Special Insights No. 7
Fourth Quarter 2005
Adult Sabbath School Lessons
“Ephesians: The Gospel of Relationships”
(Produced by the Editorial Board of the 1888 Message Study Committee)
God's Mystery: The Universal Fellowship
The Jews had the grandest resume/endorsement from God of any people
on earth. As our Lesson reminds us, they were a “holy people,.... chosen....
to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples
who are on the face of the earth” (Deut. 14:2). But Israel ran with
this and developed the most exclusionary culture the world had known.
Why? Their natural human hearts were as sinful as of anybody else.
They translated the Gospel into the very opposite of what love is (agape)
and were so proud they actually hated the rest of the world. God had
chosen them to be His missionary people to reach the
world with Good News; they became the most anti-Good News people the
world has ever known, even murdering the Author of the Gospel (a lesson
for all who profess to follow Him!). Israel’s story is the most astounding
violation of founding-principle any nation has ever demonstrated.
It is most astonishing because the Lord had proclaimed to their “father”
Abraham the seven promises that make the New Covenant (Gen. 12:2, 3),
which included the assurance that “you shall be a blessing” to all
nations. From their first beginning, Israel were to be a missionary
people. When they came out of slavery in Egypt and arrived at Mt Sinai,
they turned the New Covenant on its head and invented their own Old
Covenant to take its place, promising obedience like fickle Peter’s
later promise never to “deny” His Lord (Matt. 26:33, 34). Like Peter,
ancient Israel fell flat on their face.
Our Tuesday’s Lesson notes that it is “not to this world only but to
the universe [that] we are to make manifest the principles of [Christ’s]
kingdom.” While we are doing it, could we also “make manifest [those]
principles” to the current Jews and Palestinians in constant bloody
conflict? We probably think of ourselves as too insignificant to make
an appreciable impact on Ariel Sharon and Abbas. But is that God’s intention?
Am I thinking a “big idea” too big for reality (cf. Evangelism,
p. 169, “preach so that the people can catch hold of big ideas”)? Can
the teaching of Seventh-day Adventists electrify the world?
Can it hit the front pages of newspapers and get on the evening news?
Can it “lighten the earth with glory”(Rev. 18:1, 2)? Can we
be what the Lord told Abraham his descendants would be—“a blessing”
to all nations, including Israel, the Palestinians, and Iraq?
Are we somebody important-to-be?
The answer has to be an unswerving YES!
Such a “big idea” does not convert the world—that won’t happen,
we know, but for sure it’s a proclamation of truth so clear that it
acts upon warring populations as that “other angel ascending from the
east, having the seal of the living God.” “With a loud voice” he commands
the four angels to hold their four winds of warfare, hatred,
and strife, until God “seal[s His] servants.... on their foreheads”
(Rev. 7:1-3). (An “angel,” remember, = a “most precious” message.) Don’t
let the message be muffled—there may be tragic consequences.
The sealing message has a direct effect on the “holding” of terrorism
and international strife. Two world wars, for example, can testify to
negligence in proclaiming that special message which prepares a people
for the close of probation—the sealing message. “In
a great degree” it eluded us. Our God-given task is specific: prepare
a people for the second coming of Christ and do it in this
generation. If we will do so, the Lord has promised He will do
his part: He will tell those “four angels,” “Hold, hold, hold, hold!”
their “four winds” until the sealing work is completed (Early Writings,
p. 38). Tuesday’s lesson emphasizes that this should happen now, not
wait another century for us to wake up and do it.
What does Paul’s letter to the Ephesians
have to do with this work?
Much, because Ephesians 3 in particular is concerned with God’s people
reaching the zenith of character development which means being “filled
with all the fullness of God” (vs. 19). That’s not perfection of the
flesh (which is a heresy!) but Christlikeness of character—manifested
in the church as a body. That’s why Ephesians belongs with
Daniel and Revelation; it’s a message for the last days proclaimed by
the Bride-to-be of Christ. Tuesday’s lesson zeroes in on this idea of
something happening in the church which is also “through the
church”(Eph. 3:10)—repentance in and of the church as a body.
Long said to be impossible, it has to come, and it will. Our
Seventh-day Adventist church in Germany and Austria is demonstrating
how it can come; they have hit the papers.
That means the sealing message is not proclaimed by a handful of zealots
scattered almost invisible in the church, but it’s by the corporate
body of the church. It means the church will at last be united
in their understanding of the message! In other words, Tuesday’s Lesson
makes clear that it’s God’s purpose that the entire body of
the church be united in their heart-appreciation for the sacrifice of
Christ as no corporate body in history has been so united, so grown-up
in their understanding of the atonement. At last, they comprehend
something—what it cost the Son of God to save this world. And that constrains
them.
What Sunday-keeping churches just can’t see.
Paul’s prayer is that we might comprehend the grand dimensions
of this agape-love of Christ (3:14-19). It’s no fault of theirs
they can’t see it—the false doctrine of natural immortality they inherited
from Romanism (and eventually paganism) hides their eyes from “comprehending”
the kind of death Christ died on His cross. We have yet to become united
in our understanding of what happened there, but the Holy Spirit is
working. We have a unique New Covenant message to proclaim to “all nations.”
It will arrest the attention of every honest soul in the world.
This week, may the Lord bless as we study deeply into what it’s all
about. Ephesians has truth woven into it that is electrifying. Claim
the “eyesalve” of discernment that Jesus has promised to give you on
condition of repentance (Rev. 3:18, 19).
—Robert J. Wieland
Note: Paul’s letter to the Ephesians is the inspired
source for many of the unique “what-Christ-has-accomplished” and “what-He
does-in-you” concepts which make the 1888 message of Christ’s righteousness
so unique. The 1888 Message Study Committee has just published Robert
J. Wieland’s accompanying commentary on Ephesians, YOU’VE BEEN “ADOPTED.”
Call (269) 473-1888 to order; ask for the special introductory price.
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