The Sinister
Who raised Christ from the dead?
Almost audibly answers the devout Seventh Day Adventist, ‘We read her (Mrs White’s) Testimony in the Spirit of Prophecy, ‘The Desire of Ages’, chapter, “The lord is Risen”, based on Matthew 28:2-4, 11-15,
“The soldiers see him (the angel) removing the stone ... and hear, him, cry, Son of God, come forth; thy Father calls Thee. They see Jesus come forth ….” “... based on Matthew 28:2-4, 11-15”! Based on the Word of God; based on what the soldiers had seen; based on ‘Inspiration’, based on ‘the Spirit of Prophecy’, the angel, called Jesus. Jesus was called by the angel to go to the Father ... after having been “taken up into heaven”, Acts 1:11, not when He rose from the dead!
‘John 20:17 and Hebrews 8:4’, say the same devout Seventh Day Adventist, ‘tell us why Mrs White declares it was the angel who ‘called’ Jesus to “come forth”, that is, to ‘come out’ of the grave. ‘Come out’, your Father is not here; He is not in there with you, He calls you through me, his messenger, ‘angel’. Mrs White is a word-artist; her canvas does not show the Father, not because “Thou shalt make no image” of Him, but because He is far away, ‘in heaven’, ‘in the sanctuary in heaven’ – that’s why He sent me, his angel, to ‘call’ you!
Who raised Lazarus from the dead? How, with which Words and with which Voice? — “(Jesus) cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth! And he that was dead came forth.” Jn11:43/44.
Do I argue from something’s absence? If you think so, hear this, Mrs White,
“He (Christ) slept in the tomb, and on the morning of the resurrection, He said, I am not yet ascended to, My Father.” p 67 §3.
The Father wasn’t present when Jesus was raised from the dead, is her whole point. Jesus made no atonement on earth, He was not Priest of God on earth, He first had to ‘go to heaven’ (From where the Father sent the angel to go and ‘call’ Christ from the grave.) where the Father waited for Him ‘in the first ‘room’ of the ‘sanctuary in heaven’, and there, where and when He would be with the Father, there will He ‘make atonement’ for the sins of the whole world. Mrs White will not have, the Father, raising Christ from the dead! More than enough is it to know – to have discovered in fact – the basis of all Mrs White’s draconic dogma, consists in the alleged absence of the Father in the Resurrection of Christ from the dead. Not I, but Mrs White, argues from absence, from her concocted absence of the Father in the resurrection of Christ. According to Mrs White the implication is the Father also did not descend to Christ. If the Father was not there, then whose voice cried the word, ‘Come forth!’? With justification, who, does Mrs White say, raised Christ from the dead? In this place, by logical implication as well as by written word?
Of Jonah who is a type of Christ: “The shipmaster came to him, and said to him, What meanest thou, O sleeper? Arise, call upon thy God, if so be that God might think upon us, that we perish not.” (1:6)
The Call of the Caller from the dead, is Call obeyed, is Call answered, is Call returned— returned by Him who has the Power over death and grave.
“I remembered the LORD: and my prayer came in unto Thee, into thine holy temple. I will offer unto Thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that I vowed. Salvation is of the LORD.” (2:7,9) Christ “by the glory of the Father” was raised from the dead.
The obedience, the answer, the return, the Call of the Called from the dead is by the Power of Him who calls from the dead and grave. “According that God was able to raise Him up, even from the dead; from whence also He received Him in (Truth).” Hb11:19. (Of Christ even more than of Isaac.) “Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again: This commandment, have I received from my Father.” John 10:17-18.
Jesus obeyed the Father’s Call when He laid down his life. “I came to do thy Will, o God!” Jesus obeyed the Father’s Call when He took up his life again. No man took from Christ his life— not man or angel; no man called Christ from the grave— not man or angel. The Cry of Life, the Voice of the Father was it, which it had to be, that called Jesus Christ both to lay down his life and to take up his life again.
The Call, the Cry, the Voice, is the Father’s, or Christ died not for sin, nor rose from the grave for righteousness.
