July 30–August 5

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.

Lesson 6: “Struggling With All Energy”

COLLEEN TINKER

Problems with this lesson:

• The lesson attempts to teach fighting sin with Christ’s power while defending absolute free will.
• The author does not know or believe the biblical teaching of depravity, or natural spiritual death
• The result of this confusion results in a teaching of works based on imparted power from Christ.

The bottom-line problem with this lesson is the Adventist worldview which insists that all creatures have absolute free will. This supposed “free will” which God would not violate was the foundation of their “great controversy” which supposedly originated in heaven when Satan accused God of being unfair. In Sunday’s lesson the author states:

While the Holy Spirit can bring us the truth about our sinfulness, He cannot make us repent. He also can show us the greatest truth about God, but He cannot force us to believe or obey it. If God did compel us in even the slightest way, we would lose our free will, and Satan would accuse God of manipulating our minds and hearts and would thus be able to accuse God of cheating in the great controversy. When the great controversy broke out in heaven, our Father did not compel Satan or any of the angels to believe that He was good and just or compel them to repent. And in the Garden of Eden, when so much was at stake again, God made the truth about the tree in the middle of the garden very clear but did not prevent Eve and Adam from exercising their free will to disobey. God will not act any differently with us today. So, the Spirit presents the truth about God and sin and then says, “In view of what I have shown you, what will you do now?”

It is the same when we are in the crucible. Sometimes the crucible is there precisely because we have not obeyed or repented of our sins. For our Father to work in such cases, we must consciously choose to open the doors of repentance and obedience in order for God’s power to enter in and transform us (https://absg.adventist.org/pdf.php?file=2022:3Q:TE:PDFs:ETQ322_06.pdf).

The fact is that there is no “great controversy” between Christ and Satan still awaiting resolution. The quote above reflects Ellen White’s teaching that God cannot and will not “manipulate” His creatures but must allow them the full range of consequences for their free will. He must allow them to exercise their freedom to disobey Him. 

This idea is not what Scripture reveals. Adventism teaches that Adam and Eve’s sin was the sin of pride, of appetite, and of desiring to be like God. They freely exercised their wills to choose to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. 

The Bible, however, reveals that Eve was deceived by the serpent while Adam essentially sinned with his eyes wide open. The real issue in that event was that neither Eve nor Adam trusted God’s word alone. When confronted by the deceptive serpent who morphed God’s command, they failed to hang onto God’s absolute word and trust it. They allowed themselves to be compelled by the slight deviation Satan introduced into his temptation. 

The result of Adam and Eve’s sin, according to Genesis 2 and 3, was that they died the very moment—the very day—they ate of that fruit, exactly as God said they would.

This is the point where Adventism moves away from the biblical revelation. They deny that humans have immaterial spirits separate from their bodies that God breathed into them. They find endless ways to explain how sin entered humanity through Adam after the fall, but they will not acknowledge that Scripture teaches that he and Eve DIED. They didn’t just “begin to die”, as many Adventists are taught. No, they DIED.

Adventists do not deal with Ephesians 2:1–3 or Romans 3:9–15. Paul tells us this:

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind (Ephesians 2:1–3). 

We are born depraved, dead in sin—the legacy of Adam:

But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive (1 Corinthians 15:20–22).

We cannot rise above our natures. We are by nature dead in sin, unable to please God or to seek God or to do anything good at all because all of our impulses flow from dead spirits, cut off from the life of God. 

Receiving Life

Jesus told us how to become spiritually alive. It is this LIFE that we need—not “goodness” per se. Jesus did not come to make bad people good; He came to make dead people alive! Here are some of the things Jesus told us:

Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God (John 3:18).

Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life (John 5:24).

Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal.” Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” (John 6:27–29).

Jesus answered them, “Do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me—not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God; he has seen the Father. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life (John 6:43–48).

Paul explains further after telling us that we are “by nature children of wrath”—and that is God’s wrath, not Satan’s wrath. In Ephesians 2:4–10 he says:

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them (Ephesians 2:4–10).

The point is that we are not born “free” to choose God. God has to reveal Himself to us, and the Father must call us, but we can suppress His revelation by our wickedness, or we can receive it with thanksgiving. Romans 1:18–20 says this:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse (Romans 1:18–20).

The lesson presents the hopeless Adventist scenario of trying to figure out how to access the power of Christ to overcome sin and to obey the law. This helps struggle is one we cannot ever master!

Our hope is in believing and trusting in the Lord Jesus and His finished work, acknowledging our sin and helplessness to please Him. When we do trust Him alone, recognizing that we are doomed and helpless and need a Savior, He gives us new life! He gives us a new spirit, and He seals us with His Holy Spirit (Eph. 1:13,14). 

This lesson offers no hope. It only perpetuates the unbiblical worldview of the great controversy theory of the Adventist prophetess Ellen White. This entire worldview is false and cuts people off from the gospel

In Jesus alone is our hope and our security!

Further Help

Below are two links, an article and a video, which explain with Scripture and diagrams our natural state, what God did when He sent Jesus, and how Jesus opened a new, living way for us to be rescued and to be reconciled to the Father.

• Article: He Was Raised So You Will Never Die
• Video: How To Be Secure In My Salvation

• Author
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Colleen Tinker

Colleen Tinker, the editor of Proclamation! magazine, and her husband Richard left Adventism in 1998 with their two sons, Roy and Nathanael, who were in grades six and ten. They have co-led the Former Adventist Fellowship since 1999. Colleen, a graduate of Walla Walla University, is a former high school English teacher and also the former managing editor of Adventist Today magazine. Colleen became the stepmother of Roy and Nathanael in 1989, and in 2008 she adopted them. Romans 8:15-17 has assumed new depth and significance for her and Richard since she and her sons chose to claim each other legally and permanently. She and Richard share an office and a commitment to sharing the gospel of the true Jesus with all of those seeking a way out of the bondage of the false gospel of Adventism.

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