Lesson 1: “Part of God’s Family”
COLLEEN TINKER
Problems with this lesson:
- The identification of God’s family is based on EGWs view of “conversion”, not on a biblical understanding of the new birth.
- By mis-defining “family”, the application of a family member’s responsibility to the family is altered.
- The lesson affirms that “family” keeps the law, thus laying the groundwork for required tithe-paying.
The quarter’s lessons, entitled “Managing for the Master”, leads by establishing that the readers are all part of God’s family. In developing this idea, the question of “How” or “Why” the readers should consider themselves family is never directly addressed. Rather, it is assumed that the reader will know he or she is part of God’s family and will further know that keeping the law is the way they demonstrate they are part of God’s family.
In fact, we do not become part of God’s family by keeping the law and we do not keep the Ten Commandments as evidence that we are part of His family.
Jesus Himself established the way we become “family” when the Jews asked Him to tell them what the “work of God” was. He answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent” (Jn 6:29).
Jesus also told Nicodemus that in order to see the kingdom of heaven he had to be “born again”. Here are His words:
Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things? Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life (John 3:1–15).
Further, Jesus told His disciples that when they prayed, they should address God as their Father (Mt. 6:9–13). “Father” was never the title with which the Jews were commanded to address God. The reason Jesus told His disciples that from that time onward they should call God “Father” was that, through His blood, they would become born of God when they believed and trusted the finished work of Jesus. In John 1:12, 13 John said this:
But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God (John 1:12–13).
The new birth, being born of God, is a new covenant phenomenon. It was not part of the old covenant contained in ordinances and shadows. Rather, the new birth is a literal new creation God makes in us when we trust Jesus. We are literally born again—born of the Spirit—when we trust Jesus, and we become new creatures. Furthermore, we are indwelled permanently by the Holy Spirit when we believe.
In other words, when we believe, because of Jesus’ sufficient shed blood, we are born of the Spirit and indwelled permanently with God Himself! We became new creatures walking this dark planet among the unborn-again, the spiritually dead. This fact is why so many believers can tell the difference between those who are still in darkness and those who are not. The presence of the Holy Spirit in us makes us aware of the Holy Spirit in others. Here is how Paul explained the indwelling of the Holy Spirit:
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 (Ephesians 1:13–14).
When we have believed and have been born again, sealed by the Holy Spirit, God transfers us out of the domain of darkness into the kingdom of His beloved Son. He literally changes our citizenship, and we have eternal life and never come into judgment:
He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins (Colossians 1:13–14).
The new covenant is a new set of terms from God. It is not an agreement between us and Him, as the Mosaic covenant was; it is a new agreement in which we literally become new creatures and are made alive with Jesus’ own resurrection life, and His righteousness is credited to our account in the sight of the Father.
In the new covenant we no longer obey the Ten Commandments. Jesus Himself fulfilled all of them; now we live by what Paul called the “law of Christ” (1 Corinthians 10 and Galatians 6). We answer to the Lord Jesus directly and are directly taught by the Holy Spirit how to apply God’s word to our lives.
The lesson makes the Adventist argument that the body of Christ observes the Ten Commandments because John said that we show we love Him by keeping His commandments.
This designation, however, takes the word “commandments” out of context and gives the word the Adventist meaning, not the contextual meaning.
In all five of John’s books—his gospel, his three epistles, and Revelation—John consistently uses the word “entole” every time the English translation says “commandment(s)”. Whenever this word is used, the underlying meaning of the Greek work “entole” is “teachings, sayings, instructions, commands”. John NEVER uses “entole” when he refers to the law.
Whenever John refers to the law or to the Ten Commandments, he uses the word (or a form of the word) “nomos”.
John is utterly consistent throughout his five books. Ironically, Adventism has taken John’s “entole” passages and has misinterpreted them to teach that people must keep the Ten Commandments. Nothing could be further from reality.
In context, John is saying not that God’s new covenant people keep the Decalogue, but he is saying they keep all the sayings and teachings of Jesus. In the new covenant, God’s one command to people for salvation is to believe His Son.
Once a person has believed and has been born again, then the New Testament commands apply to them. The New Testament commands are not instructions for how to be saved. Rather, they are instructions for the body of Christ. In fact, the moral instructions in the New Testament would not even apply to people who haven’t been born again; those who are still spiritually dead cannot please God or do His will even with the utmost willpower engaged in trying to resist sin!
In short, the lesson misses the core of the gospel: being saved is not about agreeing with a set of teachings and requirements and then committing to them. Being saved is about being made alive.
We are born dead in sin (Eph. 2:1–3), and we have to be made spiritually alive through belief in the Lord Jesus in order to pass from death into eternal life (Jn 5:24).
The issue is not becoming good or obedient to the law; the issue of salvation is being made literally spiritually alive.
Because the lesson gets wrong this essential fact of what it means to be the body of Christ, the rest of the quarter’s lessons will be wrong. In a nutshell, the new covenant never teaches tithe-paying or mandatory offerings. Rather, it teaches that born again people decide in their own hearts what to give to the cause of God, and then keep their commitment to Him.
Jesus promised that those who are His—the born again—should never worry about what they eat, drink, or wear because their Father knows they need those things. Instead, they are to seek the kingdom of God first, and all these other things will be added to them (Matthew 6:25–34).
This lesson approaches giving as a mandate using a law-based model. They have to address “stewardship” this way because they need the members to give money to keep their Adventist ship afloat. The New Testament, on the other hands, teaches generous giving without compulsion. When we are born again, every single thing we have belongs to our Father, and He blesses us to give. We give for completely different reasons.
I suggest two articles to help you understand more specifically what it means to become part of the body of Christ and to understand the word “commandments” in John’s five books:
- May 4–10, 2024 - May 2, 2024
- We Got Mail - May 2, 2024
- April 27–May 3, 2024 - April 25, 2024