Lesson 2: “Reasons for Thanksgiving and Prayer”
COLLEEN TINKER | Editor, Proclamation! Magazine |
When an Adventist quotes Philippianas 1:6 where Paul says he is confident that God, “who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ”, what does he mean? More to the point, what IS salvation from an Adventist perspective? How are we supposed to understand Paul’s prayers for the Philippian and Colossian Christians where Paul asks that they will “walk worthy of the Lord” and that their love will abound in knowledge and discernment? How do Adventists understand this kind of worthy walking and abounding love?
Fellowship In What Gospel?
Adventism is a master of using biblical words that Christians generally understand while covertly meaning different things when they say those words. Sunday’s study exposes the Adventist foundation of this second week’s lessons entitled “Reasons for Thanksgiving and Prayer”. Tuesday’s title is “Fellowship in the Gospel”—but the Adventist definition of “Gospel” is uncovered in the first paragraph.
Before we look at that Adventist definition, though, let’s review what the actual gospel IS:
For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.—1 Corinthians 15:3–5 LSB
Notice how Paul defines the pure gospel, the message Christ gave him as the THING of “first importance”: “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures”. That’s it. The gospel is that the Lord Jesus died for our sins, He was truly dead and buried, and He rose on the third day, shattering death. All of this was “in accordance with the Scriptures”. In other words, Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection had all been foretold in the Old Testament. His taking our sin and atoning for it once-for-all, shattering our curse, was all foretold.
Adventism missed the pure, simple gospel. They never embraced what Jesus actually did when He died and broke death on that singular weekend.
Notice, though, how Tuesday’s lesson explains Paul’s prayers of thanksgiving for the Philippians and see how the lesson steers the Adventist reader away from the finished work of Christ and the security of believers’ salvation and reminds them of the investigative judgment and their requirement to share the Adventist gospel. First, the day’s lesson asks us to read Philippians 1:3–8:
I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always offering prayer with joy in my every prayer for you all, because of your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now. [For I am] confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. For it is only right for me to think this way about you all, because I have you in my heart, since both in my chains and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, you all are fellow partakers with me in this grace. For God is my witness, how I long for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus.—Philippians 1:3–8 LSB
Then the author attempts to force this clear passage of Paul’s apostolic praise to God for the Philippians’ true response to the gospel of Jesus’ finished atonement into a defense of Adventism’s view of Jesus administering judgment in heaven, dressed as an Aaronic high priest as He applies His blood to the confessed sins of those who profess Christ:
Though separated by hundreds of miles, Paul, chained and imprisoned, carries the church and its members on his heart; he longs for them “with the affection of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:8, NKJV); he gives thanks to God for them. Paul’s prayer of thanksgiving even gives a glimpse of Jesus’ intercession for us in heaven.
On the high priest’s breastplate were 12 stones representing the 12 tribes of Israel. The people were to be “on his heart” as he interceded for them (Exod. 28:29, ESV). In an even greater way, as our High Priest in the heavenly sanctuary, Jesus carries the names of His people with Him before the Father.
There is absolutely nothing in Paul’s prayer that “gives us a glimpse” of Jesus working in the heavenly sanctuary, carrying names of believers before the Father! Paul is thanking God for the certainty, the security of the Philippians’ genuine faith in Christ. They were truly born again through believing and trusting in Jesus’ finished work of atonement.
In fact, Adventism says Jesus did NOT finish the atonement on the cross. The cross was only the first phase of atonement; the second phase, according to Adventism, is going on now as Jesus carries out His work of the investigative judgment in heaven.
The Jesus of Scripture finished His work once for all and sat down at the Father’s right hand; the Adventist Jesus is NOT finished with His work. He is standing in heaven perusing the records of professed believers and presenting their names to the Father as their sins are confessed and as He applies His blood NOW, not at the cross, to pardon their sins.
This scenario is NOT the gospel! This unique, invented Adventist doctrine reveals Adventism to be something other than Christian. Although Adventism uses Christian words, it does not teach that the Lord Jesus finished the atonement at the cross, and humans who are all born dead in sin, must repent and believe and be born again. We are born of God when we place our eternal future into His hands and trust the only way we may be saved: believing in Jesus’ shed blood as our only way to heaven.
God’s Work In Us
Tuesday’s lesson ends with a question:
How do you understand the promise that God will finish the “good work in you” (Phil. 1:6)? What does that mean? Will this work ever end before the Second Coming?
The Teachers Comments helpfully articulate the Adventist view of God’s “good work” in us. The author combines Philippians 1:6 quoted above with Philippians 2:12, 13 and delivers this Adventist understanding—a view which will feel familiar to the Adventists who study this lesson—but an explanation which twists the plain meaning of Paul’s words. Here is what the Teachers Comments say on page 29:
God is portrayed as the One who began the good work of salvation and will bring it to completion at Christ’s return. It is noteworthy that this thought is expressed within the thanksgiving section. In this sense, gratitude is seen as a powerful evidence of God’s work in one’s heart. Paul says something similar in Philippians 2:12, 13: “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure” (NKJV, emphasis added).
Paul’s advice—to work out one’s own salvation—is intriguing, to say the least. Thus, Paul asserts, we are supposed to run “the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus” (Heb. 12:1, 2, ESV). But that’s not all. We must also “lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us” (Heb. 12:1, NKJV). Passages, such as Philippians 1:6 and Hebrews 12:2, remind us that salvation is ultimately God’s work, not ours. Yet, we are still called to work out our own salvation or, in other words, to “run . . . the race that is set before us” (Heb. 12:2, NKJV) by living a life of prayer, seeking the Spirit-given Christian virtues (Phil. 1:9–11, Col. 1:4–8), and being grateful for God’s work in us (Phil. 1:3–6). In sum, we are supposed to “walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God” (Col. 1:10, NKJV).
There it is. The Adventist understanding of God’s work in the believer is salvation—and the believer himself must put in the dedicated work of walking worthy of God, of pleasing God, of being fruitful. Oh, they say that salvation is God’s work, but they concurrently deny that God alone saves us completely. Each person, according to Adventism, must live a life demonstrating that they are safe to save, worthy of salvation. Ultimately, Adventism teaches, those who succeeded in being worthy of God will know whether or not God’s work was completed in them on the day when He returns. Then they will know whether or not they are saved. Until then, each Adventist lives in insecurity and the fear that they may NOT be working out their salvation, that God is not completing the work He began in them because they, of their own free will, chose NOT to be wholly dedicated to that worthy, obedient life of prayer and self-denial.
What DOES Paul mean when He says he is confident God will complete His work in them, and when he admonishes believers to “work out their own salvation”?
It’s hard for us to begin to see these passages at face value after living in the Adventist worldview. Yet Paul is making statements of confidence and assurance, not of warnings of eternal failure for lack of hard work!
First, Philippians 1:6 is a statement of reassurance and trust:
[For I am] confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.—Philippians 1:6 LSB
Yes, Paul is speaking of salvation, but he is not saying that salvation itself is based on a long process of justification and sanctification intertwined. Adventism teaches that sanctification is attached to justification and that no one is saved unless they are both justified and sanctified. The process of ongoing holy living is required in Adventism in order to be saved. Just as in Catholicism which requires the practice of the sacraments as means of grace in order to be found worthy of salvation, so Adventism requires its own Adventist “sacraments”: keeping the seventh day holy, believing in their “soul sleep” which is a nice name for ceasing to exist, and honoring an extra-biblical false prophet who taught them to believe in a fallible Jesus and a physical god.
Scripture explains that justification is a one-time, unrepeatable event that occurs when we hear the gospel of our salvation and believe. At that moment we pass from death to life (John 5:24), and we receive the indwelling Holy Spirit who never leaves the true believer (Ephesians 1:13, 14).
AFTER we are justified and credited with the alien-to-us righteousness of God through Christ (Philippians 3:9 and 2 Corinthians 5:19), we then begin our lifelong process of being sanctified. Our sanctification is not what prepares and proves our ultimate salvation; it is the result of our already having been saved!
The Spirit in us teaches us to trust the Lord and to look to Him for stability and direction when we are tempted and oppressed and opposed. We learn to live under His authority—but this sanctifying process happens after we are saved. It is the result of our having been saved!
Working out our own salvation is not learning to make good decisions so we demonstrate our true commitment and sincerity and our being safe to save. Rather it is drawing from our spiritual life that is ours as born again believers and learning to live from the perspective of knowing and honoring God’s will and the Lord Jesus as we are tempted and tormented. We reveal our true inner spiritual life—our salvation—to the world around us as we learn to walk worthy of the Lord by trusting Him when we are born again.
How Do We Learn God’s Will?
Thursday’s lesson, though, reveals the uncertain, complicated Adventist way of attempting to know God’s will. The good thing about this lesson is that it so clearly reveals that no Adventist can hope to truly know God’s will for him or her apart from the writings of Ellen White. In spite of Adventism’s protests that are “Bible only” people, that Ellen White just “leads them to the Bible”, this days lesson tells the Adventist reader in specific terms that Ellen White is necessary for knowing God’s will. First, the day’s lesson asks us to read Paul’s beautiful prayer in Colossians 1:9–12. Here he acknowledges their true nature as born again believers and prays that their lives will be a continual growth in the knowledge of God’s will and wisdom and understanding. He is not doubting the Corinthians’ growth, but he is praying that they will be strengthened and KNOW God’s “glorious might” as they learn to live in the hope and power and reality of their new spiritual life and the presence of the Holy Spirit in them. Here is Paul’s prayer:
For this reason also, since the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the full knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you may walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please [Him] in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and multiplying in the full knowledge of God; being strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience; joyously giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.—Colossians 1:9–12 LSB
The lesson, however, destroys the beauty of Paul’s confidence in the Lord’s power and the Colossians’ security in Him. Here is what Thursday’s lesson says:
But the question often arises, “What is God’s will for me in this situation?” There are four main sources from which we may learn God’s will as we seek it prayerfully:
- The most important source of wisdom is the Bible. “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Ps. 119:105, NKJV).
- God has given us special wisdom for the last days through the Spirit of Prophecy (Rev. 12:17, Rev. 19:10) as manifested though the writings of Ellen White. The Bible encourages us to “believe in the Lord your God, and you shall be established; believe His prophets, and you shall prosper” (2 Chron. 20:20, NKJV).
- God’s will and leading may also be known through providential circumstances, by asking Him to open or close doors (see Col. 4:3).
- The Holy Spirit guides us once we have learned to recognize His voice: “Your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, / ‘This is the way, walk in it,’ / Whenever you turn to the right hand / Or whenever you turn to the left” (Isa. 30:21, NKJV).
Paul prays that the Colossians may “walk worthy of the Lord” (Col. 1:10, NKJV). Of course, no one is inherently “worthy,” but God counts us worthy by His grace and calls us to live in accordance with that high calling (Eph. 4:1, 1 Thess. 2:12, NKJV). Paul uses the verb “walk” or “walked” three more times in this letter alone (Col. 2:6, Col. 3:7, Col. 4:5). It means to live and act in accordance with God’s law (Exod. 18:20), which is possible only through the work of the Holy Spirit (Ezek. 36:27).
The author cannot address this passage a straightforward way because Adventism does not teach the biblical gospel of the finished work of Jesus’ dying for sin, of being buried, and of rising on the third day according to the Scriptures. Adventism teaches a “gospel” that includes the call to worship on the seventh day, the reminder that the investigative judgment is ongoing in heaven and true believers must leave Babylon and get out of the Sunday churches before they receive the mark of the beast during the time of trouble. Truly, the Adventist gospel is fearsome and impossible! It bears no resemblance to the gospel of belief in Jesus and His FINISHED atonement.
And here in Thursday’s lesson we see that Adventism cannot teach the certainty of the Lord’s faithfulness to strengthen and grow us in grace and courage and true knowledge and wisdom as a consequence of His saving us, indwelling us, and His teaching us His Word.
Notice that in the four points explaining how to know God’s will, the first factor is the Bible. The Bible alone, however, will never teach a person Adventism. Thus the second point is to believe in Ellen White, and the Adventist explanation is given: Adventists are to believe her the same way they believe the biblical prophets!
The list ends with two points admonishing the Adventist to look for subjective experiences. There’s no explanation of how one is to recognize or understand a “providential circumstance” or to “recognize His voice”. In the points given here, the Adventist is confirmed in the idea that if he reads Ellen White and knows the Adventist beliefs, then he can “trust” subjective experiences that confirm Adventism.
These four points contradict Scripture explicitly. We know God’s word by submitting our minds to the Lord Jesus and by believing the words of Scripture exactly as they are written. Of course, the Bible will never teach Adventism, but if we read and believe and ask the Lord to show us what is true, He will reveal to us that are sinners who need a Savior. He will reveal to us that the only way to be saved is to place our full faith and trust in the Lord Jesus and His shed blood for our sin.
Adventism teaches a false gospel and overtly depends upon a false prophet to keep its members in line with the organization and its doctrines.
Yet the Lord is calling each of us to Himself alone. When He asks us to trust Him and to leave the world for His sake, He is asking us to leave every belief and practice that is not part of His biblical gospel and the completed work of our Lord Jesus. It is shocking to realize, at first, that the world God is calling us to leave is Adventism.
Adventism deceives its members with right-sounding words concealing wrong definitions and beliefs.
If you have not understood the true gospel and your true need—that you were born dead in sin, unable to seek or to please God without His intervention and call, take your Bible and read John 3. Read what Jesus told Nicodemus about being born again, and read Jesus’ own words that those who have not believed in the Son are already condemned. Get a notebook and copy John 3, asking the Lord to teach you what He wants you to know.
As you begin a new year, make this the year that you face the questions you have. Ask the Lord to reveal truth to you and to show you what is real. Ask Him to teach you to read the Bible without Ellen White filters, and see what Jesus has done to ensure your eternal salvation—and your security.
Bring your doubt and confusion and sin to the cross of Jesus. Thank Hi for becoming sin for you and for satisfying God’s demand that sin must be punished by death. See Jesus rising from the tomb on the third day, shattering your curse, and believe. Believe that the Lord Jesus has already done everything necessary for your salvation. Thank Him for saving you and ask Him to guide you into all truth—as He has promised to do.
Believe in the Lord Jesus, and 2026 will be the beginning of a life of freedom and true spiritual rest.
Happy New Year! †
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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