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 13: “Let Brotherly Love Continue”
COLLEEN TINKER
Problems with this lesson:
- It reduces the last chapter of Hebrews to a series of moral lessons, eclipsing its reminders of the Christian’s call to leave the trappings of the law and to embrace Christ as we walk in our new identities in Him.
- It misses the reality of the true church being a body eternally connected in Christ and calls for individual good deeds instead of care for the body and honoring the one whose Name we bear.
In this last lesson of the quarter, the author of the quarterly dissects the eternal perspective of Hebrews 13 and creates moral lessons that miss the meaning of the text. Once more I will quote the passage—Hebrews 13—and note some of the profound perspectives this author uses to encourage the beleaguered church to which he was writing.
Let brotherly love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body. Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous. Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” So we can confidently say,
“The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?”
Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, which have not benefited those devoted to them. We have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat. For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp. So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.
Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.
Pray for us, for we are sure that we have a clear conscience, desiring to act honorably in all things. I urge you the more earnestly to do this in order that I may be restored to you the sooner.
Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
I appeal to you, brothers, bear with my word of exhortation, for I have written to you briefly. You should know that our brother Timothy has been released, with whom I shall see you if he comes soon. Greet all your leaders and all the saints. Those who come from Italy send you greetings. Grace be with all of you (Hebrews 13).
The lesson attempts to make this last chapter a reminder to practice brotherly love. Of course, its perspective is firmly rooted in the Adventist worldview which includes physical humans without immaterial spirits, an incomplete atonement with Jesus currently in heaven applying His blood to confessed sins as He pursues the investigative judgment, an inability to know whether or not one is saved because one’s obedience to the law will be “measured” until one dies, thus determining whether or not one is worthy to be saved, a misunderstanding of the new birth and an inability to grasp the reality of born again people being completely NEW creatures eternally connected in Christ, and so on.
Because of the warped, unbiblical worldview which underlies this lesson’s moralizing, the true power of Hebrews 13 is unknowable to an Adventist. Because Adventism does not understand what it means that Jesus fulfilled the law, that the law is obsolete, and that believers have already passed from death to life, the exhortation of Hebrews 13 cannot be understood as anything except a diminished morality.
In the Body
Sunday’s lesson revealed this shape-shifting worldview when it addressed verse three:
“Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body.”
The lesson interprets this verse as saying the recipients of the letter “share the same human condition” as prisoners “and should treat others as they would like to be treated…” In reality, this verse is referring to members of the BODY of CHRIST who are in prison. They, like those outside of prison, are “in the body” also. This letter was written to believing Jews who were being persecuted for being Christians while concurrently being pressured to return to the law. This verse is reminding them that many among them were being imprisoned for the sake of Christ. Those outside of prison were to remember that the imprisoned were still members of the body, and, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12, if one member of the body suffers, the whole body suffers. They were still to take care of each other as the equally members of the body of Christ.
Being members of Christ’s body is not a metaphor. We are literally born of God when we believe, and we are placed in His body. We are eternally, spiritually alive, and we are connected in Christ with all other believers because we all share the same indwelling Holy Spirit. Adventism cannot understand this reality; their gospel is not the gospel of salvation (Eph. 1:13-14), and in general Adventists are not born again because they are not believing in the real gospel or in the real, infallible Jesus. They do not experience this oneness with other believers and with the Lord Jesus.
In similar ways, the rest of the reminders to live godly lives flows from the reality of being alive in Christ. Even though our spirits are alive when we believe and are born again, we still have a law of sin in the flesh (Rom 7:23) which we can resist because we now know the Lord! Unbelievers cannot resist this “law of sin” because they do not have the life of Christ in them. Now, however, we lay our temptations at the cross of Jesus and trust Him when we are tempted. Our trust in Jesus or our indulgence in the flesh is now something that affects the whole body. We answer to our Lord, and our trust in Him affects the strength of the whole body.
Wednesday’s lesson focussed on the command in verse 9 not to be “carried away by diverse and strange teachings”, and the verse goes on to say focus on foods does not built spiritual strength.
The lesson, of course, failed to address the core of this verse and spent quite a lot of ink (including in the Teachers Comments) to explain that this passage isn’t talking about clean and unclean meats, asserting that those distinctions still matter.
The irony is that Adventism itself embodies diverse and strange teachings. Its gospel is NOT the gospel of the Lord Jesus’s complete atonement in His death for our sin, His burial, and His resurrection—all according to Scripture. With another gospel defining it, Adventism is not part of the true church to which Hebrews is addressed. Thus the exhortations in this book do not apply to Adventists who embrace Adventism. These exhortations apply only to those who have already believed and have been born again.
Outside the Camp
Perhaps one of the most dreadful examples of missing the point in this lesson was the author’s treatment of verses 10–14:
“We have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat. For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp. So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come.”
In context, the author of Hebrews was, as we have said, addressing Jewish believers. The writing of this letter preceded the destruction of Jerusalem. Although the veil had ripped when Jesus died, the Jews had nevertheless kept the form of the temple services going. It was to this visible form of Jewish worship based on the law and exemplified in what was, perhaps, the most beautiful of all the ancient religions, that these new believers were being pressured to return.
In the Roman world, Christians were often called atheists because their religion had no visible god, no visible temple, no visible altars, no visible priesthood, and no visible services of sacrifices and offerings. They worshiped an invisible Savior; their sacrifices were complete in the eternal blood of the Lord Jesus. They met in homes or by rivers or wherever they could find space to meet without being disturbed. They were persecuted for their commitment to this invisible God and invisible religion.
Yet they were not atheists—and the Christians knew they were not, but their affirmations of worshiping the one true God met ridicule and persecution. They were suffering for their faith in Jesus; those they knew and loved within Judaism were mocking and persecuting them as well as were the Romans. They had given up the culture and the lifestyle of Judaism for belief in the Lord Jesus, and their lives were torn apart.
In this passage at the end of his letter, the writer was encouraging these now-believing Jews not to give in to the pressure of returning to the visible, physical forms of Jewish worship. Even though the Lord Jesus wasn’t visible, He was the REAL fulfillment of all those beautiful shadows.
When he tells these believers to go outside the camp to Him, “bearing His reproach”, he wasn’t just speaking in general terms about embracing shame with the suffering Jesus. The term “outside the camp” referred to the Old Testament purification ceremonies in which people who were defiled had to leave the camp until they performed the required times of purification. In other words, no Old Testament Jew was allowed to defile the camp of Israel, and later the temple, if they were ritually or spiritually unclean. They had to go through the required ceremonies of cleansing before they could enter.
Jesus, this author reminds the Hebrews, took all of our sins “outside the camp”. He literally was sentenced in Jerusalem but died outside the city, bearing our shame and sin in His body away from the temple and the boundaries of God’s people. He took humanity’s sin outside the camp—and believers are to go to Him there.
In context, this author was encouraging these beleaguered believing Jews to leave the beloved forms of Judaism where sin was dealt with only ritually and symbolically and go OUTSIDE to Jesus. They were to LEAVE the beautiful shadows of Judaism. They couldn’t keep a foot in both the Old and the New covenants! They had to leave the camp—leave the temple services and rituals and the privileges of Judaism and embrace the reality of the Lord Jesus and His finished work.
As true born again believers, they (and we) have an altar “from which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat”. In other words, the cross is our altar. We “eat” the body and blood of the Lord Jesus, not of sacrificed animals. Even more, no one who serves those Jewish rituals symbolized by the temple (including the law and the seventh-day Sabbath) have a right to eat at the Christian altar because they are still serving the old covenant, the temple and the beautiful shadows of the law!
This passage is encouraging these suffering Christians who had lost all the social standing and cultural richness of their Jewish legacy to leave the camp of Judaism and go into the wilderness with Jesus where no one serving Judaism could go. Indeed, no one serving the law can truly embrace the Lord Jesus. He has fulfilled the law, and we gladly give up all the visible works of the law to trust Jesus alone!
We must follow Him outside the camp, and our invisible “religion” is more real than are any of the physical shadows of the law.
In conclusion, as we end this quarter of seeing past the Adventist twisting of the wonderful book of Hebrews, we look to Jesus. He is God’s final word. He is greater than Moses, greater than the angels, and is the fulfillment of every part of the law. He is the new High Priest of a different order, and because of Him we now have a change of the law!
Adventism is a beautiful deception, but it leaves us empty and longing. Jesus alone satisfies. He is our sacrifice, and our sacrifice to Him is our praise to God as we thank Him for the name of Jesus. We honor Him by trusting and believing in Him. He gives us His rest, and TODAY we experience sabbatismos, the Sabbath-like rest of ceasing from our efforts to please God.
Let us go to Him outside the camp, bearing His shame as we leave the culture of our Adventism and embrace our eternal, faithful Savior.
Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen (Heb. 13: 20, 21).
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