FOURTH QUARTER 2022
SABBATH SCHOOL INSIGHT #3
OCTOBER 15, 2022
“UNDERSTANDING HUMAN NATURE” - REVISED

 

“For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your bondservants for Jesus' sake. For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to [give] the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us” (2 Cor 4:5-7, NKJV).

 

It was Socrates who spoke the well known axiom, “Know thyself.” Or maybe it was received from the Oracle of Delphi, where it was written. Either way…

 

In our fallen state, a crucial part of the remedy is to have some sense of who we are and what we are dealing with in our human nature. The lesson this week is focused primarily on understanding the “true nature of humanity.”

 

Actually, a similar idea was expressed by Pythagoras, a young contemporary of Daniel who lived and died before Socrates was born. He is attributed to have said, “Man know thyself; then thou shalt know the Universe and God.”

 

We could consider this a summation of Greek thought as to the nature of man. Out of this Greek self-focused process grew numerous errors as to the nature of humanity, both corporal and spiritual. Pythagoras based his teachings on the theory of an immortal soul, and believed in reincarnation.

 

Unfortunately, left to itself, the human heart is “deceitful above all [things], And desperately wicked; Who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).

 

The paradox of fallen humanity is its inability to properly assess its own situation, or even the nature of its fundamental existence. We cannot know our own hearts, except as it is revealed by the One who formed it. The “mystery of iniquity” is no solution.

 

Much of human nature remains a mystery to us, and rightfully so. Take consciousness, for example. “I think, therefore I am” is no explanation of thought itself. Where did we get that ability?

 

This is why Paul’s exposition of the gospel is so profound. Though written in the Greek language, it literally changes the entire frame of reference for considering the nature of man. Or we could say it restores it, as it was there from the beginning.

 

The “treasure in earthen vessels” is a treasure gifted by God, placed in a created vessel, not a treasure inherent in a self-existent vessel, or to which the vessel can claim any right. Furthermore, the treasure is received by looking away from self, from the human self-identity, to the Creator and Redeemer.  The implications are far reaching and life-changing for our conception of and our experience in the universe, and of course in how we relate to God.

 

In 2 Corinthians chapter 4, Paul covers the remarkably stabilizing effect of the gospel on our transient life here and God's purpose for us while we still live, recognizing our own mortality, as well as our hope in the promise of the resurrection. I would encourage a careful reading of this entire chapter with these themes in mind.

 

A Living Being

 

God through Christ first formed and filled the earth, all by the spoken word. Then he formed man, yes, out of the ground, showing that we are dependent on His creative power; but rather than speaking to the man, He breathed into man to give him His very life. Man was created to be inhabited by the Spirit of God, and by his own free will, to speak and express God’s own thoughts as his own. What a privilege and responsibility!

 

The Soul Who Sins Shall Die

 

Jesus was the Second Adam, the One who would restore and validate the experience of the indwelling Spirit in the human race. Yes, humanity sinned in Adam. Jesus’ “soul was sorrowful unto death,” showing that a living soul with sin is not immortal, as only God has immortality. Of course Jesus was taking our sin upon Himself, it was not rightfully His own. It was the separation of the Father from the Son that allowed the saving power of His righteous, sin-free life to be demonstrated in the bearing of our death. The Greek idea of the immortal soul —originating from the serpent — undermines the atonement at a most fundamental level.

 

The Spirit Returns to God

 

In Psalm 32:2 the word spirit (rûaḥ) refers to character, or practice. God records all that we have done (or not done) as we respond to the influence of His Spirit (also rûaḥ). After death, that character, or life record, is no longer exercising free will — it is the record of the consequences of that free will in the human psyche, in the mind and heart. Everyone will be resurrected to experience the culmination of those choices in either the first or second resurrection.

 

The Dead Know Nothing

 

It follows that when character is fixed (the spirit returns to God), no more thought, activity, or choosing happens until the resurrection.

 

Resting With the Fathers

 

God views with favor and blessing those who rest after living and preaching the gospel.

 

“Then I heard a voice from heaven saying to me, ‘Write: “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.”’ ‘Yes,’ says the Spirit, ‘that they may rest from their labors, and their works follow them’” (Revelation 14:13).

 

The only time to labor is now, and the effect of that labor has eternal consequences. Let us walk in the light, as He is in the light.

 

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“Philosophic doubt has nothing but the darkness and shadow of death to offer in place of the life and immortality which is brought to light in the Gospel.” (July 11, 1895 EJW, PTUK 448.12)

 

“Paul, in 2 Tim. i,10, testifies concerning Christ, ‘who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light, through the Gospel.' How can it be said that life and immortality are brought to light through the gospel, if Adam and all his posterity have immortal souls. Why, says the objector, the gospel brought to light the fact that we have immortal souls. Prior to Christ's advent, death was looked upon as a state of darkness, and many of the writers of the Old Testament scriptures speak in a dark manner about the state of the dead; but Christ, through the gospel, has made it clear and plain that we have immortal souls. Is this your idea of the text? Why claim that Christ brought the doctrine of the immortality of the soul to light? It existed long before his first advent, but not with Scripture writers. But to understand how life and immortality are brought to light through the gospel, we will look at a gospel sermon on the subject. 1 Cor. xv,1-4. ‘Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain; for I delivered unto you first of all, that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day, according to the scriptures.’”   (September 4, 1855 James White, ARSH 34.11)

 

CHRIST AND HIM CRUCIFIED

 

"THIS is the truth as to immortality. This is the true way of mankind from mortality to immortality. But, it is directly antagonistic to the Platonic or pagan idea of immortality, and of that way to it. This is evident on its face; but it is aptly confirmed by an incident that occurred at the very seat of the original Platonic philosophy—in Athens itself. Paul, in one of his journeys, came to Athens, where he remained several days, and talked ‘in the synagogue with the Jews, and with the devout persons, and in the market daily with them that met with him.’ And, in all his speech, he preached the Gospel—Christ and Him crucified: Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God: Christ and the resurrection of the dead: and life and immortality only through Christ and the resurrection of the dead. ‘Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans and of the Stoics encountered him. And some said, What will this babbler say? Other some, He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods.’ And this ‘because he preached unto them Jesus and the resurrection.' This was altogether a new doctrine, something which they never had heard. Therefore, ‘they took him, and brought him unto Areopagus, saying, May we know what this new doctrine, whereof thou speakest, is? For thou bringest certain strange things to our ears: we would knew therefore what these things mean.’ And when, standing on Mars' Hill, he preached to them the Gospel, and called upon all ‘to repent: because He hath appointed a day in the which He will judge the world in righteousness by that Man whom He hath ordained; whereof He hath given assurance unto all men, in that He hath raised Him from the dead—when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked: and others said, We will hear thee again of this matter.’

 

"This account demonstrates even by inspiration that the Christian conception of immortality is not in any sense that of Plato and the other philosophers. If Paul had preached in Athens the immortality of the soul, no one in Athens would ever have counted him ‘a setter forth of strange gods.’ Such preaching would never there have been called ‘new doctrine.’ Nothing of that sort would ever have been ‘strange things to their ears.’ But Christianity knows no each thing as the immortality of the soul. Therefore Paul preached immortality as the gift of God through Jesus Christ and the resurrection from the dead: immortality to be sought for and obtained only through the faith of Christ, by believers in Jesus—immortality only through Christ and the resurrection of the dead He preached that, without the Gospel, all men are lost, and subject to death. For, to the Greeks he wrote: ‘If our Gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost, in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them that believe not, lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.’ 2 Cor. iv. 3, 4. He preached the Word,—not that the soul is ‘immortal and imperishable,’ but—‘the soul that sinneth, it shall die' (Eze. xviii. 4); that ‘the wicked shall perish' (Ps. xxxvii. 20); that ‘they shall be as nothing;’ that ‘yet a little while and the wicked shall not be; yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place, and it shall not be’ (Ps. xxxvii. 10); that ‘the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord;’ Rom vi. 23. ‘As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn ye, turn ye from your evil way; for why will ye die?’ Eze. xxxiii. 11.”

A. T. JONES. (June 11, 1903 ATJ, PTUK 375)

 

~Todd Guthrie