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: “Ablaze With God’s Glory”
COLLEEN TINKER
Problems with this lesson:
- This speculation about the ending of the “great controversy” is an imaginary scenario based upon an unbiblical foundation dependent upon Ellen White’s Great Controversy vision and book.
- The Sabbath will NOT be the final mark of loyalty to God; only God is holy, never a created day.
- The great controversy worldview is shattered if one understands the biblical gospel and sees who the real Jesus is.
The lesson ends the quarter with the wrap-up of Ellen White’s visionary events of the last days. Author Mark Finley writes this at the end of Saturday’s introductory study:
God has raised up the Seventh-day Adventist Church to preach this message to the world. Thus, we need, ourselves, to be converted to the truth as it is in Jesus, and to have been transformed and made new by the “everlasting gospel” of Revelation 14:6, which is centered on Christ’s death for us, the assurance of our salvation in Him.
The Adventist organization depends upon the notion that they are the one true church, raised up by God to restore the “lost” doctrines of the seventh-day Sabbath and the second coming of Christ—truths reflected in their official name, Seventh-day Adventists.
We have written at length countering the false doctrine of the Sabbath as God’s seal, the mark that sets apart those who are ready to go to heaven. We have written at length about the arrogant claims of “specialness”, the assumption of “rightness” because Adventism teaches seventh-day sacredness.
The Adventist pre-history stories have been shown to be unbiblical and more related to Mormonism than to biblical truth.
This week we end our commentary on this quarter’s lesson about the “cosmic conflict” by reiterating the biblical gospel:
Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles; and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also (1Co 15:1-8).
We are saved, born again, and indwelled by the Holy Spirit when we admit our need of a Savior and lay ourselves at the foot of His cross, accepting the complete payment He made for our sins and entering the eternal life guaranteed to us by His shattering of death on the third day!
This reality, this gospel, will expose the heresy of Adventism. This gospel reveals that Jesus did not die to vindicate either the law or the character of God. Rather, our sovereign God sent the Son to bear our imputed sin and to take His wrath against our sin!
His sacrifice was sufficient; He was able to break the curse of death because His shed blood was sufficient for all mankind.
We are born dead in sin, but when we admit we need help and trust Jesus, we pass from death to life (Jn. 5:24), and we are then hidden with Christ in God.
I urge you to watch this video to see who Jesus is and what He did so you, too, can KNOW that you have eternal life!
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