October 17–23

 

Lesson 4: “The Eyes of the Lord”: The Biblical Worldview

We start out well with an explanation of how our worldview affects our understanding of the world around us:

“As human beings, we never look at the world from a neutral position. We see it, always and only, through filters that impact how we interpret and understand the world around us. That filter is called a worldview, and it’s so crucial that we teach our young people, and even older church members, the biblical worldview.”

This opening makes a good point—if you want your children to know and love God, they must be taught. They are constantly learning, but it is up to us to guide that teaching while they are still willing to listen. Likewise, adults who are mired in slavery to sin must, as they come to Christ, be taught of the freedom that comes from being His.

The lesson has some good things to say about education and the need to teach about God—who He is and what His love is. These are vital facts to understand for anyone to come to faith in Christ. But sadly, not even one time does lesson mention God’s grace. The Law, yes; but grace, no. 

In Monday’s lesson we read:

“It’s fascinating how in the Bible the existence of God is just assumed. Genesis 1:1 doesn’t start out with a bunch of logical arguments (though many exist) for the existence of God. It just assumes His existence.”

Yes, it is fascinating, but not at all surprising, that the Bible “assumes His existence” as He is the One Who inspired all of it. It is literally His Word, His words given to the authors of the books of the Bible. God breathed it out (2 Timothy 3:16), inspiring it in the minds of the authors. It is interesting to note that in breathing it out, God did more than just give them ideas and let them put them into their own words as they saw fit. 

Without that fact, the Bible would be changed from the perfect, reliable Word of God into a less trustworthy collection of (possibly wrong) ideas, each stated from the personal bias of the particular author. Either all of it is true and dependable, however, or none of it is to be trusted.

This subtle questioning of the reliability of the Bible is necessary to support the two core points of this week’s lesson: the Law (meaning the 10 Commandments) as necessary for salvation, and the Sabbath (which is really their only reason to hang on to the 10 Commandments).

First, the lesson says something profound:

“Hence, all Christian education must be rooted and grounded in the Word of God, and any teaching contrary to it must be rejected.”

But then the lesson jumps right into saying something that is directly contrary to the Bible:

“God asks us to spend one-seventh of our lives, every week, to remember the six-day Creation, something He asks for no other teaching. What should that tell us about how foundational and important this doctrine is to a Christian worldview?”

In the two listings of the 10 Commandments—first in Exodus 20 and again in Deuteronomy 5 where Moses restated the law to the wilderness generation before entering the Promised Land—both of them identify the target audience as those who came out of Egypt. Furthermore, in both places it says the very same thing:

““I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” 

No one else was brought out of slavery in Egypt no matter how you try to twist words to insert the Church into that group or attempt to spiritualize it to mean when we left the slavery of sin and came to Christ. In both places, in the following commands, the very “words of the covenant” God made with Israel are specifically directed at Israel: 

“So he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; he did not eat bread or drink water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments”  (Exodus 34:28).

Look at Deuteronomy and its setting. It spends the first 26 chapters recounting Israel’s deliverance from Egypt and recalling their various travels in the desert, featuring God’s miraculous protection, provision, and deliverance along the way. Then, in chapter 27, Moses and the other leaders charged the people to remember all of that history when God led them into the Promised Land.

Chapter 28, verses 1-14, lists all the blessings promised if they will just obey God after they enter the Promised Land.

Then, verses 15-68 list the curses that will fall on them, their children, the crops, the animals and the land itself if they disobey. This includes the threat to return them to slavery in Egypt if they disobey.

It is ironic that those who cling to Replacement Theology in order to insert the Church into the place of Israel will claim the blessings promised in the law but never the curses. Furthermore, the Church is not promised any land at all; our only promised future inheritance is the Holy City.

In Deuteronomy 29, in fact, God even starts out by specifying just who is included in that covenant:

“These are the words of the covenant which the Lord commanded Moses to make with the sons of Israel in the land of Moab, besides the covenant which He had made with them at Horeb.”

It isn’t until Thursday’s lesson, in a section titled “The law of God” that we get to the real central, core doctrine that is apparently the aim of this entire week: The Law.

“The answer, or course, is that the Lord who created us also gave us a moral code to live by. Maybe our eyes can’t get it right, but the Lord’s always do.”

But just what is the “moral code” we are to live by? In the Sermon on the Mount, much of what Jesus said was quoting from the Law and showing how it was only outwardly focused; He then followed each one by showing how the much more difficult code of behavior is internal—ultimately summed up as “love God and love your fellow man”.

Those who cling to the Law (again, meaning the 10 Commandments) love to fall back on the outraged cry of, “But does that mean that we can kill and steal and commit adultery etc?”

One of the best answers to that straw-man argument is Romans 6!

A few sentences later, we come to this heartbreaking, confusing and self-contradictory statement:

“If we are going to make redemption central to our Christian worldview, then (as we saw last week) God’s law, the Ten Commandments, must be central, as well. After all, what are we redeemed from if not sin, which is breaking the law (Rom. 3:20)? The gospel really makes no sense apart from the law of God, which is one reason we know that the law is still binding for us, despite its inability to save us. (That’s why we need the gospel.)”

We discussed the Law last week, so we won’t be returning to that entire discussion here. But by way of reminder of the contrast between the Law and grace, see Galatians 3:23-25:

“But before faith came, we were kept in custody under the law, being shut up to the faith which was later to be revealed. Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.”

In those three verses, there is profound truth in a series of contrasts:

• Before faith—custody under the law being shut up (or out of) faith.
• The Law was our tutor to lead us to Christ.
• BUT now that faith has come, we are no longer under the tutor (the law).

No one with any concept of logic and language can deny the sequence laid out in those three profound verses! To even try to do so is to go against the high-sounding claims of this lesson—that of making the Bible the basis of our worldview.

Overall, this week’s lesson is almost as bad as last week’s, with its twisting of Scripture to force a so-called Biblical worldview that is stuck in the Old Covenant and refusing to release the lost into the freedom of the New Covenant. It is very sad and frustrating to see the self-contradiction and to realize that the truth is hidden from them in their focus on the law at the expense of grace. 

This sad truth can be summed up in this from the questions at the end of the week:

“This week’s lesson looked at some of the key points of a Christian worldview: the existence of God, the Creation, the Bible, the plan of Redemption, and the law of God. What other important elements should be included in any complete formulation of a Christian worldview?”

You can almost hear Jesus standing at the firmly shut door asking, “What about grace?”

Let’s return for a minute to Galatians. Galatians 4 contains a clearly laid out discussion of the difference between law and grace, slavery and freedom, the flesh, and the promise summed up in the two covenants. Going on to chapter 5, Paul starts out by begging them to be free, not slaves:

“It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.”

If you read it in context, it is clear and concise—trying to live by the flesh, the law, and slavery on the one hand, or living by faith, grace, and freedom in Christ on the other.

In Galatians 4:21-31 Paul lays out the contrast between Law and Grace, starting out with this statement of disbelief:

Tell me, you who want to be under law, do you not listen to the law?

This chart is a good illustration of the difference between them:

MOTHER	Sarah	Hagar
HER STATUS	Free	Slave
HER SON	Isaac	Ishmael
HIS STATUS	Persecuted	Persecutor
BORN BY	Promise	Flesh
COVENANT	Gospel	The Law
MEDIATOR	Jesus [God]	Moses [Man]
INHERITANCE	Heaven	Jerusalem
CULMINATION	Established	Abolished

So which will you choose? They are in opposition to one another and cannot be combined. Trying to combine them is described in Romans 7 as committing spiritual adultery.

Remember Galatians 5:1: “It was for freedom that Christ set you free”.  †