Hello All,
(Just a general disclaimer that I must insert here at the beginning. I am but a lay person, like most of you. And these weekly “thoughts” are but my own. Not the definitive word on this or any topic. Just my own conclusions derived from my own study and faith in God. The greatest hope I have for these weekly “thoughts” is to have them be a springboard for further study on your part. Not to be a weekly treatise to be blindly accepted. So, please read them with this intent, this motive in mind).
This week’s lesson from “The Adult Sabbath School Guide” is titled “Covenant Faith”. “Little children, let no one deceive you. He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous” (1 John 3:7). And with this very simple and obvious statement from John (that only those who do righteousness are actually righteous) one of the great errors of Christianity is refuted. An error started by Jewish interpretation, perpetuated by the Roman church, carried forward into Protestantism, and has become canon interpretation for all Christendom ever since. That great error? That Christ covers us with His Righteousness so He sees only His righteous Son and does not see un-righteous, evil you. Or as the quarterly so foolishly and nonsensically states in Tuesday’s lesson “The God of Heaven views us as righteous even if we are not”. The quarterly again repeats this reckless notion in still stronger terms in Wednesday’s lesson; “God is accounting the sinner righteous, although the individual is actually unrighteous”. Horrors!! This makes a mockery of sin, a mockery of righteous, and makes our all wise and all-loving Father into a royal fool. And worst of all, it leads us sinners into a very deadly belief that what we do has no bearing on our “salvation” (healing). While all the time we believe this Satanic deception, we are living our sinful lives that distort our minds, sear our consciences and destroy the very means by which we are to relate to our Father (our minds and hearts). Believing that the sin that we are to our very core is “covered” and so we are OK, lulls us into a sinful self-deceptive stupor that perpetuates the damage to our brains that we are unwittingly doing to ourselves by believing that a mere superficial “covering” is “salvation”. This is an idea that has perpetuated for several millennia. Yet it is truly a part of the wine of Babylon. An idea straight-out of Paganism.
But as EGW counsels us, “There is no excuse for anyone in taking the position that there is no more truth to be revealed, and that all our expositions of Scripture are without an error. The fact that certain doctrines have been held as truth for many years by our people, is not a proof that our ideas are infallible. Age will not make error into truth, and truth can afford to be fair. No true doctrine will lose anything by close investigation” (Counsels to Writers and Editors pg. 32). So let’s look.
This misunderstanding of “righteousness” has its roots in the idea that God is so Holy that He cannot look upon sin. But this is a misguided, misunderstanding of our God. The Bible is rife with evidence that God sees the sin (mind/heart motive) and the resulting sins (acts) that are perpetrated on this earth. And the Bible also tells us how He feels about it. It makes Him so very sorrowful. This misunderstanding is also perpetuated by the idea that when Christ went to the cross, His Father forsook Him because of the sin that Christ took upon Himself. Yet that “forsaking” is not because of repugnance on the Father’s part. But because the sinner wants no part of the Father (Christ was made to be sin, though He knew no sin). So God leaves us to reap what we want.
This false idea of what Christ did on the cross and the resulting idea that Christ’s righteousness “covers” our unrighteousness and therefore leaves the sin inside of us intact... just covered so it cannot be seen, has led Christianity to embrace an idea that places our Father in a false light. And because He is in this extremely false light, it has created paralysis in Christians. Paralysis at worse and ambivalence at least toward our Father. We are led to believe that the Father does not love us as the Son (He needs to see “blood” before He can forgive). And the death of His Son provides a convenient covering so He can look on filthy us because He does not see the real us. Even though the Son tells us that the Father is just like the Son, who “knew what was in man” (John 2:25). Not only that, “he knew their thoughts” (Matthew 9:4; 12:25; Luke 5:22; 6:8; 11:17) which were evil. He not only saw the people and their sinful acts, but saw the heart motivation behind those acts (sin). And the Father and the Son are both “One”.
This is not just philosophy or Biblical theory. The only way we can be “healed” (the true definition of salvation) is by being in tight relationship with our Father. So Satan has used every means available to keep us away from the Father by giving his evil interpretation to everything that the Father is and the Father does. Satan tempts us to believe the Father cannot love us as we are. He must have His Son “cover” us so He can finally look on us, love us and forgive us, so this fallacy goes:
o Because, we are told, He “paid the ransom required to free us from the debt owed to the law” (quarterly for Monday). However, there is no ransom to be paid to the law. A ransom is paid to what (or who) holds you captive. The Law does not hold us captive. It describes what holds us captive. It is sin that holds us captive. Specifically, it is our “old man”, our sinful self that is holding us captive. We hold us captive. So God pays the “ransom” price (the life of His Son) and gives that life to who holds us… He gives His life to me, to you because it is the "old man-me" that is holding me. And He gives that life for us to do with as we see fit. Will we throw His life away or treasure it?
o The "covering" is not some superficial covering that somehow “covers” our sinfulness (allowing the sin that is killing us to go on and on inside of our minds and hearts like cancer) and hides us from the searching eyes of our Lord. But the covering God gives is to interpenetrate us. Read “Christ’s Object Lessons” pgs. 312-319 where EGW states that this “covering” is His character. Character is inside of you, not laid on you from the outside to hide you). If our definition of “covering” is so God does not see you, then we are wolves in sheep’s clothing… we are Pharisees and hypocrites. Whited coffins that look good outside but full of death. In truth, God’s covering changes us, leads us to reveal all to Him. Not hide from Him.
- We are not to have “trust in the merits of Christ” (quarterly for Thursday). We are to have trust in HIM. His “merits” mean nothing if we do not love and trust HIM. God alone saves (heals) us. His “merits” describe who He is and what He is like. But they mean nothing if I am not in a trust relationship with Him who alone can save and heal.
- We are not to have faith in some legal arrangement between Father and Son. True saving faith is confiding trust in a Person. A trust that leads you to surrender all, commit all to the One you trust. Commit everything.
- The Son’s matchless life, his death and His resurrection are demonstrations of the utter and total truth of the Father, the Son and His Holy Spirit… and all of heaven, too. And this demonstration of love and truth are given to change us from rebels to sons… not to change the Father from vindictive, to forgiving. Because God is already loving and forgiving. This demonstration is to change us. To change our minds about the Father, to illuminate our minds to the true nature of our sinfulness and depravity, and to show us the open-door which leads back home to our Father and Family.
o Righteousness is defined in our SDA Bible Dictionary as “a right relationship” with our God. This is righteousness. When we have this right relationship with Him, one of mutual love and trust, then our life will be demonstrations of that love/ truth. All else is not righteousness but a fabrication of the Jewish culture and perpetuated by the Roman church.
- Must it be said again, that the idea of punishing the just (Christ) instead of the wicked (you) is not “just”? That our supremely just and righteous Father would approve of such a transaction is maligning His character. And it is also wronging us, the wicked. God holds us responsible. And the natural consequence of our sins, the results of our own choices, must be felt and realized by each of us. For this, too, is love.
I am sorry that our quarterly still promotes this concept of “covering”. And that it promotes the idea of the righteousness of God being accounted to anyone where it does not in-fact exist. As the Bible states, faith is accounted (or acknowledged) as righteousness. Because it is the only reasonable response from sinful man to the covenant promises of God. To trust Him. Trusting Him is the only reasonable response we have. But trust is not mere mental assent. True trust is seen in your life. How you live, what you do. As Graham Maxwell once said, “Faith in God also means faith in His methods”. Not just some mental acknowledgement of faith in His “merits”. This is not “faith” at all. True faith is a life-changing, mind restoring, change of heart.
Does EGW say such things as our quarterly? Yes she does (see Friday’s lesson). So am I promoting an idea that contradicts her? I believe not. As reference above, (“Christ’s Object Lessons” pgs. 312-319) we have this long treatise about what the “covering” really is. EGW, just like the Bible, can use veiled symbolism in places to convey divine concepts. But like all symbols, we need to delve into what those symbols mean. And if we search, not content to let a symbol stand for the ultimate substance, God will lead us. By searching EGW for clarity on those statements that use any symbolism, we will come to clear statements and explanations like the one in “Christ’s Object Lessons” pgs. 312-319 regarding this “covering”. If any statement or comment in the Bible or EGW leads you to scratch your head, seems to be somewhat symbolic or seems to put out Father in a bad-light, then start asking questions. Do not be content with an unquestioning response. God wants us to understand.
The ideas I have promoted here are not new to me. Or new to our denomination, either. In fact, they are part of the Bible itself. The understanding of “covering” is part of EGW’s understanding as she wrote “Christ’s Object Lessons”. The Old Testament warns us about a “covering” that hides your sinfulness… “He who covers his sins will not prosper, But whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy” (Proverbs 28:13). And Christ Himself says the same thing, “For there is nothing covered that will not be revealed, nor hidden that will not be known” Luke 12:2). And the idea of righteousness as something that is within us (not laid upon us to hide our sinfulness) is totally scriptural (see quote from 1 John at the beginning of this “thought”).
I hope you are seeing how truly dangerous this idea of an exterior “covering” of “righteousness” really is! It is as dangerous as the idea that at the communion table we are eating the literal flesh and blood of Christ. Jesus did say we were to eat His flesh and drink His blood (see John 6). Just as we are told that His righteousness covers us. But to just take what the Bible says or even what Christ says without asking what it MEANS, can be more dangerous than ignoring Him and the Bible altogether. At this late date in history, we must understand and represent our God aright. Partial ideas and explanations that may have sufficed earlier in our Christian understanding, will not suffice in these last days of the antitypical “day of atonement” where God's "sanctuary" is to be cleansed. We are to understand. And come to our Father so that we can be totally healed in our minds and our internal sanctuary can be "cleansed" (not hidden and allowed to continue to fester). At this stage, all else is deception.
With brotherly love,
Jim