May 16–22

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.

 

Lesson 8: Creation: Genesis as Foundation—Part 1

This week and next week we look at the concept of the creation week in Genesis as the foundation—but the foundation for what?

At first, there is a credible effort to show that creation was accomplished in a literal 24-hour, six-day week. So far, so good. But when we get to Tuesday’s lesson, we get to the real purpose, or “foundation” of the argument of the entire 2 weeks of this study: the Sabbath. The lesson starts out with this:

“A comparison of Revelation 14:7 and Exodus 20:11 reveals the Sabbath commandment to be the basis for worshiping the Creator. How does this direct link to the Sabbath tie into last-day events?”

Let’s start by looking at the first sentence. While it is true that Exodus 20:11 references the Creation as a reason to observe the seventh-day Sabbath, that is not the only reference that should be used to get a complete picture. The other place where the 10 Commandments are listed is in Deuteronomy 5 where, in the same 4th commandment, we see this:

You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out of there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to observe the sabbath day.

So, in Exodus 20, the authority of the Creator God is given as the reason for Israel to obey His command to observe the Sabbath. But, with equal authority, in Deuteronomy 5, the very fact that God rescued them from the land of Egypt is given as the reason for observing the seventh day. It stresses that because He rescued them from slavery, therefore they are to observe the Sabbath

It is very specific—they were rescued from slavery in Egypt, and therefore they are to observe the Sabbath. No one else in the Bible or in history, other than this specific group, was “rescued from the land of Egypt”, so this command is clearly not directed at anyone else.

The author tries to reinforce the command to worship on the seventh day by this:

Jesus could make this authoritative statement because He made or created the Sabbath as the eternal sign and seal of God’s covenant with His people. The Sabbath was not for the Hebrew people only, but for all humanity.

But that statement directly contradicts the words of God. First, in Deut 5:1, 2: 

Then Moses summoned all Israel and said to them:

“Hear, O Israel, the statutes and the ordinances which I am speaking today in your hearing, that you may learn them and observe them carefully. The Lord our God made a covenant with us at Horeb.

This passage says specifically that this covenant, summed up in the 10 Commandments, was with Israel and no one else.

In Exodus 20, the the favorite go-to site for impressing on us the necessity for observing the 10 Commandments, the commandments are adjusted by always starting with verse 3 as if that was the beginning of the document. But clearly, verse 3 is not the beginning; to start at the real beginning of the first commandment, you have to back up to verse 2:

Then God spoke all these words, saying, I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before Me.

And here again, we see that the authority for these commands given by God is the fact that He took them out of slavery, and verse 2 is clearly part of the first Commandment.

Later, the lesson again tries to make the point about the universality of the Sabbath:

“The Sabbath was not for the Hebrew people only, but for all humanity.”

But once again the author leaves out the verses that rather inconveniently disprove his claim—Exodus 20:2 and Deuteronomy 5:2. If we are going to take the Bible at its word, as this entire quarter’s lesson are trying to teach us to do, we have to recognize that these commands, the commandments, were specifically for Israel only. Yes, the God of creation has the authority to command obedience, but the stated reason for them all, as well as the specific “Sabbath” commands, is rooted in the fact that He freed them, the Children of Israel, from slavery in Egypt as well as the fact that He is the Creator of all. 

Then, the author uses another Adventist fall-back by saying:

Genesis indicates three things that Jesus did after He created the Sabbath day. First, He “rested” (Gen. 2:2), giving us a divine example of His desire to rest with us.

Once again, God’s actions are reduced to merely “divine examples”. There is nothing in the text that would even suggest that God ‘rested’ in order to show us how He wants to ‘rest with us’. After creation, before there was sin, Adam and Eve were at rest with God. Furthermore, God didn’t create the Sabbath and then rest. He CEASED creating—rested—He did not create the Sabbath. Nothing was created on the seventh day; God merely rested, or ceased, from His work.

Strongs Concordance defines that word “rest” this way:

#7673  rest, interruption, cessation

God wasn’t tired; He simply stopped creating as His work was complete and was accomplished to His satisfaction. But where did He command Adam and Eve to rest or to observe the Sabbath with Him? Were they tired? Did they need rest?

Adam was created on the sixth day and was in a perfect world without weeds or death or any need for laborious work. Further, he had not had a week of work! Also, God doesn’t get tired and has no need for physical rest. 

So far, the lesson has spent the previous seven weeks, and now the eighth week, instructing us in how to accurately use the Bible; it has given good instruction on taking the Bible at its word; it has rightly taught us to not read into it our own outside thoughts but rather let it speak for itself. 

Then, after all of that good information, we see the author do the very things he warned us against:

God had warned Adam and Eve that if they ate of the forbidden tree, they would surely die (Gen. 2:15–17).

And in that one sentence, we see a blatant omission of a very important phrase that would have realigned the entire Adventist paradigm. Let’s read those verses, but this time we will include that inconvenient phrase as God said it in Genesis 2:15–17:

Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. The Lord God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”

There are only two possibilities: either God lied, or Adam did die that day. But because of a lack of understanding of the human soul, Adventist theology cannot admit that it was Adam’s soul that died; and since Adam lived 930 years, they just leave out that phrase, or they alter it to say that he just “started to die”. 

Then, the lesson goes on to this:

In Scripture, we can see where later biblical writers confirmed earlier biblical statements and provided additional insights. In Romans 5–8, Paul writes about sin and the beauty of salvation: “Sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people” (Rom. 5:12, NIV).

But, once again, something is left out because it just doesn’t fit Adventist theology. In this case, picking out one verse, contrary to his own instructions, the author manages to avoid another very inconvenient truth. Read verse 12, but then continue the thought; in fact, finish the sentence, by including verses 13 and 14:

Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned—for until the Law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. 

Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come.

The author cannot admit that the Law was not even there until Moses, so he just leaves that verse out and apparently pretends that it isn’t even there. So much for “rightly handling” the Word of God!

In the questions at the end of Friday’s lesson, we see this question:

“As believers staying faithful to the Word of God, how can we minister to those who are struggling with questions of sexual identity? Why must we not be those who cast stones, even with people who, like the woman caught in adultery, are guilty of sin?”

Setting aside the point of that question, dealing with people with questions of sexual identity, look at the claim buried in the first sentence. How is it “staying faithful to the Word of God” to leave off the first half of the first commandment, in two different renderings of them, just because they don’t fit the preconceived idea?

How is it staying faithful when you leave off two verses just because they contradict your preconceived beliefs? How can someone spend eight weeks (so far, with more to come) laying out the correct ways to study the Bible, and still distort it this way without seeing the inherent contradiction?

What we have seen so far this week is far, far from “staying faithful to the Word of God” and is not living up to its own admonitions on how to interpret Scripture. This is a classic example of “do as I say, not as I do”. †