Commentary on "Love"

COLLEEN TINKER

 

Day 5: Wednesday, April 1, 2009

This lesson discusses what sorts of responses will come from love. The second paragraph of the lesson states,

“If we truly have been converted and become disciples of the Lord, the principle of love will reign in our lives. Whatever our weaknesses, we will steadily grow in our love for God and for our fellow human beings. In a very real sense conversion is reorientation—a shift away from the love of self to the love for God and to the love of others.”

The lesson also cites Deuteronomy 6:5, 6 and Matthew 22:37-40 and then states,

“Though we may not like some people, we are called to love everyone, even our greatest enemy. This not only will benefit the people we associate with but will also prove an enormous blessing for ourselves. Give love and unconditional acceptance to those you encounter and notice what happens.”

The lesson closes with this quotation from Ellen White as printed in The SDA Bible Commentary:

“If church members will put away all self-worship, and will receive in their hearts the love for God and for one another that filled Christ’s heart, our heavenly Father will constantly manifest His power through them. Let His people be drawn together with the cords of divine love. Then the world will recognize the miracle-working power of God, and will acknowledge that He is the Strength and the Helper of His commandment-keeping people.”

The final challenge is this: “Are you naturally loving or naturally selfish and self-centered? What practical steps can you take to move away from self and manifest love toward others?”

 

Problems

The underlying problem with this lesson is, again, the lack of understanding of the new birth and of love as part of the fruit of the Spirit.

The lesson’s statement that, if we’ve been “truly converted and become disciples of the Lord”, the “principle of love will reign in our lives,” completely misses the point.

Being “converted”, to an Adventist, does not carry the same meaning as being “born again” (John 3:3-5) carries. In an Adventist paradigm, conversion is turning away from sin or evil or wrong belief and getting into alignment with “the truth”—meaning ultimately that a person gets “on board” with Sabbath-keeping and Adventist perspectives.

Being born again, however, means literally submitting to the blood of Jesus to cover one’s sins and being filled with the Holy Spirit who brings one’s naturally dead spirit to life with the actual life of Jesus. Being converted, as Adventists understand it, means a decision. Being born again, as the Bible teaches is, means passing from death to life.

Conversion in an Adventist framework does not presuppose being born again. In fact, many people are “converted” to Adventism and do not experience the new birth at all.

One cannot “shift away from the love of self to the love for God and to the love of others.” We are “by nature objects of wrath” (Ephesians 2:3); the dead are not able to shift toward God or toward others. Only by an act of God, bringing us to life in Christ while we are still sinners, can we experience a turn toward God. We cannot possibly grow in “love for God” if we are spiritually dead.

In the same way, we are incapable of loving our enemies or of giving love and unconditional acceptance to anyone without having the life of Jesus literally imputed to us as we stand in submission to Him. True love in a human is part of the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). Apart from being born of the Spirit, we do not have real love.

Analyzing the differences between God’s love and human love is to miss the point. Before a person is born again, he is a resident of the “domain of darkness” (Col. 1:13). None of his “good works” is pleasing to God because each emanates from a dead spirit. Furthermore, there is no such thing as a “practical step” any of us can take to move away from self to manifest love for others apart from being born of the Spirit. The only way we can begin to love others, truly, is to repent before the Lord Jesus and accept His blood as the payment for our sin. Then we will be sealed with the Holy Spirit and made alive. Then our living spirits will be able to mediate Jesus’ own love—which has brought us from death to life—to those around us.

Finally, the Bible never describes the church as “God’s commandment-keeping people”. This phrase from Ellen White is Adventist “shorthand” for describing those who observe the fourth commandment and who accept Ellen White as God’s fulfillment of His promise to give the church the “spirit of prophecy”.

Rather, the New Testament describes God’s people as those who do “not work but trust him who justifies the ungodly” (Romans 4:5); who are “justified by faith” and having “peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1); who were reconciled to God while still enemies (Romans 5:10).

God’s people are those who have faith in God, trusting Him to have forgiven their sin when they believe in Him.

 

Summary

1. Conversion, as Adventists understand it, is not the same as being “born again”. Conversion is deciding to change one’s mind and adopt “the truth”. Being born again means a person has repented before God and accepted Jesus blood as payment for his or her sin and thus has been sealed by the Holy Spirit, made spiritually alive by the very resurrection life of Jesus.
2. We cannot love anyone with true love apart from being born again. All our best intentions stem from our naturally dead spirits which are captive in the domain of darkness until the Lord Jesus makes us alive in Him.
3. We are only able to love when the Holy Spirit indwells us and gives us God’s own love. We do not love from our own impulses and emotions; we love from the power of God who changes our impulses and emotions as we respond to Him in trust.
4. The Bible never describes the church as God’s “commandment-keeping people”. Rather, it describes them as those who are saved by faith, justified by His blood, made alive by the Spirit. The commandment the church “keeps” is Jesus “new commandment” to love one another as He love us.

 

Copyright 2008 BibleStudiesForAdventists.com. All rights reserved. Revised April 1, 2009. This website is published by Life Assurance Ministries, Glendale, Arizona, USA, the publisher of Proclamation! Magazine. Contact email: BibleStudiesForAdventists@gmail.com.

The Sabbath School Bible Study Guide and the corresponding E.G. White Notes are published by Pacific Press Publishing Association, which is owned and operated by the Seventh-day Adventist church. The current quarter's editions are pictured above.

 

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