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Commentary on "God as Artist"
BEN AND DELINA McPHAULL
Day 2: Sunday, March 11, 2012 - God as Potter
Today’s lesson talks about how God molded the first humans out of dust and how the Artist is in charge of His creation. Then she writes, “At the same time, God is working to re-create in us His image. However much God cares about His physical creation, how much more would He care about the beauty of what He can do in us? We are to surrender, to die to self, and to cooperate with the Lord, who seeks to re-create and restore to us, as much as possible, the original spiritual and moral beauty that we once had. Sure, outside appearances can be beautiful, but inner beauty is what really matters.”
And here is where we run into problems. Notice the phrases in bold. Yes, God does recreate us in His image, but this doesn’t mean that He seeks to “restore us...to the original and moral beauty that we once had.”
In Adventism there is an underlying principle that God’s purpose and ultimate goal is to get back to Eden (think vegetarian diet, Sabbath and sinless perfection in man). In fact, when the Bible writers speak about the new creatures that we are when we are born again, they speak in terms of our likeness to the Son, not how we are more like Adam. For some examples, take a look:
Romans 8:29 (ESV): “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
1 Corinthians 1:30,31 (ESV): “And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
Ephesians 1:3-6 (NLT): “All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ. Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear Son.”
What we have in Christ, in a spiritual sense, is so much better than what Adam had. It’s hard to wrap our minds around that because our hearts long for the physical perfection present in Eden. No sickness, no worries, no working for survival, tangible access to God — these things all sound ideal. And we’ll have that the new earth. But right now, we enjoy continuous, unconditional, fellowship with God through the indwelling Holy Spirit. He doesn’t banish us from His presence or remove His blessings when we are disobedient. We are forgiven already. He has blessed us with every spiritual blessing (right now). He has showered His kindness on us (already). He makes ALL things work together for our good (today)! We are permanently in Him and He is in us (presently).. (See Ephesians 1, Romans 8, John 16 and 17).
He identifies us as His own because the Holy Spirit lives in us (not because of the way we behave, or keep the law, or rest on Sabbath). We are blessed because we are in Christ, not because we are becoming more and more like Adam. We are heirs, adopted children. We are a NEW creation, not a restoration or a recreation of what once was.
“For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.” (Ephesians 2:10, NLT)
Questions to consider
- In what ways is being conformed and enveloped in Christ, better than being restored to the “original spiritual and moral beauty that we once had?”
- Did Adam possess the indwelling of the Holy Spirit?
Copyright 2012 BibleStudiesForAdventists.com. All rights reserved. Revised March 10, 2012. This website is published by Life Assurance Ministries, Camp Verde, Arizona, USA, the publisher of Proclamation! Magazine. Contact email: BibleStudiesForAdventists@gmail.com.
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