Lesson 6: “Confidence Only in Christ”
COLLEEN TINKER | Editor, Proclamation! Magazine |
As an Adventist, what did you understand in meant to be “in Christ”? How did you get to be “in Christ”, and what exactly was that “faith of Christ” that you were supposed to live by? How did living as an Adventist inform you about rejoicing in the Lord?
Circumcision Leads to Law
The week’s lessons begin with the first verses of Philippians 3. The author opens with references to Paul’s words in verses 1–3 about putting no confidence in the flesh. Paul warns the Philippians against those who would enforce circumcision upon these gentile believers before continuing to relate his own heritage as a “Hebrew of Hebrews” who had been “circumcised the eight day” but had been “a persecutor of the church” even though, “as to the righteousness which is in the Law,” he was “found blameless” (Philippians 3:5, 6).
The lesson, true to Adventist form, explains that circumcision was a physical act that does not contribute to salvation, so he was warning the Philippians against being circumcised as a way to better please God. Yet never does the author hint the real reason circumcision was not to be practiced: it was the doorway to coming under the authority of the Law!
No gentile could live under the Mosaic covenant and perform temple worship and keep the Sabbath and offer Sabbath sacrifices because they were not Jews. In order to participate in temple worship and have legitimate permission to keep the law and its ceremonies and sabbaths, a gentile had to be circumcised. To be sure, God-fearing gentiles went to the synagogues on the Sabbath and heard the Old Testament taught, but they were not allowed in the temple beyond the court of the gentiles. They were not permitted to sacrifices or other rituals outlined in the law, and they were not obligated to keep the sign of the Mosaic covenant: the seventh-day Sabbath.
The lesson deflects from the implication of the prohibition of circumcision and instead makes general statements that no fleshly act can contribute to salvation.
In reality, Paul is saying what he says in Galatians, Colossians, and what Acts 15 also says: gentiles are not to be brought under the law. They are saved by faith alone, directly by Christ through faith and belief in His finished work of atonement. The lesson, however, never goes where the texts actually lead.
Furthermore, the lesson refers to Philippians 3:1 and admonishes the readers to “rejoice in the Lord” as an antidote to false teaching. The author takes the words out of context and makes a point Paul did not make.
First I will quote the passage from Philippians that the lesson address regarding circumcision and rejoicing, and then I will quote from the lesson to show how Paul’s words are being taken out of context to support Adventism.
Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things [again] is no trouble to me, and it is a safeguard for you. Beware of the dogs! Beware of the evil workers! Beware of the mutilation! For we are the circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God and boast in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh, although I myself might have confidence even in the flesh. If anyone else has a mind to put confidence in the flesh, I far more: circumcised the eighth day, of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the Law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to the righteousness which is in the Law, found blameless.—Philippians 3:1–6 LSB
In this passage Paul is warning these gentile believers against false teachers who are trying to circumcise them—and he is not gentle. He calls them “dogs”, “evil workers”, and circumcision is “mutilation”. All the vestiges of the old covenant are obsolete for believers. Their righteousness is only in Christ, and they are to resist being placed under the law—which is what the push for circumcision was all about!
Yet here is how the lesson frames these concepts:
To guard against the possibility that some might consider their works, such as circumcision, as contributing to their salvation, Paul makes it clear that righteousness is from Christ as a gift that comes by faith, not by the law. Though circumcision might not be an issue today, the principle it deals with certainly is…
In the end, Christ is everything to us, “the author and finisher of our faith” (Heb. 12:2). If our priorities are in the right place, we will live with the assurance of God’s love and enjoy the promise, even now, of salvation, all while placing “no confidence in the flesh” (Phil. 3:3)
While completely omitting the significance of Paul’s stern warning against circumcision and placing oneself under the law, the lesson reinforces the Adventist belief that one’s beliefs and intentions are the key to salvation. “If our priorities are in the right place,” the author begins, then one can “live with the assurance of God’s love and enjoy the promise, even now, of salvation.”
This statement is duplicitous. Ellen White specifically wrote that no one can be sure he or she is saved until the Lord returns, and she further warned that we must not say we are saved. Here is only one example of what she said about this subject:
We are never to rest in a satisfied condition, and cease to make advancement, saying, “I am saved.” When this idea is entertained, the motives for watchfulness, for prayer, for earnest endeavor to press onward to higher attainments, cease to exist. No sanctified tongue will be found uttering these words till Christ shall come, and we enter in through the gates into the city of God.—Review and Herald, June 17, 1890, Par 8.
On the one hand Adventists know that their prophetess has said no one is to say—nor can he —that he is saved. On the other hand, Adventists know that the Bible says we can know. When we believe in the finished work of the Lord Jesus, we pass from death to life (Jn. 5:24). When we are born again, the Holy Spirit indwells us and teaches us to call God our Father (Rom. 8:14–17). When we are born again, we KNOW we are saved.
So, the author of the lessons combine texts and words, conceals the reality that believers are not under the law, and puts the onus back onto the Adventist member: if your heart is in the right place (you be the judge of that), you can enjoy “even now” the promise of salvation. Notice that it does not say, “enjoy salvation even now” but enjoy the PROMISE of salvation even now. They try to offer biblical hope, but they hold onto Ellen White at the same time, and the result is that the reader has no assurance and no clear direction about what to do to actually have assurance of salvation!
At the same time, the lesson takes Paul’s statement to the Philippians to “rejoice in the Lord” and makes it the antidote to “false teachings”. In the context quoted above from Philippians 3:1–6, Paul reminds these born-again believers to rejoice in what is already true: they are in the Lord through their faith in Christ. Then he warns them against the mutilators, the Judaizers, and he explains that he knows from experience that being a meticulous circumcised law-keeper did not help him at all! As a true-blue Jew, he persecuted the church of God! No, he says, circumcision and law-keeping do not help one to please God!
Yet notice what Sunday’s lesson says. The author takes Paul’s reminder to rejoice in the Lord and skews Paul’s words in such a way that the lesson ends up endorsing Adventism’s core doctrine: keeping the law and the Sabbath are essential not only for salvation but for lasting joy. Here is a quote from the lesson:
Wicked or irreligious people in Israel were sometimes referred to as “dogs” (Phil. 3:2; compare Ps. 22:16; Isa. 56:10; Matt. 7:6; 2 Pet. 2:21, 22). False teachers could also aptly be described as “evil workers.”
Interestingly, it seems that one solution to spiritual challenges, including the spread of false teachings, is to “rejoice in the Lord” (Phil. 3:1; compare Phil. 4:4).
Anything we rejoice about brings us joy (as in English, the two Greek words for these ideas are related). God wants us to be joyful, and His Word is a kind of instruction manual for true happiness and lasting joy. These include receiving God’s mercy (Ps. 31:7); placing our trust in Him (Ps. 5:11); receiving the blessings of salvation (Ps. 9:14); adopting God’s law as our way of life (Ps. 119:14), including the Sabbath (Isa. 58:13, 14); believing His Word (Ps. 119:162); and raising godly children (Prov. 23:24, 25).
Do you see what he did there? The author took Paul’s words reminding the Philippians that they could and should rejoice in the Lord because they were IN Christ, they were believers—and turned them into a method for self-protection against “false teachers”!
The false teachers of whom Paul was warning were teachers purveying a message very similar to Adventism: you can’t be a true follower of God unless you keep the law (and especially the Sabbath). Yet the lesson inverts Paul’s message and uses his words to SUPPORT Adventism and Sabbath-keeping!
The deception is incredibly subtle and sounds smart, even academic: the author throws in proof-texts from the Old Testament and references to Greek, and the result is a dizzying mash-up of ideas and sources that are never truly connected nor explained. The quote above misuses Paul and endorses Adventism—and the average reader would not be able to figure out what happened even if they felt a bit confused. I say this knowing how I, as an Adventist, used to respond to the Sabbath School lessons. They were vague and confusing and never “went deep”, and inevitably I would quit studying them.
Missing the Gospel—Again
Friday’s lesson drives home the Adventist “gospel” in the flowery words of Ellen White. Once again, this week’s lesson covered one of Paul’s most seminal passages that explains that the believer is credited with the personal righteousness of God Himself. It is not Jesus’ personal law-keeping that is credited to Paul but the actual righteous character of God. The lesson, however, ignores this miraculous fact and reinforces the Adventist belief that somehow Paul received from God the personal ability to act righteously. The lesson takes the reader back to trying hard and obeying well without ever hearing the good news of the biblical gospel, that Jesus has propitiated for our sin and credited believers with the righteousness of God.
First, I will quote part of the passages from Ellen White that are used in Friday’s lesson:
He who would build up a strong, symmetrical character, he who would be a well-balanced Christian, must give all and do all for Christ; for the Redeemer will not accept divided service. Daily he must learn the meaning of self-surrender. He must study the word of God, learning its meaning and obeying its precepts. Thus he may reach the standard of Christian excellence. Day by day God works with him, perfecting the character that is to stand in the time of final test.—Ellen White, The Acts of the Apostles, p. 483
“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.
“The light of the Sun of Righteousness is to shine forth in good works—in words of truth and deeds of holiness.”—Ellen G. White, Christ’s Object Lessons, pp. 415, 416.
Notice what she says: Adventists are to strive to build strong, balanced, undivided characters that surrender themselves to Bible study, learning and obeying its commands, reaching a perfect standard of excellence. Not only this, but this disciplined, single-minded unswerving obedience is what will reveal God’s character of love to the world—and this message, which is connected to Adventists’ unswerving obedience IS the “last message of mercy to be given to the world”!
Think about her words: the perfect, loyal, self-sacrificing obedience to the law is the last revelation of God’s character to the world!
Adventists live under an incredible burden: their obedience is what represents God to the world. Their faithfulness to keep the Sabbath even upon threat of death IS the evidence that God is fair and right, that Satan is wrong, and that God’s character of love has helped them keep that day even when the world seeks to kill them.
Yet the very passage this lesson covers presents a completely opposite explanation of righteousness. Our law-keeping is not the righteousness God asks of us. Here is Philippians 3:7–11:
But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own which is from [the] Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which [is] from God upon faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained [it] or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.—Philippians 3:7–11 LSB
Paul states explicitly that the righteousness that He gains in Christ is “not having a righteousness of my own which is from [the] Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which [is] from God upon faith.” This righteousness is not personal righteousness that is enabled to be good or obey. Rather, this righteousness is from God, and he received it through faith. It is not his own righteousness but is alien to him. He is credited with God’s own righteousness through his faith in Christ.
Yet the lesson never deals with the fact that Paul is explaining a completely foreign-to-him righteousness! He is imputed with the literal personal righteousness of God through his faith in Christ!
The gospel, however, is missed. Never does the lesson explain that a person may know Christ by believing and trusting—NOT in Jesus’ perfect life or humble suffering to prove that He loved His enemies even in death—but in Jesus’ taking our sin in Himself, by dying on a cross to propitiate God’s demand that sin required death, and by rising from the tomb on the third day because His blood was sufficient to pay for sin.
In fact, the Adventist version of “knowing Christ” is not attached to trusting His death and resurrection. Even more, Adventism does not teach that humans are literally, by nature, dead in sin and must be made alive through faith in Jesus alone. Instead, the Teachers Comments say this on page 83:
Knowing Christ Is a Progressive Experience
In Philippians 3:10, Paul indicates that the ultimate purpose of his life was to know Christ. The fact that he mentions Christ’s sufferings, death, and resurrection suggests that knowing Christ involves not only a cognitive but, especially, a relational experience in a process of gradual growth (see also 2 Pet. 3:18). While this idea is somehow implicit in Philippians 3:10, Paul further elaborates on this thought in Philippians 3:12–16.
Moreover, Paul is aware that a more complete knowledge of Christ will be attained only in the resurrection (Phil. 3:10, 11). This idea seems to be the context for the statement in Philippians 3:12: “Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected” (NKJV). Next, Paul explains how he pursues the goal described in Philippians 3:10, 11, by suggesting that the task is twofold: (1) he forgets “those things which are behind,” and (2) he reaches forward to “those things which are ahead” (Phil. 3:13, NKJV). However, one thing does not disassociate from the other. In fact, Paul refers to these two things as a single action, when saying “one thing I do” (Phil. 3:13, NKJV). This one thing is driven by a clear purpose: to pursue “the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:14, NKJV). The prize and the call refer to the same thing, as in the Good News Translation: “The prize, which is God’s call through Christ Jesus.” They are most likely metaphors for the resurrection, at which time Paul will fully know Christ. Until then, believers are called to keep growing in the knowledge of Christ as they pursue the prize (Phil. 3:15, 16)
This whole quote is vaguely confusing, but some significant points emerge is we look closely. First, the author states that Paul mentions Christ’s sufferings, death, and resurrection and explains that Paul is saying that knowing Christ is both cognitive and a progressive relational experience.
No! By mentioning Christ’s sufferings, death, and resurrection—which Paul says he participates in and anticipates the resurrection, he is acknowledging the actual gospel: that Christ died for our sins, was buried, and was raised on the third day—all so we can pass from death to life and attain the resurrection! The author, though, ignores the biblical context and makes even this passage an Adventist message: knowing Christ happens over time. He has no understanding of the new birth occurring when a person believes.
Next the author reduces Paul’s words about suffering and dying for the sake of Christ in hopes of attaining to the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus and says those words are “most likely metaphors for the resurrection” when Paul will finally fully know Christ.
This statement is an example of the way Adventism deals with Scripture: when the words don’t make sense from an Adventist perspective, they explain them away as “metaphors”. To be sure, Paul is using a metaphor of a prize, the Greek reward for all who successfully ran a race, but Paul isn’t metaphorizing the resurrection. He KNOWS he is working toward a prize. He is the one who wrote about the judgment for rewards at the Bema seat of Christ in 1 Corinthians 3:9–15!
Paul knows God is calling him home. He knows that because of Christ, his eternal future is already secure, and he is persisting in doing what God brings him to do so that he can receive the reward God has for him when he is finally in glory.
He is not HOPING to rise into eternal life—he already HAS eternal life! He knows he will be with Christ personally in the presence of God soon, and the upward call of God in Christ Jesus is the thing that motivates him to stay faithful.
Paul is not working towards salvation; he is working from salvation, and he knows what his future is!
Appeal
Perhaps the most upsetting thing about these lessons is that they cover some of Paul’s most clear and important words of confidence and care. There is no doubt about salvation in these books of Philippians and Colossians. Yet the lessons miss that these words are written to people who have already trusted Christ and have been born again.
The lessons cannot accurately exposit these books because they are being written from the perspective of people who do not know they need to be born again nor do they teach how to be born again. Instead, these Pauline books are being used as handbooks to explain to Adventists HOW to attain salvation.
These books do not contain commands for unbelievers; they are written for believers. Those who are not born again have one command they must deal with: believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved. When you have finally trusted yourself to the One who died for you, acknowledging your sin and death and your need of a Savior, then the pages of Philippians will make sense and bring you encouragement and insight.
If you have not laid aside your ideas of how to be saved, of strict Sabbath-keeping and obedience and good deeds and behavior, you need to seriously consider what Jesus has done for you. Lay aside your Sabbath fears and behavior goals, and trust Jesus alone.
Believe Him today; believe that He died for your sins according to Scripture, that He was buried, and that He rose on the third day according to Scripture. Entrust yourself to Him, and you will know Jesus. Your eternal future will be secure. †
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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