Commentary on "Walking in the Light:
Keeping His Commandments"

TERRY MIRRA

 

Day 2: Sunday, July 19, 2009

 

Overview

The premise of this lesson focused on 1 John 2:3-5 and, once again, emphasized the importance of keeping the 10 Commandments. By “walking just as He walked”, we know we are in Him and have come to know Him. Knowing this (or not) can determine our eternal life or eternal destruction. It mentions “knowledge “(Gnosis)—Gnosticism was based on mystical experience and fancy myths about God. There was little concern for moral behavior. Salvation was gained through this “secret knowledge” rather than through a faith relationship with the Lord. To know God means to have an intimate relationship with Him. It continues on to say “obedience, love and staying away from sin all point to the existence of such a relationship. The theoretical and the experiential side of knowledge must go together.” Do you know the Lord, or just know about Him? How can you change?

 

Problems

The basic statement, “if your relationship with the Lord is real, your behavior will change” is correct. The problem is in the definition of what the behavior is that needs to change and why. If you are assuming that the behavior that needs to change is adherence to the 10 Commandments, then your end point will be inaccurate. If you start with a faulty premise, you’ll end up with a warped conclusion. If the center of your theology is the 10 Commandments and Sabbath-keeping (instead of Christ), then everything has to fit into that paradigm. In doing so, the emphasis and importance of biblical principles gets twisted. Our eternal life or eternal destruction doesn’t depend on anything but our faith in Christ. Knowledge alone doesn’t bring salvation, but faith alone does (Rom. 3:28, Eph. 2:8).

Gnosticism is mentioned as heresy, yet having “elite” knowledge (E. G. White’s special revelation, Sabbath-keeping) is the same as “secret knowledge”—a superior and special way to salvation, above and beyond the saving work of Jesus Christ. The details are different, but the concept is the same. Keeping the right rules doesn’t elevate us to any special status. Whenever the focus is on some “special” doctrine/self, then the focus is off of Christ and the power of the gospel is neutralized. Col. 2:2, 3 says,

“I want their hearts to be encouraged and joined together in love, so that they may have all the riches of assured understanding, and have the knowledge of God’s mystery—Christ. In him all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden.”

When we truly know Him and have the Holy Spirit in us, the change in our heart should be evidenced by the fruit of the Holy Spirit (Gal. 5:18; Gal. 5:22, 23). Focusing on our actions won’t change our hearts, though it may look “whitewashed” and clean from the outside. The Holy Spirit will teach us all things. It won’t happen by our pitiful attempts to do the right things (John 14:25, 26). We can’t change by ourselves, but Christ can change us.

 

Summary

1. Knowledge (or even faith) + works doesn’t = salvation. Faith alone in Jesus saves us.
2. Seventh-Day Adventists have their own version of “secret knowledge”—additional requirements for salvation.
3. We can’t truly “know” Christ unless we have the Holy Spirit—at this point we see the fruit of the Spirit, which is His work in us.
4. hanging our actions won’t change our heart, but a changed heart will change our behavior.

 

 

Copyright 2008 BibleStudiesForAdventists.com. All rights reserved. Revised July 23, 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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