JUNE 29–JULY 5 COMMENTARY

Lesson 1: “God Created”

The first three days of week one is setting up creation as the base from which to view our world. 

In Saturday’s lesson we see this:

And even more remarkably, while God set in motion His plan for redeeming and re-creating the world, He has given us, as believers, roles to play in the fulfillment of His larger plans. Yes, we are the recipients of His grace; but, from the grace we have received, we have been given our work to do as colaborers with our Lord.

This is a little vague, but in the context of the whole paragraph, it sounds like the author is in agreement with the “green” movement which is part of the social justice mindset. In fact, the Teachers Comments state this objective for teaching this week’s lesson: 

As you teach the lesson this week, explore how our focus on the wonder of God’s creation and our calling to care for His earth, and all that is therein, affects our attitudes and actions.

 With this perspective, when the lesson states, “while God set in motion His plan for redeeming and re-creating the world”, we have to ask how we are supposed to be “colaborers with our Lord” in recreating (restoring) the world?

Romans 8 tells us what we already know—that the whole creation is in bondage to sin along with us, and it is groaning, along with us, longing for freedom from sin. But we are not “colaborers” in bringing about that change. 

By telling others about Christ, we can lead them to freedom in Him, but freeing creation is in no way our job or even within the range of possibility.

This directive sounds more like being politically correct by supporting the green movement than having any relation to the gospel.

 

Stewards of the Earth

In this section, we once again approach the world’s concept of the Mother Earth that needs protecting, sometimes above even the needs of people. Hopefully that is not what the author meant.

The Teachers Comments, however, quote some of Ellen White’s extra-biblical assumptions about Adam’s original condition as the author makes his case for humanity’s assignment as stewards of the earth. Significantly, two quotes reveal Adventism’s often-hidden but powerful assumption that man’s physical image reflects a supposed physical reality of God. First is this quote:

“When Adam came from the Creator’s hand, he bore, in his physical, mental, and spiritual nature, a likeness to his Maker.”—Ellen G. White, Education, p. 15 (emphasis added [in the lesson]).

Second, the Teachers Comments quote this unfounded assumption from Ellen White:

Here is an example of how good “very good” is: “If Adam, at his creation, had not been endowed with twenty times as much vital force as men now have, the race, with their present habits of living in violation of natural law, would have become extinct.”—Ellen G. White, Testimonies for the Church, vol. 3, pp. 138, 139 (emphasis added).

We do not really know exactly what Ellen G. White meant when she referred to “vital force.” Some scientists have suggested that part of the answer could be found in the energy-producing organelle “powerhouses” in the cell structure of living creatures. These powerhouses are called the mitochondria. The more mitochondria in your body, the more energy you will have.…

Adam had 20 times (2,000 percent) the vital force that people now have. If an increase in mitochondria is related to an increase in “vital force,” that could mean that Adam had 20 times (2,000 percent) more mitochondria than the average person today. Can you imagine what it would be like to be in Adam’s presence? You could likely feel the energy exuding from him!

Adam and Eve were not only endowed with great vital force, but we also learn that “as Adam came forth from the hand of his Creator, he was of noble height, and of beautiful symmetry. He was more than twice as tall as men now living upon the earth, and was well proportioned.”—Ellen G. White, Spiritual Gifts, vol. 3, p. 34 (emphasis supplied).

From these EGW quotations used to help the teachers prepare to teach this lesson we can know that the underlying “agenda” is to help Adventists believe that Adam and Eve were created physically in God’s image, and that this superior physical form was degraded over millennia by the sin that crept physically into man’s inherited gene pool. 

Neither of these assumptions—which Adventists are taught both overtly and covertly—are biblical.

 

A Broken World

“One thing God gave Adam and Eve that He didn’t give anything else on earth was moral freedom. They were moral beings in ways that plants, animals, and trees could never be. God valued this moral freedom so much that He allowed the possibility that His people would choose to disobey. In doing so, He risked all that He had created for the larger goal of a relationship with His human creatures based on love and free will.”

Here, we are seeing the Adventist idea that our free will is paramount in God’s eyes to the point that He makes Himself subject to His created beings. You have only to read Job 38–41 to see God’s thoughts on where He stands in relation to us. He made it all and is so far above us that we can only bow before His presence. 

Our so-called “free will” in no way limits God as He so forcefully pointed out to Job, and Job himself acknowledges this fact during the dialogue of those three chapters.

Then we read in the lesson:

“Speaking through the serpent, the devil questioned the completeness and sufficiency of what God had provided (see Gen. 3:1–5). The primary temptation was to covet more than God had given them, to doubt the goodness of God, and to rely on themselves.”

Not only is that not even suggested by the Bible text, it even contradicts what EGW herself said. 

The serpent was not causing Eve to question the sufficiency of what God created but rather to question His words and therefore His truthfulness and His sovereignty and to question her own need to obey Him.

This statement is followed by:

“In that choice and that act, the relationships that were integral to the creation as God had designed it were broken. No longer did Adam and Eve enjoy the relationship with their Creator that they had been designed for.”

True, the relationship was broken, but this lesson ignores the much greater and tragic truth that, just as God had told them, they truly died that day. It was so much more than just an interrupted relationship, because that interruption separated their spirits from God which resulted in their immediate spiritual deaths.

Reading further, we see that the author blames sin for the degradation of the creation, totally ignoring the Biblical fact that it was God Himself who cursed it and made the change. This is clear in the writer’s statement:

“All aspects of our lives and our world show the brokenness caused by sin.” 

Degradation was the result of sin, but God’s curse was the cause of the brokenness. 

 

The Family Web of Humanity

As is typical in this Sabbath School lesson and in most of the lessons in the past, the author takes every opportunity to insert unique Adventist beliefs into the study to give them legitimacy. Not only is the Sabbath inserted, he also sneaks in the Adventist belief that the day of worship will be the determining factor in the loss of salvation in “end-times”.

 

Friday — further thought

“It is the unfaithfulness of men that brings about the state of suffering in which humanity is plunged. . . . God has made men His stewards, and He is not to be charged with the sufferings, the misery, the nakedness, and the want of humanity. The Lord has made ample provision for all”—(Ellen G. White, Welfare Ministry, p. 16).

What this says is that all of the human misery and suffering is the fault of man and his selfishness. This contradicts the account in Genesis 3 (and confirmed in Romans 8) where God Himself cursed creation—the curse which started the degeneration of this world.

I’m not sure why Adventists are so quick to blame man, not God, for the degeneration of this world unless it is part of the insistence that we, created beings, are in fact of superior influence and God, the Creator, is subject to us and to our choices. †