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 10: “Lessons of the Past”
COLLEEN TINKER |
Problems with this lesson:
- This lesson reveals the Adventist claim that Israel’s story is their heritage, and Adventists are adopted into “the historic people of God”.
- The lesson warns against idolatry but misses the idolatry of Adventist Sabbath.
- The Teachers Comments apply the shadows of Colossians 2:16, 17 to Passover and not to Sabbath
This week’s lesson looks briefly at several psalms which recount God’s deliverance of Israel from Egypt and His bringing them to the Promised Land, God’s discipline of rebellious Israel and His vindication of His own people, and other psalms which remind Israel to praise the Lord.
Read in context, these psalms are rich reminders—many to post-exilic Judah—of God’s faithfulness to fulfill His promises to Abraham and to remind Israel—the nation God formed from Isaac, Abraham’s son of promise—that His promises cannot fail. These psalms also reminded Israel that they had broken the terms of God’s Mosaic covenant with them, and in fulfillment of those covenant terms, they had been disciplined and exiled—and also restored to their land.
Once again we realize that the psalmists knew God’s covenants and promises. They knew their own place in God’s sovereign control of all things, and they knew that remembering His direct intervention to make them a nation would remind them of His faithfulness to them as well.
The lesson, however, morphs the intended audience to include Adventist members as the current venue where God is “unfolding” His purposes. For example, read these words from Saturday’s introduction to the week’s studies:
The special appeal of the historical psalms is that they help us to see our lives as part of the history of God’s people and to claim that past as our own. As we have been adopted into the family of the historic people of God through Christ (Rom. 8:15; Rom. 9:24–26; Gal. 4:6, 7), the historical heritage of the ancient people of Israel is indeed the account of our spiritual ancestry. Therefore, we can and should learn from their past, which is ours, as well.
The final goal is to realize that each generation of God’s people plays a small but significant part in the grand historical unfolding of God’s sovereign purposes in the great controversy.
The quotation states that the “historical heritage” of Israel is “indeed the account” of the Adventist ancestry. We see from this passage the underlying belief within Adventist doctrine and history that they are today’s Israel, the only people who keep all of God’s law. They alone are doing what Israel failed to do and have become today’s Israel.
Furthermore, we see in this quote the assumption without explanation or question that the “great controversy” is the “unfolding of God’s sovereign purposes”. In other words, Adventists are to see themselves as the real audience for these historical psalms; early Israel were their own forebears—the inheritors of Israel’s law—and the true Israel who didn’t reject Jesus, thus qualifying them to be the recipients of God’s mercy and grace today.
To be sure, the stories of Israel are given to the church today as Paul explained in 1 Corinthians 10:1–6:
For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea; and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea; and all ate the same spiritual food; and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them, and the rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them God was not well-pleased. For THEY WERE STRUCK DOWN IN THE WILDERNESS. Now these things happened as examples for us, so that we would not crave evil things as they also craved (1Co 10:1-6).
As Paul addressed the church, we see that even he did not imply that the church was to see the stories of the exodus as their own history. The church is not Israel! Rather, Paul explained that these stories are given as examples so that we, as believers, would believe God and trust Christ and avoid the judgments of unbelief that Israel had to face.
The lesson, however, appropriates the stories of Israel and applies them to themselves!
Ironically, this application is worse than mere misuse of the text. Adventism cannot be the inheritors of Israel’s past because Adventism has a different from Christianity and a different god! Adventist doctrine explains that their god is a “heavenly trio”, a “winning team” that is ready to assist those seeking to obey the law. This Adventist god has a Jesus who is not fully God; He gave up His omnipresence and does not share substance with the Father and the Holy Spirit.
Adventist founders were Arian; none of them believed that Jesus is eternally God the Son, and most (if not all) of them believed the Holy Spirit was a force from God, and further they understood the Father to be physical.
An organization founded in the heresy of Arianism and of a false Jesus is not part of the church. Its doctrines cannot be scriptural because from the outset, the founders did not believe God to be One God in three persons all of whom shared substance. Such an organization is a deception, a counterfeit, a false religion. The lesson’s claims that Adventists should see Israel’s history as their own is appropriation of Scripture for themselves when they are outside the boundaries of Christianity!
Sabbath Idol
In Thursday’s lesson the author uses Psalm 135 to emphasize God’s “supremacy in history”. He takes verses out of context to make his points about God’s purposes beginning with “Creation”, thus establishing the logical result that Israel fulfill her role in God’s plan of salvation. In a typical pivot away from the context of the entire psalm, the lesson’s author moves us to the injunction to make sure we don’t have idolatry in our lives. Read this quote at the end of the lesson, a consummate irony in light of the role the Sabbath plays in an Adventist life:
The Lord’s faithfulness to His people leads the psalmist to affirm the nothingness of idols and to the unique supremacy of the Lord in the world (Ps. 135:15−18). Reliance on idols renders their worshipers as hopeless and powerless as their idols are (Ps. 135:18). The psalm demonstrates that God is to be praised as both Creator and Savior of His people. This is wonderfully conveyed in the two complementary ver sions of the fourth commandment of the Decalogue (Exod. 20:8−11, Deut. 5:12−15). Because God’s power in creation and history is unparalleled in the world, God’s people should always rely on Him and worship Him alone. As our Creator and our Redeemer, He alone should be worshiped, and worship of anything else, or anyone else, is idolatry.
The lesson then ends with the questions: “How can we make sure that we don’t have idols in our own lives? Why might idolatry be easier to do than we realize?”
The Adventist Sabbath is most certainly an idol. Adventists are taught that the Sabbath is the seal of God and the final mark that separates the saved from the lost. Adventists die knowing that one day their loyalty to the Sabbath will be the mark of whether or not they will be saved. Here is only one of many quotes EGW made about this subject:
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.
Sabbath takes the place of Jesus in an Adventist life. Just ask anyone who has left Adventism for the gospel: Adventists always ask, “But what about the Sabbath?” They never ask, “But what about Jesus?” The Adventist believes that God will judge him for his worship of Him, and true worship can ONLY be practiced on the seventh-day Sabbath.
We are judged entirely on the basis of whether or not we have believed in the Lord Jesus’ finished work. Adventists, though, believe they will be judged on their observing the Sabbath.
Shadows
Speaking of Sabbath, the Teachers Comments deliberately misused Colossians 2:16–17 to assign it a non-contextual meaning. This is what the notes say:
All the details of the Passover (Exodus 12, Lev. 23:4–8, Deut. 16:1–8) “are shadows of things to come” (see Col. 2:16, 17), revealing in types and symbols the passion and death of Jesus Christ.
In a context of discussion the use of the “Exodus paradigm” to demonstrate God’s deliverance, the author refers to the passages that give the practices to be observed on Passover and then says these details “are shadows of things to come”, citing Colossians 216, 17. Here is the text:
Therefore, no one is to judge you in food and drink, or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day– things which are [only] a shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ. (Col 2:16-17).
In context, these verses in Colossians refer to the yearly (festival), monthly (new moon), and weekly (a Sabbath day) sabbaths God gave Israel. All of them, Paul is saying are shadows of Christ, and all of them are fulfilled in the person of Jesus! “The substance belongs to Christ!”
Yet the lesson buries this text in the Teachers Comments, does not quote it, and just refers to it as a passage that explains Passover! In reality, it is so much more! It directly states that ALL the Sabbaths, including the weekly Sabbath, were shadows of the substance of the Lord Jesus! In Him, all the holy days are obsolete—including the seventh day!
The lesson intentionally suppressed this fact and led the teachers to believe this verse (which gives Adventists so much trouble) is all about Passover!
In summary, this week’s lesson is unable to open the meaning of the historic psalms because the author is assuming definitions and identities that are not part of the context. The lesson is appropriating the stories of Israel and saying they are the history of each Adventist who is to read them as insights into their own heritage as the adopted people of God.
Yet Adventism is not Christian, and the church is not Israel. In no sense is an Adventist the rightful inheritor of Israel’s blessings or provisions. No Adventist can write himself into Israel’s history. The Sabbath is not the test of loyalty for God’s people but is an idol. It was realized and fulfilled in the Lord Jesus.
If you do not know Jesus as your own Savior who has purchased your eternal life and guaranteed it by giving you His Spirit, believe Him today. When you do, the Psalms will open before you with depth and meaning you didn’t know was there. †
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