Presenting a Biblical response by concerned former Seventh-day Adventists to the Sabbath School Bible Study Guide.

This website is NOT connected to the Seventh-day Adventist Church. The offical Seventh-day Adventist Church website is linked here.

HOME | 2011 | SECOND QUARTER | WEEK 1 | DAY 1 | DAY 2 | DAY 3 | DAY 4 | DAY 5 | DAY 6 | DAY 7

BibleStudiesForAdventistsHead

Commentary on "In the Loom of Heaven"

PHIL HARRIS

 

Day 2: Sunday, March 27, 2011 - Staring in the Mirror

 

Overview

This quote from today’s lesson sets the theme:

What Christian, looking in the mirror, stares in the face of someone who is perfectly reflecting the character of Jesus? What Christian, no matter how faithful, staring in the mirror, can claim any kind of righteousness for himself or for herself? What Christian, staring in the mirror, isn’t horrified by what he or she knows lurks beneath the surface?

 

Observations

In the lesson we are asked to study Isaiah 64 and asked what message is being proclaimed there? The first part of the message is found in these verses:

You welcome the one who joyfully does what is right; they remember You in Your ways. But we have sinned, and You were angry. How can we be saved if we remain in our sins? All of us have become like something unclean, and all our righteous acts are like a polluted garment; all of us wither like a leaf, and our iniquities carry us away like the wind. No one calls on Your name, striving to take hold of You. For You have hidden Your face from us and made us melt because of our iniquity. Isaiah (64:5-7 HCSB)

The lesson correctly points out that Paul continues this theme in Romans 3. However, Paul is in reality quoting from the words of King David:

The fool says in his heart, “God does not exist.” They are corrupt; they do vile deeds. There is no one who does good. The Lord looks down from heaven on the human race to see if there is one who is wise, one who seeks God. All have turned away; all alike have become corrupt. There is no one who does good, not even one. (Psalms 14:1-3 HCSB)

In the lesson each of us are asked to stare into the ‘mirror of our lives’ and asks every one of us; what do we see?

Whether you read Isaiah 64, Psalms 14 or Romans 3, what you will see is that our own righteousness is a garment of ‘filthy rags’. Moving onto to end of Romans 7 where Paul is examining the inner ‘mirror’ of his own life, we come to the solution to this terrible and deadly dilemma:

So I discover this principle: When I want to do what is good, evil is with me. For in my inner self I joyfully agree with God’s law. But I see a different law in the parts of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and taking me prisoner to the law of sin in the parts of my body. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this dying body? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with my mind I myself am a slave to the law of God, but with my flesh, to the law of sin. Therefore, no condemnation now exists for those in Christ Jesus, because the Spirit’s law of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. (Romans 7:21-8:2 HCSB)

 

Summary

  1. There is none who do good. None of our own acts are ever righteous. All our own deeds are as a ‘garment of filthy rags’.
  2. Through the blood of Jesus Christ and his imputed righteousness, a Christian can know there is now no condemnation. The promises of Romans chapter eight can be claimed right now, today.
  3. The garment of ‘pure white linen’ mentioned in Rev. 19:7-8 which represents the righteous deeds of the saints is the result of the present imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ in the lives of those who are declared already in the kingdom of God.
  4. In none of the passages quoted today is it suggested that our own righteousness is anything other than the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Remember, the statement that ‘all our deeds are as filthy rags’ includes the life of Abraham. Abraham, our model of a sinner’s faith in God, was a person who was never perfect. Our faith, like his, is founded upon nothing less and nothing more than that of our Savior Jesus Christ.

 

GO TO DAY 3

 

Copyright 2011 BibleStudiesForAdventists.com. All rights reserved. Revised March 22, 2011. 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.

 

Official Adventist Resources

Standard Edition Study Guide Week 1

Teacher's Edition Study Guide Week 1

Easy Reading Edition Study Guide Wk 1

SSNET Study Guide Week 1

Search the Complete Published Ellen G. White Writings

 

Please Support This Project

ONLINE DONATIONS

egw20112
ss20112