Lesson 3: “Pride Versus Humility”
COLLEEN TINKER | Editor, Proclamation! Magazine |
Adventist, are you proud to be part of the Seventh-day Adventist organization? Are you proud of your health message and of your knowledge of the seventh-day Sabbath? Are you proud to be part of what Ellen White identified as God’s last-day remnant church of Bible prophecy? Do you believe you understand the Bible better and have “more truth” than the average Sunday-Christian? Do you sometimes struggle to have humility when you know that you are part of the true church?
Great Controversy Assumed
Sunday’s lesson does remind the Adventist reader that the great controversy anchors them in all the moral arguments about overcoming pride and developing humility. This assumption that the great controversy paradigm is real and biblical is never questioned, and it sets the stage for the Adventist argument that Satan is responsible for bequeathing the sin of pride to Adam and Eve. Sunday’s lesson states:
Pride first began with Lucifer, the covering cherub, who was in close service to God. We don’t know when or how those thoughts of selfishness crept into his heart, but we do know that these thoughts propelled the universe into what we know as the great controversy. We see that Satan is the opposite of God. (Compare Isa. 14:12–14 and Phil. 2:5–11.) As a result, our world has battled the consequences of sin ever since Satan planted doubt in Adam’s and Eve’s minds and then tempted them to love and trust self above God.
The Bible tells us little of Lucifer’s fall, only implying it in two passages of the Old Testament in which the kings of Babylon and Tyre are condemned. The language of these two passages (Isaiah 14:12–14 and Ezekiel 28:11–19) describe the evil of these two men in language that goes beyond the evil of mere men living at particular times in history. It is generally conceded that these two passages describe the evil of fallen Lucifer, yet the details are not given, and nothing in these passages nor in Genesis describes what Adventists believe to be the “origin story” of sin and salvation. The great controversy worldview of Adventism is never described in the Bible.
Yet Adventists assume the great controversy to be the definition of reality, and Adventist doctrines all derive from the Satan-centric view of a war in heaven which Jesus came to settle and in which obedient Adventists will vindicate God’s character from Satan’s accusations.
This paradigm is ASSUMED in this lesson, and the emphasis on Adventists’ need to overcome pride flows from Ellen White’s insistence that pride was Lucifer’s Achille’s heel.
Wednesday’s lesson drives home the point even further. Always assuming the great controversy to be true, always assuming that Ellen White interpreted Scripture accurately, the author quotes Ellen White in Christ’s Object Lessons and draws the following conclusion:
But we are told that “there is nothing so offensive to God or so dangerous to the human soul as pride and self-sufficiency. Of all sins it is the most hopeless, the most incurable.”—Ellen G. White, Christ’s Object Lessons, p. 154.
This is very serious for us. Our pride offends God more than anything else, and it’s a character trait that is difficult to overcome because we often don’t see it for what it is. In our state of self-sufficiency, we choose not to self-evaluate, for surely pride is king. We need to stop, self-diagnose, and ask that God will open our eyes to our true state, because pride may be the number-one factor that keeps us from having a close relationship with Him today.
Notice that the author emphasizes Ellen White’s declaration that pride is the “most hopeless, most incurable” sin and that it “offends God more than anything else”.
Nothing inside the Adventist worldview would cause the reader to question this conclusion; it is classic Adventism to blame Satan for spreading his pride to Adam and Eve by causing them to question God and to think of themselves and of what new, exciting information they could know.
Yet the REAL problem is never addressed: pride is not the original sin, either of Satan or of Adam and Eve. Furthermore, Satan is not responsible for human sin! Adam is responsible, and he refused to trust God’s word to him and acted outside of faith.
The real problem is that pride flows out of the original sin: unbelief. Eve was deceived by Satan’s clever words, and she was seduced into discussing God’s word instead of obeying them in faith. Adam, who knew God’s command not to eat of the tree upon penalty of death, sinned with his eyes wide open. He is responsible for the spiritual death of the human race.
Pride was not the problem, either with Satan or with Adam—at least not the primary problem. Unbelief is the problem, and Adam’s sin of unbelief and rebellion against God’s clear command and warning resulted in his and Eve’s dying spiritually the very day they ate.
All of us since Adam are born dead in sin, “by nature children of wrath” (Ephesians 2:3). We cannot overcome our pride and selfishness unless we trust and believe in Jesus’ FINISHED atonement on the cross. There is no hope at all that an Adventist who believes and trusts the great controversy worldview with a powerful Satan, a fallible Jesus, an unfinished atonement, and a plan of salvation that requires obedience to the fourth commandment can be born again. A person believing the Adventist “gospel” of seventh-day Sabbath keeping, the investigative judgment, and leaving the Sunday-churches is not trusting in Jesus and His shed blood alone for salvation.
We are saved only when we believe. Jesus Himself said:
“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
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
Of course God hates pride; Scripture is clear about this fact! Yet the antidote to pride is not begging God to take it away. The antidote to pride is to believe and trust the Lord Jesus and His death for sin and His resurrection on the third day. When we believe, He gives us life in our dead spirits, and only then do we have the ability to turn from our self-centered view of reality to a God-centered view.
When the Holy Spirit indwells the believer, He teaches us to live by faith. No amount of Ellen White counsel or Sabbath School lessons’ lecturing can succeed in getting a person to rise above pride. Unless a person is born again, all efforts to beat down pride are just exercises of will power, not changed hearts. The pride that God hates is the pride of an unbelieving heart that refuses to acknowledge and believe the truth about God and His provision for us in His Son.
Jesus Our Example
This week’s lesson further exposes the underlying great controversy worldview which places Satan and Jesus on a somewhat level playing field, fighting it out for the souls of men. Ellen White bequeathed to Adventism a diminished Jesus who gave up most of His “God-power” to come to earth as a man. In her scenario, Jesus came to demonstrate that a human can keep the law, and obedient humans will help Jesus to vindicate God’s character to the universe.
In fact, EGW taught us that Jesus was our example to show how to keep the law and to please God. Friday’s lesson confirms this Adventist idea. In Adventism, the person’s decisions and self-abnegation define one’s obedience and worthiness to receive Christ’s blessings. Look at these Ellen White quotes from Friday’s lesson:
“The nearer we come to Jesus and the more clearly we discern the purity of His character, the more clearly we shall discern the exceeding sinfulness of sin and the less we shall feel like exalting ourselves. Those whom heaven recognizes as holy ones are the last to parade their own goodness.”—Ellen G. White, Christ’s Object Lessons, p. 160.
“Before honor is humility. To fill a high place before men, Heaven chooses the worker who, like John the Baptist, takes a lowly place before God. The most childlike disciple is the most efficient in labor for God. The heavenly intelligences can co-operate with him who is seeking, not to exalt self, but to save souls. . . .
“When men exalt themselves, feeling that they are a necessity for the success of God’s great plan, the Lord causes them to be set aside. . . .Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, p. 436
Notice the decidedly human-centric and non-trinitarian view Ellen White had.
First, she said that “those whom heaven recognizes as holy ones are the last to parade their own goodness.”
She is not referring to people who are born again and spiritually alive. She has just said that the nearer a person comes to Jesus, the more clearly one discerns “the purity of His character” and the more clearly one sees his own sinfulness.
This view is not biblical. God comes to us and reveals our need of Him. We don’t go trying to measure up to become more and more pure and holy.
We don’t grow more like Christ by coming nearer to Him. How on earth does one do that, anyway? This idea is always presented as our duty, our personal commitment to thinking about God and committing ourselves to doing what Adventism taught us to do. We draw near by committing to Sabbath-keeping, by observing the health message, by disciplining ourselves to ascetic living and avoiding all stimulants and animal products.
Notice also that Ellen said that the “heavenly intelligences” can co-operate with the person “who is seeking, not to exalt self, but to save souls”.
First, who are the heavenly intelligences? She likely refers first to the godhead, the “heavenly trio”, the “three worthies of heaven”. The persons of the godhead, one in purpose and name but distinct in substance, can only help those who are already committed to making Adventist converts. Second, perhaps she includes the angels as well. It’s unclear exactly whom she means, but knowing that she saw God as three distinct persons—a “Trio”, and “Worthies”—it is most likely that she refers again to her non-trinitarian god.
Second, she says that these heavenly intelligences can “co-opertate” with the humble, self-abnegating person.
The one true God of Scripture does not co-operate with man. He is sovereign over us. He calls us, saves us, and sanctifies us. He equips and empowers us to do His will; He does not come and co-operate with us when we do what He wants.
At the end of Friday’s lesson, we see the telling statement in the summary:
Pride can be one of the greatest blocks to growing in a relationship with God. If we feel self-sufficient and don’t realize our need of this relationship, we simply won’t pursue it. In contrast, Jesus was the humblest Man on earth and the most perfect example of how to have a close relationship with God.
Here the author states the Adventist belief plainly: Jesus is the “most perfect example of how to have a close relationship with God.”
This sentence betrays that the Adventist Jesus was just a man with the same weaknesses as the rest of us. He managed not to sin, but he was just a man. Adventism does not teach that Jesus was fully and powerfully God. He was always one with the Father, and He never lacked any of the attributes of God while on earth. He was always omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, and eternal in His identity as God the Son.
He did not come to show us how to relate to God; He came to die to propitiate for our sin. He came to free us from His curse of death on sinners. He came to offer the one perfect sacrifice that would atone for all our sin and to open a new and living way to the Father through His broken body!
Jesus came to save us by dying and rising again. He did not come to show us HOW to get close to God! He WAS and IS God! He was not our example for how to be saved and to please God. He was our Substitute and Sacrifice! We don’t get closer to God by obeying. We come into His presence by believing and being born again.
Adventist Pride
Finally, the great irony of this lesson which lectures Adventists on being humble and giving up their pride is that there moralistic writings ride on top of the Adventist worldview that believes Adventism is the One True Church. The arrogance and pride that causes Adventism to believe it is superior to all Christian churches is whitewashed but powerful.
Ellen White taught that Christian churches that worship on Sunday are apostate, and the infamous second angels’ message calls people to leave Babylon, the apostate Protestant churches and their “Sunday worship”, and join Adventism and its seventh-day observance. Ellen White said,
Apostate Protestantism has accepted the false sabbath instituted by the Roman Catholic Church. They have cradled this child of the papacy. Very soon all who refuse to worship this idol will be forbidden to buy or sell. The advisability of enacting such a law is now being discussed. But the people of God will enter into no controversy with the world over this matter. They will simply take God’s Word for their guide and maintain their allegiance to Him whose commandments they keep.—19 LtMs, Ms 110, 1904, par. 59.
The Sabbath will be the great test of loyalty, for it is the point of truth especially controverted. When the final test shall be brought to bear upon men, then the line of distinction will be drawn between those who serve God and those who serve Him not. While the observance of the false sabbath in compliance with the law of the state, contrary to the fourth commandment, will be an avowal of allegiance to a power that is in opposition to God, the keeping of the true Sabbath, in obedience to God’s law, is an evidence of loyalty to the Creator. While one class, by accepting the sign of submission to earthly powers, receive the mark of the beast, the other choosing the token of allegiance to divine authority, receive the seal of God.—The Great Controversy, p. 605
The Adventist pride associated with being the one true last-day remnant church underlies all of the counsels in this lesson agains pride. Adventism believes that other Christians do not have all the truth. They believe that at the end of time, all who will be saved will commit to Sabbath-keeping before Jesus comes. They believe it is their job to convert Christians into Adventists.
This arrogance and pride underlies all Adventist indoctrination, and ironically those the lesson exhorts to humility are nevertheless shaped by religious pride and the certainty that they alone know Bible truth.
Conclusion
This week’s lesson is hollow. It’s familiar urging to get Adventists to behave the way good Adventists are supposed to behave—humbly adhering to denominational expectations, to engaging in proselytizing, to following Jesus’ perfect example in order to become more like Him—all of this misses what is real: each Adventist needs the true gospel
Being good and disciplining oneself will not make a person more like Jesus. Only trusting His finished work of atonement for sin, His burial, and His resurrection on the third day will transform a person.
Only when one believes and trusts Jesus alone will he actually know Jesus and be credited with His personal righteousness. Only when one is born again is it possible to begin to please God—because God is literally indwelling him and teaching him to think and react according to His will and His word.
If you haven’t trusted Jesus alone, bring your anxiety and your trying and your fear and your good works to Him. Lay them down and trust Jesus and His shed blood. Confess your need of Him, and believe that He has already done everything necessary for your salvation.
See Jesus rising from death, shattering your eternal death sentence, and be born again of His Spirit. Trust Jesus today, and pass out of death into 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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