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Commentary on "In the Shadow of His Wings"
Day 6: Thursday, May 12, 2011 - In the Sanctuary of His Wings
Overview
This lesson focusses on David’s pleading for shelter from destruction under God’s wings. His Psalms reveal His suffering as he reaped the consequences of his sin with Bathsheba throughout his life.
The final paragraph connects the plea for safety under God’s wings with the wings of the cherubim “whose overarching wings shelter the law--the written transcript of God’s character of love.”
Observations
To be sure, David suffered the consequences of his sin for the rest of his life. The lesson, however, correctly shows how David’s psalms tell the truth about God’s faithfulness and grace.
There is a serious issue, though, in the last paragraph. It states a foundational Adventist assumption: the law is “the written transcript of God’s character of love.”
This statement is assumed to be true, and it is delivered within Adventism as the foundational stone upon which their theology of Sabbath is built.
This concept is NEVER stated or even hinted in Scripture, and if one just looks at the words, the fallacy of this statement becomes clear.
The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines “transcript” this way:
- a: a written, printed, or typed copy; especially: a usually typed copy of dictated or recorded material.
b: an official or legal and often published copy—a court reporter's transcript; especially: an official copy of a student's educational record - a representation (as of experience) in an art form
- a sequence of RNA produced by transcription from a DNA template
Simply by looking at the definitions of “transcript”, it is clear that the law cannot be a transcript of God’s character. “Transcripts” are exact copies of something. The law was given by God to Israel, and it contained 613 laws (including the Ten). It defined sin, not God. It was not a “transcript” of Love, nor did it represent the eternal grace, justice, mercy, wrath, power, creativity, wisdom, compassion, and so much more that is God’s character.
Romans describes carefully that the law was given so sin would become known, so sin would increase. This is not a representation of God’s character. Transcripts are essentially photocopies, direct copies, dictations, or other specific representations of something. The law is not a copy of God.
Jesus, on the other hand, was “the image of the invisible God” (Col 1:15). If the Bible reveals a transcript of anything, it is the Lord Jesus, God in flesh, who is an exact copy, the “image” of the invisible God.
Adventists have given the Law the function that the Bible assigns to the Lord Jesus. They make it the “transcript of God’s character”, and nothing could be further from the truth. Jesus came as the exact representation of the invisible God. The law was never God’s representation. It was the statement of conditions for Israel’s blessings or curses; it was not God’s personal representation or transcript.
Moreover, this statement that Adventists use to ground all of their theology is heresy. God’s love is not shown and summed up in the law; it was shown and summed up in Jesus and the cross, culminating in the resurrection and finally in His ascension after which He and the Father poured out the Holy Spirit on those who believe in Him.
Jesus fulfilled the demands of the law, both the demands for curses (Gal. 3:13) and the demands of obedience. It is Jesus, not the law, who is God’s exact representation.
Summary
- The law is not the transcript of God’s character.
- Jesus is the exact reflection of the invisible God.
- This Adventist assumption about the law is heresy; it places the law in the function of the Lord Jesus.
- It is Jesus, not the law, that people must embrace.
Copyright 2011 BibleStudiesForAdventists.com. All rights reserved. Revised May 10, 2011. This website is published by Life Assurance Ministries, Glendale, Arizona, USA, the publisher of Proclamation! Magazine. Contact email: BibleStudiesForAdventists@gmail.com.
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