Date: Wednesday, December 5,
2018, 12:52 PM
SDA Bible Commentary note on
1 John 2:18. I don’t
know what they mean by “long
ages” but that sounds
like a very long time. I was
under the impression that this
happened in heaven “shortly”
before God created
the world?? I just read
through chapter 29 of the Great
Controversy titled “The
origin of evil” and in two
places the word “long” was
used.P.495 -
God in His great mercy bore “long”
with
Lucifer.P.496 - “long” was he
retained
in heaven.
The term “long ages” just
seems to me
to represent a very, very,
very long time.
Any thoughts? Ron
B.
Hi all.
Great Controversy says, “Again
and again he was offered pardon on condition of repentance and submission. Such
efforts as only infinite love and wisdom could devise were made to convince him
of his error. The spirit of discontent had never before been known in heaven.
Lucifer himself did not at first see whither he was drifting; he did not
understand the real nature of his feelings. But as his dissatisfaction was
proved to be without cause, Lucifer was convinced that he was in the wrong,
that the divine claims were just, and that he ought to acknowledge them as such
before all heaven. Had he done this, he might have saved himself and many
angels. He had not at this time fully cast off his allegiance to God. Though he
had forsaken his position as covering cherub, yet if he had been willing to
return to God, acknowledging the Creator’s wisdom, and satisfied to fill the
place appointed him in God’s great plan, he would have been reinstated in his
office. But pride forbade him to submit. He persistently defended his own
course, maintained that he had no need of repentance, and fully committed
himself, in the great controversy, against his Maker.” GC 495.3
Ron, the great controversy
didn’t begin after Adam’s creation. Adam’s creation was the solution to the
great controversy that had just been finalized in the courts of heaven. The
making of Eden’s new creatures, made most perfectly in God’s image, was done to
show that intelligent life that was filled with the Spirit of God could obey
the Law of God in every respect. The holy pair was completely unbiased in
relation to Lucifer’s great issue that the Law of the kingdom was unduly
burdensome and impossible to obey perfectly. In all of his massive intellect he
couldn’t understand that love obeys the Law. And Adam and Eve were doing just
that, and naturally, out of love. Like little children today who love to love
and to be loved, and to obey mommy and daddy, our first parents found their
greatest delight in obeying and worshiping God in spirit and in truth every
waking moment. And their reward was beautiful scenery and beautiful animal
companions, His Spirit and peace and holiness in every breath. But all this
wonder discombobulated Lucifer into a fury.
I can understand why the
preliminaries of Lucifer’s rebellion took long ages. Lucifer went through a
long process of wrestling with and rationalizing the never-before-considered
new reality of whether questioning the King’s Law was wrong. It seems that the
attention from the angelic hosts only encouraged his self-exaltation and
self-pity. Disaffection and rebellion was a new, unheard-of thing to heaven. “How
could Lucifer’s questions be wrong? How could his doubts lead to unheard-of evil?
Everyone was still so joyful and happy together.” But, suddenly Lucifer and his
loyalists were thrust out of the heavenly sanctuary and court, much to the
dismay of the loyal angelic hosts. “How could the Father and Son judge Lucifer
with such suspicion and treat him so severely? But, God is always right.” Not
until the crucifixion of the Son of God were the angels fully convinced of
Lucifer’s reasoning’s hidden evil.
Similarly today, the current
mood of Protestant America is one of relative solidarity and comradeship.
Amazing freedoms still reign. How could Evangelical Americans be incubating
such evils as God 2,000 years ago foresaw they would display? Yet we are seeing
the beginning of it now. How could the warnings from Ellen White 173 years ago
concerning America’s future hold any credence? How could a time of trouble such
as never was hit us blindsided, relentless in its fury? Yet it will come, and
suddenly. “The same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone
from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the
Son of man is revealed.” (Luke 17:29,30).
God waits a long time to act
on His warnings, even long ages. But, when that time is up He acts “suddenly at
an instant”, and the day of the Lord comes like a thief in the night.
“Wherefore thus saith the
Holy One of Israel, Because ye despise this word, and trust in oppression and
perverseness, and stay thereon: Therefore this iniquity shall be to you as a
breach ready to fall, swelling out in a high wall, whose breaking cometh
suddenly at an instant.
And He shall break it as the
breaking of the potters’ vessel that is broken in pieces; He shall not spare:
so that there shall not be found in the bursting of it a sherd to take fire
from the hearth, or to take water withal out of the pit.” (Isa. 30:12-14).
David
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