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 1: “What Happened?”
This week begins a new quarter of lessons entitled The Promise. This first week’s lesson reviews the story of Adam and Eve and tells, with help from Ellen White’s writings, the story of the fall.
Importantly, the Adventist interpretation of the fall is not based on the biblical story of origin. Scripture begins with Genesis 1:1 and tells us simply that, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth”. Moses, the author of the Pentateuch, goes on to recount the creation of the earth, culminating in God’s making Adam and then Eve from his rib.
Genesis 3 tells the story of the serpent’s deceiving Eve, of Eve’s decision to discuss God’s word with a snake rather than to simply refuse to listen and to obey God’s word, and then she ate of the forbidden fruit and gave some to Adam who was with her (Gen. 3:6). Immediately they both knew they were naked and cobbled fig leaves together to cover themselves.
Adam and Eve died spiritually at that moment, just as God had said they would if they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 2:17).
Adventism, however, teaches that Adam and Eve began to die that day—an explanation they make because Adventism does not believe human beings have immaterial spirits that are separate from their bodies.
This week’s lesson makes the issue of the tree, the fruit, the temptation, and the sin a matter of making the wrong decision in Adam and Eve’s full exercise of their free wills. In fact, Wednesday’s lesson states,
This test provided Adam and Eve with an opportunity to exercise their free will. It also challenged them to respond positively or negatively to their relationship with the Creator. It also shows that God had made them free moral beings. After all if they did not have the opportunity to disobey, why would the Lord have even bothered warning them, in the first place, against disobedience?
This quote sounds logical, but the underlying message is related to Ellen White’s pre-history scenario in which she describes Satan as accusing God of creating an unfair law and of growing jealous of Jesus when God exalted him (supposedly) to the position of His Son.
Ellen White’s worldview was that earth was not the only populated planet. In fact, she believed that there were many planets as yet unseen where sentient beings had their own trees of the knowledge of good and evil, and what happened on earth became an object lesson and an example to these other planets.
Her view included the idea that Satan had been cast out of heaven and sent to earth—and Adam and Eve volitionally chose to disobey God and thus placed themselves at Satans disposal. This decision, according to Ellen’s great controversy theory, put God in a cosmic position of having a besmirched reputation. After Adam and Eve, it became the job of humanity to work with God and to assist His Son in vindicating God’s reputation and vindicating his supposedly eternal law—the Ten Commandments.
Here are three Ellen White quotes from the Teachers Comments in this week’s lesson:
In the biblical sense, when “God blesses,” God empowers the function or fulfillment of the thing blessed. “God created man for His own glory, that after test and trial the human family might become one with the heavenly family. It was God’s purpose to re-populate heaven with the human family, if they would show themselves obedient to His every word.”—Ellen G. White Comments, The SDA Bible Commentary, vol. 1, p. 1082. (See also Isa. 43:7.)
“His followers were seeking him; and he [Satan] aroused himself and, assuming a look of defiance, informed them of his plans to wrest from God . . . Adam and his companion Eve. . . . And if they could gain access to the tree of life in the midst of the garden, their strength would, they thought, be equal to that of the holy angels, and even God himself could not expel them.”—Ellen G. White, The Spirit of Prophecy, vol. 1, pp. 30, 31.
In simple terms, God warned the innocent pair to avoid a special tree held in divine reserve. “The Lord has given me a view of other worlds. Wings were given me, and an angel attended me from the city to a place that was bright. . . . The grass of the place was living green, and the birds there warbled a sweet song. The inhabitants . . . were of all sizes; they were noble, majestic, and lovely. . . . Then I saw two trees, one looked much like the tree of life in the city. The fruit of both looked beautiful, but of one they could not eat. They had power to eat of both, but were forbidden to eat of one. Then my attending angel said to me, ‘None in this place have tasted of the forbidden tree.’ ” —Ellen G. White, Early Writings, pp. 39, 40. (See also Gen. 2:15–17.)
Clearly Ellen White relied on a source other than Scripture for her writings. In fact, her source could not have been God, because God has given His word already—and the origin story He gave us is recorded in Genesis. There is absolutely no evidence for the pre-history that shapes all of Ellen’s theology. There are no other worlds filled with people. There are no other planets with trees of testing.
Furthermore, God does not tell us the stories of His other creatures. He tells us our own story, and the Bible tells us our human story and the story of God’s redemption of us. Ellen’s idea that God was going to “re-populate heaven with the human family” is her solution for the supposed defection of Satan and his angels. Yet this idea is nowhere in Scripture.
The lesson is attempting to set up a scenario for what it will call “the covenant”, but the biblical account is much different. The Bible describes God’s making four unconditional covenants—with Noah, Abraham, David, and with Israel and Judah in the new covenant—and one conditional one: the Mosaic covenant at Sinai.
To be sure: Adam and Eve’s sin is at the heart of the story of our natural condition as humans ever since that event in the garden. But Adam and Eve were not victims of Satan. They chose to eat what God said not to eat. Their disobedience did not surprise God, nor was Jesus’ eventual incarnation, sacrifice, and resurrection a reaction to their sin.
Jesus is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the earth. He did not have to plead with God to come and be our Substitute. He was never on an equal playing field with Satan; Satan always knew Jesus was His Creator.
Moreover, what happened before the account of Genesis we are simply not told, and Ellen has gone far beyond Scripture with her star-wars-like story of the beginning of the supposed great controversy!
Never, unlike the lesson’s assertion on page 14 in the Teachers Comments, does evil compete with God’s sovereign will. Evil is not an equal-but-opposite force that opposes God. God does not limit His own power to ensure our or Satan’s free will. God is sovereign over all. Evil is His monkey; Satan cannot do anything God does not allow.
Adventism presents God as self-limiting in order to honor His creature’s “free will”. If this scenario were true, the creatures would be sovereign, not God. God never limits His power; this idea of a weak God who must defer to His creatures to vindicate Him is an unbiblical god who is the product of a false prophet’s ungodly visions.
Adventism has been steeped in a heretical worldview that colors all they understand of the Bible and of reality in general. Even the biblical covenants are misrepresented within the great controversy worldview.
Yes, Adam and Eve sinned and plunged all humanity into sin. God bound the creation to decay (not Satan—Rom. 8:20–27), and Jesus died as our Substitute, not as an afterthought but as the eternal plan of our sovereign God. †
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Thanks Colleen, your analysis is always spot-on and a blessing especially for former and transitioning adventists. Keep up the good work.