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Commentary on "Every Member Ministry"
Day 3: Monday, April 9, 2012 - The Need for Laborers
Overview
Jesus' illustration of fields white for harvest is the main theme of today's lesson. There is a division in the evangelistic work, one person digs, another sows, another waters, and another reaps. In the author's understanding, Jesus intended to draw a contrast between the specific time of agricultural reaping, which falls at a certain date, and the always present proper time for reaping in evangelistic work, as it is seen in the fact that the Samaritans were eager to listen and believe in the Savior. The believers are exhorted to pray to God to raise up laborers in the field and also to expect themselves to be led by the Spirit to do what God called them to do.
Observations
What brings into question the interpretation found in the week's quarterly is Jesus’ audience when He told the parable of fields white for harvest. The listeners were all His disciples, future leaders of the church. Were Jesus words directed to them as future leaders, as "fishers of men" (Matthew 4:19), or were these words to be taken as being equally applicable to all believers composing the church? They were supposed to reap and benefit from the work of somebody else who sowed. Jesus emphasized that the reaping that waited for them was a benefit that others didn't have, obviously because the sowers had to do their work in the past in order for the disciples to reap in the present. This parable really presents no contrast between the agricultural timeline and the spiritual timeline; rather, different laborers work in differed periods of time and in different ways toward the same goal.
The evangelistic effort of the Adventist church is directed not primarily toward those who are not Christians; it mainly targets believers who populate the Christian churches. Somehow they validate this practice by the "reap today what others sowed" concept. The evangelical churches worked hard to bring believers into faith, and Adventists are converting those believers to the peculiar adventist message. But this practice is not justified or even endorsed in the conversation between Jesus and his disciples about the ripening harvest.
The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he. (John 4:25-26).
The Samaritan woman and the rest of her town expected and waited for Messiah (Christ) to come. What was sown in their hearts was the promise of the coming Messiah, the promise of deliverance through Christ, and their life was a promise-driven life. When Jesus the Messiah came, the time for ripening of what was sown was ready: the promise was fulfilled and was going to be fulfilled through Jesus life, death and resurrection. The connection between sowing and ripening is the connection between promise and fulfillment.
There is no promise-fulfillment aspect in the way Adventists think about their work in proselytizing people who are already Christians. Adventists are sincerely convinced that the Christians have to be educated and prepared for a final test, which only Adventists know, and it is their duty to inform the other Christians that this test is crucial and decisive for their salvation. While a promise-fulfillment connection between Jesus's promise for coming again and the actual fulfillment of it would match the sowing-reaping image, the Adventist message adds and modifies the promise of Jesus's coming, transforming it in such a way as to nullify its power.
This modification becomes evident when we compare the promises related to the coming of the Messiah. It is important to keep in mind that the Old Testament doesn't make distinctions between the first coming of Messiah, in humility, and the second coming of Him in glory. The prophets speak of only one coming, without separating the two; they only make the distinction between Messiah as a suffering servant and Messiah as a glorified King. Jesus admonished his disciples on the road of Emmaus after His resurrection:
And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” (Luke 24:25-26).
This shows that he expected them to understand the two aspects of His work, suffering-glory, in this order, from the Old Testament writings. Because the Jews failed in their understanding and believing all that the prophets had spoken, Jesus explained these things from Moses to the last book of the prophets (Luke 24:27). They paid attention only to the glory part of Messiah's work, but neglected the other part, the suffering. The fulfillment of the suffering part coupled with Jesus' ascension proves that, while Jesus was glorified, He is not ruling on a glorious kingdom on earth. This part of the promise is yet to be fulfilled; the kingdom is coming in glory.
What is important is that the fulfillment of the first part of the Messianic promise shows clearly that the promise is unconditional: the Son of God took a body and came to save sinners when his people was not at all prepared to receive Him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. (John 1:11) Instead of submitting to their King, they crucified Him and mocked His kingly authority (Matthew 27:29, 41-42). The promise was fulfilled when God's people, at the height of their revolt, committing deicide, killing their own God, their Jehovah incarnated. If the fulfillment of the promise required a test of obedience, Israel obviously failed it. If Messiah's coming depended in any way on Israel's ability to pass the test of obedience, it would never have happened.
The second coming, the fulfillment of the second part of the promise, the glory part of Messiah's reign in his kingdom, is also unconditional. If God's people, the church, have to pass the test of obedience first, this promise will never come true; it will remain forever unfulfilled. The Adventist view of a final sabbath test of obedience as a sign of obedience to the entire law of God turns the promise on its head: it makes it conditional on man's obedience and assures its demise. The history of God's people speaks for itself. Instead of assuring the fulfillment of Jesus' promise to come back again, it delays it indefinitely to the infinite. Instead of promise-fulfillment, it turns the promise into a works-driven program. Obviously what was sown as a promise cannot be reaped since it will never come to fruition. Every Adventist should at least ask a very common sense question: "Why am I Adventist, what am I waiting for if the promise is made void through the law? If I have to keep the law, keep the Sabbath, and keep all this stuff, and Jesus will not come until I fulfill these conditions, where is the power of His promise?"
This is what I mean: the law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void(Galatians 3:17).
Copyright 2012 BibleStudiesForAdventists.com. All rights reserved. Revised April 9, 2012. This website is published by Life Assurance Ministries, Camp Verde, 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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