October 24–30

 

Lesson 5: “Jesus as the Master Teacher”

For the most part, this week’s lesson has some wonderful things to say about Jesus, who He is, what He did, and what we can learn from Him and His life. He is described here as He is described in the Bible—a God of love who came to redeem fallen man.

But even with all of these good descriptions of Jesus, there are some curiously unbiblical statements. In the introduction there is a description of fallen man that appeals to our emotions:

“At the time of Jesus’ birth, humanity lay mangled and bleeding, in need of a healing vision of God. “

But is it truthful? Was humanity “mangled and bleeding”? Was humanity simply in need of healing? Would having a “vision of God” make any difference at all? 

Mankind’s condition was much more serious than just injury—mankind was dead—dead in sin as our legacy from Adam’s sin (Romans 5:12-14). See also Ephesians 2 and Colossians 2 and their statements of the fact that we were dead in our sins until Jesus came. We were not just badly wounded and in need of healing but dead.

This description was probably written as a subtle but profound contradiction of the Bible’s statements that our very souls were dead—separated from God—until we accepted the free pardon provided by Jesus’ payment for our sin. In fact, this statement shows a total lack of understanding of the soul. If you do not know that we have a soul, you cannot understand that that soul is dead unless it is made alive in Christ.

In Sunday’s lesson we see another profoundly true statement that is actually out of step with Adventist theology:

Jesus also is “the express image of his person” (Heb. 1:3). The term used here, the Greek word charactēr, is sometimes used of the impression a seal makes in wax or the representation stamped on a coin. So, Jesus is “the exact imprint of God’s very being” (Heb. 1:3, NRSV).

Yes, Jesus is the exact image of God. Jesus, a living, breathing human is God and shows us God in a human form that we can see and at least partially understand. This almost unfathomable act of love shows us just Who and What our creator God is and the lengths He went to in order to show us His love and to redeem us from death.

What a slap in the face of God it is to say that a list of 10 rules are actually the exact representation of that God! Yes, God is perfect holiness and the Law describes just how far we have fallen and how badly we need His redeeming love to restore what was lost; but to say that some rules for behavior totally and perfectly define God (a ‘transcript’ according to Ellen White, used 165 times) is to bring God down to our level and make Him nothing more than a pattern for behavior. In fact, according to her, the sole purpose of the incarnation was to reveal the law:

“Christ came to restore this knowledge. He came to set aside the false teaching by which those who claimed to know God had misrepresented Him. He came to manifest the nature of His law, to reveal in His own character the beauty of holiness.”—Ellen G. White, Education, pp. 74–76.

And yet, the law does nothing but condemn us by showing us how hopelessly lost we really are. That was its purpose—to show us our need for life which is found only in Christ. 

Galatians 3:2 addresses the impossibility of finding life in the law:

Is the Law then contrary to the promises of God? May it never be! For if a law had been given which was able to impart life, then righteousness would indeed have been based on law.

In verse 24 it very clearly states the real purpose of the law:

Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith.

Then in verse 25, in 13 simple words, we see our relationship to the law, once we are in Christ:

But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.

How much clearer could it be? Our tutor—the law—leads us to Christ. Once we come to Him by faith, we are no longer under the tutor.

Oh, the profound, joyous truth that we are no longer condemned but are redeemed and made alive! We no longer rely on rules and regulations that do nothing to make us better, but we are now led by the Spirit (Galatians 5:18) and are now counted as sons of God (Romans 8:14)! 

As Jesus made clear in the Sermon on the Mount, the internal guiding of of our lives is much more than just following external rules—being led by the Spirit affects our minds (internal) as well as our behavior (external). Those who are relying on the external controls are still internally violating the spirit of the law because without the Spirit, we are helpless to conform to the spirit of the law.

But then, in Thursday’s lesson, we come back to some profound truth:

“Christian education is rooted in the worship of Christ.

With wise men, shepherds, and angels, we are called to worship Christ, the newborn King—and to see in the infant Jesus the reality of God Himself.”

This lesson shows some of the ironic contradictions built into Adventist theology—some very Biblical statements about God, interspersed with very unbiblical wanderings from the clear message of salvation. Although this week’s lesson doesn’t say much about the law, the entire theology on which it is based actually denies the superiority of grace over that of law and refuses to see that the law kills but the Spirit gives life. 

Let’s look at just a few of the many places where the Bible refutes that theology:

2 Corinthians 3:5, 6:

Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God, who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

In contrasting life lived by the flesh—the law, the letters on stone—with life lived by the Spirit Galatians 6:8 says:

For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. 

Romans 8:1-4 starts out with a resounding declaration of hope and follows that with the stark contrast between the law and the Spirit:

Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

There is our eternal hope and joy! We no longer are dead in sin, trying to make ourselves good enough by following a list of rules. 

Now we are alive in Christ and are being led by the Spirit Who, if we let Him, will change us from the inside. This will inevitably change our outward behavior in a way that a set of external rules and regulations was never able to do and, in fact, was never intended to accomplish. †