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: “The Roots of Restlessness”
This week’s lesson looks at the self-serving, hypocritical attitudes that lie under the surface of the human heart. The point of the lessons is to say that Jesus taught his followers that their attitudes were the things they had to overcome.
The “advice” in this lesson boils down to a single, Adventist point: decide to let go of one’s worldly selfish attitudes and commit to live a life of service to others that puts other people ahead of oneself. The author uses Philippians 2:5–8 to demonstrate that Jesus condescended to put off His greatness and to identify with sinful men. It even states that this passage “describes the blueprint of unselfishness, humility, and love.”
In other words, Jesus’ leaving behind the glory of heaven is our example. We, like Jesus, have to leave behind our attachment to our comforts and worldly honors and serve the Lord—a goal which, to an Adventist, means serving the Adventism organization and making proselytes.
Once again, the lesson misrepresents Scripture and sets forth a deceptive and impossible goal.
We cannot please God by following the example of Jesus. If our job is to follow His example, exactly how much of His life are we to emulate? Are we to remain single? Are we to form an inner circle of twelve mentees whom we teach and train to do good works? Are we supposed to die in our early 30’s to demonstrate “love”? What kind of death should we die?
No! Jesus came to be the one Mediator between God and men: the man Christ Jesus. He came, fully human in a mortal body, yet the fullness of deity dwelt in Him bodily. He came to offer Himself as a propitiation for our sin; he blood paid the full price for our sin, and by dying for our sin, He showed that He was both just—He honored the penalty of sin which was death—and the justifier: He Himself paid the price which God had established for sin.
We need life
The lesson’s title is telling: “the roots of restlessness”—and the lesson proceeds to identify these supposed roots as selfishness, hypocrisy, and ambition. These qualities, however, are not the roots of our restlessness: they are symptoms of our true problem: depravity.
Adventism does not teach the doctrine of original sin. It denies that we are born with Adam’s sin imputed to us but says instead that we inherit “tendencies” and “propensities” to sin. Adventism utterly denies the biblical teaching that we inherit Adam’s literal (not metaphorical) spiritual death.
God told Adam that if he ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, he would die that day. When he did eat, Adam hid and blamed—but he continued to walk and talk and breathe. Thus Adventism (through EGW) says that Adam “began to die” that day, that his body began to deteriorate and ultimately died.
Of course they have to say he merely “began to die” because Adventism does not believe humans has literal spirits which are separate from their bodies. Yet this very spirit is what died the very day he ate. Adam immediately knew shame and hid. When God found him, he blamed Eve for his sin.
Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15:20–21 state that our true sin nature, our spiritual death, is from Adam, and death reigned from Adam until Moses, even before there was a law and the consequent imputation of sin. Yet humanity DIED from Adam until Moses because in Adam ALL died. We are born sinners, spiritually dead and unable to please God.
Paul puts it this way in Ephesians 2:1–3:
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. (ESV)
We are “by nature children of wrath”. That wrath is God’s wrath; we are born under God’s wrath—every single on of us!
Paul explains even further that none of us can please God or even seek for Him on our own:
What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, as it is written:
“None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God.
All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”
“Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.”
“The venom of asps is under their lips.” “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.”
“Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known.”
“There is no fear of God before their eyes” (Romans 3:9–18).
All of us are born children of wrath, and we cannot rise about our natures. We cannot please God or even seek Him by nature. God Himself has to intervene in our lives to awaken our misery and guilt and desire to know Him.
Adventism simply does not teach this fact. We cannot seek God on our own, and we can’t decide to commit to an unselfish lifestyle. Our naturally dead spirits cannot make true decisions that embrace godliness.
Moreover, Jesus said this in John 3:18:
Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
When a person recognizes what Jesus has done in His death, burial, and resurrection and believes that He has accomplished everything necessary for our salvation, trusting that Jesus’ blood has paid for all his or her sins—past, present, and future—that person is not condemned but passes out of death into life (Jn. 5:24).
On the contrary, when a person does not believe, he is condemned already. In fact, people are born condemned. We come forth spiritually dead and under the condemnation of God. Only when we believe in the Lord Jesus and His finished word, trusting Him fully, do we pass our of condemnation.
In other words, people who believe in the Lord Jesus and are born again are not condemned. People who do not believe are “condemned already”. We are not born saved and must “opt out” in order to be lost. Quite the contrary; we are born condemned and must believe in order to pass out of condemnation.
When we do believe, the Father transfers us out of the domain of darkness and places us into the kingdom of the Beloved Son (Col 1:13). We literally move from one reality to another. This move is not a metaphor nor a hope but an accomplished reality. We are seated with Christ in heavenly places and now citizens of a new kingdom because our spirits have been born again.
Ephesians 1:13-14 explains what happens when we believe:
In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory. (ESV)
When we believe the biblical gospel (1 Cor. 15:1–4), the Holy Spirit seals us and indwells us and is the guarantee of our eternal future. We are born again and pass from death to life.
In summary, this lesson does not address the true root of our restlessness. We need spiritual LIFE; we need the Lord Jesus.
Knowing Jesus isn’t just accepting His example and agreeing that we need to live like He lived. No! It means that we acknowledge our sin and the fact that we are condemned and need to be forgiven and justified.
We need to repent before the Lord Jesus and trust and believe in His completed atonement for our sin. Only when we believe in the Lord Jesus do we pass from death to life and escape our natural restlessness.
Only when we trust Jesus do we find meaning and resolution and a true desire to live in reality and truth. Only when we have been born again through trusting Jesus’ finished work can we begin to trust Him when we are tempted to self-protect and to strive for achievement and honor and possessions.
Only when we have been born again can we rest, knowing that everything necessary for our life and godliness has already been accomplished. The Lord Jesus Himself will provide all that we need if we seek His kingdom first (Matthew 6:24–33).
This lesson is a set of instructions in futility. A spiritually dead person has nothing to work with except will power—and will power fails. We cannot achieve godliness without new birth.
What people need is the true gospel and true faith in the real Jesus. We cannot root out any of our natural selfishness and ambition if we are spiritually dead. After all, those things are the fruit of our natural condition.
Only when we have been made new in Jesus can these things begin to be replaced with trust in the Lord Jesus and His word. †
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Colleen,
Well said ! Again! thank you for the excellent teaching here. I particularly like how you lay out the whole, simple, Biblical gospel at the end. Every week. I pray that someone who needs to hear it will read it and believe!
One thing I noticed in Sunday’s lesson that really bothered me was this sentence:
“Worthiness is not based on high moral standards or even overcoming sin. Worthiness is based on one’s relationship with Jesus. ”
It makes our “relationship” the core of our salvation–our worthiness before God. But as I understand it, the only thing that makes us stand worthy before God is Jesus’ worthiness which is imputed to us. The lesson seems to turn it around, again, into something we do; in this case, maintain a good enough relationship with Jesus and we are worthy enough to be saved. Am I just nit-picking?
Anyway, thanks again for a wonderful, gospel-filled comment on the lesson. God bless.
Jeanie
Yes Jeanie, with all respect I think you are being a little pedantic. The context of Matt 10: 34-39 makes it plain that the “worthiness” here is based on one’s faithful commitment to Jesus. In this particular instance I think the lesson is in keeping with Jesus’s words. Notice the following sentence “We are worthy when we choose Him above everything else- including mother, father or children. “ which is in complete accord with not only the context but with how most evangelicals would express themselves.
Best wishes, Winston