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 11: “Longing For More”
This lesson is an egregious misuse Hebrews 4, but it is true Adventism. In fact, this lesson reminds me why I used to hate reading Hebrews when I was an Adventist. The entire book confused me, and I couldn’t quite figure out what it was really saying. I had been taught that Hebrews explained our unique “Sanctuary Doctrine”, but I had so much trouble harmonizing the explanations I was taught with the actual words of Hebrews.
Now I know why I was so confused: Hebrews utterly contradicts the Adventist Sanctuary Doctrine! Furthermore, I had been taught that Hebrews 4 confirmed that the seventh-day Sabbath was mandatory for Christians, yet Hebrews 4 destroys the Adventist Sabbath arguments.
No WONDER Hebrews is a mystifying and avoided book within Adventism! This book above all other New Testament books walks through the amazing ways the Lord Jesus fulfilled every shadow of the Law and ushered us into a new covenant when we believe!
There are two primary heresies this lesson addresses; one is overtly discussed in the weeks’ lessons, and the other is explicitly described in the Teachers Comments. The lesson focusses on the mandatory keeping of the seventh-day in spite of Hebrews 4 explaining that there is a completely NEW Sabbath-like rest for the people of God. The Teachers Comments ensure that the Sabbath School teachers understand the Ellen White-taught interpretation that in Israel, when the priests took the sacrificial blood into the temple and sprinkled it on the veil, they were transferring the sins of the people into the sanctuary.
This twisted teaching is the foundation for the unique Adventist doctrine of the investigative judgment. That doctrine teaches that Jesus now takes the sins of professed believers and transfers them from us via His blood into the heavenly sanctuary where they remain on the books of record. Whenever a believer remembers to confess a sin, Jesus applies His blood to that sin and marks “pardon” in the book of record. At the end of the investigative judgment, Jesus will take all of those pardoned sins which remain on the books in the heavenly sanctuary which have been sprinkled with His blood, and He places those sins on Satan.
Satan, identified by Ellen White (and Adventism) as the Scapegoat, will then take those sins Jesus placed on him and carry them into the lake of fire where he will be punished for them as well as for causing them.
This doctrine, that our sins are transferred to heaven and that their atonement is an ongoing thing during the investigative judgment ending with Satan cleansing heaven by removing those sins forever, is blasphemy.
Satan NEVER bears our sins in any way. In fact, Satan is not responsible for our sins, contrary to Ellen White’s declaration that he caused human sin. No! Satan is never blamed for human sin in Scripture; Adam is blamed.
Jesus is the only One who bears our sins. He is the only one who carried them to the cross. According to Hebrews 13, He also carried them outside the camp where He put them as far from us as east is from the west. Satan is punished for his OWN sin—his deceiving and his unbelief in his own Creator—but he never carries our sin. He is never punished for our sin. He does not cleanse heaven.
Jesus is the scapegoat who carries our sin, pays for it, takes God’s wrath for it, and destroys it.
Blood Always Cleanses
Importantly, sacrificial blood NEVER transferred sin—either in Israel or now in heaven—to the sanctuary. Ellen White created an elaborate system to explain that the sacrificial blood transferred Israel’s sin to the tabernacle, but it did not. Scripture says the blood CLEANSED; it NEVER DEFILED!
The Adventist doctrine of the investigative judgment is built on the blasphemy that Jesus’ blood defiles heaven with our sins, and for heaven to be cleansed, those sins have to be removed from heaven. Satan is the designated one to remove the stain of human sin.
This scenario is horrifying and untrue. Neither sacrificial blood in Israel nor Jesus’ sacrificial blood carries or transfers sin. It COVERS and CLEANSES sin. It never, in any way, is an agent of defilement!
The reason the Israelite priests sprinkled blood on the sanctuary veil was NOT to transfer sins to the sanctuary but to offer the cleansing blood that declared Israel’s sin was paid for! Absolutely no symbolic sins were transferred to the sanctuary!
Further, Jesus’ blood shed on Calvary paid IN FULL, once for all, for our sins. When we trust Him, our sins are cleansed, covered by His blood, and we are cleansed. There is NO record of our sins in heaven, and there is NO investigative judgment. Jesus’ blood does NOT transfer our sins to heaven. Furthermore, Satan never carries our sins away from God’s presence.
Jesus did everything necessary to remove our sins, and there is no ongoing cleansing occurring.
I pray that if anyone reading this believes that Jesus’ blood transferred sin to heaven, they will actually read the book of Hebrews and ask God to teach them what He wants them to understand!
TODAY and Sabbath rest
This lesson attempts to talk through Hebrews 4 and concludes that the Sabbath-like rest in verse 9 does not negate the seventh-day Sabbath but explains that there is an eternal, future rest in heaven that the seventh day foreshadows.
This conclusion is simply not what Hebrews 4 is about. I will quote below Hebrews 4:1–11:
Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it. For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened. For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said,
“As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest,’” although his works were finished from the foundation of the world. For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.” And again in this passage he said, “They shall not enter my rest.”
Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, again he appoints a certain day, “Today,” saying through David so long afterward, in the words already quoted, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.”
For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.
Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. (Hebrews 4:1–11).
The author of Hebrews, writing to believing Jews where were about to go through the destruction of Jerusalem and the decimation of the temple, is helping them understand that all the practices of Judaism have been fulfilled in Christ. They are moving from having been part of God’s religion on earth, the most beautiful and poignant of all ancient religions, to worshiping an invisible God. In fact, they were moving from a religion characterized by a beautiful temple and elaborate ceremonies and rituals to an invisible religion—and the pagans would call them “atheists” because their God had no visible representation.
The author systematically walks through all the ways Jesus is greater than Judaism: the fulfillment of Judaism. He is greater than Moses and greater than the angels. He is greater than the Levitical priesthood and is the fulfillment of every symbol of the tabernacle and of the law itself. These new Jewish Christians were being taught how to trust Jesus and to stand courageously in loyalty to their Savior who had completed their salvation instead of trying to cling to the beautiful shadows of their old covenant.
In Hebrews 4 the author develops the argument that the seventh-day Sabbath had been known to Israel. He even references the fourth commandment—vaguely, ironically enough—by saying, “For he has somewhere spoken of the seven day in this way: ‘And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.’ And again in this passage he said, ‘they shall not enter my rest.’”
Israel KNEW the seventh-day Sabbath. Yet the author argues that none of the Israelites entered God’s rest! He makes the point that the sabbath rest was NOT the people’s rest but God’s rest, and they were supposed to enter it. But they did not, even though they themselves observed their own rest on the seventh day.
Then the author deals with Israel entering the Promised Land—they symbol of resting from their wanderings. Yet even then they did not enter God’s rest. It’s really important to realize that the author is emphasizing that Sabbath rest is GOD’S REST—not the rest experienced by the people.
Israel was not simply to physically rest and think spiritual thoughts. No! They were asked to do something far more significant: enter GOD’S REST.
But as an Adventist, I would have asked, “HOW?”
The author gives the answer. I find it fascinating that the answer comes from David, the type of Christ who prefigured the Lord Jesus and His eternal reign and the inheritor of God’s unconditional covenant to David.
David, the Israelite king who was a man after God’s own heart during the height of Jewish history, living under the Mosaic Covenant, was given this insight from God: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.”
The author then drives the point home that “Today” is the secret to entering God’s rest: “For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.”
Joshua and Israel HAD the seventh-day Sabbath, and they kept it. But even with the Sabbath and with their entrance into the Promised Land, they did not enter God’s rest—the true Sabbath. Years after Joshua, King David gave the appeal: “TODAY if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.”
It is the heart that responds to the truth of God—the heart that believes the “One whom He has sent” (Jn. 6:29), who enters God’s rest. And the author of Hebrews explains this mystery.
Entering God’s rest IS the Sabbath-like rest that remains for the people of God.
Significantly, the Greek word underlying “Sabbath-like rest” is unique in all of Scripture: sabbatismos. It does not mean keeping Sabbath; it means “Sabbath-like”. And the author explains: the one who does not harden his heart but responds to God’s call to believe Him, to trust Him, to believe in the Son and His finished work—this belief IS entering God’s rest.
Just as God rested (or ceased) from His work on the seventh day, so all who believe and do not harden their hearts cease from their own works to try to please God.
The seventh day is NOT the Sabbath rest of the people of God! God set a new day—TODAY! Today enter His rest! Today cease from your work! Today believe Him!
The Lord Jesus has done every single thing necessary for your salvation. Believe Him today, and He will give you His Spirit as a GUARANTEE of your eternal inheritance (Eph. 1:13-14). He will adopt you and make you a joint heir with Christ, and His Spirit will testify to your spirit that you ARE His child (Rom. 8:14–17).
We are supposed to know that we have been saved when we believe. God Himself testifies to our spirits that we are adopted, alive, and eternally secure, transferred out of death into life (Jn. 5:24).
Ask God to help you read Hebrews through the eyes of truth. Ask Him to teach you what this book really says. Remember that context is everything, and words matter—and allow the Author of Scripture to reveal the mystery and grace of the finished work of Jesus to you.
TODAY, if you hear His voice, do not harden your heart.
For further reading:
- May 4–10, 2024 - May 2, 2024
- We Got Mail - May 2, 2024
- April 27–May 3, 2024 - April 25, 2024