First Quarter 2003
Adult Sabbath School Lessons: "The Promise"
Special
Insights #6
Lesson
5: Children of the Promise
January
25-31, 2003
(Produced
by the Editorial Board of the 1888 Message Study Committee)
Thank
God for the Sabbath School, and for the Lesson Quarterly prepared by the
General Conference. It has Seventh-day Adventists world-wide studying
together one lesson each week, a time to give the Holy Spirit opportunity to
bring the world church into "one accord." How important then that
our Lessons teach the same pure gospel that brought the disciples into that
Pentecost "one accord" of Acts 2.
The
Sabbath School lessons can be a wonderful method by which the Holy Spirit
speaks to the world church in unity—presenting the actual, long-awaited
latter rain message in such a clear, biblical-supported way that our present
disunity would be healed and the world church come into a wonderful harmony.
No
truth presented at the Minneapolis Conference aroused more opposition than
E. J. Waggoner's view of the Covenants (yet that was the view Ellen White
was "shown" in vision is the correct one!). The Lord's providence
led to Waggoner's writing Sabbath School lessons in the 1888 era that
focused on the New Covenant as God's promises.
But
what happened? The Review and Herald editor and General Conference leaders
didn't like Waggoner's lessons, and the people were confused. All through
the 1890s the conflict carried on. Neither the Review editor nor the former
president ever surrendered his opposition, up to their respective deaths. In
1907 another crisis came over the Covenants, with both Pacific Press and the
R&H Publishing Association choosing to support the anti-1888 view of the
Covenants and to suppress the 1888 view.
The
three basic contentions of those who opposed the "promise" view
were:
-
God
Himself initiated the Old Covenant as some kind of addendum to the New
Covenant He had given Abraham. (Waggoner said no, it was the people's
initiative, and it did not alter in the least God's original one-way
promise which was sworn by God's oath; Gal 3:15-18.)
-
The
New Covenant began at the cross and the Old Covenant ended there. Thus
there are two time "dispensations." (Waggoner said no, the
New Covenant began at the Garden of Eden, and the Old Covenant with
the sin of Adam trying to cover himself. The two Covenants extend all
through time simultaneously. You can always live under whichever one
you choose.)
-
The
New Covenant was an "agreement" between God and the people,
a "bargain" worked out, a "deal" agreed on
(Waggoner said no, the New Covenant is God's unilateral promise; our
part is not to make vain promises of obedience in return as Peter did
that last night; our part is to "believe" what has already
been promised on God's initiative.) Some of Waggoner's comments:
He
agreed that there are "Two Dispensations," but note his different
idea:
"The
'Christian dispensation' began for man as soon, at least, as the fall. There
are indeed two dispensations, a dispensation of sin and death, and a
dispensation of righteousness and life, but these two dispensations have run
parallel from the Fall. God deals with men as individuals, and not as
nations, not according to the century in which they live. No matter what the
period of world's history, a man can at any time pass from the old
dispensation into the new" (Present Truth, September 7, 1893).
What
was the "dispensation of death"? He explains:
"The
law merely upon tables of stone or written in a book can work only wrath and
death. The reason is that in such a case it is only the statement of
righteousness, and no man can be saved by a mere statement of what his duty
is. The law on stone, or in a book, simply tells us what to do, but gives us
no power to do it. Therefore the giving of the mere written words of the law
to any people is simply ministering death to them. The thunders and
lightnings and the earthquake at the giving of the law, and the fact that no
one could touch the mount without dying, showed that men cannot approach the
law to get righteousness from it of themselves" (id).
"The
minds of the people were blinded, and so the light could not shine in; but
the light was there, ready to shine in, for the mind of Moses was not
blinded, and the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ shone in his face,
transforming him. The law and the Gospel were united at Sinai, as everywhere
else. The glory of Calvary was shining at Sinai, as clearly as it shines
now" (id).
We
could add that "the light was there" at Minneapolis, "ready
to shine in," and the mind of Ellen White "was not blinded."
Think how wonderful would have been this world's history if only Israel long
ago had believed the New Covenant! Says Waggoner: "That God's design
for Israel was that they should proclaim the Gospel to all the world, is
seen in the fact that if they abode in His covenant they were to be a
kingdom of priests. … If they had accepted God's proposition, and been
content to abide in His covenant instead of insisting on one of their own,
… they would all have known the truth, and consequently been free, … and
therefore it is positive that God's purpose in bringing Israel out of Egypt
was to send them all over the world preaching the Gospel.
"What
an easy and speedy task this would have been for them. … It would have
taken them but a short time to carry the Gospel to the remotest parts of the
earth. … One could chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight.
That is, the power of the presence of God with any two of them would render
them in the eyes of their enemies equal to ten thousand men, and none would
dare attack them. … All who heard would at once take their position either
for or against the truth, and this decision would be final, since when one
rejects the Gospel when proclaimed in its fullness, that is with the mighty
power of God, there is nothing more that can be done for him. … So a very
few years, or possibly months, after the crossing of the Jordan, would have
sufficed for the preaching of the Gospel of the kingdom in all the world as
a witness to all nations" (The Everlasting Covenant, pp. 272,
273).
In
1888 the Lord again gave His people "the beginning" of the message
of the New Covenant that He intended should "lighten the earth with
glory." And again, a short time would have sufficed to accomplish the
task—but for their repeated unbelief. In the 1893 General Conference
Bulletin, speaking of "the spirit that prevailed at Minneapolis,"
Ellen White says: "If every soldier of Christ had done his duty, if
every watchman on the walls of Zion had given the trumpet a certain sound,
the world might ere this have heard the message of warning. But the work is
years behind" (p. 419). The question we must ask in 2003 is this: how
many more generations are we content must go by before He has a people who
will respond to His New Covenant truth?
"God's
plan for Israel was that it should not be a NATION. We are apt to look at
what IS, as though it was what ought to have been, forgetting that from
first to last Israel refused to a greater or less extent to walk in the
counsel of God. We see the Jewish people with judges, and officers, and all
the paraphernalia of civil government, but we must remember that God's
covenant provided something far different, which, on account of unbelief,
they never fully realized" (p. 277).
Except
of course until Pentecost. And what happened there is prophesied to happen
again when God's people are willing to humble their hearts and receive the
light of a message that is greater than the popular Sunday-keeping churches
are able to grasp.
Waggoner
offers an encouraging comment on the quotation in Wednesday's lesson re
Israel's "territory": The Israelites "assumed that it was
their military skill that was to secure the land for them. But that was a
grievous error. God had promised to GIVE them the land, it could not be
obtained except as a gift. The mightiest army that the world a has ever
seen, armed with the most approved weapons of war, could not take it; while
a few unarmed men, strong in faith and giving glory to God could have
possessed it with ease. … God did not intend that His people should ever
suffer defeat, or that in the occupation of the land a single man should
lose his life. …
"It
was not His design that they should have to fight for the possession of the
promised inheritance. … We must not forget that 'their minds were blinded'
by unbelief, so that they could not perceive the purpose of God for them.
They did not grasp the spiritual realities of the kingdom of God but were
content with shadows instead. … The reason why [Israel] did not get [the
land] was their unbelief, and that was why they fought. If they had believed
the Lord, they would have allowed Him to clear the land of its totally
depraved inhabitants, in the way that He proposed" (The Everlasting
Covenant, pp 263-268).
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