God has no Achilles Heel!

[pythons]

Isaiah 35
The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing: the glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon, they shall see the glory of the Lord, and the excellency of our God. Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees. Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not: behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompence; he will come and save you. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert.

Jesus explicitly attributed the above Scripture as referring to Him when asked the question by John's disciples if He was the one they had been waiting for ( Luke 7, 20 - 23 ). Also we see the assurance of God Himself that there was no weak spot in the Salvation planned before the creation of the world:

Daniel 2, 44
And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever. Forasmuch as thou sawest that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it brake in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold; the great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter: and the dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure

According to "The Great God" the above was going to take place, it was "certain", it was "sure".

Christ also spoke to the same effect multiple times in the Gospels i.e. that HE HAD TO DIE & RISE UP on the 3rd day. Despite these clear Scriptures and approximately 100 other equally clear Scriptures non-Trinitarian groups assert that it MIGHT HAVE ALL FALLEN APART. According to Adventist groups Christ could have sinned & been eternally annihilated by God thereby becoming as if Christ had never existed in the 1st place.

Adventist Groups are: Jehovah's Witnesses, Christadelphians, Seventh-day Adventists, WWCOG 7th day.

Examples:

Signs of the Time April 2, 1940
It is VITAL for every Christian to know that Jesus Christ MIGHT have sinned. The Master was not beyond the clutches of temptation. The Heaven-sent Gift could have been eternally lost and the doom of humanity would have been eternally sealed. Jesus Christ knew the pull of evil. "In that He Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able to succor them that are tempted.

James White ( Ellen's husband )
"We invite all to compare THE TESTIMONIES of the Holy Spirit THROUGH Mrs. White with the word of God. And in this we do not invite you to compare them with your creed. That is quite another thing. The TRINITARIAN may compare them with his creed, and because THEY DO NOT AGREE WITH IT, CONDEMN them [ the testimonies of Mrs. White ]. The Adventist Review & Sabbath Herald June 13, 1871

Ellen White, GCB Dec 1, 1895
Remember that Christ risked all; "tempted like as we are," he staked EVEN his own eternal existence upon the issue of the conflict. Heaven itself was imperiled for our redemption

Ellen White
Because of sin, his posterity was born with inherent propensities of disobedience. But Jesus Christ was the only begotten Son of God. He took upon Himself human nature, and was tempted in all points as human nature is tempted. He could have sinned; He could have fallen

Ellen White
The new tomb enclosed Him in its rocky chambers. If one single sin had tainted His character the stone would never have been rolled away from the door of His rocky chamber, and the world with its burden of guilt would have perished

Ellen White
Could Satan in the least particular have tempted Christ to sin, he would have bruised the Saviour's head. As it was, he could only touch His heel. Had the head of Christ been touched, the hope of the human race would have perished. Divine wrath would have come upon Christ as it came upon Adam. Christ and the church would have been without hope.” ( Signs of the Times, June 9th 1898, see also Selected Messages Book 1 page 256)


It would appear that rejecting the Trinity Doctrine has a profound effect on what one adopts as Doctrines.

 

[pythons]

I'd also like to dispel another teaching specifically within Seventh-day Adventism that's used as justification for claiming God has inherit weakness and is subject to judgement. This teaching is called 'THE GREAT CONTROVERSY THEME'.

Essentially the theme is Ellen White describing events that took place in the Garden of Eden and throughout the Galaxy that are not mentioned or even implied in the Bible. Below is a short summary of the Theme.


After Adam and Eve break the rule about not eating the fruit from the certain tree Lucifer makes a "LEGAL CHARGE" against God that He's being too rough (ham handed) with Adam and Eve and that anyone subjected to unreasonable laws like that would fail. Lucifer broadcast this message throughout the multiverse to planets with aliens living on them and particularly targeted the ranks of angels.

Lucifer had really put God into a pickle , hauled into court on trumped up charges - SOMETHING had to be done about this - but who could attempt it? Michael the archangel steps forward and "volunteers" to sluff off his flesh body and be born as man so that he can prove that God's law IS NOT to difficult to keep - but there is real danger in the mission BECAUSE if Michael screws up and doesn't follow God's holy law God will kill Michael and annihilate him so that he would become as if he never existed.

A rather famous SDA describes the danger below:

Charles S Longacre
IF it were impossible for the Son of God to make a mistake or commit a sin, then His coming into this world and subjecting Himself to temptations were all a farce AND mere mockery. IF it were possible for Him to yield to temptation and fall into sin, then He MUST have risked heaven and His very existence, and EVEN all eternity. That is exactly what the Scriptures AND the Spirit of Prophecy say Christ, the Son of God did do when He came to work out for us a plan of salvation from the curse of sin.

IF Christ "risked all," EVEN His ETERNAL EXISTENCE in heaven, then there was a possibility of His being overcome by sin, and IF overcome by sin, He would have gone into Joseph's tomb and neither THAT tomb nor any other tomb would EVER have been opened. All would have been lost and HE would have suffered "eternal loss," the loss of ALL He ever possessed &; His DIVINITY AND His humanity and heaven itself would have been "lost & eternally lost

It was possible for one of the God-head to be lost, and eternally lost - and IF that had happened, and it WAS possible to happen, "God, the Father", would still have remained as the One and only absolute and living God, reigning supreme over all the unfallen worlds, but with all the human race blotted out of existence on this earth. The Deity of Christ’, paper presented to the Bible Research Fellowship Angwin, California January 1947, page 13 & 14).

So, Michael came to earth to try to become a Christ - Michael came to vindicate God's Holy Law because it needed vindication due to Lucifer's legal charge against God. If Michael can pull it off God is saved but if Michael sins God kills Michael and Michael eternally ceases to exist! A lot riding on this! A few quotes below representative of the Great Controversy Theme.

Ellen White
The sum and substance of the arguments of Satan is that sin may be immortalized, that Christ abolished the law, and that evil doers may be in favor with God. But the death of Christ tells a different story; for he died to vindicate the claims of the law, to give to the world and to angels an unanswerable argument of the immutability of the law of Jehovah. {ST, February 5, 1894 par. 11}



Ellen White
For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16). Christ did not come to change the Sabbath of the fourth commandment. He did not come to lessen the law of God in one particular. He came to express in His own person the love of God. He came to vindicate every precept of the holy law.--Ms 145, 1897, p. 4. ("Notes of Work," Dec. 30, 1897.) {11MR 345.3}


Ellen White
To be redeemed means to cease from sin. No heart that is stirred to rebellion against the law of God has any union with Christ, who died to vindicate the law and exalt it before all nations, tongues, and peoples.

Ellen White R&H August 13, 1895, paragraph 6
Representing the law of God in its true character arouses the enmity of Satan. Those who love God with all the heart, will love the law of his kingdom. They will not only profess to be guided by its principles, but they will actually live them out, even in a world that is no more favorable to the development of Christian principles than were the inhabitants of the world before the flood, of whom it is written that the thoughts and imaginations of their hearts were evil, and only evil continually. A similar condition of society exists in our world today, and if those who claim to be God's commandment-keeping people do not put in practice the principles of the law which Christ came to our world to vindicate, pronouncing it holy, just, and good, they misrepresent the character and mission of their professed Master

God, according to Ellen White was forced to "react" and an archangel stepped forward to answer the calling to vindicate God's holy law that Adam and Eve trampled on. Michael was commissioned to vindicate God's holy law and there was one other person in the history of the world which was also commissioned - Ellen White!

Ellen White
Satan will continue to bring in his erroneous theories and to claim that his sentiments are true. Seducing spirits are at work. I am to meet the danger positively, denying the right of anyone to use my writings to serve the devil's purpose to allure and deceive the people of God. God has spared my life that I may present the testimonies given me, to vindicate that which God vindicates, and to denounce every sophistry [intended] to deceive if possible the very elect.--Ms 126, 1905, pp. 3, 7. ("A Warning Against Present Dangers," typed December 29, 1905.) {5MR 144.1}

Ellen White:
There is no one who can explain the mystery of the incarnation of Christ. Yet we know that He came to this earth and lived as a man among men. The man Christ Jesus was not the Lord God Almighty, yet Christ and the Father are one. The Deity did not sink under the agonizing torture of Calvary, yet it is nonetheless true that 'God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.'" (Lift Him Up, page 235, paragraph 3.)

I disagree with any teaching that either states or implies that Jesus isn't God or that God has a weakness of any kind. From what I know of Baptist theology they are staunch Trinitarians so would also reject such teachings. Food for thought.

 

[pythons]

Some Scriptures that preclude the hypothetical situation (possibility) of Christ sinning and loosing His Salvation.


1st Peter 1,19
But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb unspotted and undefiled, Foreknown indeed BEFORE the foundation of the world, but manifested in the last times for you, Who through him are faithful in God, who raised him up from the dead, and hath given him glory, that your faith and hope might be in God

Ephesians 1,10
to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ. In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out EVERYTHING in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory

2 Timothy 1,8
Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner: but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the GOSPEL according to the power of God; Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, WHICH WAS GIVEN US in Christ Jesus BEFORE the world began, But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel


Luke 24,44
And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, THAT all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me.


Luke 24,22
Yea, and certain women also of our company made us astonished, which were early at the sepulchre; And when they found not his body, they came, saying, that they had also seen a vision of angels, which said that he was alive. And certain of them which were with us went to the sepulchre, and found it even so as the women had said: but him they saw not. Then he said unto them, O fools, AND slow of heart to believe ALL that the prophets have spoken: Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory? And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.

Matthew 16,21
From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, AND suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, AND be killed, AND be raised again the third day.



Mark 9,31
For he taught his disciples, and said unto them, The Son of man is delivered into the hands of men, and they shall kill him; and after that he is killed, he shall rise the third day

Luke 24,36
And as they thus spake, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. But they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a spirit. And he said unto them, Why are ye troubled? and why do thoughts arise in your hearts? Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have. And when he had thus spoken, he shewed them his hands and his feet. And while they yet believed not for joy, and wondered, he said unto them, Have ye here any meat? And they gave him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an honeycomb. And he took it, and did eat before them. And he said unto them, These ARE the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that ALL things MUST be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me. Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures, And said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day

This is a small example of the Scriptures that speak of the impossibility of Jesus failing - taken together this would be a MASS of Scripture that proves that Salvation was planned before the world was created and that Christ eternally was the Christ with zero possibility of failure.



Despite these clear Scriptures Anti-Trinitarian groups insist Christ could have failed to vindicate God's holy law and had that happen the Father would have slaughtered Michael Christ and insured He never existed again.



Ellen White MS 99,1903 page 3,4
He had infinite power ONLY because He was perfectly obedient to His Father's will



Ellen White
The Bible is written by inspired men, but it is not God's mode of thought and expression. It is that of humanity. God, as a writer, is not represented. Men will often say such an expression is not like God. But God has not put Himself in words, in logic, in rhetoric, on trial in the Bible. The writers of the Bible were God's penmen, not His pen." (Selected Messages, Vol. 1, Chapter One "The Inspiration of the Prophetic Writers")



Ellen White claimed to be "THE PEN OF INSPIRATION" her words are the more clear words.



Ellen White
We are NOT to receive the words of those who come with a message that contradicts the special points of our faith. They gather together a mass of Scripture, and pile it as proof around their asserted theories. . . . And while the Scriptures are God's word, and are to be respected, the application of them, IF such application moves one pillar from the foundation that God has sustained these fifty years, is a great mistake. He who makes such an application knows not the wonderful demonstration of the Holy Spirit that gave power and force to the past messages that have come to the people of God” (1SM 161; CW 32; The Early Elmshaven Years 426).