Lesson 11: “Apostasy and Intercession”
COLLEEN TINKER | Editor, Proclamation! Magazine |
Do you remember the account of Aaron making Israel a golden calf while Moses was on Mt. Sinai, receiving the Ten Commandments? The author uses this event as a source of lessons for the Adventist audience—and reinforces the great controversy worldview: God allows freedom of choice for people to serve evil or Himself.
Ironically, the lesson asks why people fall into idolatry and asks the reader to think about the kinds of idols that can hold their heart. The seventh-day Sabbath is never hinted at as an idol and a false focus of worship. Further, the author makes much of Moses’ interceding for the people with God but ignores the role of the Levites in repenting and carrying out God’s judgment against the people. The contrasts and shadows of the old covenant compared with the inauguration of the new are entirely missed.
Great Controversy Reinforced
This week’s lesson opens with rhetorical questions about why Israel fell into open idolatry so quickly when Moses went up the mountain to receive the law. The people had pledged to do all that God had asked of them, and Moses had already sprinkled them with the sacrificial blood that ratified their conditional covenant with God. They had just experienced escaping their enslavers by passing through the seabed of the Red Sea, watching as the Egyptians tried to follow them but were drowned as the waters overcame them. They had received manna and meat from heaven, and God had made bitter water sweet for the entire nation and its animals as they trekked through the Sinai desert.
Yet there at Sinai they experienced a Great Fail.
Monday’s lesson appeals to Ellen White to confirm that Aaron failed as a leader and leads the reader to contemplate the ways people make their own idols. It says:
“Humans are geniuses at fabricating their own idols. They create their own gods, which is bad enough, but then they go and serve those gods. The Creator is replaced with things that, sooner or later, lead to moral degeneration.
“What are ways today that humans worship the creation instead of the Creator?”
Tuesday’s lesson goes further into directing the readers to identify their secret idols, pointing out that they would never think that they were doing what ancient Israel did:
“What we substitute for Christ may have different appearances: pride, self-centeredness, money, power, sex, food, TV, drugs, alcohol, impure thoughts, pornography, pleasures, work, sports, family, video games, films, shopping, ideas, politics, music, position, titles, grades, and so forth. The list has no end.…
“Idolatry is extremely dangerous because it transforms our personality, our way of thinking, our affections, and our social life. It changes our identity and replaces genuine personal relationships with hollow and ultimately meaningless interactions that, in the end, cannot save us.”
The lesson continues by discussing that Moses interceded with God not to abandon Israel, offering to be blotted out of God’s book if God would only forgive Israel. The author does mention that Moses destroyed the golden calf and mentions, in the Teachers Comments, that the unrepentant rebellious ones had to be eliminated.
Then the Teachers Comments begin reinforcing the great controversy worldview, helping the Sabbath School teachers know how to present this story through the lens of the Adventist worldview:
“Behind the curtain of the unseen world exist rules that regulate how the powers of good and evil interact. Theologians speak about God “permitting” Satan to act. John Peckham calls these regulations “rules of engagement.”…These regulations mean that God has given Satan certain “privileges,” or better yet, “permissions,” to fully demonstrate what his “reign” would look like, allowing everyone to compare the two sides.
“These regulations also mean that God does not always get what He desires…Moreover, God also is restricted in His actions. God cannot act against these “rules of engagement” because He keeps His promises. “A genuine love relationship requires the possibility that creatures might reject God’s ideal will.”—Peckham, Theodicy of Love, p. 139. God will not restrict our freedom to choose one side or the other because it would prevent the full blossoming of love between God and His created creatures.
Not A Window Into the Great Controversy
The significance of the contrast between the events surrounding God’s giving the Old Covenant to Israel through the mediation of Moses and His inaugurating the New Covenant after His death, resurrection, and ascension is utterly ignored. In fact, Adventism cannot exist outside its unique worldview that denies humanity’s natural depravity, the role of the Law in exposing and condemning sin, and the necessity for each covenant to have its own unique priesthood.
We have seen that the week’s lessons led by emphasizing that humans naturally create their own idols. The author asked how Israel could have demanded an idol while Moses was hidden on the mountain. Monday’s lesson even asks, “In what ways does the golden calf apostasy reflect what is written in Romans 1:22–27?”
Romans 1:22–27 describes the three cycles of God’s giving people over when they refuse to acknowledge Him. He first gives them over to their impurity, then to their perversions, and finally to their depraved minds, not only engaging in all unrighteousness but encouraging others to do so as well. Yet the question about how the golden calf apostasy reflects this cycle of depravity ignores Romans 1:21–23 which explains exactly what happened to Israel:
For even though they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the likeness of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.—Romans 1:21–23 LSB
Israel refused to believe. Their sin-darkened hearts refused to acknowledge God and to give Him thanks, and they fell into their own demand to worship something they could control—like the pagans in Egypt had done. The lesson leads the reader to identify his or her secret sins and to feel guilt over them, as we quoted above. They are to feel convicted about focussing on pleasure, grades, entertainment, politics, music, success, food—the list goes on. Yet there is not a hint that the actual core of Seventh-day Adventism is idolatry!
The seventh-day Sabbath is the Adventist idol. They believe that the Sabbath will be the final “test” in earth’s history that will divide the saved from the lost. Even more, they believe that Sabbath—a created day—is the “seal of the living God”. Look at these two quotes from the Adventist prophet Ellen G. White:
“The enemies of God’s law, from the ministers down to the least among them, have a new conception of truth and duty. Too late they see that the Sabbath of the fourth commandment is the seal of the living God. Too late they see the true nature of their spurious sabbath and the sandy foundation upon which they have been building. They find that they have been fighting against God.—The Great Controversy, p. 640.
The Sabbath will be the great test of loyalty, for it is the point of truth especially controverted. When the final test shall be brought to bear upon men, then the line of distinction will be drawn between those who serve God and those who serve Him not. While the observance of the false sabbath in compliance with the law of the state, contrary to the fourth commandment, will be an avowal of allegiance to a power that is in opposition to God, the keeping of the true Sabbath, in obedience to God’s law, is an evidence of loyalty to the Creator. While one class, by accepting the sign of submission to earthly powers, receive the mark of the beast, the other choosing the token of allegiance to divine authority, receive the seal of God.—The Great Controversy, p. 605.
Adventism does not have the finished atonement of the Lord Jesus at the center of its teachings. In fact, Adventism doesn’t believe in the all-powerful Lord Jesus who could not have sinned nor failed in His mission. Rather they teach that Jesus did not complete the atonement at the cross.
Further, as the Teachers Comments said Adventism teaches that God must limit Himself. He would never restrict people’s supposed “free will” but must allow them to freely choose to side with Satan or Himself. Even more, the Adventist great controversy model sees God as not always getting “what He desires”. The sovereign God of Scripture whose plans cannot fail nor be thwarted by any creature is not the god of Adventism. The god of Adventism respects Satan’s freedom and privileges just as he respects humanity’s privileges and freedoms.
Notice again, as quoted above, Adventism overtly states, “God also is restricted in His actions. He cannot act against these “rules of engagement” between himself and Satan.
This is not the God of Scripture; it is the god of Ellen White!
The irony of this lesson is that the author ASSUMES that his readers are shaped already by their Adventist worldview of free will, a restricted god, and a protected Satan who’s allowed to demonstrate the full effects of his rebellion. Adventists believe they are objectively comparing God and Satan and helping to vindicate the good guy—God.
Yet Adventism does not teach or believe that each person is born literally dead in sin, under the influence of Satan, and in need of being rescued by our sovereign God who has sent His Son to be our Redeemer.
The Adventist worldview teaches its members that they are born free to choose, that God restricts Himself and gives Satan freedom to act at will—within the “rules of engagement” agreed upon by the players, and it teaches its members that their “ace in the hole” to gain the victory over Satan and to side with Jesus is their decision to keep the law and to observe the seventh-day Sabbath.
This worldview is completely false, and Adventists are blind to the fact that they are tethered to an idol which they defend by saying that their Sabbath is the mark of true worship. They defend their idol by saying the Law is eternal and is the revelation of God to them.
The fact that Adventism is built on an idol tethered to the old covenant law explains how this lesson misses the significance of what happened at the giving of the old covenant.
Nature of Covenant Revealed
While the lesson does make the point that Moses functioned as the mediator between Israel and God at the giving of the law, it fails to explain the significance of what happened when Moses came down the mountain and saw the hedonistic revelry around that golden calf.
Aaron had been put in charge while Moses was gone, hidden on the mountain in the cloud of God. Aaron had sinned against God by being weak in the face of the nation’s demands for an idol. Then Moses took charge:
Now Moses saw that the people were out of control–for Aaron had let them get out of control to be a derision among their enemies—so Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said, “Whoever is for Yahweh, [come] to me!” And all the sons of Levi gathered together to him.—Exodus 32:26 LSB
Aaron was among those sons of Levi. The tribe that would become the priestly tribe of Israel repented and stood with Moses—and they had to carry out God’s command and consequence: they had to kill their brothers, friends, and neighbors in hand-to-hand sword combat:
So the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses, and about three thousand men of the people fell that day.—Exodus 32:28 LSB
The day that Moses received the Law, 3,000 Israelites died because of idolatry. The covenant God made with Israel included blessings for obedience but death for unbelief and rebellion. The giving of the law, mediated by Moses, was marked by a demonstration of the terms of that law: death for unbelieving rebellion against their God who had rescued them.
This rebellion could not be temporarily atoned by the death of an animal. Those who died were those who had unrepentant hearts that had blatantly worshiped a false god in the face of Yahweh delivering His covenant document to them! Those rebellious ones paid with their own lives—a demonstration of the terms of their new law.
Yet Moses presented the Israelites with the opportunity to repent. Only the Levites repented—those whose descendants would be the mediators of atonement and forgiveness to the nation throughout its generations. And those repentant Levites had to perform God’s justice, killing 3,000 men who insisted on defining worship the way they wanted it.
Moses pled with God and begged Him not to abandon His people, and God agreed He would not. Yet God also said that He would blot “out of My book” whoever had sinned against Him—those who did not repent.
This promise of God was fulfilled when the first generation of Israelites wandered in the wilderness forty years because of their unbelief and grumbling. Although God saved the entire nation out of Egypt as He had promised Abraham He would do, He did not allow the hardened, unrepentant Israelites who sinned against Him to enter the Promised Land. Their children who were born in the desert were those who actually entered the Land.
New Covenant Shadows
The Mosaic covenant was defined by its central document, the Ten Commandments. It demanded death for sin, and in graphic ways God’s seriousness about His demands for His people’s loyalty and obedience was demonstrated. There was no substitution allowed. The guilty died, and the repentant were the ones who mediated God’s judgment among the hard-hearted.
Moses alone was called into the thick cloud that covered the mountain. He alone went into the presence of God as He wrote the covenant document. Moses the mediator God chose to go between His nation and Himself, had to deliver God’s commands and judgments to the Israelites, but he couldn’t personally relieve them of their guilt. He was a man like them. He could only mediate God’s instructions and see that they were carried out.
Yet there are parallels between this moment in Israel’s history that contrast and compare with the inauguration of the new covenant centuries later. We read about the introduction to the new covenant in Luke 9:28–36:
Now it happened some eight days after these words, that taking along Peter and John and James, He went up on the mountain to pray. And it happened that while He was praying, the appearance of His face became different, and His clothing [became] white [and] gleaming. And behold, two men were talking with Him, and they were Moses and Elijah, who, appearing in glory, were speaking of His departure which He was about to fulfill at Jerusalem. Now Peter and his companions had been overcome with sleep, but when they were fully awake, they saw His glory and the two men standing with Him. And it happened that as they were leaving Him, Peter said to Jesus, “Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three booths: one for You, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah”–not realizing what he was saying. While he was saying this, a cloud formed and [began to] overshadow them; and they were afraid as they entered the cloud. Then a voice came out of the cloud, saying, “This is My Son, [My] Chosen One; listen to Him!” And when the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent, and reported to no one in those days any of the things which they had seen.—Luke 9:28–36 LSB
Notice that at this moment, just days away from the cross, Jesus was revealing to His three closest disciples the nature of the new covenant and how it would be completely different from the old. Yet notice the details that are similar—that are intended to cause the disciples and also us to recognize that this transition is an act of God.
Just as Moses was called into an obscuring cloud that hid him from the sight of the people—and that cloud was God’s own presence—so Peter, John, and James were overshadowed by a cloud, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud. Notice that Moses and Elijah were leaving Jesus when the cloud of God’s presence covered the three disciples and the Lord Jesus. While they were inside that clouds, they heard God speak—just as Moses had heard God speak on Mt. Sinai and had received His Ten Words for the nation.
After God had spoken, the cloud lifted—and Jesus alone was before them. Moses—who represented the Law to Israel—and Elijah—who represented the prophets to Israel—had disappeared. The new Authority in the new covenant would be the Lord Jesus alone! God the Son in human flesh—the God-Man was the new Word. No longer would God’s covenant with those who believe Him be the written law delivered by Moses from God. Now it would be God the Son Himself!
Just a few weeks later, 10 days after Jesus’ ascension, to be exact, Jesus’ disciples were praying and waiting as He had instructed them, and they were filled with the Holy Spirit. Immediately they began speaking in other languages, and Peter preached the first new covenant expository sermon at the temple in Jerusalem. Notice what happened:
So then, those who had received his word were baptized; and that day there were added about three thousand souls.—Acts 2:41 LSB
In contrast to the old covenant which Paul called “a ministry of death, in letters having been engraved on stones” (2 Corinthians 3:7) which had been marked by the death of 3,000 unrepentant Israelites who had brazenly rebelled against God and practiced idolatry in the midst of His people, the new covenant was inaugurated with 3,000 Jews coming to faith in their Messiah and being born again. The new covenant was marked by 3,000 souls passing from death to life! “…for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.”—2 Corinthians 3:6 LSB
The Sabbath School lesson takes this account of the apostasy of Israel at the giving of the law and morphs it into a moral lesson for Adventists, confirming implicitly their worldview that God is limited, people are not depraved, Satan operates under rules of engagement, and Adventists are to obey God by keeping the law, observing the Sabbath, and praying for sinners so that they will repent and obey. This lesson is stripped of its significance by an organization that has conscripted this story to guilt its members into doing the will of the Adventist organization, praying to obey and praying for those who have sinned among them.
Yet even at the giving of the law God was showing His people that not only was He asking them to be loyal to Him, but He was providing a means to help them. He gave them a mediator and a whole tribe of priests to intercede for them. He gave them a means of worship and atonement that would cause them to know the seriousness of sin and His demand for substitutionary sacrifice.
God’s law foreshadowed the Messiah who would come and fulfill all these Mosaic shadows—and He has come! His atonement IS complete!
If you have not trusted the finished atonement of the Lord Jesus in His death for sin, His burial, and His resurrection according to Scripture, come to Him today. Confess your sin and repent, asking Him to be your Savior—and trust Him. Thank Him for the new covenant in His blood, and you will pass from death to life. No longer under the curse of death, you will know true Sabbath rest and have peace with God. Come to Him today—and you will enter the new covenant reality of being an adopted child of God. Believe Him today—and pass from death to life! †
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