Lesson 2: “The Genesis Foundation”
COLLEEN TINKER | Editor, Proclamation! Magazine
Central problem with this lesson:
This lesson sacrifices Scripture’s context in order to make the great controversy appear to be biblical.
After last week’s lesson in which author Shawn Boonstra revealed that Adventism is not part of Christendom—reminding his Adventist readers that “darkness” and “Roman paganism” reside in Christendom as Christians ignore the seventh-day Sabbath and worship on Sunday—I shouldn’t be surprised at his blatant misuse of Scripture this week as he tries to make the great controversy appear to be biblical.
On the surface he tries to sound scholarly, appealing to an academic principle called “first mention” which holds that the first time a word or idea is used in Scripture establishes that concept’s use or meaning throughout the Bible. Yet as this week’s studies unfold, Boonstra juxtaposes unrelated texts while ignoring central passages in order to establish (illegitimately) biblical “support” for such central Adventist doctrines as the physical nature of man and death and the idea that Daniel 8:14 reveals the “eschatological Day of Atonement”!
God’s Character and Man’s Nature
Boonstra introduces his agenda in Saturday’s introduction to the week. He states that they will study “a handful of big concepts at the core of Revelation”. He affirms his uniquely Adventist agenda by saying that these concepts “can yield important lessons about the nature of humanity, of God, and of the conflict being waged in our universe and, thus, in our lives, as well.”
There it is: Boonstra’s central goal is to establish the great controversy in the minds of his readers and to make them believe that this paradigm is found in the Bible!
In Sunday’s lesson he introduces the principle of “first mention”, saying that the book of Genesis establishes ideas that will be developed throughout the rest of the Bible. If he were committed to studying Scripture in context using the normal rules of grammar and vocabulary, using this “first principle” method of study could be productive. Boonstra, however, is not committed to understanding the contextual use of words and ideas—he’s committed to teaching Ellen White’s great controversy paradigm by establishing proof texts juxtaposed with each other out of context. Above all, he must shape these lessons to reinforce the unique Adventist worldview in his readers’ minds—and Scripture is sacrificed in the process. In fact, Sunday’s lesson ends with these leading questions that serve to anchor his readers to Adventist “truth” without questioning it:
Why is it so important that we not allow anyone or anything, no matter how smooth or logical, to weaken our faith in the Bible and the infallible truths it teaches? What are subtle ways that this weakening can happen?
Monday’s lesson opens by affirming the Adventist view of the nature of man without a hint that something is “off”. Boonstra moves from his view of the nature of man to the central claim that God’s character is misunderstood in the universe, fueling the supposed great controversy:
Part of inheriting a sinful nature means that our perception of the universe has been tainted by our own propensities toward selfishness and pride. We see the world from our own limited perspective rather than from God’s omniscient one (obviously). Perhaps no concept has been more skewed by the sinful human race than that of “love.” Popular culture tends to promote an understanding of love that centers on self-fulfillment rather than on others. This self-centered approach to the subject makes it hard for us to understand how God views the subject.
Understanding the nature of love is an important key to understanding Bible prophecy. One of the key themes in the great controversy is the existence of a substantial misunderstanding about God’s character.
Significantly, Boonstra does not define what it means to inherit “a sinful nature”. Ellen White defines the sinful nature as “powerful propensities for evil” which would no longer enslave people if they would “turn from Satan’s alluring, delusive attractions, and look to Jesus”—Signs of the Times, September 19, 1895. She further explained:
“Without the transforming process which can come alone through divine power, the original propensities to sin are left in the heart in all their strength, to forge new chains, to impose a slavery that can never be broken by human power.” —The Review and Herald, August 19, 1890
Even more shockingly, she explained the “sinful nature” and its relationship to the law this way:
If the rich young ruler had seen by the light of the commandment that he was sinful, if like Paul he had honored God by obeying the commandments in spirit and in truth, his sinful nature would have been slain by the law, and he would have laid hold of eternal life.—14LtMs, Ms 150, 1899
Adventists do not teach depravity
Ellen White established that humanity’s sinful nature consisted of inherited “propensities” or tendencies or predispositions to sin. These sinful tendencies, she taught, could be overcome and corrected by obedience to the law! In other words, Adventism, on the authority of Ellen White, does not teach the biblical revelation of the nature of man: that each person is born dead in sin and under the wrath of God until one believes in the Lord Jesus and the One who sent Him. Look at these texts:
And you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all also formerly conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.—Ephesians 2:1–3 LSB
“He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”—John 3:18 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
[A]s it is written, “THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NOT EVEN ONE; THERE IS NONE WHO UNDERSTANDS, THERE IS NONE WHO SEEKS FOR GOD.”—Romans 3:10, 11 LSB
In other words, the Bible teaches that each person is born literally dead in sin. We are unable to rise above our natures, to seek or to please God. Even more, we are all born under the wrath of God, and unless we believe in the Son, we will die in our sins.
EGW, however, taught that our inherited prophesies to sin could be overcome by obeying the law. This idea—that humans are simply physical beings with genetically inherited tendencies to evil passed down from generation to generation—this physicalism is the necessary belief that supports the entire structure of the great controversy. If Adventism believed that humans are really spiritually dead, their entire structure of so-called “soul sleep”, the investigative judgment, the role of the law, and the belief that we must obey the law in order to help vindicate the character of God in the face of Satan’s accusations against Him.
Yet notice how Boonstra simply mentions that people inherit “a sinful nature” and, by using Ellen’s word “propensities”, reinforces the Adventist notion that people simply have selfish attitudes which “make it hard for us to understand how God views the subject [of love].”
Yet this explanation of human nature simply reinforces the Adventist worldview and sets the stage for the illegitimate way he explains the way Genesis introduces the subject of “death”.
No Spiritual Death
In Wednesday’s lesson Boonstra introduces his “first mention” of death in the book of Genesis. He uses God’s command to Adam not to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and His warning that if he did eat, he would die the day he ate (Genesis 2:17). Then Boonstra moves to Genesis 4:8–15 and refers to the death of Abel at the hand of Cain as the first death recorded in Scripture.
Significantly, Boonstra does not deal with the fact that Adam did die the day he ate that fruit—he died spiritually! From an Adventist framework, Adam did NOT die that day because he continued to live on the earth. In fact, Adventism teaches that Adam and Eve merely “began to die” the day they ate.
Yet God said Adam would die the day he ate, and he DID DIE. He and also Eve died spiritually. Genesis 3 records the changes that instantly occurred when Adam ate: they hid; they knew they were naked. They experienced shame. They blamed each other and the serpent and even God for their transgression—and significantly, neither one of them took responsibility for his or her own sin.
In fact, this spiritual death is what we all inherit from Adam. This is the natural condition into which we all are born, just as the texts above describe. Adam DID die the day he ate, but Boonstra, in conformity to Ellen White’s teaching, does not even mention the fact.
From an Adventist perspective, death did not occur until Abel died, and Adam died much later. Our natural spiritual death, however, defines our true condition and explains why Jesus came to die for us. He came to take our sin—our spiritual death as well as the sins we commit as a consequence of our spiritual death—and He took our sin by imputation and experienced God’s wrath for our sin in Himself on the cross.
The Adventist inability to see that Jesus came to be our substitute and to propitiate for our sin and to break the curse of death by His resurrection leads to the insipid view of the cross that is typical of Adventism. For example, look at this statement by Boonstra at the end of Wednesday’s lesson:
Think about Jesus, the righteous murdered by the unrighteous, as was Abel. What death could have been more unjust than Christ’s? What other parallels might one find between the death of Abel and of Christ on the cross?
The shallow comparison of Abel’s death to Jesus’s death reveals Adventism’s lack of understanding Christ’s atonement. Yet even more egregious is Boonstra’s casual question, “What death could have been more unjust than Christ’s?”
The Bible tells us the exact opposite! Look at how Paul describe’s Jesus’ death:
[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. Jesus’ incarnation was for the purpose of propitiation for our sin trough His shedding sinless human blood. His death was not a demonstration of “love” but an acts of JUSTICE. By becoming human, He was able to die a human death for human sin. By being Yahweh, our Creator, He was able to offer an infinite, eternal sacrifice sufficient to atone for all human sin for all time.
By becoming a man, Jesus was able to take in Himself our IMPUTED sin. He went to the cross bearing our sin; He endured God’s wrath for our sin, and He died and was buried, all according to Scripture. Then, on the third day, He broke our curse of death an shattered the grave!
In absolutely NO SENSE was Jesus’s death unjust! His death was completely JUST, and He satisfied God’s demand for justice. God couldn’t merely “forgive” sin without demanding the just penalty: death. So in Himself, as God the Son, Jesus took our sin and died a death that fully satisfied God’s justice. At the same time, He demonstrated that He was not only JUST but also the JUSTIFIER!
The atonement was completed on the cross; Satan was disarmed (Colossians 2:14 15), and when we believe and trust Him, we are credited with His personal righteousness just as He was credited with our personal sin (2 Corinthians 5:19; Philippians 3:9).
For Shawn Boonstra to say that there was no death more unjust than Jesus’s death reveals that Adventism has absolutely NO idea what Jesus’ death really accomplished or what He actually did. In fact, the Adventist Jesus was merely God’s delegated opponent to counter Satan and prove him wrong.
The Adventist “plan of salvation” places Satan at the core of their worldview, and it makes Jesus and those who follow Him the means of exposing and silencing Satan—as if Satan ever had an accusation against God! The universe is in NO questions about God’s character and justice.
Jesus death on the cross alone reveals that God is Just and our Justifier, and Satan is a defeated foe who power has been broken by Jesus’ fulfilling the demands and the death sentence of the law!
Abraham’s Sacrifice and Daniel 8
In a consummate confusion of texts and attempted scholarly discussion, the Teachers Notes, written by Jacques Doukhan, PhD, senior research professor of Hebrew and Old Testament Exegesis at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary at Andrews University, juxtapose the account in Genesis 22 of God providing a ram when Abraham was about to sacrifice Isaac with Daniel 8:14!
Daniel 8:14 is the central passage which Adventism uses to support their idea that Jesus entered the Most Holy Place in 1844 and began the second phase of atonement for sin by launching the investigative judgment which would cleanse the tabernacle in heaven of the records of believers’ sins.
The investigative judgment, of course, is NOWHERE in Scripture, and in context Daniel 8:14 doesn’t even HINT at the Day of Atonement nor of Jesus cleansing heaven!
Here is what the Teachers Notes say on pages 28, 29:
[I]t is noteworthy that the text of the binding of Isaac is also present in the text of Daniel 8, which is a prophecy precisely concerning the eschatological Day of Atonement. The first line introducing Daniel’s vision—“I raised my eyes and saw, and behold, a ram” (Dan. 8:3, ESV)—clearly alludes to the text of the sacrifice of Isaac, given that Daniel’s phrase is a quotation of Genesis 22:13. This allusion to the text of the sacrifice of Isaac is further reinforced by the important intertextual connections between Leviticus 16 and Daniel 8 (see especially the common usage of the verb ra’ah, “saw,” a keyword in both passages). In light of Daniel 8, we understand, then, that the ram…points typologically to the eschatological Day of Atonement.
This cosmic perspective is indeed confirmed in the divine blessing that concludes the text…(Gen. 22:17).…The story of the binding of Isaac leads, then, to the ultimate atonement for God’s people during the eschatological Day of Atonement (compare with Dan. 8:14).
This creative juxtaposition of texts which have nothing to do with each other in order to extract some justification for interpreting Daniel 8:14 as having something to do with the Day of Atonement reminds me of certain college literature classes in which the students competed for the most creative analyses of symbols and meanings as they attempted to apply meanings to essays and stories which were clearly never on the mind of the authors!
For the sake of context, here are Daniel 8:3 and 8:14:
Then I lifted my eyes and looked, and behold, a ram which had two horns was standing in front of the canal. Now the two horns [were] long, but one [was] longer than the other, with the longer one coming up last.—Daniel 8:3
He said to me, “For 2,300 evenings [and] mornings; then the holy place will be made righteous.”—Daniel 8:14 LSB
Daniel’s vision of chapter 8 has nothing at all to do with the ram God provided Abraham. Daniel was shown a vision of a ram which, according to Gabriel later in Daniel 8:20, represented the empire of Medo-Persia. Daniel 8:14 foreshadowed the desecration of the temple in Jerusalem which would happen by the power of one of four horns that would grow out of the head of a shaggy goat which Daniel saw in 8:5–8. This particular horn would attack Jerusalem, desecrate the altar, and stop the morning and evening sacrifices—2,300 of them!
In fact, Gabriel further identified this trampling little horn as being from the empire of Greece which was to come—and sure enough: history proves that this prophecy came to pass exactly as Daniel saw it would when Antiochus Epiphanes invaded Jerusalem, desecrated the temple with an image to Zeus and slaughtered a pig on the altar. This invasion was finally ended in the battle of the Macabees, and the temple was restored and the sacrifices of the lambs with a Jewish priesthood resumed.
Yet Adventism needs Daniel 8:14 to mean something different from what the contextual reading of the text reveals. On the authority of Ellen White, this verse is the central passage justifying the notion that Jesus entered the Most Holy Place on October 22, 1844, and commenced the supposed investigative judgment which would ultimately cleanse heaven when He finally places the sins of the saved on Satan the scapegoat—who will bear those sins into the Lake of Fire and be punished for them!
This Sabbath School lesson claims to be reading the Bible alone, gathering its interpretation from the words of Scripture alone, yet we can see that the way the Adventist arguments juxtapose texts and words to extract a meaning that is NOT IN THE TEXT indicts the doctrine of the investigative judgment as a heretical fantasy!
This lesson, written by one of Adventism’s most prominent “prophecy preachers”, is a shameful example of how this religion really does NOT respect Scripture. Instead, it assumes an interpretation that they do not admit when they try to teach the text. They approach Scripture believing that Ellen White’s scenario is TRUTH, and they teach her worldview without admitting to their audiences that they are NOT teaching Scripture in context but are actually twisting Scripture to manipulate it into supporting the heresies of a false prophet!
Read the Bible
I know how viscerally most Adventists resist reading Daniel and Revelation. These books are the heart of Adventist end-times terror and fear. Yet Adventism, on the authority of its prophet, have misappropriated these books to hold its members in guilty fear.
I challenge you to ask God to reveal truth to you. Ask Him to correct your worldview and to show you what the Bible really says. And I have an assignment: get a notebook, and begin copying the book of Daniel into that notebook. Take it slowly: a few verses a day, and ask the Lord to show you what He wants you to know.
I guarantee that this exercise will surprise you. In the words of my dear friend Cheryl Granger, who did this very exercise several years ago, you will find this book to be “surprisingly calming”.
God does not trick us, and He means what He says. The words of Scripture can be believed.
And if you have never seen and believed that the Lord Jesus has truly taken all your sin into Himself and fully atoned for your spiritual death and transgressions, I ask you to come to Him now. Confess your need of Him and your inability to please Him, and ask Him to forgive you and to wash you clean with His shed blood. Believe Him, and you will never be the same. He will take away your fear and your hatred of prophecy, and when you believe you will know that you are born of God and adopted by the Father.
You will pass at that moment from death to life, and the end times will cease to be frightening.
Believe Him today, and you will find rest for your soul. †
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