Lesson 7: “Foundations for Prophecy”
COLLEEN TINKER | Editor, Proclamation! Magazine
Central Problem With This Lesson:
The lesson builds a theology of God’s holiness that features Him as self-denying and self-sacrificing, Satan as a cosmic power to be deposed, and God’s people as replacing fallen angels in heaven.
Adventists have become skilled in using Christian phraseology so deceptively that heretical ideas become embedded in their minds while using words that Christians could affirm. In other words, the deception is ramped up as Adventists become increasingly insulated against the biblical truth that they are by nature dead in sin and in need of a Savior who atoned for them and shattered their death sentence with His blood. Adventists are being confirmed in their belief that Satan is at the core of the plan of salvation, that he is the cosmic villain who must be defeated in order for sin to be no more.
In short, Adventists do not learn that Jesus alone defeated sin by taking God’s wrath against it and breaking its hold on each person ever born. Instead they learn that they themselves must help to break Satan’s power by refusing to sin and by committing themselves to perfectly keeping God’s law. They learn that God lovingly limits His own power so that Satan can freely choose to wreak sinful havoc in the universe so that His people can expose Satan by their own choice to obey the law and vindicate God.
In the Adventist paradigm, humans are the ultimate victors who rely on Jesus’s perfect example and selfless death as their motivation to be good—and in this way their righteous obedience reveals that Satan is a liar and and deceiver.
In other words, the Adventist “plan of salvation” is not about the Lord Jesus becoming sin for us, taking the wrath of God for our sin, and breaking our death sentence so He can literally give us His life and cause us to pass from death to life. Rather, the Adventist scenario makes the entire process of salvation a demonstration. First, Jesus comes to demonstrate that He and God are good and loving, kind and non-intervening as He shows us all that we can keep the law as He did. Second, Jesus comes to essentially obligate us to make Him and His Father look good; after all, He died for us, so the least we can do is to follow Him and be obedient. This way, we will reveal that Satan is bad, God is good, and we are being elevated to take the place of the fallen angels.
Because we chose to follow Christ’s example, we will receive the exalted position of the angels who fell from heaven. Satan will be deposed, and God will ultimately be vindicated because we were obedient and honored the law.
On the bottom line, the Adventist plan of salvation is extra-biblical. It is never taught in Scripture, and it is shaped by Ellen White’s great controversy scenario. It reflects the Adventist worldview which gives Satan a central role in the universe, our obedience a necessary force in eschatology, and Jesus as a humble example who shows us how to exonerate our self-effacing God who rewards us with angelic authority because we choose to be good.
Of course, they say all this is “by grace” and “not by works”, but in reality, every Adventist knows that one must demonstrate God’s grace by obediently keeping the fourth commandment in order to pass the investigative judgment. The confusion is dizzying, but Adventists all live within this cognitive dissonance. The Adventist physicalist worldview has no framework for understanding literal spiritual death. They must, therefore, make physical and mental “obedience” the way they understand spiritual life.
Adventism’s weak, limited god
This week’s lesson makes much of God’s throne. It develops the theme of God’s presence on earth first in the Garden of Eden, then in the tabernacle, and finally in heaven. This throne motif is used to build a case for God’s people to pursue being in God’s presence by living according to His laws and principles which are the heart of His temple according to the great controversy worldview.
Saturday’s lesson sets the stage by reminding the reader that God is loving, self-denying, and self-sacrificing, and these qualities have been displayed through the plan of salvation. Author Shawn Boonstra says this on page 85 of the lesson quarterly:
By searching through the rest of the Bible, we can find important clues that help us understand and begin to appreciate the high calling that God has extended to us, a race of forgiven and redeemed sinners.
Human rebellion, ultimately and forever, will be ended. And, more than that, God’s loving character, His self-denying and self-sacrificing character, will shine even brighter than it did in His original design for humanity. Though God never intended for humanity to fall, through the Cross, God’s loving character has been put on display in a remarkable way.
Notice that Boonstra says that by searching the Bible, we can find “clues” that will help us understand and appreciate God’s high calling of us.
The Bible is very clear about who we are and how we can be saved. Discovering God’s call on our lives, learning that we are sinners in need of a Savior, and learning that the Lord Jesus died for our sins according to Scripture, was buried, and that He rose on the third day according to Scripture (1 Cor. 15:3, 4) is not hidden information. Something as important as how we are saved and why we need to be saved is not discovered by finding biblical clues!
This description of God’s ultimate plan for us and for the universe is the central theme of Scripture. It is not esoteric knowledge gleaned from clues and inspired commentary. This presentation of God’s intention is, right on the first page of the week’s lessons, a red flag: the Adventist “plan of salvation” is a heresy, not biblical doctrine. God does not communicate by clues and clever word associations. He is very clear, and if we are resorting to logic and false analogies to describe who we are, who God is, who Satan is, and how we are saved—we can be very sure that we are on the wrong path.
If we need the revelations of Ellen White to understand the Bible, we have a counterfeit gospel.
Locked-Down Eden Was Not a Symbol of Hope
Monday’s lesson begins the discussion of God’s throne being demonstrated at the gates of Eden after Adam and Eve sinned. He opens the day’s study by recounting that God expelled Adam and Eve from Eden and then sent cherubim with flashing swords to guard the gate of the now-forbidden garden. Then, right before quoting Ellen White from Patriarchs and Prophets saying that “Adam and his sons” used to come “to worship God” at the garden gate where the cherubim stood guard—a claim that is patently missing from Scripture—Boonstra says,
While the cherubim were certainly given the responsibility to keep sinners from accessing the tree of life (Gen. 3:22), they also were a symbol of hope, of promise, that one day humans would be restored to Paradise.
Again, this claim is never hinted at in Scripture. The cherubim with swords were symbols of God’s judgment and His declaration that spiritually dead humanity was not allowed to be in the presence of God. While the lesson develops the idea that the cherubim became symbols of the presence of God because the ark of the covenant had golden cherubim on it and because Ezekiel and Isaiah had visions of cherubim in God’s presence—and because cherubim appear in the heavenly throne room of Revelation 4 and 5, the author misses the point.
While cherubim are pictured in the presence of God and as creatures who do His bidding, they are not the vehicles for explaining “the throne room scene,” as Boonstra says on page 87, “and our role as forgiven sinners in relationship to our Maker.”
Cherubim are never our examples or the definition of our role!
The guarded and forbidden Eden was never a symbol of hope. It was always a reminder that sinful, spiritually dead humanity could not be in the presence of a holy God.
What this lesson misses is that the blood of the Lord Jesus is the only way anyone can enter the presence of God—and the blood is what gives us spiritual life, a new birth from our natural death. Only Jesus’ blood opens a new and living way to the Father.
Cherubim are never portrayed as helping us understand that we are forgiven.
How Do We Draw Near?
Tuesday’s lesson discusses the fact that the cherubim in Ezekiel each have four faces: a lion, an eagle, and ox, and a man. Then Wednesday’s lesson builds the case that the four tribes of Israel that set up their camps on the four sides of the tabernacle in the wilderness each flew its own “standard”. Although we do not know what was pictured on these tribal flags, Jewish tradition holds that Judah’s had a lion on it; Reuben had a man’s head, Ephraim flew an ox, and Dan showed an eagle. (Of course, this Jewish tradition is extra-biblical, and we can’t draw firm conclusions based on it.)
After a full page of discussion suggesting that the New Jerusalem will similarly bear identifying tribal marks and concluding that God’s purpose is that He’ll draw all humanity “close to His throne”, the lesson ends with this question:
Of course, we don’t live in the camp of Israel. But how can we, in our own lives now, draw close to the presence of God?
It is so interesting to me that this esoteric discussion of cherubim and standards and tribal identities fills the pages (and the minds) of Adventists studying this lesson—but the real gospel is utterly missing. No one can draw near to the presence of God unless he or she admits he is a sinner and in need of a Savior. No one can draw near to God apart from believing in the completed atonement accomplished by the Lord Jesus on the cross and by His shattering of God’s curse on us in Eden when He rose from the dead! No one can draw near apart from entrusting himself to the power of Jesus blood by which we draw near to Him!
Look what the author of Hebrews tells us:
For, on the one hand, there is a setting aside of a former commandment because of its weakness and uselessness (for the Law made nothing perfect), and on the other hand there is a bringing in of a better hope, through which we draw near to God.—Hebrews 7:18, 19 LSB
Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh, and since [we have] a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.—Hebrews 10:19–22 LSB
Adventism cannot teach its members how to draw near to God because, first of all, the religion itself is not part of the church. It does not teach that humans are depraved by nature and must be born again through faith in Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection alone. Adventism does not teach that being born again means laying down one’s Adventism at the foot of the cross and allowing God to rewire one’s worldview from Scripture alone.
Adventism relies on an extra-biblical prophet who misdefines Scripture and infuses a counterfeit Christianity into its adherents. Adventists literally do not know they are not living in reality; they believe that the great controversy scenario describes what is real and true, and it defines them as needing to be obedient in order to prove to God that they love Him and in order to expose the devil as the villain of the universe.
They simply have no concept of their own helpless need nor of the sovereign, powerful defeat of Satan by the Lord Jesus ALONE. Jesus’ blood has rescued us from death, and Satan no longer has the use of the law to accuse us (see Colossians 2:14, 15). Jesus has disarmed him by fulfilling the law and removing it as our accusing document!
We Don’t Replace Angels
Also significantly in this lesson focussing so much on cherubim, Boonstra quotes Ellen White saying:
“Heaven will triumph, for the vacancies made in heaven by the fall of Satan and his angels will be filled by the redeemed of the Lord.”—Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, May 29, 1900.
The Bible is very clear that we do not replace angels but that the Lord Jesus is restoring humanity to His original intended position in Himself. Hebrews 1 and 2 are very clear about this fact. Further, Jesus’ saving us is in no sense a help for angels, either in their salvation nor in our replacing them as God’s agents. Hebrews 1:14 tells us that Jesus came to help the descendants of Abraham, not angels. We are not part of a replacement plan for a depopulated heaven!
Rather, believers are born again and adopted children of God. We are joint heirs with Christ, and all that is His is ours when we are in Him. We do not gain the position of angels; we gain the position of God’s own children!
New Creations, Not Rehabilitated Characters
Finally, the Teachers Comments reveal the twisting presence of the great controversy worldview as they attempt to sound scholarly and erudite about the plan of salvation.
After summarizing the week’s focus on God’s throne on earth and in heaven, the Overview reveals again the Adventist blindness to our natural spiritual death and our need of new life. On page 93 we read,
In conclusion, we shall consider the following lesson: What does it mean for us, in our present existence, to have God’s throne in our hearts today?
Then, on page 96, the last Life Application question asks:
Ask yourself the following question: “What does the idea that you are the throne of God mean in your daily existence?” That is, how does the idea that you are God’s throne impact the way you treat your body, organize your time, order your household, and conduct yourself in the workplace?
These questions reveal that Adventism simply does not understand the new birth. First, as we said before, Adventists do not know they are spiritually dead and must be born again. They believe they are “born again” if they have accepted the teachings and practices of Adventism and have committed to living obediently. If they are baptized as Adventists, they believe they are “born again”.
Yet embracing Adventism does not equal being born again. Because Adventism does not teach the true gospel, Adventists are not born again unless somehow they have heard and accepted the biblical gospel of the Lord Jesus’s death, burial, and resurrection on their behalf—as if often the case with Adventists who convert to Adventism out of Christianity.
Adventists have no way, within the framework of Adventism, to experience God’s presence living in them. They believe gospel-denying principles instead of trusting solely in the blood of Jesus! They will only commit themselves to more and more assiduous obedience to the law and to good works. Yet these will NOT convince them they are in God’s presence, nor will it make them closer to God.
God asks us to believe Him in the way He has revealed Himself and to worship and trust Him according to His own revelation. We are not to look for clues in the Bible and put them together to come up with doctrines. We are to read contextually and admit that God tells us the truth about ourselves and our true need.
On page 95 of the Teachers Comments the author does speak of repentance, but even there the idea is misguided because of Adventism’s disbelief that we have immaterial human spirits that must be made alive:
God’s beauty and mystery are also an appeal to humanity to repent and to allow Him to rehabilitate our sinful characters. Furthermore, the beauty and mystery of God’s throne are a call to us, here and now, to testify to both the justice and the reality of God’s absolute principles of truth.
Beauty and mystery are not what call us to repent. Romans 1:18–20 tells us that God reveals His eternal power and divine nature through what has been made, but men suppress the knowledge of God through their wickedness. Yet all are without excuse because of God’s self-revelation!
No; repentance comes when we agree with God about our sin. When we understand that we are dead by nature, under condemnation and unable to please God apart from His divine intervention and revelation, then we are able to repent.
Creation reveals the existence of God; it does not reveal the way we are saved. Yet if people acknowledge God’s presence and power, He will reveal their own natures to them and bring them to His word.
Even more, the quote above says that God “rehabilitates” our sinful characters!
NO!
The Bible NEVER hints that our characters are the object of our salvation. Rather God saves US—He literally brings our identities to life. He creates us NEW; He makes new creations out of us. He takes us out of Adam and places us in Himself, giving us new life and new identities!
Saved people are not rehabilitated people who replace angels and populate a restored Eden. We are completely new, children of God, born of the the Spirit, and eternally secure in Christ. We are eternally human with living spirits who are continuously in the presence of God because He indwells us! Paul said,
Therefore if anyone is in Christ, [he is] a new creation; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.—2 Corinthians 5:17 LSB
If you have never trusted in Jesus alone—if you have never admitted that you are a helpless sinner and cannot please God, if you have never admitted that you just can’t keep the law no matter how hard you try, you need Jesus. Agree with God that you are by nature dead in sin, and come to the cross. Thank God for providing a complete atonement for your sin in the blood of Christ.
Thank God for sending Jesus to take His wrath for in, for dying the death your nature deserved, and for shattering the curse into which you were born by rising from the dead on the third day—all according to Scripture!
Ask God to forgive your deception and your reliance on the Adventist false gospel and ask Him to anchor you in truth and reality and to teach you His word.
Trust and believe in the Lord Jesus and His finished work, and you will know what it means to be made new. You will be placed in Christ and sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise, and God Himself will guard and keep you safe in Him—for eternity.
Trust Jesus today, and you will 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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