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 12: “The Call to Stand”
COLLEEN TINKER
Problems with this lesson:
- The lesson equates Paul’s instruction to put on and stand in God’s armor with fighting in the great controversy.
- This lesson is inside-out; it makes us players in the great controversy strengthened with help from God.
- The lesson equates joining the “church” with entering the great controversy battle.
This lesson might not raise an eyebrow if we don’t understand the worldview behind the words. This lesson, written to Seventh-day Adventists, assumes that the readers will share their “great controversy worldview”. This worldview assumes that Satan accused God of being unfair in exalting Jesus to the role of God’s Son. It further assumes that Satan has waged war against Jesus by fighting him for the souls of humans, and loyal people who vow to keep God’s law will help Jesus to win this great battle.
People who have never been Adventist may have a hard time at first seeing that the great controversy is unbiblical. Of course there are demons and evil exists, but these things are a “subset” of creation. God is outside of creation and sovereign over it. He is sovereign over Satan who cannot do what God does not allow him to do.
The week’s studies contain this sentence at the end of Saturday’s lesson: “In composing Ephesians 6:10–20, Paul prays for an enhanced vision for believers so that they will be able to see the full reality of the great controversy and to draw hope from what it reveals to them.”
It assumes and sets the stage with the great controversy. Every Adventist is to see him or herself as a soldier in this battle, tasked with being obedient to the law in spite of all temptation, so Jesus can win in the end.
The Teachers Comments contain this statement of Lesson Themes on page 158:
This week’s study focuses on two major themes:
- By joining the church, the Christian automatically engages in a spiritual battle of cosmic proportions.
- But the Christian does not need to worry, for his or her strength and armor come from the Lord. All a Christian must do is to stand his or her ground in the Lord.
First, “joining the church” assumes being baptized Adventist. Adventism does not teach the true biblical gospel, and it has a fallible Jesus who could have sinned and failed and could have plunged the universe into destruction and chaos if He failed.
The truth is that Jesus could NOT have failed; He could not have sinned because He is God, and there was never any doubt about His completion of His work of dying for our sin, of being buried, and of rising from death and breaking our curse. He was never in doubt!
“Joining the church” here means joining a false religion, and even the belief that one is joining the great controversy battle is a cultic myth. There is no “great controversy”. Jesus disarmed Satan on the cross (Colossians 2:14,15). When we recognize our sinful state, our depravity which prevents us from pleasing or even seeking God and trust Jesus’ finished work, we are born of God, born of the Spirit, and sealed with the Holy Spirit who guarantees our eternal future. In this way we are baptized by the Holy Spirit into the body of Christ, and we become part of the eternal, living church. Our physical baptism as born-again believers is a pubic declaration of our commitment to the Lord Jesus and to the new life brought about by His death, burial, and resurrection.
Our being involved in spiritual warfare is because of the fact that we live in a fallen world, and we have been rescued out of the domain of darkness by our Father when we believe and transferred into the kingdom of the Beloved Son (Col 1:13). We are born under the power of the spirit at work in the sons of disobedience (Eph. 2:1–3), and as born again people, we still live in enemy territory, a fallen world with evil angels who have God’s delegated permission to be at work here, but we are citizens of heaven, sealed with God Himself. We are no longer under Satan’s control because our sinful, dead spirits have been given life.
Adventism teaches that we make decisions “for Christ” and for Adventism and then have special power and help from God. The Bible teaches that we literally become new, born again and indwelled by the Holy Spirit. We literally are in Christ, and He is in us.
This model is very different from Adventism.
The passage in Ephesians 6:1–20 is not about accessing God’s power; it reminding us what protection we have when we believe and are born again. We STAND in Christ, and our only offensive weapon is the word of God!
Jesus has already defeated evil. We are not helping Him win. Furthermore, when we are born again, we are already in a new kingdom.
This lesson teaches an upside-down and backwards idea: that we gain help from God to fight in the great controversy. The Bible, however, teaches us that when we believe, we move to a heavenly kingdom and our lives are hidden with Christ in God (Col 3:3). He is our armor; we receive His truth, righteousness, gospel of peace, faith, and helmet of salvation. Those are ours as people who have the Holy Spirit!
We enter the realm of an already-victorious King who covers us with Himself. We stand on the earth as evil rages, armored in His alien-to-us righteousness and security, fitted with the gospel and equipped with His word. We pray to the One who is always with us, and we stand because He does the fighting! Our armor is defensive, not offensive, except for God’s word and prayer.
The reality for believers is opposite the great controversy model. Truth is truly greater than fiction! †
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