Lesson 11: “Living with Christ”
COLLEEN TINKER | Editor, Proclamation! Magazine |
Adventism cannot explain the Christian life because it has an unbiblical view of the nature of man. Adventism’s physicalism—its belief that humans have no immaterial spirit that is naturally dead and must be made alive—keeps them from understanding Paul’s exhortations that Christians are to set their minds on things above. Instead, they discuss convoluted, metaphorical advice for pursuing obedient behavior instead of learning to trust and lean on the indwelling Christ who has already brought them from death to life.
Indicatives and Imperatives
This week’s lesson covers Colossians 3:1–14, but it misses the reality Paul is describing: the commands for holy living that are only possible in people who have been born again. As an Adventist, I read this passage as commands to show that I was God’s person, committed to holiness and morality, committed to excising all fleshly propensities from my life.
This understanding, though, completely misses what this passage is saying. First, I will quote the verses Sunday’s lesson asks us to read: Colossians 3:1–4:
Therefore, if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you died and your life has been hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is manifested, then you also will be manifested with Him in glory.—Colossians 3:1–4 LSB
When you read this passage, what do you notice first? As an Adventist my mind immediately latched onto the command to seek the things above, to keep my mind focussed on Christ, not thinking about earthly things, and if I persisted in keeping my mind on heavenly things, eclipsing earthly things, eventually I would attain glorification when Jesus comes again.
I saw this passage as instruction for how to live a holy life, demonstrating to the world that I belonged to Jesus and ensuring that I was staying connected to Him. If I let my mind wander toward earthly pleasures, I would break my connection with Christ and eventually be unworthy to be glorified for eternal life.
I had it entirely upside-down and backwards!
This passage is an example of what theologians call the “indicatives” and “imperatives” of our life in Christ. An indicative is a statement of fact, the sort of statement that many of us learned to call a “declarative sentence”: a sentence stating something that is true. For example, declarative, or indicative, sentences might tell us: The sun rises in the east. The baby was born yesterday. The rain flooded the garden. Jesus completed the atonement at the cross.
In Colossians 3:1, the commands are not what we are supposed to see first. The very first thing is “therefore”, which is connected to Colossians 2 where Paul explains what Jesus did when He nailed the law of commands in ordinances to the cross and disarmed Satan (Col. 2:14, 15), revealing Himself as the reality toward which all the Sabbaths of the law—yearly, monthly, and weekly—pointed (Colossians 2:16, 17).
Because of Jesus’ fulfillment of the law’s death sentence, His death, which removed the law as the document declaring our death sentence, and placed Himself in the place of the Sabbath shadows which Israel had to observe as witnesses of the coming provision of the Messiah (Romans 3:20, 21), we are now under the law of Christ and the indwelling Holy Spirit when we believe and trust that His death completed the atonement for our sin, propitiating God’s demand of death for sin.
So, Paul says, “Therefore, IF you have been raise up with Christ…”
The Greek underlying that word “if” can be understood to mean “since”, or “because”. It’s used in the sense we use it what we say to someone going to the grocery store, “If you’re going to the store, please get me a quart of milk while you’re there.” We are not expressing doubt that the person is going to the store; we are actually using the word “if” in the sense of “Since you are going to the store”.
We are to understand verse one as speaking to true believers. The Colossians were a true church comprised of believing gentiles. Paul was essentially saying, “Therefore (in light of Jesus’ completed atonement for our sin and fulfillment of the law for us), SINCE you have been raised up with Christ…”
In other words, Paul is affirming that the Colossians are born-again believers who are already alive in Christ. This opening clause is the INDICATIVE that must precede the IMPERATIVE.
An imperative sentence is a command. Commands can be any direct order to we someone: Shut the door. Eat your supper. Please bring me some water. Get some sleep.
In terms of the gospel and righteous living, we have to understand that the INDICATIVE of already possessing eternal life through faith in the finished work of Jesus must precede the IMPERATIVES of how to live a Christian life. This imperative is what frames the rest of the passage.
A person who has not trusted Jesus alone, giving up all his formulas for righteous living and the behaviors he believes are required to be saved, such as keeping the Sabbath and observing the health message, cannot even begin to do the imperatives of this passage.
If a person who is not born again tries to seek the things above, setting one’s mind on heavenly things, and so forth, he will not be able to do those things.
Adventists and their physicalism
Adventism with its physicalist worldview does not even understand the new birth or what it means to be raised up with Christ. Since Adventism denies the existence of a human spirit that is born dead and must be born again of the Spirit through faith in the finished atonement of Jesus, it cannot teach the new birth.
We have already seen that Adventism denies the clear teaching of Colossians 2:14–17, saying that the Sabbath of the fourth commandment is not fulfilled in Christ and also saying that the Ten Commandments are not part of the law that Christ nailed to the cross in His body. (Go back and watch last week’s Adventist Fact Check video to remember what they do to eclipse the truth of Colossians 2.) Adventism cannot teach the clear meaning of Paul’s words because, without an understanding that they are by nature spiritually dead in sin and must be made alive, they cannot understand the indicatives and imperatives of Colossians 3.
Instead, Adventism teaches its members to pursue right thoughts, right attitudes, right mental focus, right behavior and law-keeping in order to exhibit a life in Christ and eventually be glorified. To illustrate this fact, Sunday’s lesson says this:
Admittedly, there is much in the Christian life that defies explanation. How can a person really “die” and “be raised” when, to all appearances, he or she is the same person and has had no such life-and-death experience? There is much that does not make sense to the natural mind, uninfluenced by the Holy Spirit.…
Nevertheless, Paul gives these commands because there is a constant need for this spiritual life to be renewed (see 2 Cor. 4:16). We can, indeed, fall away and be lost! And we are never safe from temptation in this life.
We must, therefore, choose daily to “seek those things which are above” (Col. 3:1). Our eternal life is safely “hidden with Christ in God” (Col. 3:3, NKJV), but the outward expression of that life will be anything but hidden.
Where are your thoughts: usually above or usually below? If the latter, how do you change their direction?
We see from the above quote that within the Adventist worldview, there is no understanding of what it means to be raised up with Christ or that we have died and have been hidden with Christ in God. Without an understanding of the human spirit—a literal, immaterial part of ourselves that is by nature dead and must be made alive through faith in the Lord Jesus’ finished atonement, these words are mere metaphors. Adventism cannot understand them because it does not believe we have literal spirits. Instead, they attempt to explain these realities by stressing the need to be self-denying and persistent in keeping one’s mind on Christ.
They have no explanation of a new life, a new birth, but instead ask people HOW they change the direction of their thoughts? People who have NOT been born again cannot perform these imperatives.
The imperatives in the New Testament are not for unbelievers; they are not instructions for how to become people safe to save. Rather they are instructions for people who’ve already passed from death to life, who have already been born again and made eternally, spiritually alive. These imperatives are behaviors that flow FROM salvation rather than TOWARD it.
We also see in the quote above that Adventism teaches that we have to pursue these right thoughts and actions “daily”. In fact, the lesson changes the words of Paul from “Your life is hidden with Christ in God” (v. 3) to “Our eternal life is safely ‘hidden with Christ in God’”. Do you see the difference? Paul says our LIFE—that is current and ongoing: our spiritual LIFE that we receive when we trust Jesus—IS (present tense) hidden with Christ in God.
In other words, a believer’s current life is now hidden with Christ in God no matter what we are doing. We have been born of God and cannot be “unborn”. The lesson, however, changes the meaning to the idea that one’s eventual possibility of eternal life is “hidden” with Christ in God. It’s not a present reality. It’s a future possibility, and Christ has that eventual life. The person doesn’t. No person can know, in the Adventist paradigm, whether or not they have eternal life because they CAN’T know until the investigative judgment is over!
What is the new birth?
As an Adventist I used to feel annoyed by Christians who said they were “born again”. It felt presumptuous and anti-intellectual, and I feel uncomfortable when I heard people talk about being “born again”. Of course I had read John 3:3–6, but I had no idea what it meant except as a metaphor of some kind of decision to change my mind. Here’s what Jesus said to Nicodemus:
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.—John 3:3–6 LSB
Then a few verses later, we read this exchange between Jesus and Nicodemus:
Nicodemus answered and said to Him, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered and said to him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and do not understand these things?”—John 3:9, 10 LSB
I used to wonder why Jesus said such a shaming thing to Nicodemus. How could he have known about the “new birth”? From where would he have understood that idea?
Then, after leaving Adventism, I looked at the marginal references and discovered the following passage. I had never heard nor read this passage before:
“Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your uncleanness and from all your idols. Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to do My judgments.”—Ezekiel 36:25–27 LSB
This was a prophecy Nicodemus would have known! This is a new covenant promise, and this prophecy is what Jesus referred to and is what Nicodemus should have understood. God promised Israel during the time of the exile, through Ezekiel, that a time was coming when He would cleans them from their sins. He would give them a new heart and put a new spirit in them. Notice that this promise is that God would change two things in His people; He would give a new heart AND a new spirit!
Yet that is not all. He would remove their heart of stone—their stubborn, hard, unbelieving hearts—and replace those hard hearts with soft, responsive hearts of flesh. Even more, He would put His own Spirit within them and cause them to walk in His ways!
God promised three new things in His new covenant promise: a new heart, a new spirit, AND His own Spirit!
This passage clearly says that humans have spirits. We have an immaterial part of us that is hard and stubborn by nature, and God must replace our spirits with new spirits. The Holy Spirit is beyond our own new spirits; He is given to indwell us and to be intimately involved with us and our decisions. He teaches us to respond to Him. He births our new spirits!
This prophecy helps explain Paul’s words in Ephesians 2:1–3:
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
Further, Jesus’ words and Ezekiel’s prophecy help us understand John 1:12:
But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, [even] to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.—John 1:12,13 LSB
We are literally born spiritually dead, and we must be born again. This is a literal rebirth of an immaterial part of ourselves, not merely a change of mind and a commitment to new ideas and behaviors. It is not a symbolic change indicated by baptism. It is a literal passing from death to life, and Jesus said in John 4:24. Furthermore, when we are born again, born of the Spirit, as Jesus said to Nicodemus, we cannot be unborn. We pass at that moment from death to eternal life, and, as Paul says in Colossians 3:1–4, our life is now hidden with Christ in God, and we are seated with Christ in heavenly places. This is real, not metaphorical, and not merely poetic promises of a future reality. It Is Present Tense!
Only those who have believed and trusted in Jesus’ complete atonement for sin through His death on the cross, though, can receive this new life and be born again.
Furthermore, when we do believe and receive our new birth, the Lord confirms this reality. It is not gnostic knowledge that we’re supposed to “believe” and act as if it’s true. It is literal and real. God confirms it to us:
For as many as are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received [the] Spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry out, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, also heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with [Him] so that we may also be glorified with [Him].—Romans 8:14–17 LSB
We are not metaphorically hidden with Christ in God awaiting a future when we’ll find out if we have actually attained spiritual life. We are literally hidden in Him. Our literal spirits have been made alive, born again, and HAVE eternal life. Our future glorification is guaranteed by the indwelling Holy Spirit, and we are already saved.
Adventism does not believe in a literal human spirit that is born dead. It does not teach the new birth, a literal spiritual birth when we are born of the Spirit. It teaches instead an intellectual decision that a person internalizes and incorporates into one’s lifestyle. On the bottom line, the Adventist idea of conversion is a mental decision and a commitment to believing and practicing Adventist doctrines.
Yet an Adventist who is loyal to Adventism and believes the Adventist worldview is not born again. He is still dead in sin, a citizen of the domain of darkness. An Adventist cannot, by internalizing Adventist beliefs, be born of God because Adventism teaches a false god: it has a tritheistic god with a Jesus who gave up His omnipresence. The Adventist Jesus could have failed and did not complete the atonement at the cross.
This Jesus cannot save, and the Adventist who embraces Adventism cannot be born again because he or she is not placing his faith in the finished atonement of Jesus Christ.
If you have not believed that the Lord Jesus took your imputed sin to the cross and died for you, if you have not believed that He endured the wrath of God for you and paid for your sin fully, dying your death and then rising from the tomb on the third day according to Scripture, shattering your curse forever by His eternal blood of the covenant—if you haven’t believed, look to Jesus today and BELIEVE.
Thank Him for taking your sin and for completing everything necessary for your salvation. Trust Him and receive from Him a new heart, a new spirit, and you will know what it means to be sealed by the Holy Spirit. You will KNOW that you have passed from death to life. You will know that you are saved, and that nothing can take you out of the Lord Jesus’s hands and the hands of the Father.
Trust Jesus today—and you will pass 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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