July 11–17

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 3: “Seeing People Through Jesus’ Eyes”

The title of this week’s lesson, “Seeing People Through Jesus’ Eyes”, is a call and a challenge. It is a call to love our fellow man with God’s love and to consider each one to be someone who is loved by God. With all the chaos around the world, that kind of love has never been more obviously needed and sorely lacking.

But how do we see people “through Jesus’ eyes”? We are fallen, sinful humans, and we do not have within ourselves, on our own, any love for other people, other than that of our selfish wants and needs. True love comes only from God through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. He calls us, and as we respond, He works in us to change us. 

How, though, do we have the Holy Spirit? Is He just there for the asking? Do we have to work for it? Is the Spirit just a “force” that somehow emanates from God, a life force that we can use as needed—a life force that will leave us if we don’t measure up?

Let’s look at what the Bible tells us about the Holy Spirit. In the first chapter of Ephesians, in verses 13 and 1,4 we read: 

In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory.

Even before we first believed, the Holy Spirit was calling us; then, after we heard and believed, we were—past tense—sealed by the Holy Spirit. It says that the Spirit is our guarantee of salvation. And Ephesians 4:30 restates this by saying: 

Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

The Holy Spirit is so much more than just a life force that comes around when we need help. We are sealed in Him, a promise which indicates a permanent action.

Jesus spoke of this reality in His nighttime talk with Nicodemus in John 3. He used the wind as an example of how, although we can’t see the Spirit, we can see the results of His work in us. Jesus said that we must be born again and have the Spirit in us in order to have life. This phenomenon is the new birth, and from Jesus’ description of it, it is clear that it is so much more than just a change of mind or attitude. 

It is a change from being dead in sin, separated from God, into being alive with Him. And once we are alive in Christ, we are sealed and kept alive with no fear. He seals us and holds us securely; in Him we are seen as if we are already seated in heaven with Jesus. All of this reality is laid out in Ephesians 2 where Paul lays out the glorious news of our position in Christ.

Each and every person who comes to faith in Jesus is sealed and made part of the great family of God. What a magnificent declaration of our hope and salvation! We become a permanent part of the family of God, and there is no further work required on our part to stay there. Of course, as the Spirit works in us, we will grow in faith and in our walk with Him—this growth is called ‘bearing fruit (Galatians 5:22, 2—but being a part of the Body of Christ is where we rest with God’s promise of security. 

Understanding this reality of the new birth and of our salvation is what makes this quote from the lesson such a discordant denial of the simple truth of salvation:

“We make friends for God by sharing Jesus. They become Christian friends, and eventually, as we share God’s end-time message of biblical truth, they may become Seventh-day Adventist Christians, as well.”

There are several problems with this quote as it tries to say that there is something more than just being in Christ that we need, as if being born again into Him is just the first step. 

First of all, the lesson seems to separate out God’s message of Biblical truth into two separate, distinctly different parts. First is the “regular” truth that was true in the past; but now, in the end-times, there is an additional truth that is needed. This idea, though, would contradict Jude 3 which tells us:

“Beloved, while I was making every effort to write you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints.”

Adventists like to support their claim of the requirement of an eternal seventh-day Sabbath by saying that God never changes. And yet they will claim, as the lesson suggests here, that God does change the gospel message of salvation for the end-times by adding requirements for those in the end-times.

A further problem in that quote from the lesson is how it claims that there is something more than being a part of the body of Christ that is needed. It implies that the “more” is so much better—that of becoming “Seventh-day Adventist Christians”. In fact, buried in the core of Seventh-day Adventism is the belief that being a Christian is not enough to save, at least in end times; instead, one has to be a member of the Adventist church, or they can be lost. 

This sometimes subtle downplaying of the person and role of the Holy Spirit is illustrated in Thursday’s lesson. After talking about how an angel of the Lord directed Philip to the Ethiopian who was searching the Scriptures, the lesson goes on to say:

“If we have ears to hear and eyes to see, we, too, will be guided by unseen angels to reach truth seekers with the truths of the kingdom.”

While it is true that angels can guide us, this totally glosses over the role of the Holy Spirit Who leads us from within. I know it is subtle, but I see it as just one more denial of the full deity of the Holy Spirit by assigning His work to the angels. Without the new birth and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, God’s role is reduced to that of merely influencing our choice and change of mind, using angels to lead us. Clearly there is no understanding of the real meaning of the new birth or of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

There is so much in this week’s lesson that needs to be looked at from the perspective of Biblical truth. And so much of that Biblical truth is presented clearly in the book of Ephesians. There we see the assurance that we, the Gentiles, are also part of the Body of Christ. This is the mystery that was revealed to Paul and is the most wonderful news for us.

In Chapter 2 Paul explains how we are made alive in Christ. But how can we be made alive if we are not first dead? It can’t mean physical death, so it has to mean something else—our spirit was dead in sin until it was made alive in Christ. That is the new birth, and as in the physical realm, we know that “un-birth” is impossible, so it is with the spiritual realm as well. Chapter 2 is a ringing declaration of our salvation and security in Christ: made alive, sealed, seated with Christ. And it is all by the gift of grace. 

Now that is good news to share that will bring hope to a dying world. †