This weekly feature is dedicated to Adventists who are looking for biblical insights into the topics discussed in the Sabbath School lesson quarterly. We post articles which address each lesson as presented in the Sabbath School Bible Study Guide, including biblical commentary on them. We hope you find this material helpful and that you will come to know Jesus and His revelation of Himself in His word in profound biblical ways.
Commentary on “The Royal Love Song”—Lesson 6
This week’s lesson is using the Song of Solomon to discuss principles of marriage. To be sure, this book does address marriage. A discussion of Christian marriage, however, would normally include New Testament passages. Interestingly, the Sabbath School lesson focusses on this Old Testament book without discussing the significance of marriage as a type of Christ and the church as explained in Ephesians, for example.
Again, however, the “bottom line” of this lesson is revealed in the Teachers Comments. The author is building a case for the “wholistic unity of both physical and nonphysical dimensions” of a person. In fact, he even says this: “A maxim often heard when discussing biblical anthropology is ‘A human doesn’t have a soul’ a human is a soul’ (see Gen. 2:7).”
That “often heard” maxim, however, is an Adventist phrase, not a Christian maxim.
On pages 80 and 81, the author admits that the Adventist view of man as not having an immaterial spirit that is separate from the body is the doctrine that defines most of Adventism’s unique beliefs. Here is the statement:
How one views the relationship of our material dimension (our bodies) to our immaterial dimension (our mental, emotional, spiritual states) has a tremendous influence on how we live. One of the most influential theological breaks our church made with existing Christian tradition was to view the human as a whole rather than as a duality. Though we believe that a person is multifaceted (physical, spiritual, mental, emotional), we believe all those dimensions are woven into a complex whole in which each dimension affects the other. Repercussions of this view are immediately apparent on a number of theological topics. One may be tempted to think that the Adventist Church holds unique positions on any number of independent subjects, such as Creation, resurrection, death, hell, sanctification, and health. But these positions are based on the biblical relationship of the human psyche with human physicality. It is our view of the wholeness of humans that informs, and sets us apart from, the dualism of fellow Christians.
This admission on the part of the author is significant. We at Life Assurance Ministries have been saying that the Adventist view of man as being purely physical is the unbiblical “skew” that changes everything they believe about the nature of Christ, the nature of sin, and the nature of salvation. Here in this lesson they admit that their particular view of the nature of man is the belief that sets them apart from Christianity. They also admit this belief determines their understanding of creation, resurrection, death, hell, sanctification, and health.
Dualism?
Adventism’s argument is that they deny “Greek dualism”, and they insist that Christians have adopted “dualism” as a false belief, one borrowed from pagan Greece. They claim that believing one has a spirit that is separate from the body is “Greek dualism”.
This claim, however, is false. Dualism as believed by the ancient greeks and gnostics IS a heresy, but belief that man has a body and a spirit—a spirit that is born dead because of Adam’s sin and which must be born again through faith in Jesus—is what the Bible teaches.
In 2 Corinthians 5:1–9 Paul is very clear that “we” live in mortal bodies from which we depart when we die. When our bodies die, “we” go to be with the Lord, and as verse 9 says, we make it our aim to please Him whether we are at home in our bodies or present with the Lord.
We cannot please the Lord if we are one physical unit that ceases to exist when we die.
The lesson attempts to imply that all of a human’s non-physical attributes are linked to one’s body. The problem is that the author connects “physical, spiritual, mental, emotional” as an indivisible unit. The Bible is very clear that “spirit” is not synonymous with “mental” or “emotional”. Yet Adventists attempt to say that spiritual perception occurs in the brain, especially in the frontal lobes.
Their declaration that believing in an immaterial spirit that separates from the body is dualism is deliberate deception. This belief is NOT Greek or gnostic dualism but is the reality which Scripture teaches.
What about marriage?
The lesson’s points about the wisdom in the book The Song of Solomon are not wrong. The lessons in the study are pragmatic if not startling.
The biblical truth about Christian marriage, however, has not been explored. Ephesians 5:22–33 is an insightful passage:
Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. (ESV)
Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
This passage makes the startling parallel of the role of Christ to the church with the role of a husband to a wife. Furthermore, this passage describes a wife’s proper response to her husband: submit to him as to the Lord.
Many people have misused this passage to give husbands permission to act in the lusts of the flesh, abusing, demanding, and disrespecting their wives. This sort of behavior, however, is rebellious and ungodly.
In a Christian marriage, the husband and the wife have been born again. They have spiritual life—literally—and the Spirit of God indwells them. In a born-again marriage, there is actually the possibility of the husband and wife learning to trust and to love each other because of their security in the Lord Jesus.
Husbands can lead their wives with care and self-sacrificing love, and wives can lean on their husbands with trust and submission to his protection and care.
This sort of model cannot work well in a marriage in which the partners are not born again. In a typical Adventist marriage, a trusting relationship that allows a husband to be self-sacrificing instead of demanding and a wife to be submissive instead of entitled generally doesn’t occur.
Until we are born again, we are imprisoned in our mortal flesh and bound in the domain of darkness, unable to escape our legacy of sin and self-protection. We have no choice but to use all the self-discipline and good advice we can get, but when we work from our state of spiritual death, we cannot get past our own brokenness and demands.
When we are born again, we STILL live in our sinful flesh, and we still misunderstand each other. The difference, however, is that we are at last able to submit to our Lord. When we submit to our Savior, who died for our sin and made us alive, we can learn to lay our hurts and confusion at His feet and honor Him when we feel hurt or misunderstood. We can love the other for God by being willing to allow the Lord to show us what to do.
The Adventist view that men and women are indivisible bodies without a spiritual component completely eviscerates the new birth. Without believing that we can be literally born again of the Spirit through faith in the Lord Jesus, all they have is a mental decision to live according to their Adventist beliefs. Marriage, like parenting, becomes an “academic” endeavor to develop more workable behaviors and reactions.
In a biblical worldview, however, with the understanding that we are asked to trust and thus be born again, marriage becomes something that transcends a human commitment. It becomes a place where the Holy Spirit works out our sanctification and our ability to love and to receive love.
Conclusion
Again, the problems with this lesson are not in the gems of wisdom gleaned from the Song of Solomon. The real problem is the admitted Adventist belief that humans are merely physical bodies with characteristics that reside in the body/brain. With this belief, which skews the entire understanding of the biblical worldview including the nature of our sin, our salvation, and the nature of our Savior, the gospel is eclipsed, and people are cut off from it.
When we understand the biblical worldview and realize that God draws us to the Lord Jesus and gives us faith to believe, that we literally come to life when we believe the real gospel and receive the indwelling Holy Spirit, all of our relationships change. We now have God’s word and His Spirit helping us to understand His word, and the mind of Christ is ours.
Now we have the ability to trust God and in doing so, to honor Him while honoring our spouses. †
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