Lesson 13: “Standing in All the Will of God”
COLLEEN TINKER | Editor, Proclamation! Magazine |
Adventist, I have a question for you: how do you understand Paul’s apostleship in the context of the great controversy? Was he an example of effective team-building to conduct a far-reaching ministry? How do you see his explanations of Jesus’ finished atonement fitting into the great controversy’s paradigm of a heavenly investigative judgment? What finally unites humans with God? Is it the destruction of sin, as the great controversy teaches, or is it trusting Jesus’ completed atonement on the cross, as Paul teaches?
Contradicting Paul
Ironically, this last lesson of quarter one of 2026 covers Colossians 4:7 to 18—but instead of dealing with the actual words of Paul that describe how the gospel has influenced the men he commends at the end of his letter, the lesson’s author forces this chapter to be an endorsement of how to develop a “dream team” to help one conduct a far-reaching missions goal. It’s interesting to me that the lesson doesn’t even speak about Paul’s work as “ministry”—a word which emphasizes service to people who need truth and personal help—but it continually speaks of “missions”.
“Mission” and “missions” is a front-burner emphasis of Seventh-day Adventism today; the organization continually calls its members to share a vision for “missions” and encourages members to engage in programs to proselytize new members. Growth of the religion is the primary focus of Adventism—along with trying to slow down the back-door hemorrhage of members out of the organization. This missions focus develops throughout the week’s lessons.
For example, Sunday’s lesson is entitled, “Lesson on Outreach” and opens with the words, “We learn much from Paul about spreading the gospel.” It continues by pointing out that Paul’s journeys were physically grueling but that he strategically “spent considerable time in centers of trade, such as Corinth and Ephesus”, which became hubs for the “message” to spread to inland locations. In other words, the author presents the idea that Paul’s evangelism was strategic for the ongoing spread of “the gospel”, and his dream team helped him be efficient by multiplying the boots on the ground that facilitated Paul’s work.
Significantly, in verses 7–9 Paul introduces two of his “beloved brothers”, Tychicus and Onesimus, who are returning to Colossae bearing personal news and information about Paul and his circumstances. Onesimus is mentioned with more detail in the small book Philemon, and we learn there that Onesimus was a runaway slave from the household of Philemon—a man who was a leader in the church at Colossae. Apparently Onesimus, by the grace of God, encountered Paul in Rome where Paul was imprisoned under house arrest and from where Paul wrote the letter to the Colossians.
We learn from Philemon that Onesius came to faith under Paul’s teaching, and Paul loved him like a son. Yet Paul was sending the now-born-again Onesimus back to Philemon, likely bearing the letter Paul wrote to Philemon, and appealing to Philemon to forgive his runaway slave and to treat him like a true brother—because now he actually was.
In first-century Rome, a slave running away was a capitol crime, and according to the law, Philemon could have punished Onesimus to the point of death for his abandonment, but Paul reminds the slave-owner that the returned slave is now changed. Paul does not ask Philemon to free Onesimus but does appeal to him to treat him as a brother—even to the point of freeing him. But freeing him is not required. What IS required between these two reunited men who are now one in Christ is the recognition that they are on an equal footing in the sight of God. Even if Philemon does not free Onesimus—and even if he does—both men are to treat the other a true brothers. The Lord Jesus and their new birth will create a completely new relationship between them.
The lesson, however, does not even HINT that Onesimus was a runaway slave nor mention that Paul deals with Onesimus in a separate letter written to the wronged slave-owner. Instead, the lesson’s author merely says:
Accompanying him was Onesimus, whom Paul had converted in Rome (see Lesson 1) and describes as “faithful.”
While it’s not mandatory that the whole story of Philemon be mentioned in the lesson, nevertheless the issue of Paul’s sending a slave back to his owner is not high on the political correctness scale, and Adventism makes much of accommodating the vulnerable and needy according to popular “social gospel” understanding.
The core of the story, though, is missing: the true gospel of Jesus’ finished atonement on the cross changes people, and they become literally new creations when they believe and trust Jesus’ finished work of death, burial, and resurrection to rescue them from their sins.
Since Adventism does not teach the finished atonement at the cross but holds onto the great controversy and a supposed ongoing atonement in heaven as Jesus applies His blood to sins as they are confessed, there is no true power or change available in the Adventist “gospel”. All Adventists can do is to stress the importance staying faithful to the law, conducting wide-ranging “missions” to make new converts, and to stress personal commitment to obedience and overcoming sin.
Laodicea and The Great Controversy
Thursday’s lesson reveals the heart of Adventism’s false gospel. They go through the motions of pretending to study Paul’s epistle to the Colossians, yet they cannot teach what Paul actually says because their worldview is not biblical. Instead, they grab a reference to a lost letter to the Laodiceans mentioned near the end of Colossians and use that opportunity to deliver their message to Adventism—since Adventism claims to be the church of Laodicea which is named in Revelation 3.
Here is the passage from Colossians 4:16–18 from which the lesson leaps to Laodicea and the great controversy:
And when this letter is read among you, have it also read in the church of the Laodiceans; and you, for your part read my letter [that is coming] from Laodicea. And say to Archippus, “Take heed to the ministry which you have received in the Lord, that you may fulfill it.” The greeting is in my own hand–Paul. Remember my chains. Grace be with you.—Colossians 4:16–18 LSB
The author continues in Thursday’s lesson to make sweeping connections between Israel, the prophets, Jesus, and the apostles concluding that “God’s people through the ages” have encountered the same problems “again and again”. The author juxtaposes Isaiah and Revelation, essentially equating God’s promises to Israel to send the Messiah and to restore His glory to Israel with the fall of Babylon in the tribulation and the marriage supper of the Lamb and asking the reader to decide what the Isaiah passages have in common with Revelation.
This equation of the two prophecies is illegitimate; they are addressing different events. Isaiah is promising Israel that God would send the promised Messiah and then will one day restore Jerusalem in the millennial kingdom. Revelation is describing the last days when the evil power of Babylon is destroyed shortly before the Lord Jesus receives His church and celebrates the marriage supper of the lamb just before the Battle of Armageddon occurs at the end of the tribulation.
Adventism, however, sees itself receiving the Old Testament promises God made to Israel because Adventists are the ones now who “keep the commandments of God” where Israel failed to do so. Adventists believe they will go through the Time of Trouble and will be the ones who “leave Babylon”—Sunday churches—before the Lord returns.
Ironically, Adventism also believes it is Laodicea: the last-days church which is lukewarm and unbelieving, the church where Jesus is OUTSIDE the door knocking, hoping someone will let Him in.
The author of the lesson, holding these conflicting and unscriptural views in his head, sees these things through the lens of the great controversy. Because the great controversy model describes Adventism’s view of reality and end times, every detail of God’s provision for humanity through the work of the Son on Calvary and His overturning the curse of death through His resurrection is twisted.
Adventism sees salvation as being facilitated by each person’s obedient commitment to honor Adventism and to keep the Sabbath, the health message, and to stay loyal to the Adventist materialist worldview established by Ellen White’s commentary on Scripture.
With this confusing worldview muddle in mind, we see that Thursday’s lesson concludes with the author’s list of four sequential “stages” that will lead to heaven and earth uniting. Here is what the day’s lesson states:
God will unite heaven and earth. But because of the great controversy, that must be done in stages:
1. At Calvary, Satan lost any affection left toward him among the heavenly beings (John 12:31).
2. Through the judgment ministry of Christ in the heavenly sanctuary, God’s people are “complete in every good work to do His will” (Heb. 13:21, NKJV) and fitted for heaven.
3. Through the millennial judgment and the final judgment after the millennium, all remaining questions are forever settled, and sin and unrepentant sinners are destroyed in the lake of eternal fire, which also cleanses the earth (Rev. 21:8).
4. Only with the end of sin can heaven and earth finally be united (Rev. 21:3).
The lesson then ends with these questions:
What can you yourself (not looking at anyone else) do in order to remain faithful to God and to the truth He has given us? That is, what choices are you making that reveal who truly has your heart?
Unpacking the Three Stages
What does this quotation even mean? Without understanding the Adventist worldview, its self-limiting god, the Adventist fallible Jesus, and the Adventist notion of human (and demons’) sovereign free will, the above “stages” are vague. They sound “moral” and faintly righteous, but they teach a completely unbiblical message.
First, the author says the first “stage” in God’s restoration of unity between heaven and earth occurred when “Satan lost any affection left toward him among the heavenly beings”. The first problem with this statement is the assumption that “heavenly beings” had any “affection” at all for Satan. From an Adventist perspective, “heavenly beings” are not just the elect angels—who obviously have (nor ever had) affection for Satan. Adventists believe, however, that the universe is inhabited by “unfallen beings” on other planets who are watching earth to see if Satan is right in his accusations against God, or if God is right. The great controversy says that God allows satan to play out his full hand of evil in order to finally demonstrate to the unfallen beings that he is, after all, a liar, and God is fair. This revelation must be allowed to happen—and notice that in this great controversy worldview, it is Satan himself who convinces the universe that he’s actually bad and God is actually good.
The text used to support that first “stage”, John 12:31, is not about Satan losing affection at Calvary.In context it says:
“Now MY SOUL HAS BECOME DISMAYED; and what shall I say, ‘Father, SAVE ME from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour. “Father, glorify Your name.” Then a voice came from heaven: “I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.” So the crowd [of people] who stood by and heard it were saying that it had thundered; others were saying, “An angel has spoken to Him.” Jesus answered and said, “This voice has not come for My sake, but for your sake. “Now judgment is upon this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out. “And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself.”—John 12:27–31 LSB
Jesus was not talking about Satan losing respect or affirmation among heavenly beings! Jesus is saying that He is about to take the death penalty God required for human sin—the penalty articulated in the law. By taking the curse, the wrath of God, and the death penalty for our sin, Jesus was freeing all who believe from our natural state of spiritual death. He was about to free us from our bondage to sin and the prince of the power of the air—Satan—into which we all are born (see Ephesians 2:1–3). By taking the penalty, we no longer are subject to Satan’s power and our own curse of death!
This is what Jesus meant—He was not saying Satan was about to lose face with the universe because Jesus would “overcome” him by not sinning and managing to die on the cross in spite of Satan’s efforts to trip Him up!
Second, the above “stages” assumes that Jesus is in heaven right now carrying out the investigative judgment—a unique doctrine held only by Seventh-day Adventists. The author assumes and states that God’s people are being “fitted for heaven” by the imagined ongoing atonement Jesus is supposed to be carrying out in heaven.
Jesus is NOT carrying out a judgment ministry in heaven! He completed the atonement on the cross. No one is being fitted for heaven by Jesus applying blood to the record of sins supposedly held in the sanctuary in heaven! The is completely an invented idea that is the heart of the great controversy. Furthermore, to use Hebrews 13:21 as the supportive text to “prove” this idea is overtly dishonest. First, verse 21 is only part of a sentence. It omits the subject of the sentence, implying that Jesus tossing atoning blood on records of sin is what is equipping the saints for good works. Yet here is what the WHOLE sentence says:
Now the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, our Lord Jesus, equip you in every good thing to do His will, by doing in us what is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom [be] the glory forever and ever. Amen.—Hebrews 13:20, 21 LSB
Notice what the verse actually says: the God of peace is equipping believers to do His will, “doing in us what is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ”. God is not equipping us through an incomplete, ongoing atonement but through the resurrection of our great Shepherd of the sheep—a resurrection made possible because Jesus’ blood of the eternal covenant was SUFFICIENT to pay for all human sin at the cross! There is NO ongoing atonement!
The very text the lesson uses to try to establish the blasphemous idea that Jesus is still offering His blood in heaven as people remember to confess—that very text PROVES the Adventist lie! It was Jesus once-for-all sacrifice when He shed “the blood of the eternal covenant” and made the resurrection—the breaking of death—possible that is the means of God’s equipping us!!
Stages Three and Four
The third supposed “stage” in God’s effort to unite heaven and earth is “the millennial judgment and the final judgment after the millennium” when “all remaining questions are forever settled…”
The Bible does not teach a “millennial judgment”, but Ellen White does. She says the millennium will be in heaven when the saved will be given full access to all God’s records and secrets. During the millennium, she says, the earth will be desolate, and Satan will be “bound” by being forced to stay on an empty earth where there is no one to tempt. During that time the Sabbath-keepers who remained loyal to the seventh day will go to heaven, and they will ask God to explain all their questions: why wasn’t Grandma Smith saved? Why did Brother Ames leave the church? Why did you create an angel who became Satan? And so forth. Adventism teaches that every question we humans have will be answered fully, and we will have no more doubts about God’s fairness. We will be given all details and understanding.
This idea places humans ultimately “in charge”, the ultimate value in the universe. Humans, not God, have the ultimate right to know and understand. Yet Scripture tells us that the pot never has a right to ask the Potter why he was made as he has been made. The Potter is never in the same category as the pot, and we created pots are to trust God, not expect answers to all our questions.
No creature can understand reality that God knows; we are finite. Yet Adventism says we will have all our questions answered—and then God will destroy—read that annihilate—sinners in the lake of eternal fire “which cleanses the earth”. That conclusion is also Adventist. The Bible doesn’t call the lake of fire the fire that destroys the earth. The lake of fire is God’s judgment on sinners, not His chosen method of destroying the sinful earth and creating a new one.
Fourth, the lesson says that only “with the end of sin can heaven and earth finally be united”. Adventism, on EGW’s authority, says that sin will never rise again because Satan will be thrown into the lake of fire. In other words, with the destruction of Satan, the universe will be safe from sin.
Once again, Adventism makes a creature more powerful than God, and it eclipses the blood of Jesus. We are eternally secure and safe from sin because Jesus became a man and shed His human blood for human sin. He Himself is the guarantee that sin is not a future threat. Hebrews 7:23–25 tells us this:
And the [former] priests, on the one hand, existed in greater numbers because they were prevented by death from continuing, but [Jesus], on the other hand, because He continues forever, holds His priesthood permanently. Therefore He is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.—Hebrews 7:23–25 LSB
It is the risen Christ who guarantees our eternal security. His eternal intercession is not His applying blood to individual sins when people remember to confess. His shed blood is an eternal reality that pays for all human sin for all time, and as people repent and trust His finished work, they are born again with the resurrection life of Jesus. He Himself is the eternal guarantee of their eternal security!
This quarter’s lessons have denatured Paul’s clear teaching of the gospel of Jesus’ death for sin, His burial, and His resurrection on the third day according to Scripture. It has completely eclipsed Paul’s warning against retaining Jewish practices and prohibitions, including requiring the keeping of Sabbath!
Adventism cannot teach Paul contextually because it does not believe the biblical gospel. Adventism holds to a false god—one who is physical—and a false view of the nature of man, denying that we are spirit-beings in physical bodies, born spiritually dead and needing to be literally made alive through faith in the Lord Jesus.
Adventism teaches a “gospel” that has Satan as a major player, one important enough to question God and carry on an unresolved conflict with God the Son. Adventism teaches that humans ultimately decide the outcome of the war between Jesus and Satan—and Satan ultimately bears both the sins of the saved and the punishment for those sins.
Adventism teaches a false gospel that elevates Satan and denatures the Lord Jesus.
If you have never realized that Jesus became sin for you and died for your sins, fully paying for them on the cross, that He was buried, and that He rose on the third day, shattering your curse of death—I urge you: get a notebook and begin copying the books of Philippians and Colossians. See the truth about who Jesus is and what He has done, and see what His blood guarantees for all who believe.
Believe Him today—and pass from death to life! †
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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