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Commentary on "Spiritual Gifts for Evangelism and Witnessing"

COLLEEN TINKER

 

Day 1: Sabbath Afternoon, April 14, 2012 - Introduction

 

Overview

This week’s lesson is entitled, “Spiritual Gifts for Evangelism and Witnessing”. In Sabbath’s brief introduction to the week, the author comments that Adventism has “rightly emphasized the spiritual gift of prophecy” but has not always stressed the importance of the rest of the spiritual gifts.

Tucked away on the first page of the Teachers’ Comments, however, on page 37 of the Teachers’ edition of the quarterly, is this introductory exercise designed to help members appreciate that spiritual gifts are a “direct endowment from the Holy Spirit to the body of Christ”:

Traveling from the East, the Magi came bearing royal gifts for the new- born Prince of Peace. Gold. Frankincense. Myrrh. Kingly gifts from kingly sages (Matt. 2:11).

For 2,000 years, this story has repeated itself in the life of every believer when he or she is born again by grace through faith into God’s “royal priesthood” (1 Pet. 2:9). Summoned from the darkness of unbelief, these royal priest-kings now minister to the High Priest and sovereign God against whom they once rebelled. As in the original story, there are kings who make a journey—kings who bring gifts in honor of a newborn’s life. But this time the gifts are as heavenly and eternal as the Kings who bear them—gifts of mercy, healing, teaching, prophecy, and leadership.

Gold fluctuates in value. Frankincense and myrrh lose potency with time. But the spiritual gifts of the Three wise and eternal Kings of heaven never lose value. Royal gifts from royal Kings, given to equip the royal priesthood of all believers to save souls.

Discuss: What does it mean to belong to a “royal priesthood” of believers? In what way should that influence how we live out our lives? How does it make you feel, knowing that God the Father and the Son, through the Person of the Holy Spirit, come to us at our new birth (just as the wise men of the East came to Jesus at His birth) to bestow the riches of heaven upon us? How should this attitude influence our reverence for God and our appreciation for His spiritual gifts?

 

Observations

The quote above is where I’ll focus my comments, because it blatantly reveals the underlying belief of Adventism: God is not One Being. The Adventist trinity is a tri-theism, not the classic Christian Trinity.

Before I unpack this quote, I want to reference a paper written by Andrews Seminary professor Jerry Moon in 2006. Entitled “The Quest for a Biblical Trinity: Ellen White’s 'Heavenly Trio’ Compared to the Traditional Doctrine”, this paper was published in the Journal of the Adventist Theological Society in the Spring, 2006, edition. It can be accessed online here: http://www.atsjats.org/publication_file.php?pub_id=241&journal=1&type=pdf

Moon’s article is a scholarly work and is not widely-known among Adventist laymen, but it concludes that Ellen White never taught the classic Christian Trinity. Instead, he demonstrates that she taught a “heavenly trio”, which she also referred to as “the three Worthies of heaven”, and Moon concludes that this trio is substantively different from the Christian Trinity. He does determine, however, that EGW’s “trinity” was actually the correct definition, that the classic Christian One Being expressed in three Persons is NOT correct.

I make this point because few things elicit the wrath of Adventists like our claims that Adventism does not believe in the Christian Trinity. In fact, Adventists will devise quite elaborate and “slippery” arguments to defend their three gods as the One God of Scripture.

Yet Moon shows that EGW’s trinity is NOT the Trinity of Christianity. And now, in laymen’s language, the Sabbath School quarterly articulates the Adventist truth: their god is actually three Kings of heaven—and moreover, these three kings pay homage to each new believer the same way the three magi honored Jesus!

 

Royal priest-kings?

The “meditation” above states: “Summoned from the darkness of unbelief, these royal priest-kings now minister to the High Priest and sovereign God against whom they once rebelled.”

This statement uses 1 Peter 2:9 as its support:

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light (1 Peter 2:9 ESV).

Please notice that Peter in no way suggests that believers are priest-kings! We have only one King of kings: the Lord Jesus! Rather, Peter fully states what we are as believers: a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession. We are priests who are to “proclaim the excellencies of him who called us out of darkness into light.”

When we are born again, we do not become kings. We cannot infer that because Jesus is the King of kings, that because He was a King even when He was born to Mary, we are, therefore, also kings. Revelation 20:6 and 2 Timothy 2:12 state that we will reign with Him, but even in these texts, we are no characterized as kings but as priests of God and of Christ. We are not worthy of honor and praise. Only our sovereign, triune God is worthy of praise!

Moreover, in the context of this quote, it is accurate to note that the author distinguishes between the “High Priest” and the “sovereign God”. Based on the rest of the meditation that follows this sentence, it is extremely clear that the author characterizes the three god-persons are three separate beings. In this passage, therefore, the “High Priest” is not being designated as “sovereign God”.

Furthermore, priests mediate between deity and humanity. This lesson shows that Adventism understands believers to be ministering to god. According to Scripture, however, we are priests of God, and we mediate between Him and the unbelieving world by bearing the news of Christ’s blood sacrifice shed to cleanse all those who believe Him.

Finally, believers do not minister to God. They offer themselves to God as living sacrifices (Rom. 12:1); they are His witnesses and disciples and priests, but they are on earth to minister to people. By ministering to people and making disciples, they thus serve God. Never, however, does Scripture describe our purpose as ministering to God.

 

Royal kings?

Three times in the passage and discussion question above “god” is referred to as “Kings”—plural. Scripture is unequivocal. The famous shema is found in Deuteronomy 6:4:

“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.”

God is not three separate beings. He is One!! Never does Scripture divide God into three separate individuals, although God is expressed in three Persons. But God is not three. He is One! The Bible never speaks of three Kings of heaven, nor does Scripture ever portray God as honoring man and giving Him homage. It is EGW who designates God as Three. This is blatantly unscriptural, and this designation and understanding means Adventism has a different God. They do not worship the God that Christianity honors. They have three Kings, three Worthies, a heavenly Trio, three gods—but God Is One!

 

The Three come to us?

Finally, the discussion question above asks the member how it makes him “feel” to know that these three personages come to each new believer and bring the riches of heaven. Again, this picture is complete fantasy. It is anthropomorphic: it makes God like a man, and it gives man the importance of God the Son.

We come to Him when the Father draws us. We humble ourselves before Him. We receive forgiveness and eternal life when we give up our control and allow Him to show us our hopeless sin and draw us to repentance. God does not come to us and honor us.

Using the story of the magi to explain how believers receive spiritual gifts is completely wrong. The magi came in reverence and paid homage to Jesus. God never approaches us as beings deserving His gifts and honor and homage. He is our God. We are His creatures whom He adopts when we believe in the Lord Jesus. He is always our authority. God in three person (not three beings who comprise “god”) gives us life and gives us Himself. He indwells us in the person of the Holy Spirit—but we get all of God when we are born again.

Yet this reception of life and of God’s indwelling Spirit does not make us worthy of honor. Rather, it makes God worthy of honor. Ephesians 2:8-13 says,

To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things, so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him. So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory.

Through Jesus, who is God the Son (not merely the son of God) we have access by the same Spirit to the Father, and this mystery, that God calls both gentiles and Jews to Himself in Christ Jesus, reveals God’s wisdom to all the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. God is honored when we are brought to life through Jesus. God does not approach us and offer us riches, honoring us as priests and kings.

No! We now have the ability and privilege, because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, to approach God without bearing a blood sacrifice. We come to Him on the basis of Jesus’ blood, and we worship, praise, and honor Him. We serve Him by ministering to other people.

God is sovereign—the One Being expressed in three person. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit is one sovereign Being, and we are completely under His authority. He never stoops to “honor” us. Rather, He served us by taking into Himself the wrath that sin incurred. He calls us to Himself, and when we humble ourselves and submit to Him and receive the cleansing of Jesus’ blood, He gives us His own life.

He gives us His power and gifts as well, but these are not offerings from three Kings to new kings. No! These are family gifts from our Father to His adopted children. These are marks of His ownership of us. We are His possessions, not co-kings.

Adventism teaches a tri-theism. They do not believe in the One God of Scripture, and their believe in “three Kings” changes who Jesus is. Adventism cannot teach the biblical gospel because it has a Jesus who is not sovereign, almighty God.

 

Summary

  1. Adventism teaches a tri-theism, not the Trinity.
  2. We are not royal priest-kings ministering to three heavenly kings.
  3. Priests do not minister to God; they mediate Christ’s blood to the lost people by telling the biblical gospel to the lost and by making disciples of those who come to faith.
  4. God does not honor us; we honor God.
  5. The indwelling Holy Spirit gives us God’s life and God’s power, but these are not because we are now worthy to receive His honor.
  6. God’s power bestowed on believers is the family “mark” that we are alive with His life and thus function in the world as His witnesses.
  7. God is not three. He is One!
  8. The Adventist tri-theism diminishes God into three human-like projections who honor believers like the magi honored Jesus. Nothing could be further from the truth.
  9. God is sovereign; we are always His creation and His servants.

 

GO TO DAY 2

 

Copyright 2012 BibleStudiesForAdventists.com. All rights reserved. Revised April 12, 2012. This website is published by Life Assurance Ministries, Camp Verde, Arizona, USA, the publisher of Proclamation! Magazine. Contact email: BibleStudiesForAdventists@gmail.com.

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