Lesson 5: “Shining as Lights in the Night”
COLLEEN TINKER | Editor, Proclamation! Magazine |
When you hear the phrase, “Let your light shine,” what do you understand that to mean? Does it mean being unashamed to keep the Sabbath in front of your neighbors? Does it mean inviting your neighbors to a Revelation seminar or a cooking school or a health-screening event? Does it mean friendship evangelism, taking fresh bread to the neighbors and inviting them for a home Bible study? What is the goal of letting your light shine? And what IS your “light”?
What Is “Light”?
In the last two Former Adventist Fact Check episodes, we spent time contrasting the great controversy worldview with Adventism, showing that the physicalist understanding of man and also of God denies the spiritual reality that all of us are born literally dead in sin. Our need is not to learn to make right choices and embrace right teaching, “surrendering” ourselves to what Adventism teaches that Jesus is. Rather, our true need is to literally be born again, made spiritually alive through trust and belief in the finished atonement of the Lord Jesus.
The Adventist Jesus is not the Jesus of Scripture. The Adventist Jesus is fallible, divested of His “God-power” in order to humble Himself as a servant. The Adventist Jesus could have sinned and failed in His mission. He came exactly as Adventists teach they come into the world: a body that breathes without an immaterial spirit that survives death.
The Adventist Jesus is NOT Yahweh, the One who created all things and holds all things together, even when in the womb and in the tomb. The Adventist Jesus is “weak”, a sort-of “man-god” who gave up His omnipresence forever by becoming incarnate. This Jesus cannot, by definition, be Yahweh, the almighty God, who came in flesh and never gave up any of His divine attributes.
Because of this Adventist worldview that denies the true nature of man and the true nature of the Lord Jesus, all of the Sabbath School lessons’ teachings appropriate the Bible and apply God’s Word to fit an unbiblical worldview. By doing this, the power of God’s word is obscured, and Adventists are left believing that the words of Paul in the book of Philippians are words of exhortation to teach them how to live moral, obedient lives in order to please God and spread Adventism in the world.
The primary metaphor and purpose of this week’s lesson is to exhort Adventists to be “light” in the world. Saturday’s introduction opens with a misuse of Deuteronomy 4:6. The author says this:
God told the Hebrews to obey because that obedience “is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes, and say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people’ ” (Deut. 4:6, NKJV).
Centuries later Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life” (John 8:12, NKJV).…
The light and power of heaven is available to all of us who have surrendered our lives to Jesus. But too often either we expect God to do it all or our own ideas and plans get in the way.
The lesson opens with the idea that the Israelites’ obedience to the law would be what the gentile nations would interpret as their wisdom and understanding. To be sure, Israel’s obedience would have represented their trusting God and submitting to His word, and the resulting behavior of their faith and trust would have demonstrated wisdom and understanding.
Yet the subtlety of the upside-down message is profound if hard to explain. Israel’s OBEDIENCE itself would not be their wisdom and understanding, nor would the nations have perceived their OBEDIENCE to be their wisdom. They would have understood their God to be their source of wisdom. Here is the passage Moses spoke in Deuteronomy 4:5–7:
“See, I have taught you statutes and judgments just as Yahweh my God commanded me, that you should do thus in the land where you are entering to possess it. You shall keep and do [them], for that is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes and say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’ For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as is Yahweh our God whenever we call on Him?”—Deuteronomy 4:5–7 LSB
Do you see what the lesson did? It removed Moses’ instruction from its context and presented it to say that the OBEDIENCE of God’s people would cause the nations to see Israel as wise and understanding. Yet it was not their obedience that would cause that response—it would be that the nations would see that Yahweh was a God who was present with His people and always near and responsive! It was not Israel who would get the glory—the nations would see that Israel’s greatness was because of their GOD!
Yet the lesson deliberately eliminated the context because Adventism intends to stress Adventists’ need to obey the law—especially the fourth commandment—and they teach their members that obedience to the law renders them wise and understanding beyond even the common Sunday-Christians who refuse to obey that law!Context is not Adventism’s strong suite; they refuse to deal with the New Testament teaching of God’s rest being realized in the Lord Jesus and in our faith and trust in Him alone.
Even in the quote above from Saturday’s lesson, the author moves from Israel’s obedience to the law to saying that “the light and power of heaven is available to all… who have surrendered [their] lives to Jesus.”
There is nothing here—nor anywhere in Adventism—about being literally born again, born of God. The Adventist idea of surrendering one’s life to Jesus is Adventist-speak for submitting to Adventist teachings and practices and giving up all “worldly” influences—an injunction which always, within Adventism, includes giving up unclean foods and stimulants and going to church on Sunday.
Even more, though, is the question: what exactly does Adventism mean when it says “the light and power of heaven is available” to all who embrace Adventism and live by it?
Bottom Line Revealed
Friday’s lesson reveals the implied but previously non-articulated reality. All of the week’s exhortations to readers to shine their lights in the world and to get rid of worldly ways has been about one specific thing—the heart of Adventism’s energy for evangelism: getting ready for being persecuted for the Sabbath.
In a quotation from Ellen White’s Testimonies for the Church, vol. 5, pp. 81, 82, Friday’s lesson reminds readers:
“The time is not far distant when the test will come to every soul. The mark of the beast will be urged upon us. Those who have step by step yielded to worldly demands and conformed to worldly customs will not find it a hard matter to yield to the powers that be, rather than subject themselves to derision, insult, threatened imprisonment, and death. . . .”
There it is. The heart of Adventist soteriology is honoring the Sabbath! This entire week’s lesson spent combing through Philippians and other proof-texts from the New Testament has been for the purpose of reminding Adventists to be ready, to practice denying themselves and doing the hard work of sharing their “gospel”. This commitment to Adventist “mission” is their definition of being lights in the world. Everything leads toward being ready for the impending Sunday law and for being willing to give up all “world” (non-Adventist) practices so that they can have the moral fortitude and will-power to stay loyal to a DAY upon threat of death.
Jesus is utterly eclipsed. The Adventist goal is to be loyal to the Sabbath. Jesus is simply a cog in the salvation wheel, the one who pays Satan the debt of death for law-breaking to release his otherwise legitimate claim on sinful humans. Jesus, in Adventism, is simply an example, a means of understanding HOW to be obedient enough to stay loyal when evil threatens. Sabbath-loyalty is the ultimate dread in the life of an Adventist, and this lesson is for the purpose of stirring up the commitment of the Adventist reader to stay faithful to Adventist “light” so he or she can resist ridicule or even death threats for keeping that holy day.
Light as “Missionary Symbol”
The Teachers Comments further cement this Adventist appropriation of the New Testament symbols of Jesus and reality. Again, just as in the opening words of Saturday’s study, these comments subtly twist God’s word and make the powerful metaphor “Light” to represent not a Person Himself—but the work of gospel-sharing. Here is what the author says on page 65:
The metaphor of light is a powerful missionary symbol, used both in the Old and New Testaments. In Isaiah, God declares to His Servant, the Messiah, “ ‘ “I will also give You as a light to the Gentiles, that You should be My salvation to the ends of the earth” ’ ” (Isa. 49:6, NKJV; compare also with Isa. 42:6). This passage is applied to Jesus in the New Testament (see, for instance, Luke 2:32, John 8:12, John 9:5, Acts 26:23), but it is also applied to the church (Acts 13:47) because it continues Jesus’ mission of being Light to the world.
This week’s lesson emphasizes three major themes:
- We will consider the relationship between faith and works (Phil. 2:12, 13).
- As Christians, we are called to be lights to the world, following in Jesus’ footprints and sharing our lives with others.
- The trials and hardships that we face in our Christian walk strengthen us for greater challenges in God’s work. They are God’s tools for developing essential qualities that are indispensable for fruitful ministry.
In Scripture, the metaphor “Light” is not used to represent missionary activity. Rather from the Old Testament to the New, the Messiah, the Lord Jesus, is called “a light”, or “the light”. It was not Jesus’ “mission of being light” that the Bible describes; it was the Person of Jesus Himself!
Yet Adventism cannot take this metaphor at face value because it cannot apply the Lord Jesus to its corporate mandate to its members. Instead, Adventism takes the metaphor that represents Jesus and applies it to its own Sabbath-keeping, vegetarian, self-denying message to the world.
This use of Light is heretical. Let’s remember what John said about the Lord Jesus when He came into the world:
In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. And the Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overtake it.—John 1:4, 5 LSB
Light, the Light of men, is the eternal life of God that was always in Jesus. This eternal spiritual life is what made Jesus unlike any other human baby ever born: He was never spiritually dead. His intrinsic eternal life—the life of God—is the Light of men.
In other words, all humanity is naturally dead. We are by nature in darkness and citizens of the domain of darkness (Col 1:3). We have no light in us at all, and we cannot, by devoting ourselves to obedience to the law, generate light inside us. In order to have Light, we have to be made alive! Only Jesus can give us Light—and the Light He gives us is His own life! It is not “mission”. Light is not evangelism and dedication to sharing the Sabbath or vegetarianism.
Light IS Jesus, and when we have Life as the result of believing Him and being made spiritually alive, we have Light because the Lord literally indwells us. We then carry the presence of God into the world because He indwells us. (See Ephesians 1:13, 14).
Light is never used to describe “mission”. Rather, mission, as it flows out of the born again who comprise the church the body of Christ—is the outflowing that is the natural result of being spiritually alive.
Look also at what Jesus said about Himself:
Then Jesus again spoke to them, saying, “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will never walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.”—John 8:12 LSB
Jesus is the Source of Light and Life. Those who follow Him are not those who observe His teachings and follow His example. Rather those who follow Him are those who BELIEVE Him. They admit they are dead in sin and under God’s curse, and they have no hope apart from trusting His once-for-all sacrifice for our sin. Those who believe Him are born of the Spirit, born again, and they receive new hearts and new desires. They also receive His Holy Spirit in them.
Jesus said this about those who believe:
“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.”—John 5:24 LSB
Jesus is the Light who lights the darkness that is our natural condition. When He exposes our wrong beliefs about Him and about ourselves, when He shows us what He has done to save us—and when we believe and trust His finished atonement, we become alive.
A miracle occurs, and our triune God gives us LIFE. We receive spiritual life the moment we believe, and even though we are still living in mortal bodies, our spirits will never die. We pass out of death into life, and we will never come into judgment!
That declaration by the Light of the World reveals the investigative judgment to be utter blasphemy!
In the quote above from the Teachers Comments, point two said: “As Christians, we are called to be lights to the world, following in Jesus’ footprints and sharing our lives with others.”
Following in Jesus’ footprints and sharing OUR lives does not define either Biblical mission nor being lights in the world.
The church—born again believers—are called lights in the world because they literally have the life and presence of Jesus indwelling them! They carry the Lord with them in the world.
In fact, the world on this side of the cross is comprised of two kinds of people: natural humans who remain dead in sin because they have not believed in the finished atonement of Jesus alone, and the born again—spiritually alive people who carry Jesus’s literal presence in their born-again spirits.
Adventism cannot teach what Paul and the rest of the New Testament reveals because Adventism eclipses the amazing miracle that Light has come into the world and has delivered eternal spiritual life to believers. Instead, Adventism appropriates these powerful symbols and applies them to itself, forcing its false gospel and false salvation to define “Light”!
Light does not equal missionary endeavors. Light does not equal following Jesus’ footprints.
Light IS JSESUS! Jesus Himself revealed the dark deceptions of this world. Jesus Himself reveals the counterfeit gospel of Adventism. Jesus Himself gives us Himself—and we pass from death to life! We become spiritually alive, and we will never die when we believe and trust in Jesus and His atonement!
Once again I have an assignment for you: get a notebook and begin copying, a few verses a day, the book of John into the notebook. Ask the Lord to teach you to read Scripture without an Ellen White lens. Ask Him to show you how to read the Bible like an ordinary book, in context, using normal rules of grammar and vocabulary and punctuation. Ask Him to show you how to pursue a book from beginning to end without skipping verses—and ask Him to teach you what He is revealing to you.
Jesus is Yahweh, almighty God, who added to Himself a human body. He came to take human sin and to die the death that God required—that He Himself required—as the consequence of sin. Jesus has done everything necessary for our eternal salvation and for our restoration to eternal life.
Trust Jesus today. Confess that you need a Savior and cannot please Him, and trust His sacrifice for your sin. See Jesus shattering your curse of death on the third day, and believe! You will pass from death to life, and you will become part of His light in the world. †
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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