Third Quarter 2003
Adult Sabbath School Lessons:
"Sanctuary Themes"
Insights
to Lesson 3:
Jesus, One of Us
July 12-18, 2003
(Produced
by the Editorial Board of the 1888 Message Study Committee)
This lesson should
be one of the clearest, simplest, most heartwarming of the entire new
Quarter on Hebrews. It should fill every heart with deeper confidence
in Jesus as our Savior FROM (not IN) sin. It should quicken our
heartbeat in anticipation of getting ready for the second coming of
Jesus--not merely getting ready to die. It should make crystal clear
the difference between the view on Hebrews of the Roman Catholic and
Evangelical Protestant churches, and the view that "the Lord in His
great mercy sent" to Seventh-day Adventists in 1888. There is a
great difference!
There are several
differing views within our church about just how "Jesus can be One
of us."
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One (probably
the most widely held) is that His human nature was like that of Adam
before he fell. In other words, when Hebrews 4:15 says that Christ was
"in all points tempted like as we are," it doesn't mean
"as we are," but it means that He was tempted as the sinless
Adam was tempted in the Garden of Eden. This view does not see Christ
feeling temptations to all the sins that humans are tempted to commit,
for fear this might mean that if He had taken our flesh/nature He
could not resist all those temptations. Only if He still had a sinless
nature could He have "overcome."
So this view says
that Christ was tempted in different ways than we are tempted, but
that His temptations were stronger than any of our temptations are to
us. For example, we never fast for 40 days and then are tempted to
change stones into freshly baked bread. That's way beyond us to have
any sense of fellowship with Him!
This popular view
does not recognize that in His incarnation Jesus was tempted to
wrestle with the same temptations we wrestle with--like break the
seventh commandment, for example. He wanted to change those stones
into bread more than we have ever wanted to commit fornication or
adultery, but . . . He dare not, just couldn't, be tempted
"like as we are."
Bound up with this
popular view lies a confused idea that if Christ was tempted
like as we are, then He maybe somehow sinned. The idea of having
taken our fallen, sinful nature and totally NOT sinning seems to this
view to be the heresy of "perfectionism." Temptation cannot be
temptation unless it draws upon a person, appeals to him; so if Christ
was tempted, then He must have already implicitly sinned, and
then we couldn't have a Savior. So implies this view.
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Another
clearly defined view is held by those who are impressed that "the
Lord in His great mercy sent a most precious message to His people"
in 1888. The "special messengers" whom He sent, Jones and
Waggoner, were emphatic and in total union in their conviction that
Jesus took on His sinless nature our fallen, sinful nature,
that He might know how to save us FROM, not IN, sin. Jesus knows how
every sinner feels being tempted; it is in this reality that He has
become "One of us," without becoming one of us IN sinning. In
other words, as Romans 8 says, Jesus met the problem of sin in "the
likeness of [our] sinful flesh, and for sin, [and He] condemned sin in
the flesh" (vss. 3, 4). This is what the biblical text of our
Sabbath School Lesson #3 is virtually shouting at us. The writers tell
us to "read Hebrews chapter 2." So, let's let the naked text
speak:
"Forasmuch then
as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself
likewise took part of the same. . . . In all things it behoved
Him to be made like unto His brethren. . . . In that He Himself
hath suffered being tempted, He is able to succour them that are
tempted" [meaning, to save them FROM sin, not comfort and encourage
them in continued sinning] (2:14-18).
Thank God, this
beautiful truth comes through loud and clear in the actual text of
Hebrews 2. Someone may ask, "This is obviously true, but is this
idea important? Does it make any difference what we believe, so long
as we simply believe like the popular Sunday-keeping churches that
Jesus came to save us after we die? Since we are all 'born in sin'
anyway, there's no hope that we can actually stop sinning in this
life, is there? Won't that come after we die, or at least, after
Jesus zaps us with translation at His second coming? Won't we
inevitably continue sinning up until that moment? And if we believe it
is possible not to sin while we have our regular, fallen, sinful flesh
or nature, isn't that the heresy of
'perfectionism'?"
The teaching of
the Roman Catholic Church, many of whom are sincere, good people, is
that as long as you are in mortal flesh, it is inevitable that you
keep on sinning; sin can only be pardoned, not stopped. Roman
Catholicism has invented the extra-biblical dogma of the Immaculate
Conception of the Virgin Mary that implicitly excuses continued
sinning so long as we are still in the same fallen, sinful flesh we
were born with. This widely believed dogma is responsible for a vast
amount of death and misery because it separates Jesus from being
"One of us" (our Lesson title) by separating His mother from being
one of us. It represents her as being a new creation of the sinless
Eve who could not be tempted sexually as are other humans. Thus she
gave birth to a Son with the same built-in insulation from our
temptations. The genetic link between Him and the fallen, sinful Adam
has been broken by the Catholic dogma. Sounds charmingly beautiful,
but it is lethal falsehood. The wildfire spread of AIDS is largely due
to false teaching about Jesus.
In the first issue
of Newsweek for 2000, George F. Will pleaded for some "John
Wesley" to go to Africa to save millions of Africans from early AIDS
deaths through the teaching of sexual abstinence, purity, and
self-control in marriage. God has already called that "John
Wesley." It's the Seventh-day Adventist Church. The 1888
message brought the practical godliness Good News that makes
abstinence a joyous experience.
The central,
oft-recurring theme of the Book of Hebrews is sinless living in
fallen, sinful flesh, and let's not disdain that holy truth as
"perfectionism." (Read carefully 5:9, 14, "full age" = perfect);
8:1; 7:11; 7:25 ("to the uttermost" = perfectly); vs. 28
("consecrated" = perfect in the Greek also); 9:9; vs. 14; 10:1;
11:40; 13:20, 21). All these texts are speaking of perfection of
Christian character (not "perfectionism"). This is the central
theme of the Book of Hebrews! The old covenant sanctuary ministry
failed to produce it. But Hebrews says that the High Priestly ministry
of Christ will produce it through His special Day of Atonement
ministry in the Most Holy Apartment. This heavenly ministry began
at the end of the 2300 years prophecy, in 1844. Ellen White says its
objectives have been long resisted and frustrated because His people
have not followed Him by living faith into that Most Holy Apartment
nor sympathized with Him in that final ministry (cf. Ellen G.
White, Review and Herald, Jan. 21, 28; Feb. 4, 11, 25; March 4,
11, 18, 1890).
Thousands of
Seventh-day Adventists are beginning to recognize the theme of the
Book of Hebrews as being refreshing Good News they never clearly saw
before.
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