Insights to Lesson 9: "The Covenant Sign," February 22-28, 2003

The seventh-day Sabbath is in crisis according to ex-Adventist minister Dale Ratzlaff. He argues that since Christians are new covenant believers, they have nothing to do with such legalism as Sabbath-keepers practice. After all, Jesus did away with the old covenant Sabbath when He died on the cross.
But if the Sabbath is in crisis, then so is God in crisis, for the Scriptures teach that "God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it He had rested from all His work which God created and made" (Gen. 3:3). God put the blessing of Himself into the seventh day of the week before there ever was such as thing as the old covenant. The blessing of God is His life, righteousness and love.
There is no legalism in the Sabbath. The Sabbath is all about God's rest. Jesus said, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls" (Matt. 11:28, 29). Jesus invites the believer to rest his sin-burden upon Himself. Sins are forgiven. The sinner is declared righteous in Christ, thus sanctifying him apart from the world.
The Sabbath is the seal of God's sanctification. "Moreover also I gave them my Sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them" (Ezek. 20:12). The seventh-day Sabbath rest is the sign of righteousness by faith in Christ.
In fact the seventh day Sabbath is part of that law of God which is sealed upon every believing heart through God's new covenant promise. "For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people" (Heb. 8:10).
It is a misunderstanding of God's everlasting covenant to speculate that the old covenant embodied the Sabbath before the cross did away with it, and the new covenant saves people after Calvary.
God's covenant is His plan to bring sinners back into harmony with His law through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The old covenant is man's promises to keep God's law (Ex. 19:8), which were doomed to failure on arrival. The law was the basis of both covenants. Which method to achieve obedience to God's law would you choose for salvation?
The new covenant is superior to the old in that it is based on the better promises of God in Christ (2 Cor. 1:20) and the better ministry of Christ in the heavenly sanctuary. The old covenant was based on man's promises to obey and had an earthly priesthood which could never bring perfection of conscience.
The two covenants are not bound by time before and after the cross-the new covenant succeeding the old in sequence. The two covenants are two different dispensations of the heart-condition with respect to God's promise and oath. The old which is passing away is trust in self and God. The new involves death to self and absolute confidence in Christ.

The Special Insights web page resides at:
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INSIGHT SPECIAL

The tragic news is emblazoned everywhere. "Seventh-day Adventist ordained pastor found guilty of genocide!" Pastor Elizaphan Ntakirutimana is convicted by the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Tanzania and sentenced to ten years (his frail health made the sentence lighter). His son, Gerard, a physician, was also found guilty and sentenced to 25 years. Former U. S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark served as counsel for Pastor Ntakirutimana.
One key piece of evidence was the letter that a host of Tutsi pastors and people sent to Pastor Ntakirutimana, "We are doomed to die. Can you help us?" To which he replied, "I can do nothing for you. Prepare to die. Your time has come." Then he brought in the Hutu soldiers who slaughtered them all.
Most Seventh-day Adventist church members don't want to believe the headlines. Beloved ordained pastors should shepherd the flock, not kill people!
Let us say a word in defense of Rwandan Seventh-day Adventists. They are not monsters; they are people who need the pure, true gospel of Jesus as much as anyone else on earth. We labored among them from 1945 to 1953, when we were sent to Uganda to serve (large numbers of Rwanda people lived in Uganda).
From the beginnings of our work in Africa, the message "we" proclaimed was largely Old Covenant in nature. From 1896 Ellen White was forced to declare that "Satan succeeded" in "our" rejection of the "most precious message" of Christ's righteousness that Heaven sent "us" in 1888. She said that "by the action of our own brethren" it has "been kept away" from both our people and from the world. Our people in Rwanda just had never had a chance to know what that message of Christ's righteousness is. They knew practically nothing of agape.
Hutu hatred of Tutsis was very popular in Rwanda among the people in general. It was for them the "patriotic" thing to do. The hatred they felt was similar to "our" hatred of Osama bin Laden. A lukewarm, "worldly" Seventh-day Adventist just hated the Tutsis like everybody else; when the rip tide swept the people off their Christian feet, our pastor and his son had nothing to hold them. Nothing could have held them except the pure gospel teaching of the New Covenant. They just didn't know what it is.-Robert J. Wieland

The Special Insights web page resides at:
http://www.1888message.org/sabbathschool/

Insights to Lesson 8: "Covenant Law," February 15-21, 2003

As we have studied our Sabbath School Lessons this Quarter on "The Promise--God's Everlasting Covenant," the Lord has permitted some things to focus more clearly.
There is widespread discussion. Just now one large SDA church has devoted three Sabbath afternoon hours to a discussion of the Covenants. There is the possibility that we might take wrong positions and again condemn truth. That's what our dear people did some 115 years ago. They missed out on receiving the latter rain and proclaiming the loud cry message; and the second coming of Christ was delayed.
(1) All who see the gospel as the fundamental truth of "the third angel's message in verity" long for, and pray for, a healing of divisions, and harmony to unite the church.
(2) The fundamental truth of the message God has given to Seventh-day Adventists for the world is the New Covenant. Its "everlasting Good News" alone can reconcile alienated hearts to God. The New Covenant is the "Elijah message" that will "turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers" (Mal. 4:6), before judgment "smites the earth." The New Covenant is holy ground; we must tread softly. Carelessness or irreverence here is fatal. Jokes and ridicule are out of place.
(3) The message of Revelation 18 that must "lighten the earth with glory" is the New Covenant truth as verily as the message of the apostles was the New Covenant truth for their day. The 1888 understanding of the Covenants is a breath of fresh air that will sweep through the popular churches and speak to every honest heart. The Bible is clear that it will also speak to "all nations," which must include Islam.
(4) The message is not just for the church, but is perfectly suited for proclamation to the world. God entrusted its "most precious" truth to the care of His "remnant church," as He entrusted His most precious Son to the Jews, but they rejected Him. Ellen White says we did precisely the same with this "most precious" "verity" of the third angel's message--"in a great degree."
(5) There can be no mixture of Old Covenant confusion with that pure New Covenant lest "the truth of the Gospel" be compromised. Paul didn't like controversy any more than we do, but when it came to dealing with the Galatians, he said of those who wanted to worm in their Old Covenant confusion, "To whom we gave place by subjection, no, not for an hour; that the truth of the gospel might continue with you" (Gal. 2:5).
(6) Old Covenant confusion is directly responsible for the worldwide condition of lukewarmness. It is not cultural, for it is as prevalent in Third World churches as in Europe or America. Money doesn't cause it; poverty-stricken people can get it too. It's a universal malady of the human heart, a virus that can grow and flourish only through the absence of New Covenant truth. It's like an illness that attacks only if there is a deficiency of vitamins.
(7) A believing response to the New Covenant promises (such as Abraham's faith) transforms people individually, and also churches corporately. In these last days, understanding and believing the New Covenant promises prepares a people to welcome Jesus at His second coming. If this is true, it invests the topic of the two Covenants as immensely important. Maybe that's why the Pioneer Memorial Church in Berrien Springs is devoting those three Sabbath afternoon hours to it.
(8) Understood in context, "the most precious message" which "the Lord in His great mercy sent" us in 1888 was in fact the New Covenant message that God intended should lighten the earth with glory--salvation "by grace . . . through faith, and that not of [ourselves]: it is the gift [not merely an offer!] of God: not of works." That message alone could produce living works, because any so-called "obedience" not motivated by grace-much-more-abounding always ends up as "dead works."
(9) Understood in context, the message of the Battle Creek leaders who opposed was the Old Covenant resurrected--Galatianism revived. But it was far more subtle than what Paul faced in his day (which at that time came from church leaders in Jerusalem). The confusion will shape up to become the greatest shaking of all time. This history can't be reversed. The plan of salvation is on trial and must be fully revealed and demonstrated. And the efforts of "the great dragon" to confuse us must be exposed.
Again in Sunday's lesson we are frequently reminded that what Christ accomplished for the world was an "offer." The Bible seems to indicate that Christ GAVE something to the world, and Israel were to tell the world about it. If (as it says) He "died for all humanity," that seems to be what the Bible is saying. His love and His sacrifice were both unconditional. The condition for our receiving the blessing is faith.
In Monday's lesson we read of "various requirements . . . for maintaining the special relationship He sought with His people." It is better Good News to realize that through the Holy Spirit God is seeking to "maintain" that relationship. He took the initiative in starting it, and He takes it in keeping it going--if we don't resist Him.
Thursday's lesson is so true that the Covenant from Sinai states "conditions of obedience." But we must not insert the Old into the New.

Questions have been coming in that evidence perplexity:
(1) "Isn't it true that we 'have to obey'? Isn't the Seventh-day Adventist Church the one that teaches obedience to all of the Ten Commandments? Is there some secret in this New Covenant emphasis that will weaken our denominational emphasis on keeping the commandments?"

We don't obey because "we have to." The very idea of "having to do it" suggests a fear motivation mixed in, which immediately makes it suspect of being Old Covenant in principle. If you "have" to do something, back in the shadows lurks the idea of a threat if you don't--a possible curse. We obey because our hearts have been made at-one with the heart of God; He loves His law, so do we. Abraham was "the friend of God." They were close in the father-son love experience. Do you remember how unafraid you were when you were with your father when you were a child? Did he threaten you with curses if you made a mistake? Abraham was not coerced "under law." Those today who are motivated by Abraham's faith (when he was justified) are living under the New Covenant.

(2) "Is there danger that this emphasis on the New Covenant may weaken our stand on dress and health reforms?"

Dress and health reform become Old Covenant when the motivation is egocentric. We follow health reform with the supreme motivation to yield ourselves fully to the service of Christ. We follow dress reform because in a healthy sense "we pour contempt on all our pride" when we "survey the wondrous cross, on which the Prince of glory died." That doesn't mean dressing in a bizarre manner to draw attention to ourselves, either as pride or as self-abasement. It's all sanctified common sense.

(3) "Deuteronomy 28:15-68 lists a host of curses that the Lord promised to send on Israel if they did not obey; aren't they just as much 'the word of the Lord' as the New Covenant promises He made to Abraham?"

Yes, because when Israel at Sinai rejected the Lord's Plan A, He was forced to implement Plan B. The Old Covenant became their "schoolmaster" or disciplinarian to drive them back to where Abraham was, to be justified by faith (Gal. 3:24). If they would not keep step with Him, God must humble Himself to keep step with them because His faithful love would not let Him abandon them. Thus began the long detour of many centuries, of their own choosing. As a nation Israel failed, although there were always some few individuals who chose to believe New Covenant truths. Paul was the first to clearly grasp the meaning of this history (3:15-25).

(4) "Paul uses the term 'the law' in Romans and Galatians to denote the instructions Moses gave Israel from Exodus 19 through Leviticus to Deuteronomy. Is not that body of instruction just as inspired as the Lord's promises He made to Abraham, which are the New Covenant?"

Yes, as "the law" of the Old Covenant. Doubtless the threat of the curses inspired much of the obedience. But there were some wonderful Old Covenant revivals in Israel and the Kingdom of Judah. But "the third angel's message in verity" today is New Covenant because it teaches the true self-less motivation of the cross.

(5) "Is not the Ten Commandment law the basis of both the Old and New Covenants, thus proving that the two Covenants are actually identical?"

In the Old Covenant, the law was written on stone. In the New Covenant, it is written on believing hearts. The underlying issue is motivation. As we near the end and the call sounds ever more powerfully, "Come out of [Babylon], My people," hearts will be moved by the revelation of Christ's High Priestly ministry in the Most Holy Apartment of the heavenly sanctuary. The appeal of the message will be Christ and Him crucified. It will be clear that there is heart-moving power in the message when self-centered motives are transcended by a purpose to honor the One who gave Himself for us. It works! Multitudes will learn in a short time what it has taken us many decades to grasp.

May the Lord hasten the day!

Insights to Lesson 7: "Covenant at Sinai," February 8-14, 2003

Tuesday's lesson (February 11): We need to look closely. The Old Covenant of Exodus chapters 19-24 is said to be "the Mount Everest . . . event" of Israel's early history. The Covenant instituted by the people is represented as "GOD'S proposal of a covenant with Israel," and their Old Covenant response is considered their "ACCEPTANCE of the covenant" (emphasis supplied). Thus the Old Covenant goes through a metamorphosis of being re-defined as righteousness by faith (that is, "acceptance").
But what God "proposed" in Exodus 19:5 was that they believe His New Covenant promise--just as Abraham had believed it. But instead of "acceptance," they rejected God's proposal and substituted their own idea, a promise of obedience (vss. 7, 8).
Then the Old Covenant instituted by the people is presented as "God revealing Himself more fully than before," "a deal 'made in heaven.'" Further, God's "covenant demanded that they obey" (Thursday).
But do we see such a "demand" anywhere in the Bible record of the New Covenant? Did God make a "demand" of Abraham? He wanted Abraham to obey, but not in response to a threat if he didn't. Right here we see the issue of the two Covenants exposed. The Old Covenant is replete with terrible threats that if God's so-called "demand" is not met by perfect obedience, all kinds of curses are predicted (see Deuteronomy 28:15-68). Abraham didn't need any of those "curses"! Yet he obeyed without them, because he believed God's New Covenant promises.
Wednesday's lesson: the meaning of the Hebrew word translated in Exodus 19:5 as "obey" (shamea) needs to be remembered. Says the Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament: "The basic idea [of shamea] is that of perceiving a message or merely a sound . . . to hear, . . . listen to, pay attention" (Vol. II, p. 2411). "Obey" has been attached as a derivative meaning that is not in the Hebrew word (probably itself as a consequence of Old Covenant thinking).
Likewise the root meaning of the word translated as "keep" (shamar) is not primarily "obey," but to "treasure," as we see its use in Genesis 2:15. God placed Adam in the Garden to "treasure" it, esteem it highly. In Exodus 19:5 God was not trying to institute a covenant of works. He wanted to renew to Israel His glorious promises He had made to Abraham. The so-called "Mount Everest" Sinai was more a lowland of proposed do-it-ourselves religion based on the "obey and live" motif which Ellen White says is the basic principle of the Old Covenant (Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 372).
If we are tempted to view discussions about the Old and New Covenants as abstract theology over people's heads, consider the plight of innocent children who are taught Old Covenant ideas. After 1907 the view of Uriah Smith and G. I. Butler et al became the standard view. Seventh-day Adventist children found themselves in for a century of borrowings from Evangelicalism with Old Covenant emphases.
Standard "children's stories" in church and Sabbath School often became variations of the "crime-does-not-pay" motif. "Little Billy disobeyed Mommy and went swimming and almost drowned; you must obey Mommy and Daddy" was played out frequently. Or, if little Billy obeyed the Law, then his prayers got miraculously answered (which some kids don't get to see).
As the Old Covenant was popular in ancient Israel, so it has been in modern Israel. Parents innocently relied on the abundant supply of "obedience" stories to help them solve what they thought was their main problem: supporting the church's unpopular "standards."
"Standards" became an accepted idiom for rules, and loyalty to the church seemed to require employing the only theological motif that seemed to work in upholding them. After 1907, the personal failures of Jones and Waggoner made it almost impossible to resurrect the 1888 view of the Covenants (Ellen White had labeled that assumption a "fatal deception").
When the "Victorious Life" enthusiasm swept through the Sunday-keeping Evangelical churches after 1915 (the year Ellen White died), it was heartily adopted at the 1922 General Conference Session. Speakers declared they had come to believe that "the Victorious Life" was the same as the 1888 message and thus a more convenient way to understand it. Thus a long process began of borrowing the "righteousness by faith" concepts of the zealous Protestant churches and substituting them for the insights of the 1888 message. The confusion has extended into the present millennium.
The "most precious message" which Ellen White endorsed recognized that the New Covenant was the promise of God based 100 percent on His much more abounding grace; and the theme of the Old Covenant was the promise of the people to keep the commandments. It "gendered bondage" as Paul says (Gal. 4:24) for the simple reason that the people couldn't keep their promise (neither can we keep ours to God, which is why God never asked Abraham to make promises to Him). To this day, the New Covenant idea of 100 percent the grace of God as motivation for upholding "standards" is suspected of being a sly infiltration of antinomianism. Which is probably why in our current Sabbath School Quarterly so often the "contract," "make an agreement," make a "deal," strike a "bargain" ideas infiltrate the many clear points.
Consider the once-popular book for Pathfinders entitled, I Promise God (R&H, 1963). "The JMV* pledge is a heart promise you make to God" (p. 11). And so on throughout.
By employing the caveat "By the grace of God," the Old Covenant idea is supposedly sterilized, even though God never asked Abraham to promise Him obedience. (Steps to Christ makes clear: what God wants from us is to CHOOSE to serve Him, to GIVE ourselves to Him, not promise to keep the law, p. 47).
The idea that the Old Covenant is good for children is seen in the following from the once-popular Psalms For Tiny Tots (R&H):

[Picture shows Jesus standing by the Ten Commandments]:
"I will whisper in your ears [Jesus speaks] / How I love you children dear. /
Promise Me you will be true / In every little thing you do."

[Next page, picture shows children standing before the Ten Commandments as the door to heaven]:
"I promise that I will obey / His Ten Commandments every day. /
I promise that I'll never go / Where His commandments tell me no. /
I promise that I'll always take / The path that His commandments make."

But the innocent child lives in a world of temptation. Sooner or later, he stumbles, and forgets. Then comes what Steps to Christ describes: "The knowledge of your broken promises and forfeited pledges weakens your confidence in your own sincerity, and causes you to feel that God cannot accept you" (p. 47). This is followed by self-reproach and spiritual discouragement ("I'm a failure; I'm not good enough to go to heaven") that Dr. Roger Dudley describes in Why Teenagers Reject Religion (pp. 9-17).
Rather, says Steps to Christ, "What you need to understand is the true force of the will. . . . The power of choice God has given to men; it is theirs to exercise" (p. 47). But the choice cannot be made intelligently if the motivation in the agape motif is absent. An egocentric motivation (threats if you disobey) is ineffective when temptations come (and they surely will).
Next, the Old Covenant mind-set renders acceptable the core Hindu idea of karma:

[The picture shows a little girl busily ironing clothes]:
"Helping mother is lots of fun / In getting all her housework done. /
I know that it makes Jesus glad. / It helps make up for when I'm bad."

How this Hindu concept could infiltrate our literature for children is not perplexing if the history of the Covenants is remembered. It was like the Old Covenant mind-set that Israel took upon themselves at Mount Sinai. Ever after it was easy for them to be ensnared in the ways of their neighbors. Finally came the rigid legalism that crucified their Savior.
The author of this book for children was a very good man, sincere and well-meaning. He apparently had never had a chance to know the 1888 view of the Covenants, or its history. All had been buried in the archives. It had "in a great measure" been "shut away from our people" and "in a great degree kept away from the world" (Selected Messages, book one, pp. 234, 235). The authors were innocent, as have been many others. But that doesn't lessen the number of children who have wandered unnecessarily into "bondage" as the result of imbibing Old Covenant ideas.
Several interesting questions have come in:

(1) Wasn't Abraham's obedience made a prerequisite condition before God would give him the New Covenant promises? Didn't he first have to leave Ur of the Chaldees? And if so, doesn't that indicate that the New Covenant is based on our obedience first?
If this suggestion is correct, it would follow that Abraham's response to the New Covenant promises was egocentric in nature. Was the "Promise" a carrot-stick held before him, luring him to "obedience"? But there is no egocentric element in genuine faith. Abraham left Ur not knowing what lay before him. His heart merely responded to God's call, "Come out of Babylon."

(2) Weren't the revivals and reformations under such Kings as Hezekiah and Josiah, and later under Ezra and Nehemiah, New Covenant in nature? If so, doesn't this indicate that ancient Israel lived under the New Covenant, not the Old?
If one had never read Galatians, one might make that assumption. But Galatians 3 is clear: all through ancient Israel's history "the law was our schoolmaster" (vs. 24). It is possible to follow Old Covenant principles in great sincerity and fidelity, but the revivals were not permanent, and "bondage" followed. And of course, after the people had made their promises, God as "the schoolmaster" had to encourage them to keep them, driving them back to the faith that Abraham once had. Thus He led His servants the prophets to call them back repeatedly. But all the reformations of these good men led eventually to tragedy (Hezekiah to Manasseh; Josiah to Zedekiah; Ezra to the legalism that eventually crucified Jesus). Paul in Galatians clearly understood the meaning of the history.