Lesson 2: “To Know God”
COLLEEN TINKER | Editor, Proclamation! Magazine |
Adventist, how would you describe God’s character? Even more to the point, how would you know God’s character? Now, by contrast, how would you describe YOUR character? How does a person with a character like yours come to know a God with a character like His? What bridges the gap between you and a holy God?
How Do We Know God’s Character?
Adventism has always taught its members that the Ten Commandments are the revelation of God’s character. This assumption underlies all of Adventism’s energy spent teaching and even coercing people into loyal Sabbath-keeping because the fourth commandment, supposedly, is the one true day of worship. They anchor this argument in the idea that because the fourth commandment is embedded in the Ten Commandments, this fact means that the Sabbath, as one aspect of the revelation of God’s character, is therefore eternal. Forever and ever God and His people will celebrate the Sabbath together, and Adventists are the ones who have been given this insight and the mandate to convert apostate Christians to true worship on the seventh day.
This week’s Sabbath School lesson, “To Know God”, camps on the idea of learning to know God’s character. Now, every Adventist knows that the Law is at the heart of their worldview and at the heart of their Adventist godhead. The Law, they believe, IS what leads people to the heart of God.
Yet this week’s lesson NEVER states this Adventist fact—until the Teachers Comments mention that “fearing God means keeping His commandments, and the commandment of the seventh-day Sabbath is the only commandment that refers to Creation”. The author writes all around the core Adventist idea that the Law is the great revelation of God’s character. Without ever mentioning the Sabbath or other Adventist traditional practices, the lesson impresses on the reader that the Bible reveals God, and it establishes the great controversy idea that Lucifer was the first one to “doubt God’s character”. The purpose of the lesson is to change whatever the reader is doing wrong in order to represent God correctly so the reader doesn’t fall into Satan’s deception.
The reason Adventists are being urged to know God’s character is that, according to the leading point in this week’s lesson, it’s not possible to have a close relationship with God unless one understands His character—unless one knows about Him. As the reader pursues figuring out the truth about God’s character, he or she is trying to resist falling into Satan’s trap.
Let’s look at what the lesson actually says to introduce and develop this idea that knowing God’s character is the most important thing:
Having a clear understanding of God’s character is foundational to having a strong relationship with Him. That is why, this week, we will look carefully at what the Bible says about the character of God, keeping in mind that it “is the darkness of misapprehension of God that is enshrouding the world. Men are losing their knowledge of His character. It has been misunderstood and misinterpreted. At this time a message from God is to be proclaimed, a message illuminating in its influence and saving in its power. His character is to be made known. Into the darkness of the world is to be shed the light of His glory, the light of His goodness, mercy, and truth. . . . The last message of mercy to be given to the world, is a revelation of His character of love.”—Ellen G. White, Christ’s Object Lessons, p. 415.
Notice that the author opens the week with the idea that having an understanding of God’s character is “FOUNDATIONAL to having a strong relationship” with God. The author drives home her point by ending with an Ellen White quote that omits the last sentence. When we see that last sentence, we see that Ellen White was actually saying that the Adventists—the people who are loyal to the law and the Sabbath to the very end of the time of trouble—these people are the revelation of God’s last message to the world:
Those who wait for the Bridegroom’s coming are to say to the people, “Behold your God.” The last rays of merciful light, the last message of mercy to be given to the world, is a revelation of His character of love. The children of God are to manifest His glory. In their own life and character they are to reveal what the grace of God has done for them. COL 415.5
She actually says that the loyal Adventists are God’s final message. This idea fits with her statements that the three angels of Revelation 14 who have the last message for the world represent the loyal Adventists who carry the Advent message to the world, calling people to keep the Sabbath and leave Babylon before they are destroyed.
Then, in Sunday’s lesson, the author introduces Satan’s assumed doubts about God and his deception of humanity. Sunday’s lesson ends with these words which include a quote from Patriarchs and Prophets:
Ultimately, Satan’s message to Eve was this: God is keeping secrets from you. God does not want what is best for you. You can’t trust Him. Ellen White expands on this when she says, “From the opening of the great controversy it has been Satan’s purpose to misrepresent God’s character and to excite rebellion against His law.”—Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 338.
We see the core Adventist worldview being reiterated here in the lesson: man needs to understand God’s character in order to relate to Him. Satan doubted God and dedicated himself to deceiving humans so they, too, would doubt God and rebel against Him. Finally, in this quote, we have the most direct statement in the week’s studies identifying what human rebellion looks like: it is rebellion against God’s law—and this rebellion against the law is misrepresentation of God’s character.
For the Adventist, the law and God are practically equal. The law reveals God’s character, and God’s character must be known in order for humans to trust God and relate to Him.
Never is there a hint that the underlying problem is human sin and spiritual death. Even here, in these first two studies of the week, the problem is presented as Lucifer/Satan deceiving humans so that they doubt God’s fairness and goodness, and this doubt leads to rebellion against this doubtful God’s law. Rebellion against the law, in the Adventist mind, is equal to rebellion against God.
It must be noted that when Adventists speak of “the law”, they do not refer to the whole counsel of God or even to the Torah—the books of the law. Neither do they refer to the entirety of the Mosaic covenant which contained 613 inseparable laws including the Ten. Rather, Adventists refer to the Ten Commandments when they speak of “the law”, and for them, rebellion against the law is expressed primarily as trampling on the fourth commandment: the seventh-day Sabbath.
Yet none of these underlying assumptions are explained. Human sin being bequeathed to us through Adam is never mentioned. Rather, Satan is blamed for our sin, and humans are portrayed as being left to try to figure out who God really is because Satan has distracted them from the law—which is the revelation of God’s character.
“Glory” Does Not Equal “Holy”
Monday’s lesson begins by teaching that one thing the reader needs to know about God’s character is that He is Holy.
Yes, God IS holy. Yet this lesson contaminates its presentation of God’s holiness by inserting Ellen White into the discussion. After saying that God’s Holiness is perhaps “one of the most misunderstood” attributes of God, the lesson states this:
Think about Bible characters such as Moses, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and John who came into God’s presence. What was their first response? They removed their shoes, hid their faces, or fell down as though dead. As human beings, we are sinful and so unholy that we can’t bear to stand in God’s presence. Any human who looks at God’s face will not live. Similarly, when Ellen G. White went into vision, she often cried “Glory . . . glory . . . glory” because it was the one word that seemed to most capture what she saw. And, of course, the four living creatures do not rest day or night without saying, “ ‘Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!’ ” (Rev. 4:8, NKJV).
Inserting Ellen White into a list of prophets who fell before God in worship, sandwiching her name and words between the prophets and the four living creatures before the throne of God who worship day and night saying, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!”—this juxtaposition is blasphemous. Ellen White was not a prophet of God.
Furthermore, when Ellen White went into vision and said, “Glory, glory, glory”, she was not worshiping God. She was understood to be reporting what she saw. The author even explains her words as descriptions of what she saw.
Ellen White was not worshiping. The supposed “glory” cries of a false prophet who established Adventism’s belief in a fallible Jesus, a human nature devoid of spirit, a salvation that requires obedience to the Ten Commandments, and a belief that the Law is the revelation of God’s character—these visionary “glories” are not related to the prophets’ worship before Yahweh or to the heavenly creatures worshiping our holy triune God day and night! Ellen White was posing; she was a false prophet, and she delivered messages from fallen angels.
Yet the author’s placement of her name in the middle of a list of biblical characters who knew and worshiped God is deliberate manipulation and deception. This lesson is demonstrating that Adventism practices the kind of subtle deception the serpent practiced on Eve. Adventism deceives its members into thinking its beliefs are biblical by misusing biblical passages to appear to support the Adventist worldview!
What About Jesus?
In Thursday’s lesson the author finally gets to Jesus. She leads by saying Jesus would be the best answer for helping a non-Christian understand the character of God. She says,
In order to know more about what God the Father is like, we should look to Jesus—His words, His actions, His manner, and His great love toward humanity as desplayed (sic) in His death and resurrection.
The love and care of the Father is most clearly expressed in His Son, Jesus.
Yet even here, there is no explanation about how or why Jesus is the best revelation of God’s character. She mentions but does not explain how Jesus’ death and resurrection reveal God. She doesn’t talk about human sin and the need for atonement. She doesn’t mention that humans are naturally depraved and unable to worship or to please God. She doesn’t even hint that Jesus died in order to fully atone for sin on the cross, nor that His resurrection was the result of Jesus’ blood fully paying for human sin so that God’s curse of death on sinful humans could be shattered.
Rather she mentions Jesus’ death and resurrection along with Jesus’ words, actions, and manner, and she says that His death and resurrection displayed His “great love toward humanity”
Yet Adventism teaches that Jesus’ dying for our sins was not a completed atonement. Rather, it was a means of having our past sins forgiven; now Jesus is continuing His atonement in heaven, applying His blood every time a believer confesses a sin.
This lesson subtly, consistently reinforces the Adventist worldview. The Adventist Jesus was primarily an example of how to be good, kind, loving, accepting, and merciful. Even Adventist Jesus’s death was largely an example. While they may say it was substitutionary because it provided the blood sacrifice that is ultimately needed to forgive sin, they deny that the full full atonement was completed on the cross.
Yet Adventists say that Jesus’ death demonstrated to the rebellious world and to Satan how to die with dignity, refusing to curse His persecutors and demonstrating to sinful mankind that even though they were so evil they wanted to kill Him, He would suffer in silence and take the death they deserved.
Adventism teaches that in order for Jesus’ blood to cover one’s sins, the person himself must remember to confess them. Only those sins specifically confessed will have “pardon” entered next to them in the heavenly books. Only those people who are consistently improving their obedience, becoming more and more compliant with the Ten Commandments and putting sin to death in the flesh through perseverance and self-denial will be qualified for Jesus’ blood to make up whatever they lack in perfection by the time they die.
In Adventism there is no once-and-done atonement. The cross was only a first step, a down payment, if you will.
What’s wrong with this picture?
The Bible never suggests that in order to have a close relationship with God, we must understand His character. What the Bible does teach is that every person ever born—except for the Lord Jesus—is born spiritually dead in sin, unable to seek, please, or know God.
We are literally—not figuratively, not mentally, but SPIRITUALLY—dead in sin by nature:
And you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all also formerly conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.—Ephesians 2:1–3 LSB
…as it is written, “THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NOT EVEN ONE; THERE IS NONE WHO UNDERSTANDS, THERE IS NONE WHO SEEKS FOR GOD; ALL HAVE TURNED ASIDE, TOGETHER THEY HAVE BECOME WORTHLESS; THERE IS NONE WHO DOES GOOD, THERE IS NOT EVEN ONE.”—Romans 3:10–12 LSB
It is not knowledge of who God is that we need to know Him; it is the knowledge that we are sinners by nature and in need of a Savior. Our only requirement is that we believe and trust in the finished atonement of the Lord Jesus! We are not saved by knowledge—even by knowledge about God. We are saved when we trust Jesus, and God credits us with righteousness because we BELIEVE Him!
We are born dead; we must be made alive. Our problem is not lack of right knowledge; it is literal DEATH.
God takes responsibility for revealing Himself, and sinful people are fully responsible for suppressing the knowledge of God’s eternal nature and divine power that is revealed in what has been made (Roman 3:18–21).
God’s character is not transcribed in the law; rather, God’s “character” is sovereign, eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, just, and merciful. We see the evidence of His character in everything around us—and we see His personal provision for our spiritual death in His word.
Adventism has taught its members a false worldview that includes a powerful Satan at its core. Adventist, know this: the great controversy is not true! It is an invented worldview designed to keep you in bondage to the law, fearful of Satan, and attached to the Adventist organization.
What you must have in order to have a a relationship with God is LIFE. Only by trusting Jesus can that life be ours. Jesus told Nicodemus, the Pharisee who visited him at night:
Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. “That which has been born of the flesh is flesh, and that which has been born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’”—John 3:3–7 LSB
We can only be born again by believing and trusting ourselves and our sin to the Lord Jesus. His death on the cross fully atoned for our sin—past, present, and future—and only by entrusting and believing in Him can we have eternal life.
When we do believe, the miracle happens immediately. Jesus put it this way:
“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
We have literal immaterial spirits that are born dead in sin, but when we see Jesus bleeding on that cross, taking God’s wrath for our sin, dying and being buried, then rising on the third day because His blood has already fully paid for all our sin—when we BELIEVE and trust Him, we pass at that moment from death to life, and the Holy Spirit of promise indwells us and teaches us to live new lives of trust and obedience to Him.
Knowing God’s character is not what God asks of you, dear Adventist. What God asks of you is to believe Him—as Abraham did—and to trust the Son whom He sent to fully propitiate for your sin. God’s character will not become clear to you until after you acknowledge your sin and trust the Lord’s provision. When you have passed from death to life, the indwelling Holy Spirit will make God’s character increasingly clear as He teaches you to understand and apply His word to you life.
Believe Jesus today—leave behind the confusion and fear of Adventism, and trust the one who died for you! Pass today 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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