God ripped from God and other nonsense

 As I referenced earlier in the Seeking What They Sought podcast of the Sanctuary Doctrine interview with Richard Davidson Part 2 there is a particularly strange part where Dr. Davidson says God made a covenant with God. I have snipped the section of the podcast below, which starts at around 38 minutes and runs for about 4 minutes. You can see that here

Transcripted edited for clarity starting at 37:50:

But the fact that Abraham is never mentioned here.

Yeah. He's put to sleep. And then there are two parties that walk between the a torch and a bowl of flame. Yes. And those two are mentioned, those same two words are mentioned later in Exodus 19, the Godhead who's on Mount Sinai. And so they act, and Ellen White is clear. The father and the son were both on the mountain there. And the we have throughout Genesis we have Yahweh, and then we have the angel of the Lord who comes, and when he comes as a messenger, he says I am Yahweh. So you have two Yahweh's throughout Genesis. And so and so the two Yahweh are walking the two light sources the two divine light sources are walking together through the pieces. And so the real covenant which we fail to look at too often it's not between God and us which we break so often. It's between God and God. Saying if we break I'm going to be faithful. May we be torn with God from God. If we break it. Wow. And so God is offering to have the self-destruction of the Godhead. . And that's exactly what happens because in Isaiah 53, it takes them it takes the same word here as the pieces and says that refers to Jesus. And then Psalm 22.

Wait, sorry. You're referencing the metaphor of the suffering servant in Isaiah 53. Yeah.

Isaiah 53, the suffering servant. And it talks about in his death and it says he will be cut off and uses the language of the pieces of Genesis 15. that he is the one that is he is the one that is u experiencing this covenant being broken. Wow. What happens then? Yeah, I'm trying to figure out where that is. Is this verse 8? Let's see. Oh, that he was cut off out of the land of the living. That part. Um just a minute here.

Let's go. while you're looking for that, I think just to describe to people that if they haven't already caught it, the crazy part about this is when God makes that covenant with Abram, I'm going to make you a great nation. It's wild because he's saying this is not dependent on like, I am going to be faithful. This is not dependent on you. which is a wild thing to so then when you carry this into the other sacrificial systems even though humans have a part to play there is a covenant that God makes with them later which is keep my law keep my covenant keep the things that I'm asking you to it always ends up getting applied back to God is God is the one who is faithful consistently that's right which is really and the word is yes in verse eight it's the word gezer which is the same word in [clears throat] Genesis 15 verse 17 to describe the pieces Wow. And so then you go to the cross and you get the capstone on this when Jesus on the cross, the sins of the world have just separated him from God. And he cries out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" It happens. God has cut from God. He's ripped from God. And they feel that he feels the eternal separation that the that those who aren't saved are going to keep are going to experience for eternity. So, so for me when I talk about covenants, I always go to this text first because it shows that the covenant is ultimately between the father and the son, not between him and him and his people. And so that will never fail.

I encourage you to look at the original podcast or my snipped portion because there are interjections that make the transcript somewhat difficult to follow. But as Davidson ends the covenant is ultimately between the Father and the Son. What covenant you ask? Well the real and most important covenant that we fail to see is between God and God! You likely then again ask, what is that covenant that is so important and is not stated at all?

Let us refresh our memories about Genesis chapter 15. It is summed up here.

“The covenant with Abram in Genesis 15 employs גֶּזֶר to establish an immutable promise grounded in divine initiative. God alone walks between the severed pieces, demonstrating unilateral commitment. The severing underscores the certainty that God will fulfill land, seed, and blessing promises (Genesis 15:18–21). Later prophetic literature echoes this ritual language when indicting covenant breakers (Jeremiah 34:18–20), showing that the meaning attached to גֶּזֶר became a juridical touchstone for covenant faithfulness. “ https://biblehub.com/hebrew/1506.htm

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My previous blog showed that in EllenWhites version of Genesis 15 Abram was part of the covenant ceremony, though it was not mentioned in the actual Gen. 15 story from the Bible. Davidson probably realizes he is disagreeing with the Adventist prophet, so earlier at the beginning of minute 37 he says:

“...He cuts them in two, places them beside each other and then there's no mention of his walking in between. Interestingly, I mean, he may have done that, but that's not the point of the story.”

The only reason to say that Abram might have walked between the cut animal parts is that Ellen White says Abram did walk between and made a covenant with God. Of course, since the whole point of the story was for God to confirm to Abram his promise, Davidson is correct that the point of the story is not about Abram doing something that he did not do in the Bible story.

Now, the idea that God, who according to the Bible is ONE, made a covenant with another God is certainly problematic.

"Hear, O Israel: the LORD is our God, the LORD is One."

Listening to Davidson is quite torturous as he tries to equate the use of the same Hebrew words as his connecting points. Yes, smoke and fire are seen moving through the severed animals of the covenant, and smoke and fire are present upon Mt. Sinai because they are very often used as symbols for the presence of God

There are roughly 7,000 to 8,400 unique words (or roots) in ancient Biblical Hebrew, so it is very common to see them used in all types of stories, situations, and contexts. It is not an impressive connection; it is a necessity of a limited language. The total English vocabulary is more than 1 million words, and a common daily English usage is 170,000 words

Davidson presents his key Hebrew word connections between Gen 15 and Isa 53

H1506 גֶּזֶר gezer (gheh'-zer) n-m.

1. something cut off.

2. a portion.

[from H1504]

KJV: part, piece.

Root(s): H1504

So the two halves of an animal cut apart do not mean that in Isa 53 it has the same meaning.

H1504 גָּזַר gazar (gaw-zar') v.

1. to cut down or off.

2. (figuratively) to destroy, divide, exclude, or decide.

[a primitive root]

KJV: cut down (off), decree, divide, snatch.

Isa 53:8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away;

and as for his generation, who considered

that he was cut off out of the land of the living,

stricken for the transgression of my people?

Here, Davidson thinks that being cut off from the land of the living is to be cut off from God, but Jesus is God, so how does God rip Himself apart? Well, that is because Davidson takes Psalm 22 out of its context of a Psalm that speaks of tribulation to triumph and assumes that the first line of the psalm My God My God why have you forsaken me, to not be how the psalm was identified to people before there ever were chapter and verses, but that it must mean God and the Godhead were broken apart. Why would God be separated from God? The only reason Davidson gives is that Jesus would know what it was like to be eternally separated from God for all eternity. Which was only a couple of days, and Jesus raised Himself from the grave as He said He would do. So Jesus still had the power of God to raise Himself from the dead, but He was ripped apart from God, who Jesus is, in fact God. Do people like Davidson even contemplate that the dead know nothing, they don't feel anything, no shame, no remorse, no worms eating their flesh? Being dead is the same as being eternally separated from God. The reason Christians don't fear death is that they know the author of Life (see Acts 3:15, Jesus as the author of life) can raise them from the dead, so death is not their end. But Jesus knew He would rise again, He told others He would rise again, and He even promised another being crucified with Him that they would be together in Paradise.

There was no reason for the Crucifixion to separate the Godhead. Jesus was guilty of no sin. He did not die the second death because He had not even died the first death, and the very definition of second death is no resurrection from that death (Revelation 20:14-15). Jesus did not suffer the wrath of God because Jesus is God and God had no wrath for Jesus. There is not even one New Testament verse that tells us Jesus paid a penalty. Jesus life, death, and resurrection were God's plan for reconciliation with mankind. That is what atonement is all about: the mercy of God that forgives and reconciles man back to God.

So Dr. Davidson has given us a view of God that is not sustainable. It denies who God is and, with his strange interpretation, claims that the Godhead was ripped apart even after God confirms a covenant between the Godhead that he never tells us what that covenant is, only that if they break it the Godhead will be ripped apart, and then Dr. Davidson tells us that the Godhead in fact was ripped apart. So, God did not even keep his covenant with Himself; it is too confusing and completely unnecessary unless one is trying to form a theology based upon some extra-biblical authority.

That Dr. Davidson is an SDA professor and the 2 people interviewing him are SDA pastors should serve as a warning to every Adventist member. Your  University schools are corrupt, and your theology is incredibly faulty.

More misinformation from Adventist Today.

One of the things I have been seeing is the incredible swing to the left on Adventist sites like Atoday.org and Spectrummagazine.com. Neither site now publishing anything but Progressive left wing political and religious material. It is published without any type of editorial requirement for truth to be utilized. For example there is an article entitled On Being Offended by Lindsey Painter in which she writes with apparently little regard for facts the following:

Last Thanksgiving Native Americans protested the building of the Keystone Pipeline (and DAPL). For their efforts they were hosed with freezing water in the snow, refused basic amenities and medical treatment, and the pipeline was built anyway. This Thanksgiving what are those Native Americans doing? They are cleaning up the giant oil spill on their land that they feared last year. Are they thin-skinned?

Ignoring the fact that the protestors were mostly not Native Americans the reader must also ignore the fact that the oil leak was not on Native American land and Native Americans are not cleaning it up. As CNN reported:

The spill occurred in the same county as part of the Lake Traverse Reservation. The leak location is not on Sioux property, but it is adjacent to it and has historical value, said Dave Flute, tribal chairman for Sisseton Wahpeton Sioux Tribe.

"The spill occurred about 3 miles southeast of Amherst on private land, which Walsh described as a "flat, grassy area for grazing." The company tweeted a picture of the site late Thursday.

 The county is on the top of the state second from the right on the map and Amherst is nearly to the left side of the Marshall County border. The reservation runs through portions of 5 counties. Going back to her article it sounds a lot like that the Native Americans feared a leak would happen if the Keystone XL pipeline was built and then a year later it was built and leaked. Even though this pipeline has been there for years.  This sadly is what passes for intelligent writing in the Adventist Media today. To maintain the fictions these websites write they usually ban or delete comments, because as per their rules it is not civil to disagree with their authors because to disagree or point out errors is disrespectful. Though they are quite accepting of comments that support errors are are posted by similarly misinformed people.

 

Deceptions in the name of Christ

I have for years been skeptical of the professed claims of the amateur archaeologist Ron Wyatt. To me he seems to have claimed to have found the most significant things the Christian church has always wanted to find. He found Noah's Ark, he found the place where Moses parted the sea and some of the remains of Pharaoh's army. He found the Ark of the Covenant. All of those things would be very impressive and if found should have some kind of evidence to establish their discovery. But he seemed to provide no evidence.

Then I was doing some web wandering since my local church has an amazing discovery/prophecy seminar going on. I wanted to see what people were saying about the presenter of the programs, since the Advertising Leaflet that the church sent out to local residents says nothing about the Seventh-day Adventist church and the presentation was offered at a local high school theater rather then the church. After all this is the Internet age, if you are interested in something it takes very little effort to find out about it by searching the Internet, I see no reason to keep trying to hide the identity of the Adventist church in these things, if they are going to present their version of the truth then be up front about it. I searched the name of the evangelist, of course I found out he was an Adventist hired by the Washington conference and I even found out about his previous presentation last year from some discussion on the website rational skepticism. You can read it for yourself overall the guy sounds pretty accurate in his evaluation of the program. But it brought me to some links to Ron Wyatt.

What I did not know about Ron Wyatt is that he had claimed to have found the dried blood of Jesus Christ on the covering of the Ark of the covenant. That would be commonly called the mercy seat. How do we know it is the actual blood of Jesus Christ? Well according to Wyatt it has 23 chromosomes instead of 46, the normal number for living human beings. You can even look at a you tube video of some sort of laboratorian scrape out some of his dried blood and place it in some sterile water. strangely you will see that she does not wear gloves either. He then shows some poor resolution video microscopy of moving objects, which to my eyes which are quite used to looking at things under the microscope appears to be Brownian motion and the natural movement of a freshly mounted water based slide. (see also the You Tube of brownian motion). Wyatt when seeing this motion says that the blood is still alive.

But why is the blood of Jesus Christ on the mercy seat? Well according to Wyatt at the crucification there was an earthquake as the Bible records (Matt. 27:51), apparently the one that opened the graves and opened a fissure from the post hole of the cross down to the hidden Ark of the Covenant, the ark still hidden from the days of the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem.

What is most interesting to me aside from the sheer hubris of the man to make such claims with no evidence to back him up, oh also he talked to angels who told him that the Ark and the Ten commandments on tablets of stone will be revealed when the mark of the beast is applied as they were there when he discovered it prematurely it seems. A bit too late according to Adventist mythology about probation closing with the mark of the beast. What is it in his and apparently Adventist thinking that makes them think that God needs to perform a miracle so that Christ blood falls on a disused mercy seat hidden away. At one time the Ark of the Covenant was the symbol of the presence of God, but was it the focus of the presence of God hidden away for hundreds of years that needed the blood of the incarnated God to be sprinkled on it?

It becomes another of the symbol over the substance excuses popular today. When the substance was here Wyatt feels that the symbol must be involved. The blood of Christ brought to symbolically to God so that God can forgive. But Christ is God, God does not need blood to forgive. The whole point was that God does forgive even to the point of His enemies rejecting and killing Christ. He still forgave and even after death rose to show the power of God even over our greatest enemy death. As the book of Hebrews says.

Heb 10:19-22 Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. (NIV)

Symbols to express the reality, in many ways people like Ron Wyatt have their theology completely backward. Thus they invent things to make their version sound good. But as in this case it shows how little they really know and how little their followers know. Ultimately as with any false information they bring disrupt upon themselves and Adventism and Christianity.