Talk:Great Controversy theme
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[edit] Emphasis on book more
"The Great Controversy" is a book, right? This article needs to mention the book a lot more, and be less of a free-floating theological essay which is very difficult for non-Adventists to understand... AnonMoos 23:09, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
- I will have a look through to see how this can be fixed. Thanks, Ansell 00:21, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Essay from main page
The following is an essay type summary of the book which may be relevant, but in its current form does not fit the page.
[edit] The Great Controversy Worldview
[edit] Before Jesus
As the Great Controversy goes beyond just the story of our planet, it starts in heaven. At one stage in the past the universe was at peace and every one of God’s creations in the many populated worlds adored and served God. However, from a certain moment, the greatest angel ever created, Lucifer, somehow developed a desire to become God. He challenged Gods law of ‘Love and Justice’ as oppressive and united a third of the angels of heaven in direct opposition to God. Their main belief was that God was not worthy of creaturely allegiance.
Soon after the beginning of the rebellion there was war in heaven between Lucifer and his angels and Michael and the remaining angels. Michael, as the second member of the Godhead, along with twice the number of angels managed to win the battle and expel the rebellious angels from heaven. God did not destroy the rebellious angels and made sure everyone had a free choice in the matter. From then on every creature in the universe has had to make a choice, sooner or later, whether to obey God or to rebel against him and join the fallen angels, headed by Lucifer. Earth was no exception.
At this time the only inhabitants of our planet were Adam and Eve, who lived in the Garden of Eden and were responsible for the planet. When God created the Earth and the Garden along with Adam and Eve the rebellion seems to have already started as he purposely creates a tree, known as the ‘tree of knowledge of good and evil’. Satan, Lucifer’s post rebellion name, is limited to this tree in tempting Adam and Eve to disobey God and join the rebellion. Sure enough, after some time, Eve approaches the tree.
Satan, disguised as a talking serpent, convinces Eve that God is not worth of creaturely allegiance and obedience as she accepts to eat from the forbidden tree. The situation becomes irreversible when Adam joins her in the rebellion. Now one hundred percent of the Earth joined the rebellion and passed on the command of this planet to Satan. As no other planet has accepted to join the rebellious group, Earth would become the epic centre of this battle between God and Satan. However, Gods law of ‘love and justice’ itself proposed a paradox in his actions for if he killed the rebellious individuals he would be just but not love. Yet if he let them live eternally he would be love yet not just. This irresolvable paradox proposed a challenge to God’s leadership with extensive consequences.
When God comes to the Garden to meet with Adam and Eve as he used to at the end of each day, he couldn’t find them. They hid from certain death. However, when God finally met with them, their death did not follow. God proclaimed a few curses and promises that would set the stage for life on Earth from that day on and would give hope to the fallen couple and the rest of humanity. God cursed the serpent and the ground, but not Adam and Eve. God simply gave them a sad description of the pain of their future life.
They were blessed because they did not die and received a chance to live forever again through an offspring of the woman. Also, God did not allow man to unite on the same level with Satan and the rebellion. Man was to naturally be scared of and avoid the Devil (another name for Lucifer after the rebellion) and his angels. However, death was still a reality on that day. Their clothes being made by God from animal skin and the sacrificial worship they would perform soon after suggest that God introduced them to substitutionary death. Here the sacrifice of the animal would be a symbol of when the offspring of the woman would be killed in the place of all humanity.
Worship from that moment on should involve the death of an innocent animal that would represent the death of Jesus, the son of God, many years later. This soteriological symbol was best proposed by the sanctuary model given to Moses and followed for generations thereafter. For the thousands of years from Eden to Jesus, people had the chance of leaving the rebellion and choosing salvation by accepting that their sins would be forgiven due to the sacrifice of an innocent being.
The story of Job gives much insight into this war, as it shows Satan representing the Earth in some sort of universal council. It is easy to see the theme of the war throughout the story of Job, where both God and Satan have a point to prove. Satan in saying that no creature can worship God in all circumstances and God in showing that he is worthy of creaturely allegiance and that it is possible to worship him. Although we are not told of this in most stories of the Old Testament, this background war seems to be at play from page to page as it points to the deliverer who is to free mankind.
[edit] After Jesus
It was many years after the promise in the Garden that Jesus was born. He was fully God and yet fully human and had a mission with at least three objectives: 1) To reveal God’s character; 2) To demonstrate that a creature is able to serve God in both ‘love and justice’ and 3) To make it possible for humanity to be saved. His life as we know it certainly show that he accomplished all three. However, it is the accomplishment of the third objective that gives us greatest hope. From Jesus’ death on the cross God redeemed humanity and gave every one the choice of being saved. The cross became efficient for every human being, yet only effective for those who accept it.
After the cross, Satan was finally banished from heaven as his battle was now lost. Jesus demonstrated that God is both love and just and can be obeyed by his creatures. He also showed that God is worthy of creaturely allegiance and his death would substitute the death of all those who decide against the rebellion. Above this, the cross truly showed the extent of God’s love and at the same time exposed Satan for what he really is, a devil. This was of great importance for the angels that remained in heaven as well as all other creatures of the universe.
However, the war was still far from over. After the cross, God gained rulership over the Earth again and as such was able to provide greater aid in proclaiming salvation. This was evidenced in Pentecost. It was only after the death of Jesus that God could send his Spirit with such power. ‘Christ replaced Satan, the usurper, as the leader of this world. Now Christ won the right to send His Holy Spirit in fullness to willing recipients without violating the creaturely freedom He granted Satan, his demons and rebel humans.’
The continuation of this war after the cross has gained a different momentum. Now the main objective of Satan is to deceive as many as possible to remain distant from God and continue within the rebellion, even if by simply keeping people in ignorance of what Jesus has done. Therefore, what followed the cross was a great number of demons deceiving people so that the reality of this war happening beyond their senses will never be known to them, and if known, never believed.
At this stage it is important to note that within the Great Controversy worldview death means exactly that. When a person dies, they die completely. This springs from a particular understanding of the body, soul and spirit based on the creation of man. When God created man, he formed the body, which was unconscious until God breathed his Spirit into man. Only then man became conscious as a living soul. Therefore the Spirit of life belongs to God and brings life to an inanimate body. The combination of these, body and living Spirit, forms a living soul.
Death, therefore, is the Spirit of life leaving the body and returning to God. Death of the body also means the death of the soul, as without a body man cannot be a living soul. The immediate implication of this is that individuals will not go anywhere when they die. Judgement therefore, does not happen before each individual dies as they will remain dead until resurrected.
The end of this war will start taking place when Jesus returns. His return is accompanied by the retrieving of all those humans that somehow remained faithful to the principles of heaven, consciously or not. This is preceded, of course, by a careful judgement from God, which as indicated, will not happen in multiple occasions before each person dies, but rather in one specific period of time. This segregation of ‘sheep and goats (Mt 25)’ has been feared greatly by many peoples, especially in the middle ages, where misconceptions of this judgement were also very common. It is here that the evident paradox emerges: how can a God of love destroy his own creatures? The extinction of evil is vital for the preservation of good and so judgement is an important element of the Great Controversy worldview as in it God decides who has clang on to evil and who has not.
God has made many promises that he would call a people about the same time as his judgement period to proclaim a special message to this world before his return. This message is contained in Revelation 14 and is known as ‘The Three Angels Message’. These are messages of awakening to a world that is sleeping and is ignorant of it. The people who would proclaim this message are compared to John the Baptist in the sense of preparing the way for the coming of Christ. Thus this people were to be called to prepare the way for the second coming of Jesus.
When Jesus finally returns, there will be a massive resurrection of all those who rejected evil since the beginning of the world and they will all be taken up to heaven. In contrast, all those who have clang on to evil will die. Then, for a thousand years, the saved will live with God in heaven whilst the earth will remain chaotic with only Satan and his demons roaming around it.
The activity of those that are taken to heaven is mainly to look through the ‘books’ and judge God’s judgement. They will review every case of every human and verify whether God has been both ‘Love’ and ‘Just’. However, even as this period unfolds and humans realise that God is both ‘Love’ and ‘Just’, the war is not over. There are still billions of people along with Satan and his demons who would perhaps disagree and the war can only end when the character of God is not questioned by any creature, including Satan.
At the end of this millennium God returns once again with all redeemed humans and the city of God. God then resurrects all the remaining humans and leaves them to the leadership of Satan, who unites them to an attack on the holy city. However, before the attack all eyes will see the ceremony of the coronation of Jesus along with images from his life and death. It is amongst this imagery that all who watch, saved and lost, angels and demons, bow down and admit that God is ‘Love’ and ‘Just’, including Satan. At that point there will be no doubt that God is worthy of creaturely allegiance and hence the greatest question ever raised would now be answered unanimously by ever creature.
At the end of the ceremony, Satan will try to unite man and attack the city in one desperate attempt to revert the situation, but as they try God calls for fire from heaven which descends and destroys evil and all those who chose to cling to it. This same fire also cleanses the Earth and prepares it for the new creation. At this stage we are told the saved will be crying for those that were lost, but God himself comes and wipes their tears as he creates everything anew. The new creation will be even greater than the first and from that point on, evil will no longer arise as every being in the universe has seen the consequences of rebellion. At this moment
- "the great controversy is ended. Sin and sinners are no more. The entire universe is clean. One pulse of harmony and gladness beats through the vast creation. From Him who created all, flow life and light and gladness, throughout the realms of illimitable space. From the minutest atom to the greatest world, all things, animate and inanimate, in their unshadowed beauty and perfect joy, declare that God is love."
If someone could edit the above into a reasonable piece describing the book it would be great. Ansell 00:24, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
