First Quarter 2003 Adult Sabbath School Lessons: "The Promise"

Special Insights #14

Lesson 13: The New Covenant Life

March 22-28, 2003

(Produced by the Editorial Board of the 1888 Message Study Committee)

After a wonderful thirteen weeks of studying "The Promise," let us review briefly thirteen points of the precious New Covenant message (these may not exactly parallel the thirteen Quarterly lessons):

(1) The New Covenant is the same as "the everlasting covenant" of Hebrews 13:20. It was established anciently in that far-off "counsel of peace . . . between them both" when Father and Son agreed to redeem humanity if they should sin (Zechariah 6:12). We read of this divine pledge in Early Writings, p. 149: Christ "then made known to the angelic host that a way of escape had been made for lost man. He told them that He had been pleading with his Father, and had offered to give His life a ransom, to take the sentence of death upon Himself, that through Him man might find pardon." Here is the New Covenant in its beginning.

(2) When Cain let himself get angry with his brother to kill him, he was devoted to the Old Covenant, right there just outside the gates of Eden. He had brought his own offering of the works of his hands instead of one signifying total reliance on the sacrifice of Christ.

(3) The New Covenant was expressed anew in the seven promises that God spoke to Abraham in Genesis 12:1-3. Paul makes clear that nothing can be "added" to that Covenant, for God had ratified it (Galatians 3:15-19; Genesis 15:7-17). The law spoken at Sinai was not an addendum; the word "added" means it was emphasized, or underlined, or set in bold type. Thus the function of the law is to convict of sin; but not to cleanse from it.

(4) God asked no return promises from Abraham; his part was to believe the promises of God (Genesis 15:6). That's all that God has asked of us (John 3:16); but such faith on his or our part "works by love" (Galatians 5:6). Thus in the New Covenant there is no disparagement of works: genuine faith is proven by our works. It always leads to obedience "to all the commandments of God." (See Testimonies to Ministers, pp. 91, 92; for example, if one continues to transgress the Sabbath commandment while professing to proclaim the gospel of Christ, he is mistaken, for his so-called faith proves itself to be "in vain" (James 2:26; Matthew 5:19). Why then should we study under commandment-breakers the meaning of the gospel?)

(5)  Even after Abraham "believed God," he stumbled and staggered into Old Covenant thinking. He listened to Sarai's unbelief and took Hagar as a second wife in order to get a boy baby.

His faith was not fully demonstrated as genuine until in Genesis 22 he offered up Isaac.

(6) Sarai had her own battle with Old Covenant unbelief. She manifested unbelief at God's wonderful promise and cherished enmity against Him as the cause of her infertility (Genesis 16:1, 2). Even now, when we cherish unbelief and doubt that the Lord will "give [us] the desires of [our] heart" (Psalm 37:4), we are repeating her Old Covenant journey.

(7) The Lord healed her of this alienation by repeating to her directly the same wonderful promises He had made to Abraham (Genesis 17:15, 6; 18:9-15). Then her name was changed from Sarai ("contentious woman") to Sarah, "Princess and mother of kings." Thus we learn that only New Covenant Good News can heal and reconcile alienated human hearts.

(8) Sarah repented of her unbelief; she chose to believe the Good News that God had given her. "Through faith also Sara herself received strength to conceive seed" (Heb. 11:11).

(9) But 430 years later, Abraham's descendants at Mount Sinai failed to appreciate their experience of victory over unbelief. They did not have the faith of Abraham, nor that of Sarah when she overcame. They re-invented Cain's Old Covenant unbelief, and that of Sarai before her name was changed. As in Cain's case his unbelief led him to murder his brother Abel, so Israel's Old Covenant unbelief led them eventually to murder their Messiah.

(10) Thus it is clear that the Old Covenant is bad news all the way through. Paul says it "gendereth to bondage" (Galatians 4:24). That's the last thing we want! No re-crucifixion of Christ, please!

(11) Not only has God never asked us to make Old Covenant promises of obedience to Him, the practice of making them is itself opposed to happy living. Steps to Christ discloses the tragic failures that are involved: "Your promises and resolutions are like ropes of sand. … The knowledge of your broken promises and forfeited pledges weakens your confidence in your own sincerity, and causes you to feel that God cannot accept you; but you need not despair. What you need to understand is the true force of the will. … The power of choice God has given to men; it is theirs to exercise" (p. 47). Children are often led to make solemn promises to God. Then when they inevitably break them in childhood, unbelief and despair are encouraged. This is the key reason why so many of our youth lose their way. They desperately need to learn New Covenant truth, with no Old Covenant confusion mixed in.

(12) Paul makes clear that the gospel was as full in the days of Abraham as it has ever been or will be (Galatians 3:8; cf John 8:56). Probably the first Jew ever to discern rightly the significance of ancient Israel's Old Covenant detour of unbelief, Paul says that the Old Covenant (law) was their disciplinarian ("schoolmaster") whose work was to lead them (or drive them!) back to where their father Abraham was, that they might experience justification by faith as he did (Galatians 3:19-25). In order to understand our perplexing Seventh-day Adventist history, we too must see again how our long involvement with the Old Covenant has functioned as a "schoolmaster" to lead us back to the "most precious message" of justification by faith that "the Lord in His great mercy sent" us in our past history.

(13) The end of the long detour is Good News: when we understand and believe the gospel of justification by faith as Abraham did, then "the earth" can be "lightened" with the New Covenant glory of the loud cry of the third angel (see Revelation 14:6-12; 18:1-4).

Thanks for being with us this Quarter! At the request of many subscribers, this service will be continued into the next Quarter.