Lesson 13: “Love Is the Fulfillment of the Law”
COLLEEN TINKER | Editor, Proclamation! Magazine
Central Problem with This Lesson:
This lesson ignores the new covenant, equating the law with God’s character and its fulfillment with becoming fitted for heaven by practicing love, social justice, and Sabbath keeping.
The foundation of this last lesson of quarter one is that the Law (the Ten Commandments) is eternal, the testimony of God’s character, and the regulating principle of all interactions between people and God and between people and each other. It further teaches that God upholds love by upholding the law, and that Jesus died so He “could uphold the law”. The entire argument of this lesson is derived from the great controversy worldview and opposes what Scripture teaches about the new covenant in Jesus’ blood.
To establish the lesson’s point of view, I will quote some passages from the quarterly and explain how they reveal an unbiblical understanding of the law. Then I will explain that the new covenant replaced the old when the Lord Jesus fulfilled the law and instituted a new covenant in His blood—a covenant which has a completely new law established on a different priesthood.
Christians are no longer under the law; its shadows are realized in Christ, and we live by the Spirit instead of by the letter. The tables of stone—along with the whole Mosaic law of which the Ten are the central statement— have been made obsolete by the blood of Jesus and His resurrection which inaugurated the new covenant. We now live in a completely new relationship with God under new covenantal terms.
Importantly, in the last lesson of the quarter which sums up the central point the reader is to remember, the substitutionary death of Jesus on the cross, His blood of the new covenant, and His resurrection from the dead which broke death are never mentioned! Instead, the readers are exhorted to keep the law, remember the Sabbath, and rescue the downtrodden and the poor as means of becoming “fitted for heaven”.
Law Is Not Transcript of God’s Character
Saturday’s lesson sets the stage with the Adventist’s false equation of the law with God’s character:
The divine Lawgiver is love, and accordingly, God’s law is the law of love. It is, as Ellen G. White put it, the transcript of God’s character. (See Christ’s Object Lessons, p. 305.)
The Bible never presents the law as the transcript of God’s character. Instead, it is presented as God’s conditional covenant with the nation of Israel given at Mt. Sinai. It defined Israel’s relationship with God and established a system of worship that defined Israel’s sin, provided intercession and blood atonement, and foreshadowed the Messiah who would save the world from sin.
The Lord Jesus was the transcript of God’s character, not the law. While the law reflected God’s justice and grace, it did not reveal the fulness of His love and provision. God the Son revealed the Father to the nation and the world:
For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells bodily—Colossians 2:9 LSB
It was Jesus’ substitutionary death on the cross for all human sin, His enduring the full wrath of God as He hung there, His burial, and His resurrection that put God on full display. The full justice, mercy, grace, and wrath of God were revealed in Christ Jesus. He, not the law, is the exact representation of God and His character.
The lesson, of course, never mentions the work of Christ and His fulfillment of all the terms of the law.
The Law Does not Define God’s New Covenant Relationships
The Teachers Comments reveal the Adventist view of the law:
Introduction: The Ten Commandments are an expression of God’s personal and covenantal relationship with His people.
This sentence reveals Adventism’s eclipsing of the new covenant and its refusal to understand what the New Testament teaches about Jesus’ fulfillment of the law and the new covenant in His blood.
The Law was the Mosaic Covenant God established with the nation of Israel. In fact, Exodus 34:28 tells us this:
So he was there with Yahweh forty days and forty nights; he did not eat bread or drink water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.—Exodus 34:28 LSB
The Ten Commandments were for Israel alone. They came 430 years AFTER God made His covenant with Abraham, and they lasted UNTIL the Seed came (Galatians 3:17–19). The law was not eternal; it was not at work in the Garden of Eden as the lesson establishes in Saturday’s study, and it is not active as God’s rule for His people today. It is not the expression of God’s “covenantal relationship” with those who believe.
This belief, that there is really only one covenant and that God’s “terms of engagement” never change, is not a biblical idea. It is a theological construct designed to support a system of beliefs and practices that are not prescribed by the Bible.
Stone Doesn’t Signify Eternality
The lesson, as expected, argues that the Ten Commandments are eternal and unchanging, signified by the fact that God wrote them in stone. Monday’s lesson states:
The law of God itself represents God’s holiness—His perfect character of love, righteousness, goodness, and truth (Lev. 19:2; Ps. 19:7,8; Ps. 119:142, 172). In this regard, it is significant that, according to Exodus 31:18, God wrote the Ten Commandments on the stone tablets Himself. Written in stone, these laws are testimony of the unchanging character of God and of His moral government, which is founded on love—a central theme of the great controversy.
Notice that the author appeals the the great controversy as depending upon the idea that the Law testify to the God’s unchanging character, His morality, and His love. This idea—that the Law is eternal and applies to all people forever (including the angels of heaven) and that they are the representation of God’s character—is what the unbiblical great controversy, the investigative judgment, seventh-day Sabbath-keeping, and the ongoing reverence for the extra-biblical prophetic voice of Ellen White teach in opposition to Scripture. The Adventist worldview would crumble if a biblical view of the law, of the cross of Christ, and the new covenant were taught.
Significantly, the argument that the Decalogue was written in stone, thus signifying its eternal, universal application, is destroyed by 2 Corinthians 3:5–8:
Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to consider anything as [coming] from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, who also made us sufficient [as] ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. But if the ministry of death, in letters having been engraved on stones, came with glory, so that the sons of Israel could not look intently at the face of Moses because of the glory of his face, which was being brought to an end, how will the ministry of the Spirit not be even more in glory?—2 Corinthians 3:5–8 LSB
Notice that the letters engraved on stone are not eternal! Their glory is fading, and the ministry of the Holy Spirit has increasing glory! Furthermore, those commandments on stone kill people! The Ten Commandments were never intended to be permanent and eternal.
God’s character isn’t validated by a set of stones carved by His own hand. Those stones are nowhere to be found today—so much for eternality—but we have the Bible which explains how God’s character is revealed through the sufficient blood sacrifice of the Lord Jesus.
Believers today, on this side of the cross, are not bound to or by the Law. In fact, the Law has absolutely NO jurisdiction over Christians or the church! Now we answer to the Spirit because we have been placed in Christ. We are no longer living under a shadow but in the full light of the glory of Christ.
We Are Not Fitted for Heaven by Good Works
This lesson culminates with admonitions to do good works and to love in order to be “fitted for heaven”. Thursday’s lesson develops this idea and applies it to addressing societal injustice and the dishonoring of the poor. It then quotes Ellen White from The Desire of Ages admonishing Adventists to love as Jesus loved so that Jesus’s mission is fulfilled in their hearts and they are thus fitted for heaven.
This application of “love” as the means of being fitted for heaven follows reminders in Wednesday’s lesson that the Sabbath is particularly related to “God’s concern for justice and deliverance”. The author emphasizes that calling Sabbath a delight is expressed by addressing the plights of the poor, homeless, and disenfranchised.
In short, Adventist practices and values are redefined here as the means of practicing social justice—and the reader is guilted into the belief that their own Sabbath-keeping and community service is necessary for their being loving enough to be fitted for heaven.
Here are a couple of quotations from the lesson:
In Deuteronomy 5, the Sabbath commandment is grounded in relation to God’s deliverance of Israel from slavery. That is, the Sabbath is not only a memorial of creation but also a memorial of deliverance from slavery and oppression. And in the context about turning from one’s own pleasure to call the Sabbath a delight by taking delight in the Lord (Isa. 58:13, 14), the emphasis is on works of love and justice for others—doing good, feeding the hungry, housing the homeless (see Isa. 58:3–10).—p 167
As Ellen G. White has expressed it: “Love to man is the earthward manifestation of the love of God. It was to implant this love, to make us children of one family, that the King of glory became one with us. And when His parting words are fulfilled, ‘Love one another, as I have loved you’ (John 15:12); when we love the world as He has loved it, then for us His mission is accomplished. We are fitted for heaven; for we have heaven in our hearts.”—Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages p. 641.
When we love the world, as Christ has loved the world—then we are fitted for heaven. What a powerful expression of what it means to be a follower of Jesus!
First, the Bible is extremely clear how we are “fitted for heaven”, and it is NOT by means of social justice, community service, or even loving interactions with people. Good deeds can be done by anyone—unbelievers often contribute money and time to social causes and philanthropic concerns, but these good deeds count for nothing as far as heaven is concerned.
We are “fitted for heaven” when we believe in the Lord Jesus and His completed atonement for sin—finished at the cross—and His resurrection which demonstrated that His blood had been sufficient to pay the price of human sin and thereby break the curse of death into which we are all born!
Consider these texts:
“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 LSB
“He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”—John 3:36 LSB
“Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your house.”—Acts 16:30b–31 LSB
There is only one way we are fitted for heaven and that is to BELIEVE in the Lord Jesus! Any good works that we do as born-again believers do not help us get to heaven. In other words, our good works done in the flesh are the fruit of our new birth.
Missing: The New Covenant
The great controversy worldview is built around Satan supposedly accusing God of unfairness and of giving a law too hard to keep. This controversy resulted in Satan deceiving one third of the angels before God banished them to earth. On earth, Satan deceived Eve who drew Adam into disobeying God, and from then on, this supposed controversy has been playing out on earth.
In this paradigm, Jesus came with sinful flesh and managed to overcome temptation and to demonstrate that the law COULD be kept. His purpose was to die for humanity’s past sins and to enable each person to learn to overcome their sin and keep the law like He did.
Further, in 1844 Jesus began His final work of judgment before His return. He entered the most holy place in heaven where He began to investigate the heavenly records of all those who have professed to believe in Jesus. If He finds sins on those books of record and they have been specifically confessed by those who did them, Jesus then applies His blood to them and writes “Pardon” beside them. Only then are those sins finally atoned.
Whenever Jesus finally finishes going through these books of record, He will then place the confessed sins of all believers on SATAN the scapegoat who will carry those sins out of heaven into the Lake of Fire where he will be punished for them.
In this paradigm, no one can be in heaven with the Lord when they die, because the investigative, pre-advent judgment is not yet over. The final destiny of persons cannot be known until the mysterious day that Jesus finishes His investigation, applies the last drop of His blood, and writes “pardon” beside the last sin. Only then is the fate of every person determined. When Jesus then returns to earth to collect the righteous ones who have perfected their characters to reflect His and who have overcome sin and attained perfect obedience, including Sabbath-keeping upon threat of death—only then will the saved be recreated and brought to life.
This scenario has absolutely NO basis in Scripture.
Scripture tells us the truth: the law has been made obsolete by the Lord Jesus who has fulfilled every shadow of the law.
When Jesus died and rose again, He inaugurated a new covenant in His blood. The reality of His finished atonement changes His administration on earth. In fact, the night He was betrayed He gave His disciples the sign of His new covenant and commanded that they observe it together until He returns for His people:
In the same way [He took] the cup also after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink [it], in remembrance of Me.”—1 Corinthians 11:25 LSB
The blood of Jesus has paid for all our sin once for all. In fact, this atonement was finished at the cross. Adventism tells us that the cross was only phase one of the atonement, that phase two is occurring in heaven now as Jesus completes the investigative judgment. But this Adventist teaching is heresy.
When Jesus went to the cross, He fulfilled every shadow of the law and took its death sentence. He became a curse for us and broke our death sentence by fully atoning for human sin—the very thing that demanded human death!
The Law no longer applies to us. In fact the law no longer has any authority over humanity. The Lord Jesus is the complete fulfillment of all the shadows of the law. Look at these texts:
For the Law, since it has [only] a shadow of the good things to come [and] not the very form of things, can never, by the same sacrifices which they offer continually year by year, make perfect those who draw near.—Hebrews 10:1 LSB
When He said, “A new [covenant],” He has made the first obsolete. But whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear.—Hebrews 8:13 LSB
Now if perfection was through the Levitical priesthood (for on the basis of it the people received the Law), what further need [was there] for another priest to arise according to the order of Melchizedek, and not be designated according to the order of Aaron? For when the priesthood is changed, of necessity there takes place a change of law also.—Hebrews 7:11, 12 LSB
The Law which Adventism insists applies to all people for all time is actually obsolete, fulfilled by the atoning sacrifice of Jesus. That Law was founded on the basis of the levitical priesthood, but that priesthood is now obsolete. Now the Lord Jesus is our High Priest—and He is from a non-priestly tribe. He is in the order of Melchizedek.
Because we have a new priesthood, we MUST have a change in the law! That change includes the whole law—even the Ten Commandments.
Now we live under the Law of Christ, and when we are born again, our dead spirits are brought to life. We pass from death to life at that moment (John 5:24), and we are free from the law. Now the Holy Spirit dwells in us, and there is no more place for the law written by God’s finger on stone. Now God writes HIMSELF on our hearts.
The Lawgiver Himself indwells us and seals us, teaching us to trust Him. Now we are credited with the actual righteousness of God in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:21)!
Adventism utterly buries the new covenant and keeps its members in bondage to an obsolete law which no one can keep. They embrace the empty shadow that was realized when God the Son came to earth incarnate as a man. They hold onto the certificate of their condemnation instead of believing and trusting that the Lord Jesus has completely fulfilled the terms of that old covenant with the Father, and when we trust Him, we are placed in HIM.
He, as our Substitute, has satisfied the Father’s wrath against our sin and has atoned for our sin. When we are in Him, we are the inheritors of all the blessings of God. The law which condemned man is obsolete. Now Jesus alone stands before us, the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets.
Now, as the Father commanded on the Mount of Transfiguration, we look at the Son, and we listen to HIM.
Have you looked at the Son and seen Him die for human sin according to Scripture, taking the wrath of God and being buried because He took our death? Have you seen Him rise from death on the third day according to Scripture? Have you trusted and believed that in Christ you are eternally secure, imputed with His righteousness and made eternally alive in Him?
If not, look to Jesus now. Entrust you sin and your life to Him. Admit you need a Savior, and believe that His death and resurrection have accomplished, once for all, every detail needed for your salvation.
In Him you will have life—and in Him you will finally know what it means to be free. Trust Him today, and inherit your eternal new covenant promises which are your in Christ.
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