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Commentary on "The Work of the Prophets"

STEVE PITCHER

 

Day 3: Monday, February 9, 2009

Todays lesson begins to address two issues: How God has guided his people, and the issue of establishing an organized church. Examples from the infant Christian church are provided, with which parallels are made to the early Adventist church movement. Underlying this lesson is the belief from previous lessons that the gift of prophecy at work in the early church is equivalent to the work of an Old Testament prophet.

The first question is prefaced by the statement that, “Jesus appointed Paul and the Twelve Apostles, some of whom also had the prophetic gift,to lead and guide the early Christian church.” After a very brief statement on some of the struggles within the early Christian church, a statement is made that “The early days of our church had numerous struggles, as well.” One must be careful to delineate between the establishment of the early Christian church and later developments within Christianity. God established his church against which the gates of hell have not prevailed. An attempt is made to show parallels between the early Christian church and Adventism. There is no parallel.

When Adventism was in its formative years, it rejected the counsel and guidance of Christians. Only if one was in agreement with the Adventist specifics was one accepted as a part of the movement. Christians who differed on secondary issues, such as eschatological understandings, teachings on foods and the like, were demonized by the early Adventists. Adventism has continued to view itself as a movement restoring truths that have been lost over the last 1900 years. This flies in the face of Jude verse three, which indicates that our faith had been delivered to us once and for all. There was a finality to that first delivery. For a movement to begin, ignoring counsel from Christian men and women, and establishing itself as Gods “remnant” must divorce itself from the fact that God has always led his people. (Even William Miller accepted counsel from fellow Christians and repented of his errors and returned to Christian fellowship.)

The parallels made in this lesson between the infant Christian church and the infant Adventist church could not have more greatly missed the point. A parallel is made between James White's efforts to organize the early Adventist church, Ellen White's vision that “gospel order has been too much feared and neglected,” the eventual formation of the SDA church, and the formation of the Christian church. The most serious problem with this presentation is the fact that James and Ellen White denied the full deity of Jesus Christ. (Ellen later affirmed his full deity, but her early works were heretical on this. See the four volumes, Spiritual Gifts, written from 1858 to 1864.) One need only check volumes such as The Trinity, or Crosscurrents in Adventist Christology (both written by Adventists) to see the inherent problems with teachings on the person of Jesus in early Adventism.

Todays lesson is titled “Guiding God's People,” yet one can guide God's people directly into heresy if Jesus is not presented as God's final revelation to us (Hebrews 1:1-3.) As has been said by many in various ways in the history of the Christian church, you may be correct on all your doctrines, but wrong on the person, nature and work of Jesus Christ and be wrong enough to lose your soul for all eternity.

The lesson ends with a suggestion that it would be better to remedy problems in the church (meaning the Seventh-day Adventist church) without leaving the church. The question is, “How can you better serve the organized church and help remedy aspects of it that you believe could use improvement?”

This question implies that the organization that one is a part of is Christian. A church organization that is not in alignment with Biblical statements about Jesus, his ministry, or the permanence of the church he organized, is not an organization that can be “remedied.” Any church that denies the leading of the Holy Spirit throughout the history of Christianity is denying the Holy Spirit, and is not Christian.

Tomorrows lesson will specifically address Ellen White's testimonies regarding individual and personal sin.

 

Summary

 

Copyright 2009 BibleStudiesForAdventists.com. All rights reserved. Revised February 5, 2009. This website is published by Life Assurance Ministries, Glendale, Arizona, USA, the publisher of Proclamation! Magazine. Contact email: BibleStudiesForAdventists@gmail.com.

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