We continue with our examination of the differences between Seventh Day Adventist and Bible Students in regards to,

Creation: and the Seventh Day Adventist belief that “…the Bible speaks of other worlds populated by intelligent beings…”

Let us here use our God given ability to reason, and consider this for a moment.

Since based on what we know from the scriptures and from God’s dealings with respects to man it is God’s intention that all his intelligent creation (whether on the human plain or spirit plain) must first be tested to see if they are worthy of life, and this included even his only begotten son, we must assume that this would apply equally well to any other world supposedly populated with intelligent beings.

Now we know that in our case we felled our test, as represented in father Adam (due to a lack of experience with sin and with evil).

Are we to believe that any of these other supposed worlds fared any better?

It was only through the redemptive work of Christ on our behalf that we have been given another opportunity for life, what of these other worlds?

If they felled (which the LORD has proven in our case to be a certainty) who would purchase them back, certainly not the Lord Jesus Christ, for the Scriptures are quite clear on the matter that after having become our ransom, and “… having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him.” (Rom. 6:9) In fact it is an impossibility, he has been raised to the divine plain of existence, he is now an immortal being, DEATH PROOF, it is simply impossible for him to die again.

God’s law is very implicit in this matter it requires “life for life” whatever type of life was lost it would require a ransom (Greek: anti-lutron, a corresponding price or life). It was a perfect MAN who sinned it would take a perfect MAN to redeem him. The MAN Christ Jesus was that MAN (human being).

For more on this please see our blog posts entitled, “The Ransom” and “The Divine Economy in the Ransom”

There are no other worlds presently occupied by intelligent life. Our little planet is the focal point of the Divine Plan as it relates to terrestrial (earthly) beings. Now some might suggest that this is a little presumptuous to consider our little planet the center of the universe, that life (terrestrial life) starts here first, but what difference does it matter where it starts it has to start somewhere, why not here?

Now when we say that terrestrial life starts here, we are not implying that the earth’s people will seed the entire universe, no! we simply mean the first terrestrial (earthly or planetary life) begins here. This is the first world in which men were created.

Other worlds will eventually have life, new life, but not just yet.

This brings to mind a line from the movie “Contact” with Jody Foster, whereas as a little girl she asked:

Dad, do you think there’s people on other planets?

His answer: The universe is a pretty big place. It’s bigger than anything anyone has ever dreamed of before. So, if it’s just us… seems like an awful waste of space.

The assumption here was that the universe is a big place therefore there has to be other life out there, but of course this was just a movie.

In reality there is no other intelligent life out there, not just yet.

God is not wasteful, everything he does serves an intended purpose, he did not create this massive universe with its billions of galaxies and trillions of stars and planets for nothing, no! he has a purpose for all this. Recall how old the earth is from its creation with estimates ranging somewhere between 4-5 billion years, and yet mankind is only a relatively recent addition to this planet, a mere 6000+ years. All these planets spread out across the universe are in various stages of development even as the earth once was, many of them in preparation for future creations, intelligent life.

In the beginning, that is in the beginning of readying the earth for the arrival of man this work of creation was placed in the hands of the Logos alone, God’s Son, but in the future, this work of creating new life will be shared with the rest of God’s Son’s on the divine plane. It will be the work of THE Christ; the body complete to fill the universe with life. Of course, this work will not begin until first the work here on earth, the work of restoring mankind to all that was lost is restored, mankind perfected has been accomplished.

We move on to our next subject in our next post.