Lesson 9: “The Cosmic Conflict”
COLLEEN TINKER | Editor, Proclamation! Magazine
Problems with this lesson:
- This lesson interprets Scripture to support EGWs pre-creation story of Satan doubting God’s character.
- The lesson denies humanity’s spiritual death in Adam and makes Satan responsible for evil on earth.
- EGW is endorsed: evil must mature to prove that God is good—not vindictive—and His law is fair.
This lesson attempts, in one week’s brief studies, to confirm EGW’s great controversy worldview. The entire paradigm of the “great controversy” as it is understood within Adventism came from Ellen White’s extra-biblical visions. Her definitions of what Jesus did on the cross, of His supposed ongoing work of investigation and atonement in heaven, her identification of God as three Worthies who come to the aid of believers, of a heavenly trio of beings who share a purpose, a name, and a will but NOT substance, and her definition of humanity as being a physical body that ceases to exist after death—all of these definitions are part of her unbiblical great controversy worldview.
All of her definitions of basic reality are twisted and false and these false beliefs underlie her entire great controversy scenario. Yet these foundational beliefs about reality itself are ASSUMED by the lesson’s author. They are not specifically defined, but he knows that the Adventist readers of this lesson will understand his words through the lens of the Adventist definitions of reality. Most readers will not question him but will find his words to be soothing, supposedly providing answers for some of the more troubling questions people have posed in recent years concerning the great controversy.
Hiding Behind “Cosmic Conflict”
To start, the author entitles this week’s lesson “The Cosmic Conflict” instead of “The Great Controversy”. He immediately confirms the real nature of his subject in the first sentence of Saturday’s lesson however, when he says, “Central to biblical theology is the great controversy between Christ and Satan.”
Why would he use the term “Cosmic Conflict” instead of “Great Controversy”? For one reason, non-Adventist theologians will likely resonate with his argument and with the title without making an immediate connection to the central cultic paradigm of Seventh-day Adventism. It bears mentioning that John Peckham, the author of this quarter’s lessons, has just been named as a finalist for the 2024 Christianity Today Book Awards for his book Why We Pray: Understanding Prayer in the Context of Cosmic Conflict. Did you catch that? “Cosmic Conflict” is a term which he can persuade evangelicals to accept. He is also on track to release his latest book which will be published by evangelical press Baker Academic. This new book will, in the words of Adventist Today, explore “the nature of Jesus as the high priest in the context of the cosmic conflict.”—(AT January 27, 2024).
Writing about the cosmic conflict in books published and accepted by the evangelical academics is a focus of John Peckham—and he is introducing Adventist ideas to the evangelical public in this way. Discussion of Jesus as a high priest in the “context of the cosmic conflict” will necessarily need to discuss the Adventist idea of a two-phased atonement. That idea IS the Adventist way to understand the scenario articulated in the description of his book.
Where Is This “Conflict” In the Bible?
Peckham states in Saturday’s lesson that he will answer two questions: “Where does Scripture teach that there is a cosmic conflict between God and Satan?” And “According to Scripture, what is the nature of the conflict?”
He devotes Monday’s lesson to saying that Genesis 3:1–7, the account of Eve being tempted by the serpent, is the origin of the controversy on earth. He also develops the idea that it is this passage that reveals that the controversy is about God’s character and whether He is trustworthy and able to be loved.
Peckham introduces this idea by referring to God’s declaration in Genesis 1:31 that at the end of the sixth day, everything was “very good”. He then says,
In Genesis 1, there is no hint of evil in God’s creation of this planet. How, then, did evil come into the human experience?
Read Genesis 3:1–7. What does this tell us about how evil got here on earth? What light does this shed on the nature of the cosmic conflict? (See also Rev. 12:7–9.)
This quote reveals the standard Adventist belief that Satan is responsible for human sin. It also twists the Genesis account to incorporate EGWs notion that Satan caused Adam and Eve to doubt God’s trustworthiness and His character.
This idea cannot be derived from the biblical account. This idea implies that Eve was not certain whether the serpent or God was telling the truth, that His character and dependability were in doubt. Yet there is no hint of this idea in Genesis. Eve knew God, and she knew He was the Creator. She knew He created all the animals, and she knew that as clever as the serpent was, he was one of God’s creatures.
There was no explanation in Scripture for her disbelief in God’s word—but we can’t lay the blame at the serpent’s “feet”. The responsible party was Adam. He had received God’s command not to eat and God’s declaration that if he did eat, he would die that very day. We also read in Genesis 3:7 that Adam was with her when she ate. He did not stop her nor protect her—and in Romans we learn that God holds Adam responsible for sin entering the human race.
From the beginning the lesson presents EGWs unbiblical view that makes Satan the key character in the human condition. Yet the Bible reveals that he was not responsible for the human’s unbelief. Sin entered the human race through Adam.
Tuesday’s lesson is devoted to introducing Ezekiel 28:12–19 and Isaiah 14:12–15 as evidence that Lucifer rebelled against God in heaven and slandered God and launched the great controversy.
In context, these texts describe two kings: the King of Tyre and the King of Babylon. The descriptions of these evil men seems to go beyond merely human descriptions, and theologians often affirm that these two prophetic passages about the destruction of these two kings—written in vivid metaphors and similes—likely includes an evil being behind the evil of the human kings. They may well reflect the perversion of Lucifer in a time heartening back to creation.
Nevertheless, these are not didactic passages but descriptive one applied to specific men, and we can never form doctrine on the basis of poetic passages. Doctrine must flow from clear didactic passages, and the great controversy worldview with the pre-creation story of Satan rebelling against Jesus is the most profound of Adventist doctrines. It shapes not only their specific beliefs but also their personal understanding of physical reality. Adventists cannot see any aspect of science, politics, religion, or even literature without interpreting these things through the great controversy grid.
The author’s assumption that this paradigm is truth and his corresponding view of Scripture through the EGW lens of her great controversy vision warps everything he says, and this lesson is an apologetic for a lie.
Satan Didn’t Cause the Universe to Doubt God
The underlying notion that God must grant all creatures free will to love Him or not is emphasized in Tuesday’s lesson. For example, the discussion questions at the end of the lesson ask:
How do we understand the fact that Lucifer, who fell, was originally “perfect . . . from the day” he was created “till iniquity was found” in him (Ezek. 28:15)? How could a perfect being fall unless being “perfect” included true moral freedom?
This set of rhetorical questions leads the reader to answer in terms consistent with EGW’s view of reality. In fact, Scripture does not tell us about Satan’s fall, and his motives and methods are never revealed. Satan’s story is not our story, and God doesn’t tell us the angels’ story.
Ellen, however, DID tell Satan’s supposed story. She explained his thoughts and motives and emotions, his jealousy of Jesus, his belief that he rather than Jesus should have been exalted by the Father. She explained that Lucifer planted seeds of doubt among the angels and succeeded in turning one-third of them against God and launching a cosmic—wide rebellion. Of course she says this conflict is playing out on earth, but she is explicit that the whole universe of watching worlds is looking on to see if God will be fair with Satan and to see if His law is really fair or if it really is too hard for any creature to keep.
All of these ideas are completely unbiblical and contradict what Scripture tells us about our sovereign God and our own place as rebellious subjects.
Never does the lesson—and never does EGW—explain God’s sovereignty over Satan. Thursday’s lesson includes a quotation from EGW’s book The Great Controversy that reveals the Adventist understanding of Satan’s “free will” and of God’s character:
“In His dealing with sin, God could employ only righteousness and truth. Satan could use what God could not—flattery and deceit. He had sought to falsify the word of God and had misrepresented His plan of government before the angels, claiming that God was not just in laying laws and rules upon the inhabitants of heaven; that in requiring submission and obedience from His creatures, He was seeking merely the exaltation of Himself. Therefore it must be demonstrated before the inhabitants of heaven, as well as of all the worlds, that God’s government was just, His law perfect. Satan had made it appear that he himself was seeking to promote the good of the universe. The true character of the usurper, and his real object, must be understood by all. He must have time to manifest himself by his wicked works.”—Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy, p. 498.
This paragraph reveals how EGW has taught Adventists to see God as a humble, self-limiting god who honors His creatures because He wants their freely-chosen love and trust. She presents Satan as ultimately being the means of revealing how good God is. Because Satan is evil, his unfettered freedom to destroy and corrupt will eventually convince all the watching worlds that God really is good and long-suffering, slow to anger, and fair. In her scenario, if God had destroyed Satan at the moment he sinned, he would have sent the universe the message that he was reactive and defensive, and Satan would have won the respect of the universe because he would have appeared to be the hapless creature who fell before God’s vengeance. But, she says, prompted by Satan’s own accusations, the universe just isn’t sure whether Satan is telling the truth about God or not.
Just as in her explanation of Eve’s confusion about whether Satan or God was believable, so she says the universe is unsure. Had God destroyed Satan, he would have validated Satan’s claims that He was harsh and exacting. But if Satan plays out his hand, the universe will be convinced that God is the good one because he allowed his enemy to live and reveal to everyone that he really is evil.
Do you see how subtle and upside-down this scenario is? SATAN is the one who ultimately reveals the truth to the universe! God limits Himself in order that His creatures will come to believe He’s good on the basis of an evil deceiver who finally can’t hide his own evil.
Satan, in this twisted worldview, becomes the revealer of reality. God is the hapless, nearly helpless victim of Satan, but ultimately his goodness will be revealed as Satan essentially destroys himself.
Romans 3:23–26 completely exposes the lie of this scenario:
[F]or all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith, for a demonstration of His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; for the demonstration of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.—Romans 3:23–26 LSB
Notice what Paul says: “in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed”. In other words, God had not punished the sins of the wicked with the death sentence He had declared from the beginning.
From the time He created Adam, there was no doubt anywhere in the universe about God’s goodness or fairness. God issued a death sentence on Adam and, through him, on all humanity, if Adam ate the fruit. That death decree was not hidden; indeed, it is recorded in God’s eternal word:
And Yahweh God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may surely eat; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat from it; for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”—Genesis 2:16, 17 LSB
When Adam ate the fruit, he and Eve did die—spiritually. Immediately they knew shame. They hid; they took no responsibility for their own sin; they blamed each other, the serpent, and God Himself. They died that day, and in Adam we ALL died.
God’s Character Never In Question
If there was any question hanging unanswered in the universe, it wasn’t “Is God Fair? Is God a power-hungry tyrant who let poor Adam off the hook?”
Furthermore, there is absolutely no HINT that anyone had any questions about the fallen Lucifer because God doesn’t tell us Lucifer’s story! He simply is not a part of the story of humanity and its fall from God’s grace.
Nevertheless, the Romans 3 passages above reveals that IF there were any unanswered question, it was NOT “Is God fair?” Rather, it was, “Why did God leave all those human sins unpunished?”
God had said they would die if they ate; yet humanity continue to live.
We learn here, though, that God left all the sins BEFORE the cross UNPUNISHED because He was always sending the incarnate Son to fulfill all justice! God didn’t wipe sinners out because He was demonstrating that He Himself WAS JUST. He would take the punishment of God’s wrath, of death for sin, in Himself in the person of the Son.
God spared humanity because He was sending a Man—Christ Jesus—the only mediator between God and man, and He was sending Jesus to be a RANSOM for humanity! (1 Timothy 2:5,6)
By taking His own death sentence in the being of the Trinity, God was demonstrating that He is JUST. Even more, He was demonstrating that He is the JUSTIFIER.
It would have been just for God to simply destroy Adam and Eve and wipe out humanity. That action would have been completely just; God had warned Adam that he would die if he ate the fruit—but God prepared a rescue.
The only way God could be just and also rescue His dead-in-sin creatures, however, was by taking the penalty in Himself. Only He could take responsibility for the entire race of men, and only He could be a sinless human would could qualify to shed innocent blood to atone for human sin.
God was Just—and He was also the Justifier. He took His own penalty and saved every single human who believes and trusts His sacrifice and His resurrection which revealed that His blood was sufficient to satisfy and break the curse of death!
Great Controversy An Egregious Lie
Ellen White’s great controversy paradigm is an egregious lie. There is absolutely no pre-creation story of Satan staging a rebellion and embroiling all the universe in his conflict with Jesus. Satan is under God’s sovereign control and can’t do anything God does not allow him to do.
He is doomed to hell; Revelation 20:10 describes his ultimate end. Humans do not have free will beyond their spiritually dead nature; we are born dead in sin, “by nature children of wrath” (Ephesians 2:1–3). We cannot make decisions that go beyond our natures. As natural humans, we are born into the domain of darkness (Colossians 1:13), and we are unable to please or seek or choose God (Romans 3:9–18).
We are literally born spiritually dead—a biblical fact which Adventism denies. First, EGW taught us that we do not have immaterial spirits that must be made alive through faith in God and His provision. She needs humans NOT to be spiritual beings, because her scenario requires humans to be able to decide to “trust Jesus”, to decide to keep the Sabbath and to eat vegetarian. She needs humans not to be spiritual beings whose identities survive death because she can’t have anyone with the Lord experiencing eternal life before her investigative judgment is finished.
She has confined Adventists to a living hell of eternal striving and ceaseless anxiety because they cannot adequately keep the law or remember to confess every sin. She has them bound do good works without every understanding that the Lord Jesus did everything the law required and kept the old covenant with His Father—perfectly.
As the perfect Son who is the Lamb of God, Jesus shed His blood—the eternal blood of the covenant that saves everyone who believes.
We are not saved by obeying perfectly. We are saved when the Father draws us and grants us the faith to believe in the Son. Because we are literally born dead in sin, we are under the wrath of God until we believe (John 3:18). When we believe, we pass from death to life (John 5:24), and we are sealed with the permanent presence of the Holy Spirit in us.
Salvation is not about obeying God and vindicating His character. It’s not about finally seeing that Satan is bad and helping Jesus prove that God is good and the law is fair. Rather salvation is about literally passing from death to life—spiritually. This transfer occurs when we trust the Son and His death in our place and His resurrection which broke our curse.
The great controversy establishes a completely false view of reality and gives Adventists a different Jesus. It obscures the most significant event in all history: the death of the Lord Jesus as our Justifier, and His destroying death by His resurrection.
The great controversy is a lie. I encourage you to go to the book of Romans and begin copying it into a notebook. Go slowly—a few verses a day, asking the Lord to teach you what He wants you to know. Let the Word show you the truth about yourself and your true need. Let Him show you how God Himself has taken responsibility for our sin and how He gives us the ability to trust Him as He reveals Himself to us. Read how we are justified entirely by our faith in Him and how we are sanctified the same way we are justified: by trusting Jesus.
Discover who Jesus really is, and see that Satan is not part of your story. Jesus never answered to Satan, and we never do, either. We deal directly with God, and on the basis of Jesus’ blood, we can enter the Father’s presence with confidence.
Trust Jesus today, and you will know the freedom of being released from the bondage of the great controversy and entering eternal life now! †
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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