Lesson 8: “Fulfilling Old Testament Prophecies”
COLLEEN TINKER | Editor, Proclamation! Magazine
Problems with this lesson:
- Discussion questions expose/indict the Adventist worldview that blinds Adventists to the work of God.
- Ellen White blinds Adventism to the authority of the Bible.
- Suppressing propitiation makes Jesus an innocent victim and the Jews earthly-minded traditionalists.
True to form for this quarter’s Sabbath School lessons, this week’s studies are not overtly “wrong”. Yet they present verses out of context to the point that some of John’s major revelations of the Lord Jesus are suppressed. The Adventist worldview established by Ellen White’s visions and interpretations have blinded Adventists to what the Bible really says. This lesson succeeds because the Adventist assumptions are never questioned
Instead, important details are omitted and texts are ignored so that the Adventist explanations of who Jesus is and who the Adventist “godhead” is are reinforced.
Furthermore, the real purpose of Jesus’ death and the propitiation of His shed blood are ignored, and Jesus as an innocent, sacrificial “victim” and the Jews as earthly-minded traditionalists are presented as “reality”. Underneath these unbiblical explanations of Jesus, the Jews, and His sacrifice is the unacknowledged but definitive Adventist view of the nature of man.
Because Adventism refuses to believe that humans have immaterial spirits that can know or not know God—spirits that define our identities and which survive the body at death, this refusal leads to reinterpreting every aspect of salvation, including why Jesus died and how we are saved.
The background grid of EGWs biblical interpretations blinds Adventists to the fact that they don’t actually believe the Bible as it is written. Although Adventists think they base all their beliefs on the Bible, they actually base their beliefs on what they understand the Bible to say through the commentary of EGW. Therefore, the reality is that Adventists don’t understand the nature of Jesus’s atonement.
Since they don’t believe that they have immaterial spirits that are born dead in sin and need to be made alive—born again, they see Jesus’ death as somehow an illustration of His meekness and kindness to His oppressors instead of as a literal payment for their sin. They see even His death as an illustration or even an example rather than as an act that reconciles sinners to God as He hung on the cross.
Jesus Affirmed Scripture
This week we will take our cue from some of the discussion questions that show up at the ends of the days’ studies. The actual contents of the lessons aren’t “wrong”, but they carry a certain meaning for the readers that is determined by their Adventist worldview. The discussion questions are a “tell” that reveals how an Adventist would understand the lessons.
For example, Monday’s lesson speaks of Jesus’s signs and wonders. The authors missed the reason Jesus pointed to the works He did rather than declare that He was the Messiah, and then they raise the question of how the Jews could possibly deny the signs Jesus did. The lesson concludes with the following paragraph and discussion question:
If Jesus had come right out and said He was the Messiah, the religious leaders—looking for anything they could find against Him—would have pounced on Him. Knowing this, Jesus instead pointed to the works He had done. If Jesus had said He was the Christ, they could easily seek to deny that. But how could they deny the signs, the works, and the wonders? These were powerful testimonies to who He was and where He had come from.
How can we protect ourselves from having the kind of hard hearts we see among these religious leaders? In what ways might we be fighting against the work of God in our own lives?
By pointing to His works and miracles rather than simply saying He was the Messiah, Jesus was calling on the authority of the prophets to identify Him. If He had merely said He was the Christ, that witness could have been dismissed as a man’s personal “delusions”. Making the Jews see that the acts He was doing were those the Old Testament said the Messiah would do took the “proof” outside of Jesus’ own words. It anchored His identity firmly in the prophecies of the Old Testament which those Jews KNEW. Furthermore, the Jews knew that only God could do the things Jesus was doing among them.
The thought questions reveal Adventism’s blindness to Jesus and His atoning sacrifice.
As an Adventist I used to feel some sympathy for the Jews. I knew that if I had been taught that the Messiah would come looking a certain way, doing certain things and fulfilling certain expectations, I would likely have missed Him as well when He came looking like someone I had not expected.
If my parents, teachers, and pastors had all agreed that Jesus would do certain things and be a certain kind of person—and then someone came who didn’t fit that model but who seemed to bear some similarity, I would have been hard-hearted and would have stood by the belief I had about who He was SUPPOSED to be.
Jews Refused To Believe
I understood the Jews and their refusal to believe!
Yet now I see that Adventism itself blinds its members to the revelation of God’s work in their lives. Monday’s thought questions unconsciously reveal Adventism’s bottom line problem: they fight against God in their own lives because they don’t expect God to be the sovereign, holy Authority that He is. They don’t know that Jesus is almighty God who declares them to be blind and dead in their sins. Instead, they see Him as kind, compassionate, empathetic, and non-condemning. They do not see that His death actually reveals their own condemnation, and they have no idea that they are by nature dead in sin.
Because Adventism holds to a physicalist view of reality, and because Adventism denies the human immaterial spirit, Adventists do not generally know they are born condemned. They don’t know that Jesus’ blood is the source of their justification, and they think instead that Jesus’ blood was just a down-payment on their salvation. They believe they have to keep themselves worthy of His mercy. They don’t see that His blood is the source of their life, not merely a guilt-producing expression of suffering designed to make them feel obligated to be good and to show that they appreciate what He did.
Ellen White and the Bible
Monday’s lesson is similar to Sunday’s. Where Sunday’s study focussed on Jesus’ signs and miracles as proof that He was the Messiah, Monday’s lesson points out:
In addition to the specific signs and testimonies that John used to point to Jesus as the Messiah, John also appealed to the authority of the Old Testament and to its prophecies, which foretold the work of Christ. The Old Testament is central, not just to John’s Gospel but to all the New Testament. Justification for Jesus, for who He was, where He came from, what He did, and what He will do—is based on Scripture, in this case the Old Testament.
These words sound innocuous and logical. Yet the day’s discussion questions again reveal the under-the-surface Adventist twist:
What are the forces today that either subtly or openly work to undermine our faith in the authority of the Bible? Bring your answer to class on Sabbath.
Adventists say that they believe the Bible alone, yet in practice they believe the Bible as endorsed and explained by EGW, their modern-day prophet and interpreter. The best way to illustrate this fact is to point out some of the things their own internal documents say.
First, the Adventists’ Fundamental Belief #18, “The Gift of Prophecy”, attempts to normalize Ellen White and her role within the organization. In fact, it attempts to deceive the reader into thinking that EGW enhances their “biblical” position. Here is Fundamental Belief #18:
The Scriptures testify that one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit is prophecy. This gift is an identifying mark of the remnant church and we believe it was manifested in the ministry of Ellen G. White. Her writings speak with prophetic authority and provide comfort, guidance, instruction, and correction to the church. They also make clear that the Bible is the standard by which all teaching and experience must be tested. (Num. 12:6; 2 Chron. 20:20; Amos 3:7; Joel 2:28, 29; Acts 2:14-21; 2 Tim. 3:16, 17; Heb. 1:1-3; Rev. 12:17; 19:10; 22:8, 9.)
Notice the last two sentences of this statement: “Her writings speak with prophetic authority and provide comfort, guidance, instruction, and correction to the church. They also make clear that the Bible is the standard by which all teaching and experience must be tested.”
First, “prophetic authority” is biblical authority. They claim that EGWs writings have the authority of that given by God to the biblical prophets. If her writing has this much authority, then Adventists are directed and taught how to think, how to understand the Bible by this latest revelation from God.
Further, their saying that EGW makes it clear that the “Bible is the standard by which all teaching and experience must be tested” makes EGW the source of Adventists’ belief in the Bible.
EGW Claims Biblical Authority
Christians do not believe the Bible because a modern, post-biblical teachers or writer has said the Bible is reliable. On the contrary, Christians believe the Bible because it is living and powerful, as it says that it is. It is self-authenticating. When a person believes the Bible, it has a corrective effect on people’s own thinking. Hebrews 4:12, 13 is proven true:
For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are uncovered and laid bare to the eyes of Him to whom we have an account [to give].—Hebrews 4:12, 13 LSB
If a person is giving an organization the permission and the authority to trust the Bible, then that person becomes the “last word”, not the Bible itself. Without EGWs endorsement, Adventists might not be inclined to consider the Bible to be authoritative. Yet if EGW says it is, then the Adventist is giving her, not Scripture, the place of ultimate authority, the “last word” on what is true and real.
Furthermore, on the opening page of the Ellen White website containing her online writings is this quotation by her:
Abundant light has been given to our people in these last days. Whether or not my life is spared, my writings will constantly speak, and their work will go forward as long as time shall last. My writings are kept on file in the office, and even though I should not live, these words that have been given to me by the Lord will still have life and will speak to the people. But my strength is yet spared, and I hope to continue to do much useful work. I may live until the coming of the Lord; but if I should not, I trust it may be said of me, “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors; and their works do follow them.”—PH116 13.7, 1913
The bolded passage in the quotation above is from a pamphlet entitled “The Writing and Sending Out of the Testimonies to the Church” which she wrote in 1913, two years before her death.
Even though most Adventists may not be aware of these words she wrote, still this very reliance upon her “testimonies” shapes Adventism. Her writings are regarded as being eternal and alive.
EGWs Words Are Eternal
I ask you, how is this claim for the perpetuity and living power of Ellen’s words different from the Bible’s testimony about itself as we read it in Hebrews 4:12, 13? Ellen claimed for herself that she was the source of God’s living words for the Adventists, and her words would instruct them as long as time shall last. They are still authoritative as much as the day she first wrote them—and there is no distinction within her writings as to which ones are more accurate or less accurate. ALL of her words are included in this sweeping statement.
In other words, Adventists intuitively know that their view of the Bible is filtered for them through the interpretations of EGW. Furthermore, since she is the last authoritative word from God, her explanations are the most current and believable. Thus the ways she explains the Bible becomes the knowledge-based for Adventists. Even without their being conscious of this fact, their understanding of what the Bible says is determined by EGW, and they believe that what THEY understand is the only correct understanding!
Within Adventism, EGW, not Scripture, is the LAST word, the word which defines Scripture and doctrine.
Consequently, when we come to the thought question at the end of Monday’s lesson that asks the members what forces “work to undermine our faith in the authority of the Bible”, the answer is crystal clear yet invisible to the average Adventist: Ellen White is the force that undermines Scripture. Adventists don’t have any idea that they are reading the words of Scripture but understanding it completely differently than it was meant to be understood. They are understanding EGWs skew, not the plain meaning of the Bible’s words.
From Beneath, From Above
Thursday’s lesson stressed that the Jews were Jesus’s biggest enemies, and that Jesus told them they were “from beneath” while He was “not of this world”. The authors focussed on the fact that the Jews did not believe in Jesus as a group, although many individuals did believe. The discussion questions at the end of Thursday’s lesson ask:
What lessons do you draw from Jesus’ exchange with the religious leaders? How can we be “from above” and not “from beneath”—and how can we know the difference?
The Teachers Comments also camped on this idea. On page 109 we find this commentary:
“From beneath” implies that the leaders were so earthly-minded that being heavenly-minded was an impossibility. They were so glued to their traditions and blinded by their own narrow and self-centered philosophies that they chose this world and death, refusing heaven and certain life in Jesus. …
The religious leaders’ disregard for the truth led them deliberately to close their eyes and blind their own hearts against it so that they would not see the light sent from heaven. Had they opened their minds to Jesus, they would have believed. But such an act would have threatened their preconceived notions.
Finally, this discussion question at the end of the Teachers Comments again stressed the blindness endemic within the EGW-endorsed physicalist worldview that warps Adventism’s understanding of salvation and our own human need:
Shouldn’t it be concerning, even alarming, when we, like the religious leaders, are confronted with the plain truth from the Bible and then deliberately turn away from it? What part does pride play in our violating our conscience and turning us away from the truth? How can the Holy Spirit help us to put our prideful opinions aside and become more teachable?
The lesson cannot adequately address Jesus’ designation that the Pharisees were “from beneath” while He was “from above” because they deny that humans have an immaterial spirit that is born dead in sin (Ephesians 2:1–3) and must be made alive—born again—in order to know and honor God. The lesson’s questions and comments reveal that the authors realize something is wrong: they can’t explain why Adventists have such trouble deciding to believe the Bible and trust Jesus.
In fact, they themselves feel stymied, unable to explain what Jesus meant when He talked about being “from above” and unable to make themselves be “teachable”. At the same time, they believe that they KNOW the truth and have the only true understanding of Scripture. They have convinced themselves that EGWs worldview—the physicalism that denies the human immaterial spirit and that explains the “heavenly trio” that comprises the Adventist “godhead”—three separate entities that do not share substance—they believe that this understanding is the definition of reality.
Born of God
They cannot understand the new birth except as a metaphor for a change of mind, a rearrangement of one’s thinking and beliefs. They cannot get away from the idea that they themselves have to decide to lay down their pride and self-protection and embrace the embarrassment of Adventism in a world that values achievement and progressive thought.
They cannot understand that the difference between being “from beneath” and “from above” is literally a miracle that occurs when one admits one is a hopeless sinner and needs a Savior. When a person admits that they cannot fix themselves nor learn to be good and obedient and observant enough to please God, then one faces the biblical reality that one is helplessly sinful and actually needs the justifying blood of Jesus to cover them.
Adventists need to face the fact that Jesus’ blood is not something to make us feel guilty and obligated but rather is God’s provision for justifying us. When we see that only the Savior’s blood paid for our sin, and when we believe that Jesus died to justify us by being the One who took the penalty of justification in Himself—at that moment our spiritual deadness is reversed, and we literally—not metaphorically—pass from death to life.
As Jesus said,
“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.”—John 5:24
We are all born “from below” with spirits dead in sin. The Lord Jesus alone came into the world spiritually alive, conceived by the Holy Spirit, never dead. He is “from above”. We only become “from above” when we trust the One who came to take our sin, break our curse, and give us life. When we trust Jesus, we are born again with His life, and are filled with the Holy Spirit—the permanent seal guaranteeing that we are born of God and joint heirs with Christ.
Ask the Lord to teach you what is real and true. Ask Him to make His word come alive to you and to sweep away the confusion of EGWs worldview from your mind. Ask Him to show you your need, and trust the One who died for you.
If you have trusted the Lord Jesus’s death for your sin, His burial, and His resurrection on the third day, you are a citizen of the kingdom of the beloved Son. You have passed from death to life, and you can live your life knowing your eternal future is secure.
If you haven’t trusted Him, you can do so today. Trust Jesus and pass from death to life. †
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.
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