November 27–December 3

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 10: “Remember, Do Not Forget”

COLLEEN TINKER

Problems with this lesson:

• The emphasis on “Remember” is really about the Sabbath.
• The Sabbath application is not made in the lesson but in the Teachers Comments.
• The use of EGWs recommendation that a daily hour of thinking of Jesus’ life will make people be “more deeply imbued with His spirit.”

This week’s lesson is an example of Adventism’s disingenuousness. The entire lesson focusses on Deuteronomy’s various commands for Israel to remember how God had delivered them from Egypt, how they had wandered in the wilderness as a result of their unbelief, and how they were to remember how God had provided for them. The biblical focus of these commands to “remember” are clear in context: God is SOVEREIGN, and Israel’s needs, future, and very existence were evidences of God’s sovereign will which had nothing to do with Israel’s decisions. They were God’s people because God formed and chose them, rescued them, provided for them, disciplined them, and promised them ultimate redemption and restoration.

Yet this lesson does what Adventism does: it uses these commands to the nation to “remember” God’s sovereign power and care and subtly introduces an entirely different idea via the Teachers Comments where the teachers are directed how to steer the class conversation to the Sabbath. 

Adventism has devised a powerfully confusing argument for the eternality of the Fourth Commandment: they grab the first words, “Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy,” and they say that the word “remember” in this commandments means that the Sabbath had always been kept prior to the giving of the law. The word remember, they argue, means that Israel was supposed to NOT FORGET what had always been known, that God gave the seventh-day Sabbath as a perpetual command for all people, and He reminded Israel of this fact in the fourth commandment. Thus they piggy-back on the use of “Remember” throughout Deuteronomy, where God reminded Israel of HIM, and they apply these historic meanings to a command that occurred for the first time in Exodus 16.

This is a false use of definitions and grammar. In fact, the reality that the Sabbath application is nowhere printed in the members’ daily lessons but is made only in the Teachers’ Comments just confirms the sneaky way they switch the definition of “remember” and apply it to the Sabbath in a way the fourth commandment itself does not apply the word. 

Definitions matter

A quick look at Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary definitions for the word “remember” demonstrates that there are several different definitions for this verb. Adventism insists that in both the fourth commandment as well as throughout the book of Deuteronomy, the meanings are the same: do not forget this “thing” which has existed from the past.

Let’s look, though, at the definitions listed online (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/remember):

Definition of remember

transitive verb

1: to bring to mind or think of again
     remembers the old days
2. archaic
     a: BETHINK sense 1b
     b: REMIND
3a: to keep in mind for attention or consideration
      remembers friends at Christmas
  b: REWARD
      was remembered in the will
4: to retain in the memory
     remember the facts until the test is over
5: to convey greetings from
    remember me to her
6: RECORD, COMMEMORATEz
    intransitive verb
   1: to exercise or have the power of memory
   2: to have a recollection or remembrance

We see in the definitions above that God’s commands that Israel remember how He led them out of Egypt, how He created the world, and how He provided for them fits the first definition: “to bring to mind or think of again”. 

The fourth commandment, however, asks Israel to “remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy”. This form of “remember” is not an act of recalling the past. Instead, it reflects definition #3 best: “to keep in mind for attention or consideration”. 

The word “remember” simply does not always mean recalling the past. It is often a command that a person keep something in mind in order to take care of a need. For example, if I ask Richard to please “Remember to pick up some eggs when you go to town,” I am not asking him to recall a repeating event. I am not even asking him to recall something that has happened in the past. I am asking him to keep in mind the need to pick up eggs—a current, maybe even a one-time event.

When Israel was asked to “remember” the Sabbath, God was not telling them to recall an eternal commandment. He was asking them to keep in mind something new He gave them: the Sabbath day which was the sign of His Mosaic covenant with them (Ex 31:17). 

Adventism’s “remember” argument is particularly egregious because it clearly misuses the definition of the word and the clear meaning of the passages of Scripture where the word is used. Moreover, this lesson demonstrates the deceptiveness of Adventism’s particular form of brainwashing: they don’t even put this argument clearly on the pages of the lesson but hide it in the Teachers’ Comments so that the idea can be introduced during a moderated discussion rather than publicly in a printed venue which the reader can study for himself, seeing how the word is used and checking the arguments for himself in a setting where he has the time to look up the references in Scripture. 

Finally, Thursday’s lesson ends with an appeal to the reader to remember what God has done for them. The author seals the command with a quote from EGW: 

“It would be well for us to spend a thoughtful hour each day in contemplation of the life of Christ. We should take it point by point, and let the imagination grasp each scene, especially the closing ones. As we thus dwell upon His great sacrifice for us, our confidence in Him will be more constant, our love will be quickened, and we shall be more deeply imbued with His spirit” (Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, p. 83).

This quote is intended to convict the reader to a form of self-directed meditation urged on by the false prophet, suggesting that one’s own imagination should contemplate the final hours of Christ’s life. It doesn’t command that person read Scripture for an hour a day but that one is to contemplate, to imagine, to fill in the blanks with one’s own imagined responses—and in so doing, one’s love should become greater and one will get more and more of Jesus’ spirit.

Notice that the word “spirit” is not capitalized, as it would be if Ellen meant the Holy Spirit. No, she is saying one will somehow become internally more like Jesus in his or her own “spirit”, or attitude. This quote is one of those subtle but profoundly revealing quotes of hers: a casual reader would think she meant the “Holy Spirit”, but when one looks at her punctuation, it’s clear she means something more like Jesus’ power, or attitude. 

We do not get more of the Holy Spirit by contemplating Jesus life, and we do not get more of His power or attitude this way, either. Furthermore, contemplating Jesus’ life is never a command of Scripture. We are never commanded to use our imaginations to think about what Jesus felt or thought or experienced. We are to read Scripture and to submit to it. This quote from Ellen, however, asks the reader to put himself on an equal playing field with Scripture. The reader himself is instructed to imagine what Christ endured. 

Our own imaginations will NEVER yield the truth, and they will never bring about an increase in our access to Jesus’ spirit or the Holy Spirit! 

This EGW quote is actually a directive to practice a form of eastern mysticism, or contemplation. Truth is never in our own heads; our imaginations will never yield reality.

Only in submitting to Scripture, to the normal meanings of the words using normal rules of grammar and vocabulary, will we know what it means. Even more, without recognizing our own need of a Savior and trusting Jesus’ finished work of atonement and the end of the curse of death accomplished at His resurrection, even reading Scripture will not reveal truth. 

Only when we submit our minds to God’s own self-revelation, when we submit to His revelation that we are hopelessly sinful, and when we trust His finished work will we be literally made spiritually alive and transferred out of the domain of darkness into the kingdom of the Beloved Son (Col 1:13). Only when we are spiritually alive will God’s word begin to make sense to us, and only then will we discover the truth and reality that are found in Christ alone.

This lesson is a pious deception. The word “remember” is not a one-size-fits-all-uses word, and the fourth commandment is not asking anyone to remember and eternal day. Furthermore, the false prophet of Adventism has misused Scripture to the point that her most spiritual-sounding advice is heretical. 

Leave Ellen White and ask the Lord to reveal truth and reality to you. Ask Him to show you your need and to lead you to repentance, and ask Him to give you faith to believe Jesus’ finished work. Ask Him to protect you from deception and to give you eternal life now!

Our eternal, omnipotent, omnipresent Savior will never trick us! †

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Colleen Tinker

Colleen Tinker, the editor of Proclamation! magazine, and her husband Richard left Adventism in 1998 with their two sons, Roy and Nathanael, who were in grades six and ten. They have co-led the Former Adventist Fellowship since 1999. Colleen, a graduate of Walla Walla University, is a former high school English teacher and also the former managing editor of Adventist Today magazine. Colleen became the stepmother of Roy and Nathanael in 1989, and in 2008 she adopted them. Romans 8:15-17 has assumed new depth and significance for her and Richard since she and her sons chose to claim each other legally and permanently. She and Richard share an office and a commitment to sharing the gospel of the true Jesus with all of those seeking a way out of the bondage of the false gospel of Adventism.

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