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Commentary on "In the Beginning"
Day 7: Friday, January 13, 2012 - Further Study
Overview
Friday’s lesson features the usual sampling of EG White quotations and “discussion questions”. The EGW quotes affirm the truth of creation, and the third one endorses the seventh-day Sabbath:
“When the Lord declares that He made the world in six days and rested on the seventh day, He means the day of twenty-four hours, which He has marked off by the rising and setting of the sun” (Testimonies to Ministers and Gospel Workers, p. 136).
The lesson ends with the statement that “Christians must stand firm on the literal Creation story; once that goes, the plan of salvation goes with it.”
Observations
Once again, this lesson betrays the underlying motive: to fix in the readers’ minds that God created the world in six literal days and established the Sabbath on the seventh literal day. In fact, this assumption is not part of the creation story. The seventh day, as previously stated, is not listed with an “evening and a morning” outlining it. Rather, it was the day God ceased, and His cessation did not end with sundown.
God’s perfect work was done, and there was no resumption of work on the next day, nor was their any command for Adam and Eve to rest.
And once again, the second discussion question asserts that God “did no such thing” as making parasitic wasps or cats they prey on mice. Yet Scripture clearly tells us in Genesis 3:17 and in Romans 8 that God is the One who subjected the earth to the bondage of decay. He is the one who ordained thorns and thistles and decreed that Adam would have to struggle with the ground which He cursed.
Certainly creation is the foundation of the story of humanity, but not for the reasons which Adventism considers vital.
It is misleading to say that once the literal creation story goes, the plan of salvation goes with it. This is nonsense.
God’s salvation of humanity and of creation is not a story built upon the creation story. In other words, if we refuse to believe that God created the world in six literal days, that refusal does not negate salvation.
While refusing to believe these central themes of Scripture may reveal a hard and unbelieving heart, it is not the rejection of these doctrines that results in a person not being saved.
Salvation hangs on whether or not a person places their faith and trust in the Lord Jesus as their Substitute, Sacrifice, and Lord. If a person trust Jesus with his sin and his life, he passes from death to life and is born again of the Holy Spirit.
Salvation is about whether or not we are born again (John 3:3-6). Salvation is entirely about whether or not a person believes and trusts the Lord Jesus and is born again. If a person is born again, the Holy Spirit will make Scripture come alive for him and will convict and teach him truth.
In Adventism, however, salvation ultimately includes the acceptance of the seventh-day Sabbath. A refusal to worship on the seventh day once the doctrine has been explained to a person means that person has rejected “truth” and will receive the mark of the beast ultimately. So, from an Adventist perspective, salvation depends upon getting the doctrines right. A person MUST believe in a literal six-day creation so the seventh-day Sabbath can be understood, and the “plan of redemption” cannot be grasped apart from the understanding of the literal six-day creation because the acceptance of the Sabbath is ultimately part of that redemption plan.
We are not saved by knowing correct doctrine. We are saved by trusting the Lord Jesus. Ultimately correct doctrine flows from being submitted to the Lord Jesus, being willing to know Him and to know truth even if it means letting go of everything we thought we knew. When we trust Jesus, Scripture becomes alive to us, and the truth begins to shape and change us.
The almost obsessive attempts to convince the readers of this week’s lessons that a literal six-day creation is truth thinly veil the underlying purpose: to convince members who are questioning the doctrines to stay with the church and teach the traditional beliefs. It is the attempt to get people to cling onto the framework that supports the seventh-day Sabbath which ultimately defines, according to Adventist doctrine, those who will be saved and separates them from apostate Protestants who will receive the mark of the beast: “Sunday worship”.
Summary
- Salvation does not depend upon one’s acceptance of a literal six-day creation.
- Salvation does not even depend upon understanding what the lesson calls “the plan of redemption”.
- Salvation depends upon believing and trusting in the Lord Jesus to have completed our atonement on the cross and to submit to Him as Lord of our lives.
- Salvation requires being born of the Spirit (Jn. 3:3-6).
- Salvation does not require knowledge of correct doctrine.
- Correct doctrine will inform one once he is born again; Scripture will become alive, and the Holy Spirit will teach him how it shapes his life.
- This week’s lesson camps on the literal six-day creation because this belief underpins the Adventist belief in keeping the seventh-day Sabbath.
- Ultimately, this lesson is for the purpose of corralling dissident “thinkers” back into classic Adventist theology so they will adhere to the orthodox teachings of Adventism which shape the structure that supports the seventh-day Sabbath.
Copyright 2012 BibleStudiesForAdventists.com. All rights reserved. Revised January 11, 2012. 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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