Lesson 6: “Through the Red Sea”
COLLEEN TINKER | Editor, Proclamation! Magazine |
Have you ever noticed that the exodus is used throughout the whole Bible almost like a spiritual archetypes? If not, don’t feel ashamed. Adventism didn’t teach us that these stories about Israel were revelations of God’s eternal, ongoing sovereignty. Instead, they taught us that the stories of Israel were stories to teach us how to live righteous lives.
And what did you think was significant about the tenth plague when God killed the Egyptians’ firstborns and saved the Israelites’ firstborns who had placed animal blood on their doorposts? What was the purpose of Jesus’ death on the cross? Adventism tells us that He died to defeat Satan. Is that true?
Sometimes we are asked why we study the Sabbath School lessons and make videos about them. The reason is simple: the Sabbath School quarterlies reveal Adventist doctrine and teaching. Every week the same lesson is in the hands of every Sabbath School leader and member in the whole world, and the members receive the same instruction and affirmation of the Adventist worldview at the same time.
The lessons reveal current and official Adventist teaching. We’re not just searching our memories to come up with our opinion about what Adventism says; we are reading their current teaching to their worldwide members. Because we have been Adventist, we know how these lessons are received and understood because we know the Adventist background and worldview. We are committed to helping people understand the subtle but profound twisting of Adventist teaching.
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Israel Left with Riches
In Sunday’s lesson the author summarizes the events leading up to Israel’s exodus. He tells how, when God struck the Egyptian’s firstborn sons and animals dead in the tenth plague, Pharaoh summoned Moses and told him to take Israel and go, adding, “And bless me also.”
The lesson makes the point that Pharaoh “was humiliated” as he saw his nation being decimated, and he gave them permission to go before raging again and launching after Israel as they marched to the Red Sea.. The lesson further states:
God, meanwhile, made provision so that the Israelites did not leave Egypt empty-handed but with things they would need for what, in the end, would turn out to be a much longer sojourn than anticipated. The Egyptians gave the Jews these precious articles only to hurry the people out of the country, but the items were wages that were long denied the Israelites for centuries of slave labor.
The day’s study then ends with these questions:
How often have we “repented” of actions only because of their consequences and not because those acts were themselves wrong? Why is that not true repentance? How can we learn to be sorry for the sins that, in a sense, we “get away with,” at least in the short term?
This lesson completely misses the magnitude of what is happening. Pharaoh knew he was dealing with Yahweh, the God of Israel who had power and authority over all Egypt’s gods. He knew because he had lived through the first nine plagues. God gave him ample understanding. He knew he was defying the LORD.
The issue of Pharaoh is not an anti-example for us to see how NOT to be, as the questions at the end of the lesson apply the story. Pharaoh is a revelation to us of a person who hardened his heart, refusing to believe God, and in an act of judicial hardening, God cemented him into his hardness which he ALREADY HAD. God hardened him judicially, not forcing him into unbelief but cementing His true decision and nature.
Pharaoh is not an example of why we need to have “true repentance”. And what IS true repentance, anyway?
Adventism will not tell us this truth. Scripture tells us that we are “by nature children of wrath” and “dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesian 2:1–3). We are not born with the ability to freely choose to obey God or not. We are born UNABLE to please Him or obey! We have to be drawn by the Father and given faith to believe. Yet God reveals Himself—His divine nature and eternal power (Romans 1:18–20) to everyone, so that all are without excuse.
Pharaoh knew he was dealing with a sovereign God more powerful than he was. Yet he refused to believe. He is not an example showing us why we need to “learn to be sorry” for our sins. Rather is shows us what happens when people suppress the knowledge of God.
True repentance is recognizing that we are utterly helpless. We cannot look at Pharaoh or Israel and decide we don’t want to be like them. By nature we ARE like them!
Repentance is admitting that we cannot please God and we need a Savior! Repentance is crying out to God and asking Him to save us by the perfect sacrifice of Jesus’ blood that paid for our sin. Repentance is asking God to make us His, believing that Jesus has done all that is necessary for our salvation, and trusting His resurrection which broke our curse of death. When we believe Him, we are born again.
Only then can we begin to trust and grow in Christ because only then are we made alive—no longer dead in sin—and empowered by the living presence of the Holy Spirit in us!
And one more thing: the lesson only echoes Ellen White as it explains that the Egyptians gave the Israelites wealth and provision that they would need for their journey. The author states that the Egyptians gave them things “to hurry the people out of the country,” but that in reality, these things amount to the “wages that were long denied the Israelites for centuries of slave labor.” This idea comes straight from Ellen White’s Patriarchs and Prophets, but it is nowhere suggested in Scripture.
What the lesson doesn’t mention is that when God made His covenant with Abraham as recorded in Genesis 15—430 years before the exodus— He told Abraham that his descendants would be enslaved for 400 years and that they would leave that land with great wealth. Here is what God promised:
Then [God] said to Abram, “Know for certain that your seed will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years. But I will also judge the nation to whom they are enslaved, and afterward they will come out with many possessions.”—Genesis 15:13, 14 LSB
The lesson never tells us that the Egyptians gave great wealth to the Israelites before the left because God had decreed they would do so! Even more, Exodus 11:2, 3 tells us that the Lord had Moses tell the Israelites that the women were to ask their neighbors for articles of gold and silver. Verse 3 states: “The Lord gave the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians”
This was no circumstantial moment of trying to get the Israelites to get out of town. They asked for the gold and silver BEFORE the firstborn died, and Moses directly commanded the women to ask for it. Moreover, God is the one who gave them favor in the eyes of their Egyptian neighbors. This whole episode of leaving with great wealth was God fulfilling His promise to Abraham 430 years earlier! But Adventism doesn’t tell this fact to its people.
This is not the scenario Ellen White taught, and the biblical facts would make God’s sovereign authority much more central than the mere idea that the Egyptians wanted the troublesome Israelites GONE so they placated them with gifts to get them to go!
Why Did Jesus Die?
Wednesday’s lesson again reveals the Adventist gospel skew that pits Jesus against Satan as arch-foes battling against each other. As is typical in these lessons, the reality of Adventism’s “gospel” is not clearly articulated. Rather, it is assumed that the Adventist reader will understand what the author means by his use of words. This example is yet another illustration of how Adventism hides in plain sight; a Christian reading this paragraph would likely not be alerted to “heresy” An Adventist, however, will have the underlying great controversy worldview in place and will understand the words in an Adventist—not a Christian—way. Here is the quote: the fourth point in a series of four which the author says reveal what Moses taught the people about “how to act in difficult situations”. This last point was the fourth thing which the author says Moses was teaching the people:
“ ‘The Lord will fight for you’ ” (Exod. 14:14, NKJV). This indicates what God will do: He will personally fight for His people. Calvary is the ultimate proof of this reality, for on the cross Christ defeated Satan in order to give us eternal life (John 5:24; Heb. 2:14; Rev. 12:10, 11). Later, even the Egyptians recognized that the Lord was fighting for the Israelites (Exod. 14:25).
First, the power of “The Lord will fight for you” is diminished in this paragraph. Here is what Moses said:
But Moses said to the people, “Do not fear! Stand by and see the salvation of Yahweh which He will accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians whom you have seen today, you will never see them again forever. Yahweh will fight for you, and you will keep silent.”—Exodus 14:13, 14 LSB
In context, Israel was standing near the Red Sea with Egypt closing in behind them. They were frightened and “cried out to Yahweh” (Ex. 14:10). They were even arguing that they should not have left Egypt. Moses told the people not to be afraid but to stand and watch Yahweh deliver them. The Lord would fight for them—and they were to stand, silent, watching God deliver them.
Israel was to trust God and give up their “right” and their “need” to know what God was doing and their “need” to do something to help themselves escape.
No.
Moses tells them to be quiet and simply to stand and watch God deal with their enemies. He was in charge. He was delivering His people. He personally loved and chose His own nation Israel, and He was personally punishing the nation that wanted to keep them enslaved.
The lesson turn this into a generalized “God will fight for you,” or “Don’t worry, God will come through for you…” The author never takes the person to Jesus fighting “for His people” on Calvary.
To be sure, God’s deliverance of Israel from Egypt IS a shadow of His delivery of humanity from sin. Yet the lesson objectifies this comparison and doesn’t take the reader to the personal way God deals with His people.
“The Lord will fight for you” is personal and final. He’s not merely a warrior who has the better tactics and can quell an enemy; He acts by His own power and destroys evil.
The paragraph above also says that God fought for His people on Calvary, “for on the cross Christ defeated Satan n order to give us eternal life.”
This sentence creates the Adventist belief that Jesus’s reason for dying was to “defeat Satan”. Adventists believe that by perfectly keeping the Law and demonstrating that a human can live a sinless life, Jesus defeated Satan by silencing his accusations that the law was too hard to keep and that God was unfair in requiring His people to keep the law. Adventists actually deny that the Lord Jesus fulfilled the Law and that now, in the new covenant, the Law has no claim on us. We are no longer under the law but are under the Law of Christ.
When we trust Jesus’ finished atonement on the cross, we are born again and indwelled by the Holy Spirit, and we now live by the Law of Christ. The Author of the Law indwells us and teaches us, moment by moment, to submit to God’s word and to honor Jesus by trusting Him in our temptations.
Jesus did not die to defeat Satan. He was condemned already. Rather Jesus died to fulfill God’s requirement that those who sin must die. God had told Adam that if he ate the fruit he would die that day. He DID die—his immaterial spirit was disconnected from the life of God. He became spiritually dead, and that spiritual death is our natural legacy as humans born in Adam. Jesus died to satisfy God’s requirement that blood must be shed to atone for sin.
When our Creator came in a human body, He came as a man so that He could physically die and shed blood for us. Because He is our Creator and our God, He had the authority to take responsibility for us, and He took into Himself the sin of our human race, took God’s wrath for sin, and then broke our curse of death because His blood was sufficient to pay for us all, and His sufficient payment broke our curse of death.
The Adventist presupposition is that Jesus came to literally defeat Satan, that He had to prove to the universe that Satan was a liar and the law could be kept. This demonstration, then, opened up the way for Adventists to be saved. In this way Jesus’ death on the cross isn’t the ONE THING needed for salvation; it is just the first step, the door through which Adventists must walk. Once they “accept Jesus” and believe that He died for their sins, that means that they then have the ability to ask Jesus for His power to help them keep the law like He did. They believe that Jesus’ death defeated Satan’s claims that no one can keep the law, and now He helps people to keep the law and be saved.
Of course Adventists never say that keeping the law is the way people are saved, but they do say that keeping the law is necessary to stay in a saved condition. Even more importantly, they teach their members that keeping the Sabbath is the single, all-important behavior each person must do if he wants to be saved.
The Adventist double-speak is dizzying when it comes to the reason Jesus died, but this lesson does not teach the true gospel. It reinforces the Adventist belief that Jesus and satan are in a battle, and Jesus won on the cross, defeating his opponent. Adventists do not understand that Jesus literally became sin for us and endured God’s wrath for sin, removing the curse of death. They do not understand the literal reality of Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 5:21:
He made Him who knew no sin [to be] sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.—2 Corinthians 5:21 LSB
Who Has Nothing to Fear?
Friday’s lesson reveals again the complete lack of understanding the gospel and the new birth. The last paragraph in the lesson quotes from the Andrews Bible Commentary on Exodus:
Talking about the Song of Moses, the Andrews Bible Commentary says: “The certainty of this redemptive act of God in history assures us that we have nothing to fear for the future. The last stanza focuses on future enemies who would be faced in conquest of Canaan. Because of God’s powerful ‘arm,’ they would be ‘as still as a stone’ (v. 16). When we face certain impossibilities, when we feel cornered and do not know which way to turn, we can find assurance in ‘The Song of Moses,’ for it commemorates a great event in the history of God’s people.”—Andrews Bible Commentary, “Exodus” (Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews University Press, 2020), p. 214.
The commentary states unequivocally: “The certainty of this redemptive act of God in history assures us that we have nothing to fear for the future.”
Yet this sentence is not universally true. Adventists, for example, do not teach—or really even know—what the gospel actually is. Without the simple gospel that the Lord Jesus died for our sins according to Scripture, that He was buried, and that He rose on the third day according to Scripture (1 Cor 15:3, 4), there is no actual “belief”. Without being called by God and given the gift of faith to believe that the Lord Jesus completed His atonement once for all, there is no new birth.
Adventism cannot lead people to Christ. While some Adventists come to trust Christ IN SPITE of Adventism, the majority of Adventists do not know who He really is or what he has really done. In fact, Adventism does not teach its members who THEY really are. They do not understand that they are spiritual beings who are born dead in sin even though their bodies are alive. They do not understand that they must born again, born of the Spirit literally in order to see the kingdom of God.
For people who have not understood their true natures, their natural spiritual death, and the complete sufficiency of the Lord Jesus taking our imputed sin and fully paying for our sin by His own death and resurrection, there is no assurance. There absolutely IS fear of the future for those who are not believing in the true Jesus and His finished work that fully pays for their sin.
If a person doesn’t know the true gospel nor the reality of one’s own sin,, that person absolutely should be afraid for the future.
No one can simply read the story of Israel and appropriate God’s sovereign redemption of them for themselves. Adventists are not a new Israel. Adventists are not even believing in an infallible Jesus who completed His atonement!
To assure Adventists that do not need to fear for the future is to sooth them with a lie. They NEED to be afraid for the future!
Yet the Lord has given us a way out of this fear and spiritual death. He has given us His Son who took human flesh to pay for our intractable sin.
We have to know and admit that we cannot please God. We need a Savior!
When we trust the Lord Jesus and His finished work, we pass at that moment from death to life. The Lord Jesus makes our hearts new and living, and He seals us with His Spirit. He makes us new creations!
Only if we have trusted the real Jesus and His once-for-all sacrifice which satisfied God, not Satan, can we know that we have nothing to fear for the future.
When we have been born again, we know that our lives are hidden with Christ in God (Col 3:3). We know that He fights for us because He has made us part of the Lord’s body. God absolutely does everything necessary for our salvation and for our lives on this earth. He teaches us to trust Him, and He makes us eternally secure.
If you haven’t trusted in the finished work of the Lord Jesus, you need to. Ask Him to show you your need of a Savior and to show you what Jesus has done for you. Believe that He has done for you what you could not do—paid for your sin and endured God’s wrath for your sin—and trust Him. Let Him make you new.
When you believe, you will understand what God did for Israel, and you will know that He is doing for you the same kind of deliverance that He did for them—He is rescuing you from your natural slavery to sin and death. He, not you, accomplishes your rescue, and He keeps you secure.
Admit your need of a Savior and your Adventist wrong-think that kept you blinded to the real Jesus who has done all that is necessary for your salvation. Trust Him today, and exchange your Adventism for your new identity as God’s own child and co-heir with Christ.
Believe and trust Him today, and you will be saved. †
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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