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 8: “The Sabbath And the End”
COLLEEN TINKER
Problems with this lesson:
- Built on the assumption of the pre-history of Satan’s jealousy and the launch of the great controversy, this lesson builds an eschatology on a false foundation.
- The lesson places the Sabbath in the place that Jesus holds in a true Christian’s life.
- The Sabbath does not tie us to a literal seven-day creation week; it ties us to God’s FINISHED WORK of creation and points toward Jesus’ “IT IS FINISHED” on the cross. A 24-hour day is not connected to salvation.
This entire lesson is wrong because it is built upon an invented foundation: the supposed rebellion of Lucifer who became jealous of Jesus and launched an attack on God by calling Him and His law “unfair”. This situation supposes that the Ten Commandments existed in eternity, but they did not.
In fact, Adventism’s entire big picture of salvation is inside-out and backwards from the biblical account. Conveniently, Adventism’s picture is embedded in the layout of the Garden of Grace just outside the walls of Pioneer Memorial Church on the campus of Andrews University. In a nutshell, here is the description of the garden’s “picture” of salvation.
One enters by the incrementally-widening seven steps of creation. (Importantly, creation filled only six days. God did not create the Sabbath on the seventh day, as Adventists often say.) At the bottom of the seventh step, one comes to a cross placed in front of a polished granite wall. Above the cross at the top of the wall are the words, “I will come again.” There is no mention of “It is finished”, nor of any other representation that reminds one of Jesus’ spilled blood.
When one finished gazing at the cross (according the the legend mounted just outside the garden wall), one turns around and begins walking to the opposite end of the garden where one sees a large Ten Commandments on the far wall. As one walks from the cross to the law, one walks on a cross embedded in the ground. The ground, paved with large stone or concrete pavers, has a cross of a different stone material embedded into the ground to mark the path to the law. Significantly, as one faces the law, the cross is upside-down. The top end of the cross just over the cross-beam terminates at the law.
According to the legend, as one approaches and becomes connected to the law, one finds himself in the heart of God.
The message couldn’t be more clear: the cross at the entrance of the garden is just the beginning. It is where the worshiper finds the help he needs to continue his journey ever closer and deeper into the law. The cross, therefore, is where one is enabled to keep the law, and in keeping the law, one finds himself in the heart of God.
The blasphemy of this depiction and of this literal Adventist version of “the gospel” is horrifying. The cross (devoid of speaking of the blood, devoid of references to Jesus’ sacrifice) is a launching pad for turning to the law. There is no suggestion that Jesus fulfilled the law, that He came to take the curse of the law, or that He came to set us free from the demands and death sentence of the law. Further, there is no mention of the resurrection in this “garden of grace”.
The entire framework of Adventist soteriology is a false gospel, a counterfeit that will only lead its members to destruction.
This next Sabbath School lesson is a horrifying mix of out-of-context interpretations of Revelation 14:6–10, of a Satan-centric great controversy, and of the eclipsing of Jesus as Adventist are asked to make Sabbath the apple of their eyes as they strive to obey the law to be worthy of salvation.
The covenants
Besides the unbiblical pre-history assumed in the formation of the Adventist great controversy is their dreadful lack of understanding of the biblical covenants.
Instead of repeating all that we have said over the years, I will only briefly state that the Sabbath was the sign of the only CONDITIONAL covenant God made in the Bible. His other covenants, the Abrahamic, the Davidic, and the new covenant, are UNCONDITIONAL. The Sabbath was the sign of the Mosaic, or the conditional covenant, and it was placed in the center of the Ten as the ritual law that Israel was to do to remind themselves that they were in covenant with their God.
The Sabbath is not intrinsically sacred; created days are never intrinsically holy any more than are any other created things. The specialness of the Sabbath was that God asked Israel to observe it to remember that He was supplying and caring for all their needs, that He, not they, was working. Their success was His blessing to them when they kept the covenant.
Here I will share some links to articles and a video that address this subject. Please take the time to study them.
Articles
- The Continental Divide of Biblical Interpretation
- Getting Unstuck From the Sabbath
- Does the Manna Support Sabbath-Keeping?
- Sabbath Carries the Death Penalty
Videos
What are the Commandments?
One other assumption this lesson makes is the oft-repeated statement from Revelation: Here are they that keep the COMMANDMENTS and have the faith of Jesus.
This proof-texting is unbiblical. In every one of John’s books, his gospel, his three epistles, and Revelation he is utterly consistent: when he refers to “law”, he uses a form of the Greek word “nomos”. When he refers to the teachings and sayings of the Lord Jesus, he uses a form of the word “entole”.
John is never referring to the law, to the Ten Commandments, the he refers to those who keep the commandments and have the faith of Jesus. Rather, he is always referring to those who follow the teachings of Jesus. In fact, Jesus said that the work of God is to “believe in the One whom He sent” (Jn. 5:29). The work of God is never commandment-keeping in the New Testament!
Here is an article addressing this very subject:
It was Ellen White who established the necessity of the seventh-day Sabbath as a sign of the saved. Here are two of her quotes from The Great Controversy which illustrate her view:
1. Sabbath the seal (Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy, p.640)
“The enemies of God’s law, from the ministers down to the least among them, have a new conception of truth and duty. Too late they see that the Sabbath of the fourth commandment is the seal of the living God. Too late they see the true nature of their spurious sabbath and the sandy foundation upon which they have been building. They find that they have been fighting against God. Religious teachers have led souls to perdition while professing to guide them to the gates of Paradise. Not until the day of final accounts will it be known how great is the responsibility of men in holy office and how terrible are the results of their unfaithfulness. Only in eternity can we rightly estimate the loss of a single soul. Fearful will be the doom of him to whom God shall say: Depart, thou wicked servant.
“The voice of God is heard from heaven, declaring the day and hour of Jesus’ coming, and delivering the everlasting covenant to His people. Like peals of loudest thunder His words roll through the earth. The Israel of God stand listening, with their eyes fixed upward. Their countenances are lighted up with His glory, and shine as did the face of Moses when he came down from Sinai. The wicked cannot look upon them. And when the blessing is pronounced on those who have honored God by keeping His Sabbath holy, there is a mighty shout of victory.”
2. Worship on Sunday is Mark of the Beast (Ellen White, The Great Controversy, p. 605)
The Sabbath will be the great test of loyalty, for it is the point of truth especially controverted. When the final test shall be brought to bear upon men, then the line of distinction will be drawn between those who serve God and those who serve Him not. While the observance of the false sabbath in compliance with the law of the state,contrary to the fourth commandment, will be an avowal of allegiance to a power that is in opposition to God, the keeping of the true Sabbath, in obedience to God’s law, is an evidence of loyalty to the Creator. While one class, by accepting the sign of submission to earthly powers, receive the mark of the beast, the other choosing the token of allegiance to divine authority, receive the seal of God.
Finally, just to demonstrate the reality of my earlier description of the Garden of Grace outside Pioneer Memorial Church, here is a diagram of the mounted illustration of the garden. We see the illustration from the perspective of standing behind the Ten Commandments. Accompanying the illustration are two paragraphs from the Description of the Garden mounted beside the diagram in which the visitor is told to move from the cross into ht heart of God found in the Ten Commandments.
The “Description of the Garden” explains:
The Cross: Standing at the foot of the Cross you imagine Christ where everything behind the cross is washed with the water of life. And looking up, as though looking into heaven, you read the promise, “I Will Come Again”. Standing there in the calm embrace of your experience, you see your reflection in the polished granite [behind the cross]. You, the Cross, the Water, and the commandments all reflect into one image. And you are inescapably part of the story. The Cross, at the center of the circle, represented as the earth and at the pavement’s edge the mountains and the valleys form the earth.
The Commandments: Reflected. The Commandments beckon from across. It seems a long walk, like leaving earth, and entering the universe of the Creator. The path from the Cross leads directly to the Commandments and there is another way through the Holy Spirit from the quiet waters through the arbor…Once within the circle, up close and intimate, we read what the hand of God wrote in millenniums past. Simple and embraced by the Father’s arms, intimate in His presence.
- May 4–10, 2024 - May 2, 2024
- We Got Mail - May 2, 2024
- April 27–May 3, 2024 - April 25, 2024