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 11: “Longing for God in Zion”
COLLEEN TINKER |
Problems with this lesson:
- The lesson again conscripts the Psalms to apply to Adventism and its Three Angels’ Messages.
- Adventism’s free-will and God’s deference to it shows in seeking God’s “response” to violence.
- This week’s lessons focus on “Zion” as the type of the heavenly Jerusalem as described by EGW.
This week’s lesson focuses on psalms that feature Zion and the sanctuary. The psalms themselves are from different sections of the psalter, yet the author again collects these and addresses them from the assumed paradigm of Adventism: that Adventists comprise the true church of God, and the declarations of the psalmists express “true worship of God is in His chosen place and in His prescribed way” (p. 140).
To be sure, the lessons do not overtly teach Adventism this week, yet the ways each psalm is taught consistently misses the sovereign rule of Almighty God and the joy of the Israelites as they acknowledged their capital city, Jerusalem, as the center of their kingdom because that is the place where God put His name.
For example, in Tuesday’s lesson the author looks at Psalm 87 and correctly assesses that it presents the decidedly new covenant foreshadowing that Zion will ultimately be the center of worship not only for Jerusalem but for all nations. Yet instead of explaining that this prophetic message sets the psalm apart from all other songs of Zion in the psalter in a most marked way, the author appropriates it for Adventism’s Three Angel’s messages. Here is an excerpt from Psalm 87:
Yahweh loves the gates of Zion More than all the dwelling places of Jacob. Glorious things are spoken of you, O city of God. Selah. “I shall mention Rahab and Babylon among those who know Me; Behold, Philistia and Tyre with Ethiopia: ‘This one was born there.’” But of Zion it shall be said, “This one and that one were born in her”; And the Most High Himself will establish her. Yahweh will count when He registers the peoples, “This one was born there.” Selah (Psalm 87:2-6 LSB).
This psalm, in the words of the Study Notes of the NASB95 Bible, “stands in lonely isolation in the Psalter…in that it foresees the ingathering of the nations into Zion as fellow citizens with Israel in the kingdom of God…”
This assessment explains the roll call in this psalm; God sees and knows the places each person who trusts Him was born. He knows their backgrounds and their trust in Him. In fact, this psalm is unique in so clearly identifying that gentiles from all the nations, even Israel’s enemies, would become part of God’s people ultimately.
Furthermore, all those who become part of God’s people will do so by the mercy of God and will come to worship Him at the city He Himself established for His name. Those who had no spiritual privilege would be a miracle of God that grants faith to those who did not know Him, and this conversion will be exactly like that of the Jews who trust Him and who had all the privileges of being part of His chosen nation possessing His oracles and prophets.
Yet the lesson states,
The glory of Zion draws all the nations to God, and so, the borders of God’s kingdom are extended to include the whole world. Notice that God does not treat the other nations as second-level citizens, even if Zion is portrayed as the spiritual birthplace of all peoples who accept the Lord as their Savior (p. 140).
Then, at the end of Tuesday’s lesson are these thought questions: “How does Zion’s readiness to adopt all people find its fulfillment in the church’s Great Commission to preach the gospel to every nation (Matt. 28:18–20)? How does this idea fit in with our call to preach the three angels’ messages?
In a nutshell, this psalm has nothing whatsoever to do with the three angels’ messages. First, this psalm is not an example of God’s treating nations with equity, demonstrating that they are not “second-level citizens”. Furthermore, it is not “Zion”, with the implication that Adventism and its people are today’s “Zion” where God has put His name, that extends its borders to the world.
Rather, the gentile conversions this psalm foresees are acts of God, miracles that go against nature. God will give gentiles as well as Jews hearts that are soft to Him. He will grant them faith to believe. It is not the three angels’ messages of the seventh-day Sabbath, the supposed investigative judgment, and the call to leave the Babylon of Sunday worship that will attract people to God.
Adventism’s core doctrines are not biblical and are established by Ellen White’s visions and endorsement. They are a false gospel, and they have nothing at all to do with Psalm 87. Adventism has no right to appropriate this singular psalm foreseeing the future inclusion of gentiles in the people of God.
God As Responder
Wednesday’s lesson explores Psalm 46, a particularly beautiful psalm declaring God’s sovereign, eternal presence and protection in spite of earth’s upheavals and nations’ sword-rattling. Yet the lesson moralizes that in spite of the world’s wickedness and rebellions, God doesn’t abandon it and will finally make wars cease, and His displeasure will melt the earth before renewing it.
The question in the middle of the lesson reveals the Adventist understanding of God’s relationship to the world from their great controversy worldview: “What is God’s response to violence and destruction in the world?”
It is a subtle revelation, but significant. God is NOT a “responder” to the violence of the world. God is not holding Himself in check while evil runs amok in the world in order to demonstrate the depth of Satan’s evil to the watching worlds, as EGWs great controversy says.
God is not protecting “free will” among the demons and the rebellious. He is the one sovereign, almighty, eternal God, and evil is completely under His control. In fact, nothing happens on earth or in heaven that He does not allow. Satan cannot go farther than God allows him to go, as we learn in the book of Job.
God does not respond to violence and destruction because those things come to us by His eternal foreknowledge. God does not have a Plan B that adapts to evil’s expressions. He has only a Plan A, and nothing that happens is accidental.
God is not a responder to the world but the initiator of His own revelation to all of us who are born dead in sin! We are not free moral agents beyond our natural state; we are dead in sin by nature and under the power of the spirit at work in the children of disobedience (Eph. 2:1–3). God has to bring us to life. His interventions in the world are His eternal plan, not His responses to the free will of evil beings.
Look at what Psalm 46:10, 11 say:
“Cease [striving] and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” Yahweh of hosts is with us; The God of Jacob is our stronghold. Selah (Psalm 46:10-11 LSB).
Notice God’s own declaration that He is God, and He will be exalted among the nations in the earth. He is not responding to violence but is in charge of the nations and will cause them to recognize Him in spite of their natural spiritual death. He is sovereign over them; He is the One who is God and will be exalted among them by His own authority. Yet the lesson describes a world controlled not by God but by angry nations:
Likewise, in Psalm 46 the images of natural calamities depict the world controlled by nations waging wars (Ps. 46:6).
It is clearly a world without the knowledge of God because God is in the midst of His people, and where God dwells, peace abounds (Ps. 46:4, 5). Yet, although the world rejects Him, God does not abandon the world. God is present in the world by being among His people.
This description is exactly inside-out and upside-down. God, not the raging nations, controls the world.
These representations are subtle but consistent. Adventism does not see God as in control, sovereign over all evil and violence. Rather, they see Him as a slow but eventual “responder”, a God who lets His creatures wreak havoc in the universe until He finally reacts to them and melts the elements.
God, though, is in charge. He has the first and the last word. Violence is not outside His sovereign limits, and His relation of Himself never ceases. What can be known of Him is clearly seen in what has been made, and all men are without excuse (Rom. 1:18–22).
EGWs “Zion”
Finally, the week’s lessons end with a quote from EGW’s The Great Controversy, p. 677. Here we discover that the lesson’s goal is to present Adventism’s view of “heaven” as the Zion toward which this psalm points. Here is the quote:
“There, immortal minds will contemplate with never-failing delight the wonders of creative power, the mysteries of redeeming love. There is no cruel, deceiving foe to tempt to forgetfulness of God. Every faculty will be developed, every capacity increased. The acquirement of knowledge will not weary the mind or exhaust the energies. There the grandest enterprises may be carried forward, the loftiest aspirations reached, the highest ambitions realized; and still there will arise new heights to surmount, new wonders to admire, new truths to comprehend, fresh objects to call forth the powers of mind and soul and body.”
Notice that this description of “Zion” is all about “us”: we will be able to develop all of our faculties and talents without limit. We will not have a devil to tempt us, and nothing we do will fatigue us. Our loftiest aspirations will be achieved. Our highest ambitions will be realized. There will be no limit to the new heights, new wonders, new truths, new thoughts and ideas to challenge the powers of our minds and souls and bodies!
Wow—this description reminds me of God’s statements about the Tower of Babel:
And Yahweh said, “Behold, they are one people, and they all have the same language. And this is what they have begun to do. So now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them” (Genesis 11:6 LSB).
God judged and scattered the people of Babel because they attempted to make a name for themselves, and there was no limit to what they would do if left unchecked!
Significantly, EGW makes no mention here of the glories of the heavenly Jerusalem being that we would see the Lord face to face, knowing Him as we are known, fully in union with Him eternally. Our joy will be in knowing Jesus and sharing eternity with Him.
Scripture does not tell us many details about our eternity in the New Jerusalem, but it will not be primarily about self-improvement. Our eternal future will be joyful because, as Psalm 46 described, we will be where God is.
Adventism’s dependence upon EGW has put blinders on their spiritual eyes. They cannot understand the Bible because they are obligated to make it fit what EGW says. Because of their loyalty to her, they make even our sovereign God her servant when they formulate their doctrines and practices.
Our Lord’s glory is the ultimate value in the universe, not our free will. The power and hope in the psalms is eclipsed under the enforced great controversy worldview that is the Adventist assumption.
Only in turning to the Lord is the veil taken away. I urge you: turn to the Lord and trust His finished work of atonement for all your sins. You will discover reality, and you will know the power and the love of God. †
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