 Rev. 14:6, 7, 12.
31 Verse 12.
32 John 18:37.
33 Ps. 24:7-10; see also Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages,
pp. 833-835.
34 Rev. 19:11-16.
35 1 Cor.
36 Rev. 21:1-7.
37 Isa. 13:13; White, Early Writings,
p. 41.
38 Ellen G. White, The Great
Controversy, p. 677.
39 Isa. 66:22, 23.
40 Rev. 21:22-25.
41 Zech. 13:6; White, The Great
Controversy, p. 674.
42 White, Early Writings, p. 217.
_________________________
Jack J. Blanco retired as chair of the Theology Department at Southern