Lesson 10: “The True Joshua”
COLLEEN TINKER | Editor, Proclamation! Magazine |
How are we supposed to interpret the Bible? Is the Old Testament a series of “types” that ultimately find fulfillment in the person and work of Christ? Can we read the Old Testament as having a fixed meaning that the author intended for the first audience, or do we reinterpret the Old Testament from our New Testament perspective? And what about Adventism and its great controversy worldview? Does the great controversy shape the way Adventists interpret the Bible?
What Is A “Type”?
Saturday’s lesson in the tenth week of studies this quarter announces that the “Bible itself contains indicators of typology and how the life of Joshua foreshadows the ministry of the Messiah”. It goes on to say that the life of Joshua also points toward fulfillments in “the church” as well as in “the consummation of human history”—meaning eschatology. But what IS a “type”, and is the Sabbath School lesson using this literary device correctly?
Sunday’s lesson attempts to establish the Adventist framework when the author says:
Typology is a specific interpretation of persons, events, or institutions that prefigure Jesus or other realities contained in the gospel. The type corresponds to the antitype as a mold or a hollow form that reflects the original form, even if the latter, the antitype, more fully fulfills the purpose of the type.…That is, New Testament writers, whose Scripture was the Old Testament, were inspired by the Holy Spirit to use the Old Testament types to reveal “present truth” (2 Pet. 1:12), especially about Jesus and His ministry.
There it is: the first concrete hint to the discerning reader that this lesson is not primarily teaching the plain meaning of Scripture but of Ellen White’s great controversy worldview: the “progressive revelation” which she taught Adventists is the model that validates her extra-biblical visions and definitions. To any Adventist reader, the inclusion of “present truth” in the lesson copy will be understood to me the Adventist understanding of the Old Testament sanctuary service leading to the investigative judgment. The Adventist interpretation of the sanctuary and the resultant investigative judgment IS the definition of their particular belief in “progressive revelation”. God gave His last-day message not in the New Testament directly, but through special revelations to the last-day prophetic voice of Ellen White. In this way, Adventists are special, with a unique last day message for the world.
In this way Adventists understand that they, the people who claim the Ten Commandments for themselves with special emphasis on the fourth, and the people with the special John the Baptist-like prophetic voice of Ellen White, are the only people with the truth of how to be saved. They believe they are the true spiritual Israel, and they alone will give the last-day message of Sabbath-keeping and the heavenly pre-advent judgment to the world.
Yet—what actually IS a biblical “type”? Can people independently identify Old Testament objects, ceremonies and people as “types” of New Testament reality?
The evangelical Christian site GotQuestions.org says this about biblical types:
We should point out the difference between an illustration and a type. A type is always identified as such in the New Testament. A Bible student finding correlations between an Old Testament story and the life of Christ is simply finding illustrations, not types. In other words, typology is determined by Scripture. The Holy Spirit inspired the use of types; illustrations and analogies are the result of man’s study. For example, many people see parallels between Joseph (Genesis 37-45) and Jesus. The humiliation and subsequent glorification of Joseph seem to correspond to the death and resurrection of Christ. However, the New Testament never uses Joseph as a model of Christ; therefore, Joseph’s story is properly called an illustration, but not a type, of Christ.— https://www.gotquestions.org/typology-Biblical.html
The lesson, however, does not approach typology this way. It looks for correlations between Old and New Testament details and assigns typology to those which support their pre-existing great controversy worldview. Monday’s lesson gives examples demonstrating the underlying commitment to Adventism’s great controversy worldview as it discusses types. This quotation from Monday’s study reveals Adventism’s focus on finding themselves in the references to Israel, the Exodus, and finally to their view of the great controversy-shaped “plan of salvation” in the biblical references to “the sanctuary”.
Incidentally, the sanctuary is the central doctrine of Adventism, and it encompasses their belief that Jesus is currently in heaven working on His second phase of atonement as He applies His blood to the confessed sins of the saved. Here is what the lesson says:
Look at the following Old Testament types: Israel, the Exodus, and the sanctuary. How is each fulfilled in the three antitypical phases: the Christological, the ecclesiological, and the eschatological?
1. Israel
a. Christological phase (Matt. 2:15)
b. Ecclesiological phase (Gal. 6:16)
c. Eschatological phase (Rev. 7:4–8, 14)
2. The Exodus
a. Christological phase (Matt. 2:19–21)
b. Ecclesiological phase (2 Cor. 6:17)
c. Eschatological phase (Rev. 18:4)
3. The Sanctuary
a. Christological phase (John 1:14, John 2:21, Matt. 26:61)
b. Ecclesiological phase (1 Cor. 3:16, 17; 2 Cor. 6:16)
c. Eschatological phase (Rev. 3:12, Rev. 11:19, Rev. 21:3, Rev. 21:22)
Here in the heart of Monday’s lesson we find the outline of Adventist soteriology. Without explanation but with a plethora of proof-texts, they overwhelm the reader with an academic list asserting that Israel, the Exodus, and the Sanctuary service of Israel are types of their own belief system! Yet the New Testament does not ever refer to Israel as a type—never is Israel reinterpreted to be the church—and especially it is never reinterpreted to be Seventh-day Adventists! Israel’s unbelief is used in 1 Corinthians 10 as an EXAMPLE for the church today, as warnings not to do what they did and rebel against God, refusing to believe in Him even as He maintains His faithfulness.
Further, the New Testament does refer to the details of the sanctuary service in Israel as types and shadows of Christ, but it never uses them to describe Adventism’s appropriation of them to support their doctrine of Jesus entering the Most Holy Place in 1844 and commencing an investigative judgment after which He will place believers’ sins on SATAN as the scapegoat who will bear them away and be punished for them!
What the New Testament says is that the Lord Jesus fulfilled all the shadows of the sanctuary service by His once-for-all sufficient sacrifice for sin! His atonement was finished on the cross, and the book of Hebrews is very clear that there is no more to be done to make atonement for sin. There is no more application of blood. Jesus shed His blood once, and that one sacrifice propitiated for human sin.
Joshua: an Example, Not a Type
Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s lessons make much of the idea that Joshua is a type of Jesus, creating correlations such as Joshua’s 40 years in the wilderness preceding his leading Israel into Canaan with Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness, and so on. Yet these correlations are not typological.
The true “type” of Jesus was Moses, not Joshua, although there are many similarities that can be found if one compares them as one might look for applications in a college literature class. Moses, however, said that a prophet like him would arise from among Israel, and when He came, Israel was to listen to Him (Deuteronomy 18:15). When Jesus arrived, He said to the unbelieving Jews:
“Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father; the one who accuses you is Moses, in whom you have set your hope. For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote about Me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?”—John 5:45–47 LSB
Moses, the mediator of the Old Covenant made between God and the nation of Israel, told Israel that a prophet like Him was coming—and they should listen to HIM. No longer would they look to Moses! Yet when Jesus came, Israel rejected Him.
This lesson illustrates that Adventism also misses the clarity of Moses’ typology. The old covenant mediator told Israel to look for a prophet like him—and now Adventists also miss the Mediator of the new covenant in His own blood. Instead of embracing Jesus as the true antitype of Moses and acknowledging that He has inaugurated a completely new covenant separate from the law of the old covenant, they cling to Moses and avert their eyes from Jesus’ new covenant. They cling to Moses’ old covenant, reject the implications of Jesus complete atonement and the new covenant in His blood. Instead they focus on a peripheral shadow: Joshua, who led Israel into Canaan. But Joshua was never considered a Mediator of the old covenant. He operated UNDER the authority of the old covenant and managed Israel’s accession to the land.
Adventists must not think too much about the significance of Jesus being the Mediator of a completely new covenant separate from the law. They cling to their great controversy paradigm, holding onto the law as if it belonged to them—which, they argue, it does—thus making them the true spiritual Israel—and devising an extra-bilbical “plan of salvation” that depends upon keeping the fourth commandment and proclaiming that believers are living on probation while Jesus is busy perusing the heavenly books and applying His blood to confessed sins!
In fact, Wednesday’s lesson reveals the insecurity and lack of gospel clarity that the great controversy yields. Here is the discussion question at the end of the day’s study:
What does it mean to be able to “rest” in what Christ has done for us? That is, how can we have assurance that Jesus has defeated Satan in our behalf?
Adventists have no understanding of true rest in Christ. Because they do not teach that each person is born dead in sin (Ephesians 2:1–3), already condemned (John 3:18), and under the wrath of God by nature (John 3:36), they have no understanding that they cannot decide to seek or to please God. They are DEAD spiritually and must be drawn to Jesus by the Father. They cannot by nature decide to “obey” God.
There is only one way to experience rest in Christ—and that is to acknowledge one’s sin and to believe and trust that the Lord Jesus fully atoned for those sins at the cross, that He died after suffering God’s wrath for our sin, and that He broke the curse of death on the third day because His blood was sufficient to atone for all human sin!
Further, Jesus did not defeat Satan at the cross! That idea is Adventism’s great controversy teaching. Jesus did not come to earth to battle and defeat Satan. Satan was NEVER in a battle with Jesus. He has been in rebellion against His Creator, but he has never been in a battle with him for the win.
Jesus came and PAID FOR SIN. He came to DIE. He came to identify with His lost creations, the human race, and He took a human body so that He could shed human blood as the just propitiation for our sin. He came and broke our death sentence! He did not come to defeat Satan. Satan’s defeat was a consequence of Jesus’ holy sentence against his sin. Satan lost his power over the fallen earth when Jesus broke our death sentence, but Jesus’ death was not about Satan in any way. It was entirely a rescue of US. Satan is the evil power that lost authority when the Lord Jesus opened a new and living way for us to approach the Father—all on the basis of His shed blood! When believers are born again and indwelled by the Holy Spirit, we then carry the literal presence of God into the world, and Satan no longer has the same power to deceive humanity that he had before the Lord Jesus paid for sin and reconciled us to God.
NOT Changed by Contemplation Or Obedience
Thursday’s lesson reflects yet another Ellen White teaching: that if we contemplate the life of Christ, we become like Him. This idea is not biblical! Thursday’s lesson says this:
For us, today, the Messiah has already come. His ministry does not need to be prefigured, but we still have the privilege of reflecting His character—the glory that Christ longed to share with His disciples (John 17:22) and that can become ours by contemplating the character of Christ (2 Cor. 3:18). The more we contemplate Jesus, the more we reflect the beauty of His character. This is so foundational to what our daily walk with Christ should lead to. This is why time in the Word, every day, is so important. This is why, too, we should also spend time dwelling on the life and character and teachings of Jesus. By beholding, yes, we do become changed.
Ruminating and contemplating on the life of Christ does not change anyone. The only way anyone is changed is by trusting the Lord Jesus’ finished work and being born again, indwelled by His Spirit!
It’s especially horrifying that in the quote above, the author used 2 Corinthians 3:18 as a proof-text to support “contemplating the character of Christ” as a means of reflecting His character! In context, 2 Corinthians 3:18 is referring not to contemplation but to living by the Spirit in the new covenant! Here is what Paul is saying:
Therefore having such a hope, we use great boldness, and [are] not like Moses, [who] used to put a veil over his face so that the sons of Israel would not look intently at the consequence of what was being brought to an end. But their minds were hardened; for until this very day at the reading of the old covenant the same veil remains unlifted, because it is brought to an end in Christ. But to this day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their heart, but WHENEVER a person TURNS TO THE LORD, THE VEIL IS TAKEN AWAY. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, [there] is freedom. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.—2 Corinthians 3:12–18 LSB
Paul is saying that to this day, when people cling to the law (which he calls “the ministry of condemnation” in 2 Corinthians 3:9 and “the ministry of death, in letters having been engraved on stones” in 2 Corinthians 3:7), their hearts are veiled. Like Moses who would put a veil over his face so Israel couldn’t see the glory fading away between his meetings with Yahweh, people who turn to the law and read it for their direction and spiritual instruction have veiled hearts. A person looking to the law cannot see the beauty and the glory of Christ.
We who have trusted Jesus’ finished atonement, though, have unveiled faces. We have the Holy Spirit dwelling us, and as we behold the true glory of the Lord WITHOUT the veil of the law blinding our eyes, we become transformed from glory to glory with the glory of God Himself!
This verses isn’t about contemplating Christ’s character and being changed. NO! It’s describing trusting Jesus’ blood and living by listening to the Holy Spirit as we submit our minds to His word and allow Him to teach us how to please and honor Him as we face temptations and struggles. It is by living in the reality of access to the Father on the basis of Jesus shed blood, of being filled with His presence as we learn to trust Him in our lives that we reflect His glory in the world.
This has NOTHING to do with contemplation. Neither does it have anything to do with obeying the law. We are saved by the grace of God through faith alone when we trust what God has given us in His Son.
Friday’s lesson quotes Ellen White in Testimonies for the Church, vol. 4, p. 156:
“The church needs faithful Calebs and Joshuas, who are ready to accept eternal life on God’s simple condition of obedience.”
Ellen is wrong. Eternal life is NOT condition upon obedience! It is—and always has been—the consequence of BELIEF! Abraham was our prototype. Before God ever gave the law, He called Abraham out of moon worship and made a covenant with him that He would give him seed, land and blessing. Genesis 15:6 tells us the way we are counted righteous and given eternal life:
Then he believed in Yahweh; and He counted it to him as righteousness.—Genesis 15:6 LSB
Jesus also told us what to do in order to do the work of God and achieve eternal life:
Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.”—John 6:29 LSB
“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
There is the truth. Adventism teaches a false gospel and does not know what it means to be saved, to pass from death to life, to inherit eternal life. Ellen White taught Adventists a false worldview that makes Jesus still atoning for sins as people remember to confess them. She taught a fallible Jesus who could have failed in His mission, a Jesus who came to defeat Satan, not to break death from the inside out. Ellen’s Jesus has not fully saved anyone. He has only provisionally saved those who remember to obey and confess their sins. Furthermore, it’s anyone’s guess when the Adventist Jesus will complete His work in the investigative judgment. Adventists live in fear and uncertainty, never sure they are safe to save, and never sure Jesus is really coming back anytime soon.
Yet the Lord Jesus has told us exactly how to be saved. He Himself does our saving; it is not dependent upon our obedience, but He asks us to believe, as Abraham believed God. When we place our faith in the Lord Jesus and His finished atonement on the cross, we pass from death to life——and we are sealed by the indwelling Holy Spirit and will never die!
If you haven’t believed in the Lord Jesus and His sufficient blood, His death, burial, and resurrection to open a new and living way to the Father, believe Him. Now.
Adventism will suffocate you. It will ultimately kill you, because it teaches a false Jesus and a false gospel. Look to Jesus—believe Him. You will know that you have passed from death to life, and you will know that you are growing from glory to glory as you behold the grace of Jesus and live in Him forever. †
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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