THEREFORE, LET
US DRAW NEAR
SOMETHING GREATER
EXPERTS IN GREEK
INVESTIGATIVE
JUDGEMENT by Julián R. Cano
THEREFORE,
LET US DRAW NEAR
Therefore brethren, LET US DRAW NEAR
TO JESUS! (10:19) Boldly ENTER by faith INTO THE HOLY
PLACE ("hagia") where He is (10:19).
In the time of Paul, He was in the first
apartment, but in relation to our personal experience at this
time in history-the twentieth century,-we can read every one
of those "hagia" passages as applying to where He is
today!-in the second "holy place "!
"Having therefore, brethren, boldness
to enter into the holiest ("hagia") by the blood of
Jesus, by a NEW and LIVING way, which He hath consecrated
for us, THROUGH THE VEIL ("dia tou katapetasmatos"-"through
the veil," or first veil into the first apartment, as
in 6:19; NOT the "to deuteron katapetasma"-"the
SECOND veil" of 9:3. Although TODAY we are to come
to Him through that second veil!)."
We have a high priest! We have a Sanctuary!
We have mediation and empowering grace continually offered us
by that priest! Oh, my friend,-grasp it! And you have the gift
as you cling to Christ, walk with Him, sit in heavenly places
with Him, and let Him work through your eyes and hands and mouth
to reach those around you!
The future is bright, for we have the
right message. It is a law-abiding message, an obedience-enabling
message, from a priest who became like us in all points, and
who will keep us from sin as He kept from it through the strength
of His Father.
SOMETHING
GREATER
"Something better," "something
greater," is the continual message of the Book of Hebrews.
This is what we have seen all through the book. Here is a
quotation from my Biblical Sanctuary:
"Hebrews 1 - Greater than the
angels, because He was fully God.
[Chapter] 2 - Greater than others
who succour, because He was fully man.
[Chapter] 3 - Greater than Moses,
for He was the Builder and Leader of Israel.
[Chapter] 4 - Greater than Joshua,
for He brings us to the true rest.
[Chapter] 5 - Greater than earthly
priests, for He is far more compassionate.
[Chapter] 6 - Greater than Greater
than earthly refuges, for this One leads us directly to God.
[Chapter] 7 - Greater than Aaron,
for His Priesthood is superior in every way.
[Chapter] 8 -Greater than an earthly
tabernacle and covenant, for He writes the Law into our minds.
{Chapter} 9 - Greater than earthly
sacrifices and blood, for He removes sin.
[Chapter] 10 - Greater than an earthly
dedication, for He can give us heart purity if we will be
steadfast to the end.
[Chapter] 11 - Greater than an earthly
faith, for the one He gives enables men to be fearless of
death.
[Chapter] 12 - Greater than a worldly
endurance, for this brings us to the city of God.
[Chapter] 13 - Greater than worldly affairs, for now
every duty of life is consecrated unto the One who goes with
us without the camp.
"Something greater" is
a powerful incentive for you and for me today to come to Jesus
within the Sanctuary above. Greater than earth is heaven;
greater than the cross is that which it leads us toward."-The
Biblical Sanctuary, p. 16:1-2.
EXPERTS
IN GREEK
There is a theologian's secret
here, and it is this: no one is an
expert at Greek! unless you
daily speak it and hear it
spoken. Only then can you readily understand the tenses
and inflections of its verbs, the declensions of its nouns and
pronouns, and subtleties of its sentence structure and word sequence.
And then there is the problem of its idioms. Greek is complicated.
It is not enough to open to a verse in the Greek New Testament
and say you know what it means in the Greek. You will
tend to read it as you already know it in whatever English version
you are most familiar with.
People come to America from other lands
and spend a decade continually speaking, hearing, reading, and
writing English--and still do not acquire a sharp, native grasp
of the subtleties of the language. Reading a foreign language
for a surface grasp of what is presented is not difficult; it
is knowing for a certainty that you are correct in what you think
it means that is the difficult thing. And that only comes with
speaking, hearing, and writing that language over an extended
period of time. And a Greek scholar NEVER--NEVER--does
this. He Never speaks it; he never listens to it in conversations;
he never communicates in written Greek. He only reads it. He
may call himself a "Greek expert," but he would never
dare try writing an original letter to his friends in the language
of Biblical Greek.
There are many people who have received
a Ph.D. In order to obtain that doctoral degree, it is necessary
to be able to read some material in your field in a foreign language
(most people select French, since it is easy like Spanish). How
does the Ph.D. candidate acquire that capability? He merely
sets aside a month to quickly work up some reding proficiency
and then take a rudimentary examination in the reading of French.
It may sound difficult but it is not. It is merely reading
in a foreign language.
Then, afterward, in the hectic rush of
post-doctoral employment, the French is set aside and mostly
forgotten.
But the theology expert
are similar in this respect
also. They will generally spend relatively little
of their post-doctoral employment time working with the Greek
New Testament. Even Greek teachers will not immediately
know a given passage well. This is because Greek conjugations,
declension, and all the rest are simply too complicated to be
easily and and quickly understood when the only method of
working with the language is simply reading in a Greek New Testament
a little time each day or week.
If you have a hard time believing this,
here are two simple tests (1) Watch a "Greek expert"
when he opens the Greek New Testament to a place
he was not planning to open
it to. Instead of just reading it off, as he should
do if it were English, he silently stares at it, trying to figure
out what it is all about. (2) Ask him to turn to a passage
and read it to you. For example ask him to turn to Acts
27 or try 2Peter on him. Remember: you should
be the one that selects the
passage. You will then find that he only has a cursory
acquaintance with Greek, and little more.
It is then imposible to know the meaning
of the Greek New Testament? Not at all. It can be known but
ONLYBYVERYCAREFULSTUDY! No quick reading will ever give
you much more meaning than you bring to it. But slow, careful
study of each word in the passage, AND the sourrounding verses,
the chapter, and the entire book as they relate to it, will open
up whole new vistas of understanding. But this
is not often done, even by
Bible translations each year.
The Greek New Testament is actually a
study tool, rather than a book for casual reading. The person
reading it tends to skim over the surface, trying to connect
the passage with his previous understanding of what an English
translation says. The real student sits down at a desk and carefully
works it out word by word. As he works, he has idiom books,
exegetical grammars, and large lexicons and concordances by his
side.
E. W. Farnsworth, in 1905,described Ballenger's
teachings in these words: "When Jesus ascended, He went
immediately into the Most Holy Place, and that His ministry has
been carried on there ever since, and that Ballenger claims that
Hebrews 6:19, 'within the veil' refers to the Most Holy Place
[alone]. Ballenger's teaching here is identical [on both points]
to that of Desmond B. Ford's." Ellen White wrote this in
warning about the teachings of A. F. Ballenger:
"In clear, plain language I am to
say to those in attendance at this [General] conference [Session
of 1905] that Brother Ballenger has been allowing his mind to
receive and believe specious error. He has been misinterpreting
and misapplying the scriptures upon which he has fastened his
mind. He is building up theories that are not founded in truth.
A warning is now to come to him and to the people; for God has
not indited the message that he is bearing. This message, if
accepted, would undermine the pillars of our faith . . If the
theories that Brother Ballenger presents were received, they
would lead many to depart from the faith. They would counterwork
the truths upon which the people of God have stood for the past
fifty years. I am bidden to say in the name of the Lord that
Elder Ballenger is following a false light. The Lord has not
given him the message that he is hearing regarding the Sanctuary
Service . . I have a warning for those who suppose that they
have been given the work of revealing Scripture in a new light.
This work means substituting human interpretations for the interpretation
that God has given. Thus did the heavenly messengers pronounce
upon the effort into which Brother Ballenger has entered."-Manuscript
62, 1905. END
INVESTIGATIVE
JUDGEMENT by Julián R. Cano
[emphasis and bold letters are
ours].
Let us once more read Mr. Martin's statement
regarding the second apartment and the 1844 Investigative Judgment:
"If Jesus at the resurrection went into the second
apartment of the heavenly sanctuary in heaven itself, with his
own blood and obtained eternal redemption for us, then there
is no 1844 investigative judgment. It is a myth..."
In our previous study we have shown with
the Word of God that Mr. Martin's assumption and statement regarding
the entrance of Jesus into the second apartment [the Most Holy
Place] at the resurrection [A.D. 31] is false. He also stated
that if Jesus went into the second apartment at the resurrection,
then there is no 1844-Investigative Judgment. If you recall,
I stated earlier that if we prove that Jesus went into the first
apartment [Holy Place] at the resurrection [A.D.31], then there
is an 1844 investigative judgment. However, I also stated that
both of these statements are assumptions, unless proven
by the Word of God. We now know that Jesus went into the first
apartment [Holy Place] of the heavenly sanctuary in A.D. 31.
We know this is not an assumption. It is a Bible fact. The
Bible alone did interpreted itself. The Bible alone gave the
true and proper answer.
We must now study what the Bible says
about the judgment. In the book "The Kingdom of the
Cults", pg. 476, Walter Martin makes the
following statement regarding the Investigative Judgment:
"The Bible explicitly declares that
when one accepts Christ as Lord, God freely forgives all of his
sins and ushers him from spiritual death to spiritual life solely
on the merits of the perfect life and death of the Lord Jesus
Christ. To this Adventist fully agree, and this makes their teching
on investigative judgment inconsistent. In John 5:24
the Greek deals a devastating blow to the Seventh-day Adventist
concept of investigative judgment: "He that hears my word
and believe him that sent me has everlasting life and shall
not come under judgment but is passed from death to life"
(literal translation). Christians, therefore, need not anticipate
any investigative judgment for their sins. True we shall all
appear before the judgment seat of Christ to receive the deed
done in the body (2 Corinthians 5:10), but this has nothing
to do with any investigative judgment. It is a judgment for
rewards. Several judgments are mentioned in the Bible, but
it is my opinion that not one passage substantiates the "investigative
judgment" theory--for theory it truly is, relying, upon
out-of-context quotations and supported by the "spirit of
prophecy."
To prove Mr. Martin's "opinion
that not one passage substantiates the "investigative
judgment" theory", we must read and study carefully
the Bible in the name of Jesus, so that the Holy Spirit guide
us into all truth. We must also find out if the investigative
judgment is supported by "out of context quotations and
supported by the "spirit of prophecy" , or if it
is supported by Bible truth.
Let us first look at several Bible texts
and determine if the Bible talks about a judgment after A.D.
31 and prior to the second coming of Jesus, or
if it does not talk about a judgment or of a judgment prior to
the second coming of Jesus:
"For we know him that hath said, Vengeance
belongeth unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again,
The Lord SHALL JUDGE HIS PEOPLE" Heb. 10:30.
Please notice that the book of Hebrews
was written after A.D. 31. Also notice that the judgment
the Bible talks about is yet future ("shall
judge").
"Because he hath appointed
a day, in the which he will JUDGE
the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained:
whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath
raised him from the dead" Acts 17:31.
Mr. Martin admits that many Bible verses
"unmistakably indicate future judgment, the writer
to the Hebrews declares, "As it is appointed unto men
once to die, but after this the judgment"
(Heb. 9:27). This, to any non-Adventist, is conclusive
evidence that there is no investigative judgment now going
on for believers to fear" "The Kingdom of the
Cults", pg. 479.
For Mr. Martin one single
Bible verse is "conclusive evidence"
for "any non-Adventist" , yet this verse
states that there is judgment in the future, even after death,
for the Bible also clearly states: "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 things which
were written in the books, according to their works" Rev.
20: 12.
This study will continue in PART II
of the Sanctuary A.D. 31 or A.D. 1844? For free copies
of this study please write to:
Bible Ministries
P.O. Box 1214 Caguas
Puerto Rico, 00726
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