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: “Waging Peace”
COLLEEN TINKER
Problems with this lesson:
- This lesson’s chief aim is to emphasize that Adventism is defined by the great controversy motif.
- The author’s understanding of the armor of God is superficial and inaccessible because of it’s “hidden” commitment to the great controversy paradigm.
This week the lesson is surprisingly revealing if one reads the Teachers Comments. The overt discussion of putting on the armor of God detailed in the days’ studies lacks power and accessibility because the hidden foundation of all the author says is not fully revealed.
The Teachers Notes, however, go to greater lengths this week than in times past to stress the singular importance of the great controversy paradigm in order for an Adventist to understand exactly what Adventism is.
We at Life Assurance Ministries have stressed for years that the real unifying theme that unites Adventists of all stripes is the Great Controversy worldview. No single doctrine can be identified as THE Adventist common denominator, but the collection of beliefs encompassed in the Great Controversy worldview comprises the Adventist mindset, the grid through which all reality is perceived.
Here is what the Teachers Comments say in this next week’s lesson:
In his extensive work Systematic Theology, Norman Gulley highlights that Christian theology has generally missed the theme of the cosmic conflict or great controversy (see Norman Gulley, Systematic Theology: The Church and the Last Things [Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews University Press, 2016], vol. 4, p. 478). While for other Christians the great controversy (the spiritual cosmic conflict between God and the evil forces of Satan) is one of the details more related to theodicy. For Ellen G. White and Seventh-day Adventists, the great controversy is the overarching doctrine that integrates all the other doctrines, not only systematically but historically. For Seventh-day Adventists, the theme of the great controversy is not only a system of doctrines but a story, the story of God. It is the story of His loving act of Creation; of our rebellion against Him; of His sacrificial love for us; of His direct intervention in the history of our world through incarnation; of His death on the cross, resurrection, and ascension; of His desire and work to restore our relationship with Him; of His restoring the unity and love in humanity through the church; of His promises to put an end to the story of sin and evil; and of His promise to usher us into His eternal joy and peace. For this reason, Seventh-day Adventists have articulated the great controversy theme as fundamental belief 8, voted by the General Conference in 1980:
All humanity is now involved in a great controversy between Christ and Satan regarding the character of God, His law, and His sovereignty over the universe. This conflict originated in heaven when a created being, endowed with freedom of choice, in self- exaltation became Satan, God’s adversary, and led into rebellion a portion of the angels. He introduced the spirit of rebellion into this world when he led Adam and Eve into sin. This human sin resulted in the distortion of the image of God in humanity, the disordering of the created world, and its eventual devastation at the time of the global flood, as presented in the historical account of Genesis 1–11. Observed by the whole creation, this world became the arena of the universal conflict, out of which the God of love will ultimately be vindicated. To assist His people in this controversy, Christ sends the Holy Spirit and the loyal angels to guide, protect, and sustain them in the way of salvation.—“The Great Controversy,” available from https://www.adventist.org/the-great-controversy.
Herbert E. Douglass ably and richly explains the role that the great controversy theme (GCT) plays in Seventh-day Adventist theology: “For Seventh-day Adventists, the GCT is the core concept that brings coherence to all biblical subjects. It transcends the age-old divisions that have fractured the Christian church for centuries. It brings peace to theological adversaries who suddenly see in a new harmony the truths that each had been vigorously arguing for. Herein lies the uniqueness of Adventism. That uniqueness is not some particular element of its theology, such as its sanctuary doctrine. Rather, the distinctiveness of Adventism rests in its overall understanding of the central message of the Bible that is governed by its seminal, governing principle—the Great Controversy Theme.”—“The Great Controversy Theme: What It Means to Adventists,” Ministry, December 2000, p. 5.
The Great Controversy worldview IS the foundation, the unifying theme of the Adventist view of reality. Adventism uses the supposed war in heaven, their pre-history story found only in Ellen White’s writings, as their starting point for this view. They teach that when God exalted Jesus to the position of His Son, Satan became jealous, believing he should have been worthy of such honor. His jealousy led him to launch a campaign to impugn the character of God, to say He was unfair, that He had created a law too difficult for His people to keep, and that His creatures were being unfairly condemned for disobedience.
This idea of Satan’s rebellion—presented as happening BEFORE creation (never mind that angels are part of creation) became the Great Controversy into which all humans are plunged. By accepting Jesus and obeying God’s supposedly too-difficult law, we help Jesus win the war for souls so that Satan can finally be proven evil, and Jesus will win in the end.
The great controversy worldview also includes the investigative judgment in which Jesus is in heaven completing the atonement He did not complete on the cross with His sufficient sacrifice. Now he must apply His blood to the confessed sins of the saved, and ultimately, He will place the sins of the saved on the head of Satan the scapegoat who will bear them out of heaven. Heaven will thus be cleansed from the record of our sins, Jesus will finally be done with His work of atonement, and the time of trouble will begin.
None of these beliefs is found anywhere in the Bible. In fact, Adventism knows it has a huge theological and public relations problem with these unbiblical doctrines at the core of their religion, and they seek, publicly to hide the true nature of these teachings and to present themselves as normal Protestants who just happen to meet on Saturday.
Yet the Great Controversy worldview includes a list of beliefs and practices that are unique, in combination, to Adventism—and these are the beliefs that unite all Adventists. These beliefs include:
- A belief that Satan and Jesus are engaged in an ongoing battle for souls, and Adventists’ personal obedience helps expose and defeat Satan;
- A physicalist worldview that denies humans have an immaterial spirit that survives the death of the body;
- A denial of human depravity—the fact that we are born spiritually dead and must be literally born again;
- A belief that sin is physical, inherited from our ancestors (no spirit, no literal spiritual death);
- A belief in a Jesus who could have failed;
- A belief in a godhead that does not share substance;
- A belief that Ellen White is important in some way;
- A belief that the Sabbath is intrinsically holy and will be honored for eternity.
The author of the Sabbath School lesson cannot properly discuss the armor of God because Adventism does not believe in the true gospel, the true nature of man’s depravity, or the fact that we are born literally spiritually dead in sin and must be born again.
Only the born again have the armor of God. People committed to a false gospel are based on a false view of humanity, a false trinity who does not share substance, and an incomplete atonement that a fallible Jesus failed to complete. These core beliefs of Adventism means that those who believe these doctrines cannot be saved, because we cannot be saved unless we believe in the real Jesus and His real gospel.
Thus any discussion of God’s armor is pointless. They are only available to those who have been born again. When one trusts Jesus, all of God’s armor is his because his life is hidden with Christ in God (Col. 3:3). We do not find and put on the armor of God; rather, we put it on by standing firmly in the gospel. We are imputed with the righteousness of God when we embrace the truth of Jesus and His finished work. We are given the shoes of the gospel of peace when we trust Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection as the payment for our sin and the breaking of our curse of death.
Moreover, we have the shield of faith as the gift of God; this faith extinguishes the flaming arrows of the evil one. And we have the helmet of salvation. This helmet protects our heads; it guards us from our own doubts and faulty thinking.
This lesson can’t teach what the Bible actually says because Adventism interprets the Bible through the grid of its great controversy worldview established by its extra-biblical prophetess, Ellen G. White.
For further reading about the Great Controversy worldview and Adventism’s true relationship to the true church, read these two articles:
- May 4–10, 2024 - May 2, 2024
- We Got Mail - May 2, 2024
- April 27–May 3, 2024 - April 25, 2024