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.
BY JEANIE JURA
Introduction and Lesson 1: “Preamble to Deuteronomy”
Comments on Introduction and week 1
This quarter’s lesson is based on some assumed ideas. Five of them are un-Biblical, but they are traditional Adventist beliefs.
God is love
This is the only one that is truly Biblical, and it is discussed in the beginning of Sunday’s lesson where it quotes 1 John 4:8, “God is love,” and proceeds to discuss the nature of that love.
The Church
In this case the church is assumed to be the Adventist church that has replaced Israel in God’s plan. Or, if not replaced, it has at least been inserted into God’s plan along with Israel. This idea is stated clearly in this statement from the lesson:
“Sure, a vast time and cultural divide separates our church today from the church in the wilderness. But perhaps what we have in common with them might be more than what divides us from them.”
The Nature of God
In Adventist theology, God is not entirely Almighty. He was apparently dragged into a fight with His created being Lucifer and is dependent on His other created beings, us, to win the universe over to His side so that He does not lose the fight. The Adventist God is unable to counter our free will, and the Adventist Jesus—an entirely separate Being—was weak, possessed a sinful human nature, and came to show us how to keep the Law.
The New Covenant
As has been taught in several recent lessons building up to this, Adventists believe the New Covenant is just the Old Covenant written on our hearts instead of on paper (or stone). This mechanism—the supposed writing of the Decalogue on human hearts—is the only way that the 10 Commandments can become the rule for Christian life. the need for this phenomenon, of course, is the 4th Commandment.
The Great Controversy
This supposed battle between God and Lucifer is said to have started when Lucifer became jealous that Jesus was exalted to the position of Son and was consulted concerning creation—and Lucifer was excluded. But how could Lucifer have been consulted on creation when he was one of the beings created in that creation event?
Present Truth
When I first heard the title of this quarter’s lessons, I wanted to know exactly what they mean when they say “present truth”, so I went to SDA.org to ask. I was not given an answer but was directed to a Wikipedia page to see a definition. There is a long paragraph that is summed up by this:
“Present truth is present truth, and not future truth, and the Word as a lamp shines brightly where we stand, and not so plainly on the path in the distance. Ellen White pointed out that ‘present truth, which is a test to the people of this generation, was not a test to the people of generations far back.’”
That rather bizarre statement says that God’s truth can change, and it goes along with the Adventist concept of progressive revelation where God’s revealed will does not move from less truth to more truth, but rather moves from a beginning ‘truth’ which later proves to be false as it moves to more (and different) truth.
Furthermore, instead of treating God’s truth as absolute, unchanging and unfailing, it is used to mean nothing more than something with which to test us instead of a solid foundation we can trust, which will stand the test of time. Also, being tested means that we could fail if our efforts are not sufficient to pass that test. The fact that we are tested by “present truth” and that we could fail this test has the unfortunate result of making our salvation dependent on us and on how well we pass that test rather than resting completely on Jesus and His finished work on our behalf.
This whole idea of new, different truth is rather ironic, given their favorite claim for the eternal requirement of the seventh-day Sabbath: “God never changes, so His Sabbath cannot change.”
Apparently, according to Adventist logic, God is the same always (Hebrews 13:8), but His truth can change to fit the needs of the moment. His Law is said to be the very transcript of His character, while His truth is not.
This whole idea leads me to quote Pilate: “What is truth?”
So, let’s see where they take this pursuit of “truth”, whatever that means at the moment, and how it is lifted out of the book of Deuteronomy and made “present”.
The very first paragraph of the lesson gives us our first clue:
“The book of Deuteronomy, of course, did not arise in a vacuum. As with everything in life, Deuteronomy exists in a context; and, as with everything in life, that context plays an important role in understanding what the book means and what its purpose is.”
But then context is immediately discarded in order to hold on to the bits of the Law deemed necessary. In the teacher’s edition of the lesson quarterly, however, the author unintentionally states the real truth when he writes:
(Deuteronomy is) “…the repetition of the law that was originally given on Mount Sinai…”
In Sunday’s lesson, the author uses the story of Lucifer to show the risk of love. God, it is said, took a chance and apparently lost, a failure which supposedly started the great controversy.
On Tuesday, we see the groundwork for either removing Israel from God’s plan or for adding the (Adventist) church into His plans for Israel.
“Today, how do we as Seventh-day Adventists see ourselves in relation to the rest of the world? That is, what parallels exist between us and ancient Israel? More important, what responsibility does this parallel place on each of us individually?”
The author makes much of the promise given to Abram of blessings to the world—through the Messiah—but in order to add the church, no mention is made of the rest of the promise of God when He made the covenant with Abram: a son, descendants too numerous to count, and the land as their eternal inheritance.
On Wednesday, the author discusses the covenant at Sinai and says:
“It was as simple as that. God called them out, the seed, the descendants of the fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And with these descendants the Lord established His covenant, and they would be, indeed, “ ‘ “a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine” ’ ” (Exod. 19:5, NKJV). This relationship was central to the covenant.”
“God then gave them some of the stipulations of the covenant, too (their end of the deal, so to speak), the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20), and then this covenant was ratified.”
That statement is so clear it makes you wonder why they insist at the same time that that covenant is with all mankind for all time, not just with physical descendants of Abraham.
Then there is a discussion of how the covenant was ratified when Moses sprinkled the blood, quoting from Hebrews 9. But that chapter very clearly points out that while the Old Covenant came through Moses, the New Covenant comes through Jesus and His more perfect sacrifice and blood.
Hebrews, however, never combines the two covenant; rather, it contrasts them in chapter 8 and shows how the old is obsolete and passing away in favor of the New.
This convoluted argument builds up to Thursday and this statement:
“What was the crucial component for Israel in regard to the covenant? Ex. 19:4, 5. The call to obey God, to keep His law, was no more legalism then than it is now.”
First, let’s define legalism:
According to Merriam Webster, it is a strict, literal, or excessive conformity to the law or to a religious or moral code; the institutionalized legalism that restricts free choice.
Trying to keep a law that is not included in the New Covenant most certainly does fit the definition above! If you are given a law to obey, it is not legalism to obey that law. But the lesson is ignoring the fact that the law we are called to obey in the New Covenant is not the same as it was in the Old. We are called to obey the law of love. (Romans 13:8, 10; James 2:8; Galatians 5:14; 1 Timothy 1:8, Hebrews 7:12, and others)
In fact, 1 Timothy 1 clearly lays out the purpose of the law in verses 8-11:
“But we know that the Law is good, if one uses it lawfully, realizing the fact that law is not made for a righteous person, but for those who are lawless and rebellious, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers and immoral men and homosexuals and kidnappers and liars and perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound teaching, according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, with which I have been entrusted.”
The Law, by its very demands, shows us how impossible it is for us to obey it (Galatians 3:10). Rather, it shows us our need for a Savior and His payment for our sin because of our inability to meet God’s standard of perfection.
Galatians 3:10-14 lays it all out in detail:
“For as many as are of the works of the Law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law, to perform them.” Now that no one is justified by the Law before God is evident; for, “The righteous man shall live by faith.” However, the Law is not of faith; on the contrary, “He who practices them shall live by them.” Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”— in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we would receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.”
Notice what it says:
- To be under the Law is to be under a curse.
- The righteous (the saved) are to live by faith; in context, that means NOT by law.
- Living by the Law is not living by faith.
- Jesus redeemed us from that curse by becoming the curse in our place. Remember, we were under that curse because we were totally incapable of obeying all the Law.
- We receive the promise of the Spirit by faith.
Then, in verse 19, Paul drives home this thought: the Law was temporary; it was added because of sin, and it was in effect until the coming seed—Jesus.
Verses 23-25 are so explicitly clear that the only way to deny the truth of them is to change God’s word to fit your own theology:
“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.”
- Before faith came (the new covenant in Jesus’ blood), we were under the law.
- The Law was our tutor to lead us to Christ.
- Now that faith (the Lord Jesus and His completed atonement) has come, we are no longer under a tutor.
The author appeals to Romans 6:11 to back up his claim, but notice that he didn’t go past verse 12. Not a bad idea—it would have blown his argument out of the water. Let’s read the whole thought there—in context:
“Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.”
But don’t stop there, keep reading to the climax of the thought in verse 14:
“For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.”
Finally, he appeals to James 2:10, but once again it actually destroys the claim he tries to support.
“For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all.”
You see, according to James, if you want to have the law, you have to obey ALL of it, or you are essentially guilty of all of it. But the author blithely goes on to say:
“Then, as now, so often disobedience occurs as a result, not just of out-right rebellion (though that does happen), but from a failure to trust in what God tells us.”
Importantly, that “failure to trust” would include what God told us about the temporary nature of the Law and the fact that the Law brings only a curse and death.
As usual, at the end of the week there are some questions to consider. There are a couple of them that should have set off alarm bells, but apparently the author didn’t notice the irony of his questions in light of the manipulation of Scripture.
“With obedience so central to the whole Bible, what then is legalism? What factors can turn an attempt to be faithful to God and to His Word and commandments into the trap of legalism?”
“…the parallels between ancient Israel and the Seventh-day Adventist Church. What are those parallels, and why should we be concerned about them?”
We already dealt with the concept of legalism, so there is no need to go over that one again. But how about the parallels between Israel and Adventism? I see striking parallels in the ways they ignored God’s words and chose their own way to walk. And, yes, Adventists should be VERY concerned about that!
How ironic and sad that with all that the New Testament tells us about our sinful inability to keep the Law and the amazing free gift of righteousness in Christ, there are those who insist on rushing back to the Law and its curse in an effort to make and keep themselves righteous.
Postscript
The proper understanding of the biblical covenants puts the law in its proper place. For further understanding, here are some links:
Article:
Video:
Podcasts:
- October 9–15 - October 7, 2021
- October 2–9 - September 30, 2021
- September 25–October 1 - September 23, 2021