Esther's Story: I Am Saved!

For as long as I can remember, Romans 8:31-39 has been one of my favorite passages of Scripture. Each Bible I have ever owned has found these lines highlighted:

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies; who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Just as it is written, “For Your sake we are being put to death all day long; we were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is Christ Jesus our Lord.

While that passage has always pulled on my heart, I can’t honestly say that I understood it until about five years ago. My being raised in the Midwest in a good and sincere Adventist home meant that my parents raised me to seek after God and desire to serve Him. Our home was filled with the Bible and Ellen White’s writings; we rarely missed Sabbath School or Church, and my parents sacrificed greatly so that my brother and I could attend Adventist schools. Between my Adventist heritage and my own involvement and immersion, I felt I really knew what it meant to be a Christ-follower. I sometimes found myself looking around and wondering why, among all the dedicated and seemingly honest Christians in the world who never seemed to be able to grasp the full truth, I lucked out by being born into the “true church.” Being raised in Adventism and educated in its schools meant that I had a firm foundation in its doctrines. I knew the proof texts and could answer any questions about my beliefs. I was very proud of my good fortune and knowledge.

Shortly after my husband and I married, we settled into an “Adventist Mecca” community and joined an active and surprisingly dynamic church. Life couldn’t have been sweeter or more stable. Yet something was missing. I longed for a deeper relationship with God and earnestly sought out the next spiritual high. Those mountaintop experiences were precipitated by a fabulous sermon from Dwight Nelson, a phenomenal evangelistic series, a good book, a relevant small group - things that inspired me to “do better” at maintaining my link with Christ. At the same time, we started to see the dynamics of the “remnant church” in the community. In stark contrast to the hard working, dedicated people we knew, horribly unchristian business practices, pride, greed, and perfectionism ran rampant among the saints. We understood, however, that the devil was at work extra hard among the righteous, so we carried on with our lives and church involvement. If you’d told me then that I’d be writing this story today—I’d have scoffed.

Astonishment

In the spring of 2004 I stumbled across a website about Ellen White, and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. All my life I’d been conditioned to believe that, as an Adventist, I was supposed to be different from the rest of Christianity, and was hedged against the belief that Adventism was a cult. Of course others who didn’t understand the truth would view us that way. That evening Stephen and I spent the night with our entire library of Ellen White books looking at the quotes from the sources and in context. Within a matter of days I had ample evidence that White contradicted both herself and the Bible regularly. We boxed up her books and set them aside. With our entire foundation of belief crumbling, we set out to shore up Adventism, using the Bible alone. Through the days that followed, more and more gaping holes appeared in Adventist theology. It soon became apparent that we had more questions than answers, and so we began looking for help. During the days I read Adventist publications and dialogued with Adventist ministers and theologians; during the nights we read the Scriptures. It was becoming more and more apparent that what we were finding in the pages of the Word was not jiving with what I was getting from denominational sources.

We read in Galatians that clinging to the law was to belong to the Old Covenant which originated at Sinai and was allegorically equated to being a bond servant rather than a child of promise (Gal 4). We learned that to focus on the 10 Commandments, or on any of the Mosaic Law, meant a veil was over our hearts and we were separated from Christ (2 Cor 3). We discovered that along with all the other types and shadows that Christ fulfilled, He is also our Sabbath rest; as He is a better Covenant and Priest, so He is a better Sabbath (Hebrews). We grasped that we had spirits that were made alive in Christ (John 5:24-25; 2 Cor 5). We learned that Christ had been at the right hand of the Father since His ascension into Heaven (Acts 7; Eph 1; 1 Pet 3). We marveled that atonement for sin was completed on the cross (Heb 9). We were amazed that dietary restrictions and tithing laws were completely different under the New Covenant.

We learned that Ellen White said the exact words which God predicted a false prophet would say (Col 2). The haziness of our past confusion and lack of understanding of Paul’s writings yielded to an organized, consistent petition for the Gospel. As we wrestled with each successive question, almost immediately God provided the increasingly clear answers. The Scriptures became alive with new, concise meanings. The unsurpassed glory and fulfillment of Jesus Christ that was emerging left me speechless and tearful. The realization that from the moment Adam disobeyed the command of God and died the spiritual death that resulted in death for every human descendent down through time astounded me with the weight of my human inheritance. But in the very same moment, for the very first time, I truly saw the words of Christ in John 3, though I’d known them by heart my entire life: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”

We humbly knelt before God and renounced our spiritual pride and accepted Christ alone as our Savior.

The glory of the Gospel is not about me or about my ability to live a Godly life. It is not even to validate that God is just or to prove that Christ came to enable and show us how to live. The Gospel message is all about Him and His work. I was dead, but God, in Jesus, paid the price for sin and bore death in my place. Further, He rose from the grave, forever conquering death. He called me to Himself, and through belief that He is who He says He is and has done what He promised, I’m given salvation and declared righteous. When I believe, in Christ I die with Him and, at the same time, live with Him. Death no longer has any power over me because of Him, and regardless of when this body turns to dust, I will forever be with my Creator. As Abram slept while God made the covenant with Himself, so I, too, rest in the finished work and provision of that covenant. And now, though I’m far from perfect and am human like everyone else, I no longer search for the mountaintop experiences as I did before. Through God’s grace, being born of the spirit means that I get to walk continually with God as Adam did in Eden. His Spirit is in me, and He continually directs my life.

Now, as I reread Romans 8, I am filled with the assurance that my sins were dealt with 2,000 years ago by the Scapegoat who bore them to the cross outside the camp. No present or future economic hardship or disintegrating culture will separate me from my Savior. No success or failure restricts God’s acceptance of me. Nothing I do or don’t do, eat or don’t eat can have an impact on my salvation. No human nor devil can pry me out of the hand of God.  On this faith and solid foundation I stand, and with Paul I assert that, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed, from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘but the righteous man shall live by faith.’” (Romans 1:16)