Lesson 9: “Heirs Of Promises, Prisoners of Hope”
COLLEEN TINKER | Editor, Proclamation! Magazine |
This week’s lesson attempts to explain how the unconditional promises God made to Abraham that his descendants would have the land gradually became reinterpreted, through the tragic events of Israel’s history and then through the coming of the Messiah, into spiritual fulfillments. Staying true to the great controversy worldview, the author takes his readers through massive historical re-visioning of how God fulfilled His promises and showed us that He changed the original physical promises into eternal spiritual realities. Unfortunately, this view of God’s promises and disregard for His covenants changes what God has told us He will do in the world. The Adventist worldview blinds it members to what God’s word actually says and teaches them to look for something the Bible doesn’t actually say.
How Do Adventists Live As Heirs of the Promises?
Saturday’s lesson gives a hint of the theological morphing the lesson will bring when it says in the last paragraph:
This week we will look at some theological concepts related to the Promised Land and their spiritual implications for those who claim all the promises found in Jesus.
Then, in Sunday’s lesson, the morphing develops further. In the middle of the lesson the author asks:
What do you think it means to us, as Adventists, to live as heirs of the promises (Heb. 6:11–15)?
In order to understand where the author is leading the audience, we need to read Hebrews 6:11–15:
And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence so as to realize the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not become dull, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. For when God made the promise to Abraham, since He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself, saying, “I WILL GREATLY BLESS YOU AND I WILL GREATLY MULTIPLY YOU.”—Hebrews 6:11–14 LSB
The problem with the question above and the verse it references is that the verse is incomplete. The rest of the passage in Hebrews 6, verses 15–20, reveal that the author is not speaking specifically of the Promised Land in Canaan nor about the patriarchs specifically. Rather the author of Hebrews is speaking about God’s unchangeable promises which He made with His Son on the basis of His blood. These promises God confirmed with His own person and also with His own oath, and these promises are the finished atonement that grants all who believe eternal life. Here are the verses the lesson omitted:
And so, having patiently waited, he obtained the promise. For men swear by one greater [than themselves], and with them an oath [given] as confirmation is an end of every dispute. In the same way God, desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, guaranteed [it] with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a [hope] both sure and confirmed and one which enters within the veil, where a forerunner has entered for us–Jesus, having become a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.—Hebrews 6: 15–20 LSB
Sunday’s lesson glibly goes on to say:
“The patriarchs were heirs of the promises until they were fulfilled. We, as Christ’s followers, have inherited even better promises (Heb. 8:6) that will be fulfilled if we become “imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises” (Heb. 6:12, RSV).
The problem is that the author misses the point that “the promises” Abraham received were Unconditional PROMISES—and those promises were not merely “promises”; they were unconditional covenant oaths made by God alone without condition as to His bringing them to pass. Regardless of Abraham or his descendants, God would bring about those promises. Descendants of Abraham will—even though only a remnant, as Romans 9 through 11 explain, WILL one day inhabit the land because God will restore it to them.
Furthermore, it is not only His covenant with Abraham that confirms this fact; it is multiple promises throughout the prophets of the Old Testament as well as His promises reiterated in Romans 11. In other words, it is icorrect to say that the patriarchs “were heirs of the promises until they were fulfilled.” This notion makes God out to be a liar, or a trickster. The first audience—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—understood God to be literally promising them descendants who would occupy a certain land. That meaning cannot change just because we are in a new age now. The coming of the Lord Jesus and His completion of all the shadows of the law and the whole Mosaic Covenant does not mean that the original meanings of God’s promises can now be changed.
Oh, yes—there are now new applications that can be made on the basis of New Testament revelation, including the writings of Paul in Romans and the prophecies of John in Revelation—but new applications does not mean new MEANINGS.
Furthermore—and importantly—Adventists cannot read themselves into these covenant promises. In the first place, the role of the church is different from the role of Israel, but secondly, Adventism teaches a false gospel. It cannot be legitimately called part of the church. It is not part of the body of Christ. It cannot read itself into any of the biblical promises. It can only see itself in the Bible’s calls to repent, admit their sin, and entrust themselves to the Lord Jesus who has completed the full atonement for human sin and broken the curse of death.
There is no Decalogue or Sabbath in the new covenant reality of the Law of Christ and the new birth which places us in a new kingdom of the beloved Son, spiritually alive, and sealed with the Holy Spirit of Promise. Adventism cannot place itself within this body of Christ that is the new covenant reality.
Covenants Reviewed
In order to understand why we cannot change the meanings of God’s praises from one Testament to the next, we need to review God’s covenants as the Bible records them.
The first covenant that the Bible names is not within the Trinity nor between God and Adam. Rather, the first biblical covenant is between God and Noah and all flesh and the whole earth when Noah comes out of the ark after the flood. In Genesis 8:20–9:17 we read about the unconditional covenant God made with the whole earth that He would preserve the earth. He would never again destroy it with a flood, and He promised that as long as earth remains, the seasons, planting and harvest, and day and night “shall not cease”. The sign of this covenant is the rainbow. Now, thousands of years later, the rainbow still reminds humanity that God is sustaining the whole earth and keeping His promise never to destroy it again with a flood. He has us in His sovereign care. He—not our climate change shenanigans—is sustaining life on earth.
The second covenant named in Scripture is God’s unilateral, unconditional covenant that He made with Abraham. The cutting of the covenant is described in Genesis 15; God did not allow Abraham to participate in the covenant promises. Contrary to what Ellen White says in Patriarchs and Prophets, Abraham did not walk through the covenant sacrificial animals, promising to obey prior to the smoking oven and flaming torch appearing and passing through the pieces. Rather, Abraham prepared the animals, and then God put him into a deep sleep while He Himself made the covenant promises. God’s word cannot fail; God took a self-maledictory oath as He passed between the sacrificed animals covenanting to bring Abrahams descendants back to the very land where the covenant took place. He even told him that his descendants would be slaves for 400 years, that He would bring them out with great wealth, and would bring them into the land. He promised to give childless Abraham seed, land, and blessing.
The sign of the Abrahamic covenant is given in Genesis 17: circumcision. All of Abraham’s male descendants were to be circumcised; if not, God would still keep His promises, but the individuals who weren’t circumcised would not receive the covenant blessings. They had to be put out of the community.
The third covenant God made in Scripture was the CONDITIONAL covenant with Israel: the Mosaic Covenant. The Decalogue were the very “words of the covenant” (Exodus 34:27 28). This covenant consisted of two-way promises between the nation and the Lord God—and it was conditional because God set it up that way. He promised blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience, and Israel promised that all God said, they would do. The book of Exodus tells the story of God’s making this covert with Israel and all of its terms. The book of Deuteronomy records the restatement of this same covenant with the wilderness generation before they went into the land.
All the stories of Israel taking the land and becoming established there under Joshua and then during the times of the Judges are recounting the history of Israel living under the terms of the Mosaic covenant; they were experiencing blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience.
Concurrently God was still carrying out His eternal, unconditional promises to Abraham. Regardless of Israel’s obedience or disobedience, God’s covenant promises to Abraham were and still are going forward.
The circumcision that was the sign of the Abrahamic covenant became part of the Mosaic covenant requirements as well. No Israelite boy could participate in Israelite worship unless he was circumcised on the eighth day. In fact, if the eighth day of life occurred on a Sabbath, circumcision trumped Sabbath.
As part of both the Mosaic and Abraham covenants, the next unconditional covenant God made was with David when He promised to make him a house with an eternal king, throne, and dynasty. This covenant is described in 2 Samuel 7, and Psalm 89 states:
“My lovingkindness I will keep for him forever, And My covenant shall be confirmed to him. So I will set up his seed [to endure] forever And his throne as the days of heaven. If his sons forsake My law And do not walk in My judgments, If they profane My statutes And do not keep My commandments, Then I will punish their transgression with the rod And their iniquity with striking. But I will not break off My lovingkindness from him, Nor deal falsely in My faithfulness. My covenant I will not profane, Nor will I alter what comes forth from My lips. Once I have sworn by My holiness; I will not lie to David.”—Psalm 89:28–35 LSB
Finally, the last covenant the Bible names is also unconditional, and it is the new covenant. It is first promised to Israel and Judah, and it is found in Jeremiah 31:27–34 and in Ezekiel 36:22–29. God clearly promises that He will restore both Israel and Judah, the northern and southern divided kingdoms, and He will take away their sin, give them new hearts, new spirits, and place His Spirit in them—and bring them back to “inhabit the land that I gave to your fathers” (Ez 36:28).
We also see in the New Testament that the Lord Jesus brought those who believe in Him—including the gentiles—into the new covenant. On the night before His crucifixion He introduced the new covenant with more specificity than the Old Testament prophets had seen. He said that the Passover cup was now the cup of the new covenant in His blood, and the Passover bread was now His body “which is for you” (1 Corinthians 11:23–26).
Land Doesn’t Equal Salvation
Tuesday’s lesson, however, in keeping with its own worldview, places no significance on the biblical covenants or how they are effected in the world. The last paragraph of the lesson says this:
However, for the Israelites to enjoy God’s gift, they had to assume all the responsibilities that came with living in the land, just as we have to go through the process of our sanctification in loving obedience to the requirements of being citizens of God’s kingdom. Though not the same thing, the parallel between their being given the land by grace and our being given salvation by grace are close enough. We have been given a wonderful gift, but it is something that we can forfeit if we are not careful.
First, the lesson assumes that the land promises which God covenanted by His own name and word to the patriarchs no longer have their original meaning, and the assumption is that Israel won’t always inhabit the land.
True, Israel has been dispersed more than once through the millennia of history, but God’s promises that they one day will have the land have not changed. They are still eternal, unconditional promises, and they will come true fully.
Second, our receiving salvation is not something that we can forfeit if we choose. When have truly trusted and believed in Jesus’ completed atonement for sin and place all of our trust in Him, we pass, as Jesus Himself said, from death to life (John 5:24). We cannot be UNBORN. When we are born of the spirit, we literally receive the resurrection life of Jesus.
Yes, we now are being sanctified as the indwelling Holy Spirit teaches us to trust Him as we face difficulties and temptations—but our sins do not remove us from our new position in Christ if we have truly trusted Him and have been born of the Spirit.
“Land Is Reinterpreted”
Thursday’s lesson drives home the Adventist belief that God’s land promises now have a new meaning:
In the New Testament, the Promised Land is not mentioned directly, but we are told that the promises of God have been fulfilled in and through Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 1:20, Rom. 15:8). Thus, in the light of Christ, the land is reinterpreted, and it becomes the symbol of the spiritual blessings that God plans to give to His faithful people here and now (Eph. 2:6) and in the hereafter.
The ultimate fulfillment of the divine promise of rest, abundance, and well-being in the land will take place on the new earth, liberated from sin and its consequences. In that sense, as Christians, our hope is based on Christ’s promise that He will return and, after a 1,000-year period in heaven, establish His eternal kingdom on the earth made new. This will be the ultimate fulfillment of all the promises about the land.
To be sure, 2 Corinthians 1:20 says that all of God’s promises are YES in Christ, but this verse does not mean that God’s original promises now have a new meaning. This text does not mean that Jesus Himself fulfills the land promises as many people say.
In the New Testament we have new revelation from Yahweh as He sent God the Son—also Yahweh—to take a body and to become sin for us and to endure the wrath of God and then to die and break the curse of death. This reality of the Perfect Sacrifice and Substitute coming on our behalf—the Lord God in a human body—does not mean the original promises have now been changed.
God’s word cannot change!
The gospel does mean that there are new applications that were still mysteries in the Old Testament, but the meanings remain the same.
God still promises that Abraham’s descendants—that the descendants of Jacob (the Israelites) will inhabit the land. That promise has never changed.
Furthermore, we gentiles who believe in the Lord Jesus are certainly now counted as Abraham’s descendants. Romans 4 makes this fact very clear. Importantly, however, we believing gentiles are never identified in Scripture as children of Jacob, or Israel. Abraham—yes He is the father of ALL who believe, Jew and gentile alike. His faith preceded his circumcision; he believed as an uncircumcised man. He is the father of faith for all who believe.
But the descendants of Jacob/Israel are always understood to be the Israelites, not gentiles.
We are born of God through belief in the finished work of the Son, and we are grafted into God’s plans and purposes as children of Abraham, not of Jacob. We are not Israel.
Israel is still Israel—and when they come to faith, they also are part of the body of Christ. Their identity, like ours, changes, and they become alive in Christ and part of the church.
Yet God’s promises to give the land to Israel are still going to happen.
The eternal state is not the fulfillment of God’s promises to bring Israel into the land with a king from the line of David ruling from Jerusalem as the Old Testament prophets say. Isaiah 65, Ezekiel, Revelation 20—these are only some of the prophecies that describe a coming millennial kingdom. ON EARTH—not in heaven as Adventists say.
This kingdom will fulfill the promises God made to Israel that they land will again be theirs, and the promises of the prophets that He will again gather Israel and Judah together and place them back in their land—and that He will usher them into His new covenant promises. They will be a remnant of Israel who will believe in the Son as He regathers them and completes His promises to them.
We cannot redefine the literal terms of God’s covenant promises. We can see new applications on this side of the cross; we can see evidence that the church will reign with Christ in this millennial kingdom, but we cannot say these promises no longer apply. We cannot change God’s word.
Are there details we don’t understand? Certainly. Yet we cannot dismiss God’s word and His covenants. He is faithful to Himself.
The bottom line for us all is that we must read Scripture like a normal book. We follow all the normal rules of grammar, vocabulary, and context, and we first look at what any given passage meant to the first audience. Ever passage of Scripture has only ONE meaning, even if it has multiple applications. It’s just important to realize we can’t CHANGE the meanings of the Bible.
If you haven’t understood the gospel, I’ll give you an assignment. Get a notebook and copy the book of Galatians into that notebook, asking God to teach you what He already knows He wants you to understand. Ask Him to show you what is true, to plant you deeply in reality, and to protect you from deception.
Trust Jesus. He became sin for us so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21). See that His word means what it says and cannot be changed. God is. Faithful to Himself, and He will never trick us.
Thank Him for what He is doing that you can’t see and for what He has done that you do know about. Thank Him for Jesus—and trust Him.
You will 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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