First Quarter 2005 Adult Sabbath School Lessons:
"His Wondrous Cross"
The Story of Our Redemption

Insights to Lesson 5:
In the Shadow of Calvary
January 22-28

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

Our study this week is not about the ceremonial law as a type of the cross. That was studied earlier in lesson two. “In The Shadow of Calvary,” this week’s lesson, is used as a negative metaphor to illustrate the experience of Christ and that of which humanity must face in regard to the cross. There is both a shadow and a sunny side of the cross. These are two important and distinct concepts to keep in mind as we study the cross of Christ: (1) its shadow of sufferings and humiliation; and (2) its light of glory (or glorious light). The cross has a terrible dark side as well as a sunny side.

The cross is not merely the piece of wood upon which Jesus was nailed. The cross is a term used metaphorically in Scripture to describe the crucifixion of self. Before Christ went to Calvary He surrendered His will to God. Jesus came to establish the will of God in human flesh (see Heb. 10:7, 9). He did it voluntarily, as we must. The surrender of self is the essence and theme of Christ’s living and of His teaching. This is what humanity does not want to learn, if at all possible, because self lusts to live and to not die through the surrender of the will to God.

For the most part, surrendering the will to God is the hardest battle in which man engages. It is a daily process, at times moment by moment. For most people surrendering to God’s will is best described as excruciating. The term excruciating comes from a root meaning “to crucify.” Both words, “to crucify” and “excruciating,” come from the Latin word “crux” from which we get our word “cross.” The surrender of the will has to do, at times, with agonizing and torturous mental suffering. This was Christ’s experience, especially in Gethsemane and on Calvary. Three times our Representative and Example submitted His will to the Father in Gethsemane with the words, “Not My will be done, but Thine.”

The cross experience becomes either a stumbling or a foundation stone upon which every person falls or is built up. Unless the will is surrendered to the Savior of the world, the shadow of the cross keeps us from seeing clearly. This is why Christ’s disciples would not and could not understand His words when He told them plainly that He would die. Every one of them stumbled over this one point. They had the truth! but they disdained any suggestion of surrendering the will to God. They rejected Christ’s word that He must die. Peter even laid hands on Jesus physically while vehemently denying the cross as he “began to rebuke Him, saying, ‘Far be it from You, Lord; this shall not happen to You!’” (Matt. 16:22).

Jesus knew the devil was tempting Him to sidestep the ultimate surrender of His will to God’s will in eternal death equivalency. He replied, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men” (Matt. 16:23). Peter, influenced by Satan’s false light, spread darkness to Jesus.

Peter was “not mindful of the things of God” having an attitude, or frame of mind, in which he refused to think God’s way. He was in the shadow of Calvary. To a lesser degree this was the experience of John the Baptist. Although Jesus was revealed to John as “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29), he did not understand the full significance of the meaning. Consequently, when he was placed in prison the devil planted questions and doubts in his mind.

The other John and his brother James, along with their mother, were in darkness too. They could not understand. They assumed that position with Christ consisted in sitting next to Him in His kingdom. These brothers asked their mother to intercede for them with Jesus in order to obtain their desire for position. Jesus replied that they knew not what they were asking (Matt. 20:21-22). The shadows thickened over the other ten disciples, also, as they overheard the mother’s request. They were highly indignant, even furious, and expressed their anger (vs. 24). The two brothers got the jump on them and they did not like it at all.

Earlier, in speaking to Peter, Jesus addressed all the disciples: “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me” (Matt. 16:24). Ellen White understood clearly the meaning of this passage when she wrote “The yoke and the cross are symbols representing the same thing,--the giving up of the will to God. (Review and Herald, Oct. 23, 1900). This was not in the disciples thinking, nor is it in the rest of humanity’s thought processes.

We are all enemies of the cross, naturally. To surrender the will means the surrender of our inclinations, our tendencies, our propensities, to the control of Christ. Unless we do surrender our wills to God we shall remain in the shadow of the cross where there is nothing but doom and gloom. However, with the surrender of the will to Christ there comes peace and quietness. It was in the shadow of Calvary that Jesus suffered as the Man of Sorrows in order for us to bask in the light of “the Sun of Righteousness” and its work of healing and peace and quietness and assurance (see Mal. 4:2; Isa. 32:17; Rom. 5:1).

As Jesus died, nature alone preached the gospel of the shadow of Calvary. The sun refused to shine. In that darkness the midnight message of the cross was preached. This darkness was a mere reflection of the darkness of Christ’s mind as He screamed in despair, “My God! My God! WHY have You forsaken Me?!”

Along with that darkness, the earth likewise preached Christ and Him crucified. The restless earth, groaning beneath the pressures of the agony of its Author and Creator, produced land waves as if it were in convulsions of agony. In those earthquake convulsions we may read and understand the shadow of Calvary as it darkened Christ’s mind.

“Behold him dying upon the cross amid the deepest gloom; for the heavens are darkened and the earth convulsed. The rent rocks are but a feeble emblem of the state of his mind when he exclaimed, ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’” (Review and Herald, June 23, 1896).

Greater convulsions than those of the quaking earth were experienced in the mind of Jesus. In His convulsions of agony, Jesus did not realize that His Father was by His side, standing there, in the shadow of the cross. Both suffered exceedingly. This experience was an infinite excruciating encounter that before had never occurred in the eternity of God’s existence. But it is in this shadow of the cross that we find our salvation. “God . . . has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 5:18). It is out of this shadow of Calvary that the Sun of Salvation arises and shines with healing in His beams.

Satan tries to obscure both the light and the shadow of Calvary. He does this by shining a counterfeit light, even angelic (see 2 Cor. 11:14). Out of his light comes deeper darkness to shroud the true shadow of the cross. One of the ways he accomplishes this is by exalting the cross in various and myriad art forms in Protestantism, along with crucifixes in Catholicism, thus obscuring both the sunny side and the shadow of the cross. He produces darkness from his light while God causes light to shine out of the shadowy side of the cross.

In this week’s lesson, several soul searching questions are given to us with which we must wrestle. I have chosen the most poignant ones that begin and end with us. These are: “What will happen to us if we ever lose this focus (of the cross)?” “Why did the disciples respond as they did to Christ’s warning about the cross?” This was addressed above, but it is also applied to us in the following Quarterly question: “How do we reflect the same attitude?”

To answer the last question we must consider not only the disciples’ attitudes, but we must also think carefully about this question in the light of some very recent history of Christianity. Let’s take into account the following:

Although Lutherans, for the most part, continue to speak of the cross they have lost the focus of the same, specifically with regard to justification by faith. To deny this Scripture teaching is to deny the cross of Christ. This is so because justification by faith is Christology applied. The loss of focus can be seen in the signatory parties to the historic “Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification” confirmed between the Lutheran World Federation and the Roman Catholic Church, October 31, 1999. This was/is described as “a peace document,” “a sign of hope,” “a description of the road we are traveling,” and “an agreement that deepens our understanding of one another.”

Today, many Lutherans see no difference between their understanding of justification by faith and the papal position. (It must never be forgotten that the papacy has never renounced its many curses proclaimed specifically upon those who hold the Protestant teaching of justification by faith. The curses may be read in the Canons of the Council of Trent against this teaching, especially Canons IX, XII, and XIV).

In the Lutheran World Federation’s denial of justification by faith we read Luther’s obituary for his own church in the following words: “If this article [of justification by faith] stands, the church stands; if it collapses, the church collapses.” Luther wrote this in his “Exposition of Psalm 130:4.” In his words we observe the fall of that great Lutheran World Federation to the low level of the papacy. “Babylon is fallen” (Rev. 14:8).

Before the theological earthquake hit the Lutheran church, caused by the accumulated stress along the fault lines of modern popular Protestant theology, a previous but similar seism along that same fault line caused volcanic activity within Evangelicalism. In the document entitled “Evangelicals and Catholics Together” (April, 1994), those Evangelicals gave away their priceless heritage. They sold their precious birthright for a mess of pottage. In their document we can read a published autobiographical obituary of a deceased Evangelicalism. “Babylon is fallen, is fallen” (Rev. 18:2). Graveside services are yet to be announced.

It must be noted that Catholics, Lutherans, and Evangelicals all believe that the cross is central to their unifying message, particularly as it relates to their understanding of justification by faith and good works of mercy. They united in their agreements to give the appearance of a unified front to the onlookers of the world. Neither the Lutherans nor the Evangelicals are in harmony with the known facts of the teaching on salvation as advocated by their theological forefathers. Their agreements with the Vatican represent a significant shift and compromise on the part of Protestants. But now, at last, they find themselves at home alone with Rome.

We too have our own issue of seismic proportions and ramifications. The epicenter of the temblor that sent shock waves through our beloved Church was located at Minneapolis in 1888. That shaking continues among us to this day. Do we, like Lutherans and Evangelicals, believe that the cross is central to our teaching? Theoretically perhaps; in reality no. How can this be? The message of justification committed to us is given in, and for, the end-time setting of earth’s history. This message is not popular with worldly minded Christians influenced by modern “pop” “feel-good” theology. There are those among us who believe that the message of Minneapolis was, and is, a rediscovery of popular Evangelical teaching of the day—a “me too” mentality. Don’t we mention the cross frequently as a sinner’s only hope? Yes, . . . but . . .

Every Christian church exalts the cross in art forms. No church exalts the cross as an object of worship as does the Catholic. Lutherans are a close second. Besides art forms of the cross, Evangelicals present powerful proclamations concerning the sunny side of the cross. This is at times very perplexing. Some Adventists in hearing wonderful messages about the cross from great preaching proclaimed by Catholics, Lutherans, or Evangelicals become confused. They cannot discern between the cross as preached in “the everlasting gospel” in the context of “the time of [God’s pre-advent] judgment” (Rev. 14:6, 7) and some very excellent Evangelical preaching. However, today’s Evangelical preaching of the cross can never contribute to the message of the cleansing of the sanctuary in the time of the pre-advent judgment. Not only can it not contribute to that message, in actuality it leads away from it as can be readily witnessed by those who have left us because of the Evangelical teaching regarding the cross.

We must consider as sincere those who preach the cross of Christ even though it is apart from the message for the end-time. While we must not condemn anyone who preaches the cross, it is imperative that we remember this: anyone believing the false doctrine of the immortality of the soul cannot truly preach Christ and Him crucified. This is an impossibility. That doctrine denies the cross of Christ, because if the human soul is naturally immortal it would have been impossible for Christ to die. The Spirit of God testified, through Isaiah, that Christ died not only physically, but that His “soul” was made “an offering for sin” (Isa. 53:11).

This brings us to the first, but most weighty Quarterly question: “What will happen to us if we ever lose this focus (of the cross in the context of the Third Angel’s Minneapolis Message)?” This conditional premise is answered by an “it follows” consequent: we will go the same way the great Catholic and Protestant religions have gone.

If we get our doctrine of the cross from today’s Evangelical sources, without discernment and filtration, we will present the cross in a false light that will lead us into sympathy and finally into union with apostasy. That which is plainly seen taking place, today, among Lutherans and Evangelicals will be seen among us if we accept their premises and consistent consequent conclusions. God forbid that we walk down that same pathway. Without a doubt that will be the broad easy way to today’s religion cemetery. May we not be included in the graveside services to be announced shortly! God forbid that we write our own obituary!

The key to unlocking the conundrum we face is found in understanding, not only the sunny side of the cross, but also its shadow. True, we need to understand and believe in the sunny side of the cross and bask in it rays, for it speaks to us of acquittal and pardon; of passing from condemnation to justification. But it is the shadow of the cross that causes stumbling. It is offensive (see Rom. 9:33; 1 Peter 2:8; Gal. 5:11). The preaching of the cross is always offensive to the carnal heart. The popular messages of the cross preached today know nothing of its shadow--the sufferings of the Godhead in the crucifixion of Christ, nor of our own crucifixion of self in the time of the investigative judgment and the cleansing of God’s heavenly sanctuary.

Our salvation and eternal hope are based on the shadow of Calvary, in Christ’s sufferings and death. The rays of righteousness coming out of that shadow enlighten our darkened minds and bathe us in its healing beams.

—Gerald L. Finneman

Read the study notes for lesson 6