Lesson 4: “The Nations: Part 1”
COLLEEN TINKER | Editor, Proclamation! Magazine
Central Problem In This Lesson:
The Adventist view of the nations and of God’s sovereignty over them is skewed by Ellen White’s extra-biblical explanations of the first eleven chapters of Genesis.
The lesson this week develops the idea that the worldly nations are an experiment in human self-government. This human rebellion is ascribed to the desire to replace God—beginning with Eve and the serpent and continuing through the Tower of Babel incident. Then, according to the author of the lesson, God called Abraham with the intent to form a nation that would be a contrast to the worldly nations. This nation was supposed to be loyal to the Creator and keep His statutes.
The lesson develops the Adventist understanding that Israel failed to save the world, and finally God showcased Jesus—but even His perfect example , “which certainly brought conviction to hearts, was intended as an invitation (see John 3:16–21). —p. 49
The church, then was formed with the same purpose as that for Israel: they are to deliver a message to the nations. In other words, the author, Shawn Boonstra, fails to understand God’s purpose for the nations and for the nation of Israel. This misunderstanding leads to a serious lack of understanding of the nature and purpose of the church.
The purpose of this lesson is to establish that God intends to send His people into the world declaring the “three angels messages” into the nations and thus prepare the world for the second coming. Here is how Boonstra establishes this purpose in Thursday’s lesson followed by the specifically Adventist thought questions at the end of the study:
The ultimate purpose for establishing the nation of Israel was the same as God’s purpose in establishing the church: He longs to use His people to draw sinners toward Christ. The call of the three angels’ messages, delivered through His church, goes out, not to a select few but to “every nation, tribe, tongue, and people” (Rev. 14:6, NKJV). Revelation 18:1 predicts that the whole earth will be lighted up with the glory of God prior to Christ’s return.
Read again Revelation 18:1–4, the call for “my people,” that is, God’s people, to come out of Babylon. How is that going to happen? In other words, how can we, as a church that is not in Babylon, be used by God to call out God’s people who are still in Babylon?
We will show that misunderstanding God’s sovereign purposes for the nations and His covenant with Abraham leads to a conclusion that is unbiblical. Boonstra leads his readers down a great controversy path concluding with an Adventist message confirming that they alone are the church that is not in Babylon and burdening them with the mandate to call out God’s people who are still in Babylon. Those people who are still in Babylon, of course, are Christians who worship on Sunday.
What Happened in Eden?
Sunday’s lesson teaches that after Eve sinned, “God had no choice but to separate humanity from the Garden”. In fact, Boonstra quotes Ellen White from Patriarchs and Prophets where she paints an unbiblical scenario which, I suspect, many Adventists do not realize she said. Here are her words quoted on page 45 of the lesson:
“The Garden of Eden remained upon the earth long after man had become an outcast from its pleasant paths. . . . Hither came Adam and his sons to worship God. Here they renewed their vows of obedience to that law the transgression of which had banished them from Eden. When the tide of iniquity overspread the world, and the wickedness of men determined their destruction by a flood of waters, the hand that had planted Eden withdrew it from the earth. But in the final restitution, when there shall be ‘a new heaven and a new earth’ (Revelation 21:1), it is to be restored more gloriously adorned than at the beginning.”—Ellen G. White, Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 62.
Notice that Ellen taught that Adam and Eve and their sons brought sacrifices to the gates of Eden and “renewed their vows of obedience to that law the transgression of which had banished them from Eden.”
This idea is never suggested in the Bible. There’s no hint they brought sacrifices to the barred gates of Eden, and there’s no hint that they renewed vows of obedience. Furthermore, what was the “law” they had transgressed which they supposedly vowed to obey in the future?
From an Adventist perspective, that law was the Ten Commandments. Yet the law Adam and Eve broke was NOT the Ten Commandments. Adam had been given ONE command: do not eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. That single command was the “law” he had broken, and he did not pledge future obedience to it. Obedience to his one single law was too late. He had already sinned and allowed his wife to sin as well, and as God had said, Adam had already died.
Adam and Eve died spiritually the day they ate that fruit, and there was no going back. From that day on, every human born on earth (except the Lord Jesus) was born dead in sin. Adam and Eve offered no ongoing sacrifices at Eden’s gate, pledging undying obedience to God’s law.
God had already taken care of their situation, personally clothing them with the skins of animals as He—their Creator—covered their shame and hid their nakedness. God had already promised that Eve would have a Seed who would one day crush the serpent’s head, and God had already established that He was in charge of the future of the world and of His fallen creatures.
Yet Boonstra runs with EGW’s quote and states that after Adam and Eve’s banishment from the garden and after the flood, “we see the birth of city-states, an attempt to create an easier life, and perhaps to try to recapture what was lost in Eden.”
Again, the Bible never hints that the development of cities and civilizations is a man-made attempt to have a better life. This idea, that cities are sinful and spiritually dangerous, is a common idea within Adventism. EGW made much of the idea that Adventists were to live OUTSIDE the cities and to dwell in the relative safety of the country. This idea, in fact, has motivated thousands of Adventist to move to rural areas and to live the life that today would be called “prepper life”: off the “grid” and harder to find in the last days when Christians and the government would hunt and kill them for their loyalty to the Sabbath.
The Truth about Babel
The Teachers Comments develop the Adventist idea that the original temptation was that Adam and Eve wanted to usurp God. They extended that idea to the people of Babel causing God to have to disperse them:
The desire for self-government first manifested in the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve, under the influence of the serpent, disobeyed God and fell under the temptation of longing to be “ ‘like God’ ” (Gen. 3:5, NKJV). Consequently, Adam and Eve, as fallen beings, gained a knowledge of sin and thus lost the moral power to choose good over evil (Gen. 3:22). Later in the early history of humanity, the men of Babel decided to erect a tower in order to get to the door of God (“Bab-El”) in heaven so that they might usurp God’s place (Gen. 11:1–4). But the builders of Babel became confused and, as a result of their presumption, God dispersed them over the earth.
These ideas are developed from Ellen White’s human-centric view of history. The bottom line is that Adam and Eve did not BELIEVE God. God had plainly given Adam the command not to eat of the tree before Eve was created. He was with her, and he watched as the serpent beguiled her, and she gave him some fruit to eat as well. For reasons we are not told, he did not step in and stop her, protecting her from the temptations of Satan.
Adam, not Eve, is held responsible for human sin—and the serpent is never blamed for humanity’s sin. He was the one who had received the direct command from God (Genesis 2:17), but he did not trust God’s word. He allowed outside influences to override his belief that God had told him the truth even if Adam couldn’t fully understand it.
Similarly, Adventism missed the central point of the Tower of Babel. The quote from the lesson gives us the standard Adventist viewpoint: they decided to erect a tower to reach heaven—and, the author adds, they intended to usurp God’s place.
The biblical account, however, reveals that the people at Babel refused to believe and obey God. Once again, their bottom-line sin was refusal to believe and trust.
When Noah and his family left the ark, God gave them a command that echoed His command to Adam and Eve:
And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.—Genesis 9:1 LSB
Noah and his family were making a new beginning. God had judged the earth with a flood when human evil had become so pervasive that it threatened humanity. He, not the people on earth, was responsible for the judgment of the flood. Now, at the end of the cataclysm, Noah was commissioned to start a new humanity.
It was God’s intention for humanity to fill the earth. He intended for them to form civilizations and communities. Cities were not the problem, nor were they “human experiments”. They were God’s intention. He intended for humanity to fill and manage the earth, “subduing” it, as He had said to Adam.
Yet the people at Babel on the Plain of Shinar refused to obey God. They refused to scatter over the earth, deciding instead to stay put in the region that eventually became known as Babylon. They stated their intentions in Genesis 11:4:
And they said, “Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top [will reach] into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name, lest we be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”—Genesis 11:4 LSB
They intentionally refused to scatter, to fill the earth as God had commanded. God judged their stubbornness and confounded their languages—and within His judgment was His own provision for His intention: the people scattered over the whole earth, organizing themselves according to their languages. The people of Babel could not thwart God’s plan for the earth—and they were judged and prevented from collaborating in their evil schemes while concurrently filling the earth according to God’s plan. The nations were always God’s plan.
Enter Abraham
Monday’s lesson focusses on God’s call to Abraham, but the lesson and the Teachers Comments miss the most defining detail of the story of Abraham. God made an unconditional covenant with him that is still being fulfilled in the world.
The lesson says,
God intended to use Abraham to establish a nation that would stand in contrast to human kingdoms. They were not to have a king other than God Himself. The people were to show what would happen if the human race returned to their Creator.…
This was not a single individual bearing witness in a single community; this was an entire nation that, by working together and in cooperation with God, could exhibit the glory of His character. Notice, too, in the words spoken to them that it wasn’t just “statutes and judgments” that God had given them that made them so special, but their adherence to them that would cause the other nations to say, “ ‘ “Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people” ’ ” (Deut. 4:6, NKJV). However wonderful the truths given to the people, their failure to live up to them, to obey them, would bring curses instead of blessing and death instead of life.
Then the lesson asks this question of the reader:
How does the same principle, that of not just knowing these truths but obeying them, apply to us as Adventists today?
In reality, God called Abraham and made covenant promises to him. Genesis 15 describes God’s making this covenant while putting Abraham into a deep sleep so he could not participate in the promises. God alone made the promises—and this covenant becomes the central point in Paul’s explanation in Galatians that the law was temporary but the promises God made to Abraham are eternal and faithful.
God promised to Abraham seed, land, and blessing—and he stated His promise this way:
“And I will make you a great nation, And I will bless you, And make your name great; And so you shall be a blessing; And I will bless those who bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”—Genesis 12:2, 3 LSB
The lesson does not explain that God’s call on Abraham’s life was actually an eternal, unconditional covenant that would last for the rest of the history of humanity. God is STILL fulfilling these promises to Abraham.
The lesson, however, develops the idea that God called Abraham in order to form a nation that would be different from all those “human experiment” nations. This nation, Israel, would have God’s law, and if they obeyed it, they would cooperate with God and “exhibit the glory of His character.”
This idea is not the idea stated in Scripture. Yes, God DID bring the nation Israel from Abraham’s promised descendants. No, the point of Israel was not to “cooperate with God”. It was, rather, exactly what God’s purpose has always been for humanity: to believe and trust Him and to honor Him and His word.
It wasn’t their law that made Israel special, as the lesson says in the quote above. Nor was it their expected obedience. What made Israel special was the fact that God chose her and formed her and set His love on her. Their obedience or disobedience did not change God’s love for them.
If Israel had believed God and trusted His word, they would have exhibited the wisdom and understanding of God to the nations. It was God’s closeness and revelation of Himself that was to be the hallmark of their standing among the nations. The Canaanites would marvel at Israel’s God and His justice and mercy. Yet Israel did not believe, often rebelling and dishonoring Yahweh.
Adventist Appropriation of Israel’s Mandate
The thought question at the end of Monday’s lesson once again reveals the agenda of this Sabbath School lesson. Adventism does not understand the significance of the Abrahamic covenant that God would give Abraham seed, land, and blessing—nor the national significance of the Mosaic covenant including the Ten Commandments which God gave the nation of Israel.
Without any understanding of the way the promised Seed, the Lord Jesus, has fulfilled the law and has ushered in a new covenant in His blood, the thought question above reveals that Adventism sees itself as the successor of Israel. They are the true Israel—the remnant church of Bible prophecy with the last-day three angels’ messages which proclaim the seventh-day Sabbath, the health message, the investigative judgment, and the warning that worship on Sunday is the mark of the beast.
These “laws” are Israel’s mandate, and the lesson drives home the point that the Adventist readers of this lesson are to obey their “truths” and the Law and determine not to fail as Israel failed. They, as the inheritors of Israel’s law, must bring in the second coming by being obedient overcoming sin, and perfectly reflecting the character of Christ. Then the end can come.
The lesson’s point that the nations are human experiments manifesting human selfishness and delusion and that God created a nation set apart from the nations by a law that would reveal His character—this idea is not in Scripture.
The nations have always been God’s idea. Paul told the pagan Athenians at Mars Hill this amazing insight into God’s intentions:
…He made from one [man] every nation of mankind to inhabit all the face of the earth, having determined [their] appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us.—Acts 17:26, 27 LSB
God sets up nations and brings them to an end. He, not sinful men, is responsible for the empires and nations and people of the world. Further, His intention is that all men would seek, grope, and find Him—because He reveals His divine power and eternal nature through what has been made so all are without excuse (Romans 1:18–20).
God called Abraham and formed a nation that would bring the Messiah, the One who would atone for sin and bring forgiveness, life, and eternity to all those in all nations who would believe.
Adventism misuses the accounts of Scripture, interpreting them by the warped lens of Ellen White’s great controversy worldview. This interpretation will lead people away from the knowledge of our sovereign Yahweh who gave His own Son to take human flesh in order to become sin for us and to shed Hs sinless blood to pay for our sin.
Adventism teaches a different gospel from the gospel of the New Testament. It teaches a different Jesus—a Jesus who could have sinned and failed in His mission, a Jesus who gave up His divine attribute of omnipresence when He took a body—a Jesus who, by definition is NOT God because God IS omnipresent and unable to fail.
Adventism clings to a false prophet who misinterprets the biblical accounts into moral lessons guilting Adventists into Sabbath-keeping, vegetarianism, and endless fear of failure.
The Bible reveals a triune God who love His creation and who formed the nations, providing food and sustenance for them and sending them a means of escape from their natural darkness. In fact, He sent His Son not only for the nations but for YOU, and if you are an Adventist, you can learn who this sovereign God is and trust Him as Abraham trusted Him.
Begin reading the gospel of John and ask the Lord to teach you what He knows He wants you to learn. Bring your guilt and sin to Him, and trust His death for your sin according to Scripture. Trust that He died in your place and was buried, and on the third day He rose from death and shattered your curse.
Trust Him today, and you will pass from death to life—and you will find that your newly-alive spirit will be filled with love for a Savior you did not know before—and with love for the people of the cities and nations who are here by God’s plan so they, too, can know the God of all creation.
Trust Him today, and enter the rest of true belief. He will never fail you. †
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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