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 2: “God’s Covenants With Us”
COLLEEN TINKER
Problems with this lesson:
- The foundation of the lesson is wrong: God’s covenants are misdefined and misapplied.
- The author arbitrarily defines promises as covenants and makes them dependent upon man’s obedience.
- The lesson states that giving tithes and offerings determines God’s provision of our needs.
The first day’s lesson contains a closing paragraph that articulates the underlying Adventist definition of “covenant”:
This week we will study some significant bilateral covenants between God and His children. Let’s pray that, by God’s grace, we will “uphold our end of the bargain.”
The author also states:
God has made contracts (or covenants) with us. Most are bilateral, meaning that both parties (God and humans) have a part to perform. An example of a bilateral covenant is “If you will do this, then I will do that.” Or “I will do this if you will do that.”
A rarer type of covenant is unilateral. “I will do this whether you do anything or not.” A few of God’s covenants with humanity are unilateral.
These claims are based not on Scripture but on Adventism’s worldview and internal definitions. This entire week’s lesson is designed to support these statements. In other words, Adventism’s view is that any promise or interaction God makes with a person can be called a “covenant”, and in most cases, humans hold the trump card. If they do what God wants, God will bless them. If the do what they want, God won’t give them what He promised.
These definitions are based on a worldview established by an extra-biblical prophetess and endorsed by generations of Adventists who believe that God is trying to make them “good”. On the contrary, God is wanting to make people ALIVE, not “good”. Only when we are made spiritually alive through faith in the Lord Jesus and His finished work can we begin to trust Him.
This entire lesson is based upon an unbiblical understanding of man’s true nature—spiritually DEAD in sin, upon God’s covenants, and upon the Adventist need for its members to pay tithe to keep the organization afloat.
In the first place, Scripture tells us what covenants God made. The lesson is wrong that most covenants with God are bilateral. In fact, most are UNCONDITIONAL, not conditional. Furthermore, covenants are not the same as promises. They are similar for sure, but they are not the same thing, nor do they operate the same.
The Bible tells us that God made a covenant with the world after the flood—a unilateral covenant that He would never destroy the earth again with water. Next, in Genesis 15, God made a covenant with Abraham promising him seed, land, and blessing. This covenant was made by God to Abraham, but God put Abraham to sleep and did not allow him to participate in ratifying the covenant while a smoking furnace and a burning torch passed through the covenant sacrificial animals and ratified it. No human promises were allowed in this covenant.
In Exodus 20 God made a bilateral covenant with Israel promising blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience. Israel promised to do all that God had said.
In Jeremiah 31:31–33 God promised another UNCONDITIONAL covenant with Israel: the new covenant. He would give them new hearts and write His law in their hearts. They were not required to participate in this covenant.
In the New Testament we see that like the Abrahamic covenant, this covenant did not involve any mere mortal making promises to God. This covenant was ratified by the Lord Jesus with the Father. In fact, Jesus said that He was inaugurating a new covenant in His blood, and He gave His disciples the Lord’s Supper as a symbol of His body and blood given for the atonement of human sin. All who believe enter the covenant and are born again.
We do not obey to keep ourselves in the covenant nor do we participate in entering it. Jesus did ALL the work and satisfied the Father’s demands. We enter by becoming alive IN HIM. It is Jesus Himself who keeps the new covenant. We do NOTHING except believe by the faith He gives us.
When God makes a covenant, the Bible CALLS it a covenant, and the covenants are ratified by blood sacrifices.
God’s promises are just as certain as are His covenants, and they are eternal. God’s promise to David that He would give him a son who would eternally sit on the throne, and that He would give David a dynasty, a throne, and a kingdom was a promise that carried many of the qualities of an unconditional covenant, for example. David was not asked to obey in return for the promised blessings.
The lesson teaches what I learned as an Adventist: God’s promises and covenants were almost always conditional. I could be part of God’s covenants if I obeyed the law. There was always a two-way deal with God in the Adventist worldview.
Yet Scripture shows that God’s covenants, with the exception of the Mosaic covenant which was temporary (Gal. 3:17–21) were made on the basis of God’s promises alone, not on mine.
Adventism sees Scripture through a lens of human sovereignty. We are born to obey and be good, and we determine God’s ability to fulfill His promises. If we disobey, we limit what He can do. We cut off His promises. If we obey, then God can bless us.
This teaching is opposed to Scripture. It places humans over the Lord God in terms of power and accomplishment.
The reason underlying this twisted use of Scripture and mis-definitions of covenants and promises, of course, is Adventism’s need to control its membership. It needs people to pay tithe and offerings, It needs people to keep the Sabbath and to eat vegetarian in order to stay connected to the Adventist worldview. Staying loyal to Adventist teachings means Adventists keep the organization afloat.
Yet Scripture teaches that God is sovereign. He keeps His own, and He fulfills His promises.
Matthew 6
The lesson used a reference to Matthew 6 to try to teach that people have to keep the law to expect God’s provision. It says this:
Most of the people in the large crowds who followed and listened to Jesus were members of this class, the common people. They were the ones who were fed on the mountainside and who heard the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus said to them, basically, I know you are concerned about providing for your families. You worry about the food and drink that you will need daily and the clothing that you need for warmth and protection. But here is what I propose . . .
This is a gross interpretation of Matthew 6:25–33. Here is what Jesus really said:
“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble “(Matthew 6:25–34).
Here Jesus is not making a deal with His disciples. On the contrary, Jesus is promising them that they never have to worry about what they will eat, drink, or wear because their Father KNOWS they need those things. This passage is God the Son PROMISING believers that what they need for life will be provided by Him. It is not a bargain with unbelievers to obey the law and thus receive blessings. It is not a statement that if people keep the Sabbath and pay tithe, they will have food and water and clothes.
NO! This is God the Son PROMISING that He will give His people what they need to live. Their only concern is to seek His Kingdom, not to fear and worry about providing for an uncertain future.
This passage does not negate giving and saving, planning and care with money management, but it says that God’s people—those born of the Spirit—are to do the work He puts in front of them and allow Him to provide what they need. We are not to worry about our survival when we are in Christ. He cares for us.
Second Corinthians 9 teaches that we are to give as we determined in our hearts to give. We are not to give grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver (v. 7). In the new covenant there are no laws governing giving; rather, all we are and all we have are His. When we are born again and given new life in Christ, He provides all we need, even giving to us generously so that we can give generously. God doesn’t ask us to pay tithes and offerings and to suffer a lack of food. No, He asks us to trust Him, to give what we determine we can, and He will care for us because we are HIS, not because we give.
This lesson misrepresents so many concepts that are central to the gospel. The authors use many words that are “almost right”, but they are built upon an unbiblical worldview that changes the meanings of the words.
Adventism is physicalist and tritheistic as opposed to trinitarian. We must take everything Scripture says seriously, and we are not at liberty to redefine the words or to add to Scripture.
The gospel says that we are saved—and stay saved—entirely by the work of God. Concurrently, we are asked to trust Him and to believe.
When we do trust Him and believe, He gives us spiritual life. Only then do the commands contained in the New Testament apply to us.
For further reading and learning the concept of the covenants and for understanding the nature of Adventism, here are some links:
I pay all who read this will desire to know the truth contained in God’s word. Human rationalization cannot give us truth. Only God’s word reveals reality. We cannot hope to help the cause of of God by trying hard to be good. Truth is not in our own heads; it is in Scripture, and only by submitting to Scripture will we be able to correct our faulty worldview and to come to know the God who is sovereign and eternal. †
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