Friday, August 25, 2017
Lesson 9. Paul's Pastoral Appeal
Sabbath School Today
With the 1888 Message Dynamic
The Gospel in Galatians
Lesson 9. Paul's Pastoral Appeal
How does a pastor deal with conflict in his church? For that matter, how does a prophet deal with an offshoot movement? "Paul's pastoral appeal" is an effort at conflict resolution (Gal. 5:12-20).
Paul reminds the Galatians that his missionary approach was to become a Galatian to the Galatians--"I am as ye are" (Gal.4:12). He fit in with them. He spoke their language. He ate at their table. He lived among them. Insofar as possible without compromising Christian ethics, he lived as a Galatian.
Now, Paul writes, "be as I am." And how is Paul? "I am crucified with Christ" (Gal. 2:20). Paul has so completely chosen to identify with the Crucified One that it is no longer Paul who lives, but Christ who lives in him. He lives, breathes, and eats the at-one-ment life by the faith of the Son of God. This is why their enemy stance toward Paul is no offense to him. Paul's ego is dead in Christ (Gal. 4:12).
Physically speaking Paul was not "easy on the eyes" when he commenced preaching the gospel in their midst. But the gospel he proclaimed was "in demonstration of the Spirit and of power" (1 Cor. 2:4), so that the people saw Christ crucified among them. The Galatians received Paul as a messenger of God, even as they would have received Jesus. And accepting Christ, they were filled with the power and joy of the Holy Spirit (Gal. 4:14).
But now all that has changed. "The blessedness ye spake of" is gone (Gal. 4:15), which is the blessing of Abraham. The blessing of knowing that Christ had redeemed them from the curse of the law through the promise of the Spirit, which is righteousness by faith activated by agape-love, has been lost. The Galatians have been "bewitched" by the false gospel of "the Pharisees which believed" (Gal. 3:1; Acts 15:5).
The counterfeit gospel teaches that once launched into salvation by faith in the Messiah, one must do something in order to continue in salvation; namely, "the works of the law." And once the door has been opened just a crack for faith to be motivated by egocentric concerns, there is no end to the idols one must obey in order to be saved, including the worship of spirits on calendar days from which bondage the Galatians had been delivered (Gal. 4:9, 10).
While the Galatians enjoyed this blessedness, its fruit appeared in the love which they showed to Paul. This love was the very self-sacrificing love of Christ--the abundant love of God shed abroad indeed in the heart, by the Spirit which they had received. Seeing the apostle in need of eyes, they would gladly have plucked out their own and given them to him, if such a thing could have been done (Gal. 4:15).
But now, what a change! From that height of blessedness they are driven back into such a condition that Paul is obliged to appeal to them: "Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?" (Gal. 4:16). This is the mark of the Galatians. It is the mark of the man who professes to be a Christian justified by faith, but does not have the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ. Whoever tells him the truth he considers his enemy.
The Galatian considers, "I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing" (Rev. 3:17). When the prophet warns him that he is not in "the truth of the gospel," he rejects the Spirit of Prophecy. The mark of the Galatian is the rejection of the prophetic gift. It is the mark of man and worldliness to persecute the messenger of truth and consider him the enemy.
Galatianism is the mark of the carnal mind that is at enmity with God (Rom. 8:7). Pride does not like the "most precious message" which uplifts and honors the Crucified One. Self does not wish to submit in repentance at the foot of the cross. "Many" in the one true denominated church of Christ did this in the 1888 era and the attitude of the "fathers" is perpetuated to this day whenever the message is proclaimed. [1] Our history of rejection of justification by faith united with the cleansing of the sanctuary truth is justified with the argument that the church did accept righteousness by faith and corrected its legalistic course. Therefore, the church has no need to repent.
However, the Spirit of Prophecy tells us otherwise. "We may have to remain here in this world because of insubordination many more years, as did the children of Israel; but for Christ's sake His people should not add sin to sin by charging God with the consequence of their own wrong course of action." [2]
Who has created this disunity in the church? Is it the one who has proclaimed "the truth of the gospel," or is it the agitators who advocate righteousness by "the works of the law"? Is it the Spirit of Prophecy that creates division, or is it those who reject what the prophet writes?
Paul squarely acknowledges the zeal of those who teach faith and works. They are the "offshoot movement" that teaches separationism out of selfish motives. He writes: "These teachers of a counterfeit gospel have great zeal to win you over to their side so you can be fellow fanatics with them in an offshoot program" (see Gal. 4:17).
You want to be zealous? Then be zealous for a good cause. Is the gospel a self-propelled vehicle? Or does its proclamation and propagation depend on church members (and pastors!) constantly being prodded by church leaders into action? "Lay Activities" leaders in churches can testify: to get much done it takes constant "promotion."
The New Testament letters of the apostles reveal a strange lack of such works "promotion." They chronicle amazing activity, but seldom if ever were believers prodded or whipped into action. Their zealous activity was simply assumed, it was natural. Their gospel was a "self-propelled vehicle." Why?
Their message had the power built-in. Nobody needed to be whipped into action. The motivating force was greater than that of a steam engine, for the power was implicit in the news about the sacrifice of the Son of God. He burst upon everyone's consciousness as "the Lamb of God," a blood-sacrifice offered by God. Examples: "For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified" (1 Cor. 2:2); "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Gal. 6:14).
Someone must travail before children are brought forth (Gal. 4:19). Herein lies the danger in human planning, in the work of God, lest human wisdom devise short cuts in methods of world evangelism, which to a lukewarm church seem very acceptable. It is easy to sit in a comfortable pew and give offerings that provide fuel for the continued operation of evangelistic machinery, 21st Century devised, labor-saving and man-power saving in its skillful design to "finish the work" in the shortest possible time with the least possible man-power and travail of soul. If an invention of a clever committee could be made to give life, then verily righteousness would come by evangelistic inventions. No running to and fro, and no knowledge that shall be increased in the time of the end will ever take the place of that "travail in birth" on the part of soul winners, be they ministers or laity, "until Christ be formed in" the converts.
If modern methods of spiritual obstetrics are discovered which obviate the old-fashioned travail which the church of old endured when she brought forth her children, it may be doubted whether Christ is formed indeed within the "converts." No "push-button" warfare will close the great battle between Christ and Satan. The old hand-to-hand fighting, heart-to-heart wrestling in the Spirit "against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places" (Eph. 6:12) alone can bring triumphs of faith.
--Paul E. Penno
Endnotes:
[1] "Many will not be convinced because they are not inclined to confess." The Ellen G. White 1888 Materials, p. 895 (Diary, Feb. 27, 1891).
[2] Letter Ellen G. White to Percy Tilson Magan (Dec. 7, 1901); Last Day Events, p. 39.
Notes:
Pastor Paul Penno's video of this lesson is on the Internet at: https://youtu.be/mGLUn7mIp9A
"Sabbath School Today" is on the Internet at: http://1888message.org/sst.htm
| RR |
Friday, August 18, 2017
Lesson 8. From Slaves to Heirs
Sabbath School Today
With the 1888 Message Dynamic
The Gospel in Galatians
Lesson 8. From Slaves to Heirs
In Sunday's lesson the quarterly sums up Galatians 3:25-26: "In the same way that a master's son was under a pedagogue [tutor] only as long as he was a minor, Paul is saying that those who come to faith in Christ are no longer minors; their relationship with the law is changed because they are now adult 'sons' of God."
In ancient times, wealthy aristocrats were able to hire people to care for their children, thereby avoiding some of the more tedious aspects of child rearing. The pedagogue might have been a slave in the household, but during his minority the child was expected to obey his father's slave without question.
The pedagogue was expected to teach and mold the child into an educated, mature adult who had learned the rules of a very rigid and complicated society. If pleased with the results, the father would officially name the son as his heir.
In Galatians 3:19-25 Paul explains that the inheritance comes to us in Christ because God promised it, not that we gain the inheritance by keeping the law. Paul asks the question, "Why the Law then? It was added because of transgressions. … The Scripture has shut up all men under sin, that the promise by faith in (the King James Version uses the better translation, "of") Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. But before faith came, we were kept in custody under the law, being shut up to the faith which was later to be revealed. Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, that we may be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor."
Jesus alluded to this concept when He told Nicodemus that receiving faith, the faith of Jesus, requires us to accept our position in Christ as the second Adam. No amount of law-keeping could ever accomplish the rebirth the human race was given at the incarnation of Christ. The first Adam received his DNA from God and those codes provided the combinations that make up every human being born since. When he and his DNA counterpart, Eve, decided to rebel against God their very nature was changed, bent toward self-centeredness.
Whether this change was accomplished at the DNA level, we aren't told, but it somehow changed humanity at a level so fundamental that the self-centered nature was the only nature Adam had to pass on to his progeny. The solution to the sin problem needed to reach that fundamental issue, otherwise humans were kept in custody under a law they had no power to keep. Then there was the issue of paying the penalty for sin which is permanent death. Obviously, divine intervention was the only thing that would solve these problems.
Brilliant in its simplicity, the loving selfless agape of our God would be united with the first Adam's nature (the altered one that needed redeeming). Then, humanity could be joined with Christ as "sons," and the sinless life He lived, the second death He died, and His triumphant resurrection could be imputed and imparted to those who believe through the powerful influence of the Holy Spirit.
Unfortunately, there is a conflict in the present day church about whether Christ could have been incarnated in the "likeness of sinful flesh" and still be without sin. "It is interesting to note that the official declaration of 1872 on the human nature of Christ remained unchanged until 1931. At that time it was changed to express with different words the same basic conviction. 'While retaining His divine nature, He took upon Himself the nature of the human family, and lived on the earth as a man.'" [1] It wasn't until 1950 that our church changed this fundamental belief to what it is now.
"As our study will verify, the work of redemption can be explained only with the proper understanding of the divine-human person of Jesus Christ. To be mistaken about Christology is to be mistaken about the work of salvation as accomplished in human beings, by Christ, through the process of justification and sanctification." [2]
The issues debated at the General Conference Session in Minneapolis in 1888 did not involve the nature of Christ. Ellen White settled in her Christology as early as 1874 when she wrote, "The great work of redemption could be carried out only by the Redeemer taking the place of fallen Adam." [3]
E. J. Waggoner did not attempt to modify or challenge Ellen White's position on the nature of Christ. "Waggoner's great achievement was not only to reintroduce the principle of justification by faith in the Adventist Church but also to apply Christology to the work of salvation. For Luther, justification by faith was purely a legal transaction. The Formula of Concord confirms this point of view: 'All of our righteousness is outside of us; it dwells entirely in Jesus Christ.' For Waggoner, on the other hand, justification includes the action of Christ in man to make him righteous (Rom. 5:19, KJV) through the power which God grants to him who believes in Christ and receives Him in his heart (John 1:12, KJV). [4]
It is essential to understand the process of overcoming, because Jesus has promised to all seven of the churches that overcomers will be granted the right to sit with Him on His throne. That is Christ's inheritance, and ours as well in Him.
The first few chapters of A. T. Jones' book The Consecrated Way confirms that Ellen White and Jones and Waggoner, the 1888 "messengers," were in complete agreement on the issue.
"Before the end comes, and at the time of the coming of Christ, there must be a people on earth, not necessarily large in proportion to the number of inhabitants of earth, but large enough to be known in all the earth, in whom 'all the fullness of God' will be manifest even as it was in Jesus of Nazareth. God will demonstrate to the world that what He did with Jesus of Nazareth He can do with anyone who will yield to Him." [5]
--Arlene Hill
Endnotes:
[1] J. R. Zurcher, Touched With Our Feelings: A Historical Survey of Adventist Thought on the Human Nature of Christ, Review and Herald Publishing Assoc., p. 48 (1999).
"See Fundamental Belief No. 3, Seventh-day Adventist Yearbook (1931). This same declaration was adopted by the Fall Council of 1941 and included in the Church Manual (1942), where it remained unchanged through various editions up to 1980."
[2] Ibid., p. 49.
[3] Ellen G. White, Review and Herald, "Redemption--No. 1," Feb. 24, 1874.
[4] Zurcher, p. 73.
[5] E. J. Waggoner, The Everlasting Covenant, International Tract Society, London, p. 366; as quoted in Zurcher, p. 73.
Notes:
Pastor Paul Penno's video of this lesson is on the Internet at: https://youtu.be/EhStl5Uecr0
"Sabbath School Today" is on the Internet at: http://1888message.org/sst.htm
| RR |
Thursday, August 10, 2017
Lesson 7. The Road to Faith
Sabbath School Today The Gospel in Galatians
"Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith" (Gal. 3:24). Probably everyone has experienced a school teacher who was impossible to please and made difficult assignments. No matter how hard you worked, you could never--at least in that teacher's mind--produce anything that was worthy of top marks. It probably discouraged you from ever thinking you could attain perfection in that course; the demand was too high. Many people look at God and His law in the same way. They see Him as setting before us an impossible task when He says, "Be ye therefore perfect even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect" (Matt. 5:48). Many believe that the demand for character perfection (to overcome all sinful propensities and inclinations) is too high a goal for our sin-filled nature. As a result, Paul's plea in 2 Corinthians 5:20, 21--"be ye reconciled to God. For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him"--is viewed as advice to modify our relationship with God rather than it being an admonition to overcome sin. It is thought that Paul's counsel is addressing the need for a "good relationship" with God as the only thing needed, and this "good relationship" is the road of faith, leading to spiritual renewal. With this view we're told that the "relationship" must be maintained through Bible study, prayer, and good works. But think about this idea for a moment. In this situation, who has the burden to maintain the "relationship"? Who is responsible for making sure that the connection between God and the individual stays firmly plugged together? The idea of "maintaining a relationship with God" is a subtle form of old covenantism. Even if you answered that last question by saying, Well, it's me and God together that makes the relationship work, you will still be placing yourself under the old covenant. Salvation is not a partnership. "That which makes all the trouble is that even when men are willing to recognize the Lord at all they want to make bargains with Him. They want it to be an equal, 'mutual' affair--a transaction in which they can consider themselves on a par with God. But whoever deals with God must deal with Him on His own terms, that is, on a basis of fact--that we have nothing and are nothing, and He has everything and is everything and gives everything." [1] "Here is no play on words. The issue is vital. The controversy is over the way of salvation, whether by Christ alone, or by something else, or by Christ and something or somebody else. Many people imagine that they must save themselves by making themselves good. Many think that Christ is a valuable adjunct, a good Assistant to their efforts. Others are willing to give Him the first place, but not the only place. They regard themselves as good seconds. It is the Lord and they who do the work." [2] When "the glory of man is laid in the dust" then we are ready to be in-filled with Christ's perfect character through the work of the Holy Spirit. "According as His divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that hath called us to glory and virtue: whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust" (2 Peter 1:3, 4). This is the only way we can become righteous "doers of the law." We humbly let the faith of Jesus that has been given to every man "work out" in our lives (Rom. 12:3; Phil. 2:12; Gal. 2:16). In this way we "become doers of the law, not by doing but by believing" the precious promise of God to us. [3] The "partnership" of our salvation lies in the Godhead and Their everlasting covenant that makes righteous all who will believe Their promise to us. "For when God made promise to Abraham, because He could swear by no greater, He sware by Himself ... Wherein God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath: that by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us" (Heb. 6:13–18). "To everyone who remembered the oath of God to Abraham it was a revelation of the wondrous greatness of God's promise; for all the righteousness which the law demands He has sworn to give to everyone who trusts Him. ... God's precepts are promises; they must necessarily be such, because He knows that we have no power! All God requires is what He gives." [4] The wonderful good news of the everlasting covenant of Christ and His righteousness is that we are not under any burden to produce righteousness in our lives. The burden is not on our shoulders, but has been laid upon the shoulders of our Saviour. We are not "under the law" to keep every precept and example through our own power (which we don't possess anyway). We are not "under the law" as receiving just condemnation from the broken law, because Christ was made "to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him" (2 Cor. 5:21). "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit" (Rom. 8:1-4). It is the faith of Christ working in and through us that produces the required righteousness. "The Scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe" (Gal. 3:22). The everlasting covenant promise comes to us by the "faith of Jesus Christ" that has been given to us (again, mark that little two letter word "of"). The "Scripture" Paul is referring to in this verse are the writings of what we now call "the Old Testament" which were the only "holy writings" at that time through which knowledge of sin could be known (Gal. 3:19; Rom. 7:7). The righteousness of Christ has been preached from the time Adam fell. The controversy over the law in Galatians that arose in 1886 concerned which law Paul was discussing in the focus verses of our lesson this week. Was the "schoolmaster" the ceremonial law, the moral law, or was it both? Which law is it that brings us under condemnation, the ceremonial or the moral law? Which law is it that must be kept to make one righteous? The Judaizing Christians to whom Paul addressed this letter had the same confusion. In 1886 and the following years, George I. Butler, Uriah Smith, and others considered that the law Paul was referring to in Galatians 3:21-25 was the ceremonial law. To support their position, Butler compared the discussion in Galatians to the history of the early church found in Acts 15, claiming that the context of Paul's discussion concerned the "ceremonial" matters of idol worship, diet (consumption of animals with their blood), and fornication (Acts 15:19, 20, 28, 29). Butler's foundational argument was that "this has been Paul's subject thus far in this letter." Butler based his argument in favor of the ceremonial law on the fact that Paul was addressing circumcision in the previous chapters of Galatians. [5] However, circumcision was never part of the ceremonial (sanctuary) law. When God gave Abraham the rite of circumcision it was intended as an object lesson that would teach Abraham and his descendants the uselessness of their efforts to fulfill God's everlasting covenant promise through their own works. Circumcision, or cutting of the flesh, showed that the "flesh profiteth nothing" (John 6:63; Gal. 5:6). Salvation requires a circumcision of the heart, which is the work of God (Deut. 30:6; Col. 2:11, 12). Therefore, "the only possible way in which anybody can be under sin is by that law by which is 'the knowledge of sin' (Rom. 3:20; 7:7); by that law which is 'the strength of sin' (1 Cor. 15:56); that law of which 'sin' itself is 'the transgression.' (1 John 3:4). That law is the law which says, 'thou shalt not covet.' (Rom. 7:7-13). And it is the law of God, the ten commandments. This is so certain that there can be no question about it." [6] The problem Paul was addressing in his letter to the Galatians was not that "the Jews were teaching [the Gentiles] to break the [ten] commandments, but because they were putting their trust in something besides Christ, and the man who does that cannot keep from sin, no matter how hard he tries." [7] Addressing the crux of Butler's argument, Waggoner asked: "Do you mean to intimate by this [claim that the law in Galatians 3:18-21 is the ceremonial law] that there was ever a time when any people could approach God except through Christ? If not, then language means nothing. Your words seem to imply that before the first advent men approached God by means of the ceremonial law, and that after that they approached Him through the Messiah; but we shall have to go outside the Bible to find any support for the idea that anybody could ever approach God except through Christ. Amos 5:22; Micah 6:6-8, and many other texts show conclusively that the ceremonial law alone could never enable people to come to God." [8] If the ceremonial law was not the means through which persons in the Old Testament approached God, what then was the purpose of the sanctuary rituals? "In order that man might realize the enormity of sin, which would take the life of the sinless Son of God, he was required to bring an innocent lamb, confess his sins over its head, then with his own hands take its life, a type of Christ's life. This sin-offering was burned, typifying that through the death of Christ all sin would finally be destroyed in the fires of the last day." [9] How are the Ten Commandments a "schoolmaster"? In itself, the Ten Commandment law has no mercy and can do nothing toward making anyone righteous, no matter how hard we try to keep them. Their purpose is to act as a mirror of God's perfect character, and when we look into them we see just how dirty our face really is. At Sinai they were "added" in written form, in "more explicit detail," because of the hardness of the people's hearts. "It was given under circumstances of the most awful majesty as a warning to the children of Israel that by their unbelief they were in danger of losing the promised inheritance." [10] "... it is clear that if the man is awakened by the law to keener consciousness of his condition, and the law continues goading him, giving him no rest, shutting up every other way of escape, the man must at last find the door of safety, for it stands open. Christ is the city of refuge ... in Christ alone will the sinner find release from the lash of the law, for in Christ the righteousness of the law is fulfilled, and by Him it is fulfilled in us." [11] --Ann Walper Endnotes: Notes: "Sabbath School Today" is on the Internet at: 1888message.org/sst.htm |
Wednesday, August 2, 2017
The Priority of the Promise
Sabbath School Today
With the 1888 Message Dynamic
The Gospel in Galatians
Lesson 6. The Priority of the Promise
When man makes a will, once it is ratified no feature of it can be altered either by adding to it or subtracting from it (Gal. 3:15). God made out His will and promised Abraham and his special "Seed" ("Descendant") the new earth in righteousness, and then "confirmed" it by the sacrifice of Christ (vs.17). [1] When God passed through the sacrificial victim, He swore to Abraham by His very life and throne to fulfill every promise He made (Gen. 15:17, 18). God's promise and oath doubly ratified the unchangeable nature of His covenant given to Abraham (Heb. 6:15-18).
According to Galatians this means there is only One person who has ever been promised eternal life and that is Christ. God didn't say the promise was to Abraham's "seeds" ("descendants"), plural; but to his "Seed" ("Descendant"), singular, who is Christ (Gal. 3:16). Christ is the Savior of the world and He put everyone into Himself when He died on the cross.
God would have all men to be saved in Christ and all the legal issues have been cleared up for that to occur, but no man would be happy to walk through the Pearly Gates merely on a legal basis unless His heart was fully reconciled to God. If He hated Christ he'd look for the nearest exit (Prov. 8:36). How do we learn to love Christ? He said, "Abide in me" (John 15:4). Jesus says, Stay where I put you.
The messianic Jews in Galatia contended that God revealed a new feature at Mount Sinai in addition to His promise to Abraham. "We" must believe in the Messiah and obey the Law which God spoke to our ancestors 430 years after Abraham (Gal. 3:17). What was going on in Galatia was a repetition of what happened at Mount Sinai when Israel made their old covenant promise to God to do everything just right. Ancient Israel made a "bargain" or "contract" with God.
It happened like this. God said, "If ye will obey [listen to] my voice indeed, and keep [cherish] my covenant" you will be my "peculiar treasure" on the earth (Ex. 19:5). [2] Abraham listened to God's everlasting covenant and responded with a hearty "Amen" of faith and God forgave his sin and made him righteous (Gen. 15:6). The righteousness of the unwritten law was included in God's covenant. But Abraham's children responded to God's covenant with their own pledge: "All that the Lord hath spoken we will do" (Ex. 19:8). Their self-motivation for entering into a "relationship" with God was abundantly clear in their old covenant promise. [3]
The Apostle Paul was the first Jew aside from Jesus to recognize the problem of the old covenant in the Israelite church and the up-and-down nature of all its historical revivals and reformations (Gal. 4:23-25). It's our problem too. "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; ... What you need to understand is the true force of the will ... the power of decision, or of choice. ... The power of choice God has given to men." [4]
If the entrance of God's law coming 430 years after Abraham alters His covenant, then God's government would be overthrown. What was God's purpose for emphasizing the law at Mount Sinai? "It was added [spoken] because of transgressions" (Gal. 3:19). [5] At Sinai the people had self-righteously proclaimed their power to keep the law and did not realize their need of Christ. It was the great sin of self-sufficiency on their part. "Moreover the law entered, that the offense might abound" (Rom. 5:20). Their old covenant necessitated the "spoken" law written on tables of stone. It was never in God's original plan since He didn't have to do that for Abraham. God simply wrote His law upon Abraham's heart and mind (Heb. 10:16, 17).
Mighty doors swing on small hinges and it was on the issue of the "added" law in Galatians 3:19 that proved the hindrance for "many" to receive "the most precious message" of the uplifted Savior during the era of the 1888 Minneapolis General Conference and following. Writing to Uriah Smith in 1896, Ellen White stated that in Galatians 3:19-24, "the apostle is speaking especially of the moral law." "An unwillingness to yield up preconceived opinions, and to accept this truth, lay at the foundation of a large share of the opposition manifested at Minneapolis against the Lord's message through Brethren [E. J.] Waggoner and [A. T.] Jones." [6]
The leading scholars of the 1888 era were Uriah Smith, D. M. Canright, and George I. Butler. They all understood the "added law" as the ceremonial law of Moses which was done away with at the cross. They took this position because the evangelicals of their day used Galatians 3:19 as evidence that the "added law" was the Ten Commandments which were introduced at Mount Sinai and abolished when Jesus died. The leading brethren believed that Jones and Waggoner's proposal of the moral law in Galatians 3 would undermine the denomination's position on the seventh-day Sabbath and the immutability of God's law.
Rather than limiting the duration of the moral law until the first advent of Christ, Paul writes that it endures "… till the Seed should come to whom the promise was made. ..." (Gal. 3:19). The law continues its function of revealing the knowledge of sin and driving the sinner to the Savior until Abraham's Descendant "shall possess the gate of His enemies" (Gen. 22:17). Christ's enemies as well as Satan are removed at the second coming (Rev. 19:11-21).
The law was contained in unwritten form in the promises that God made to Abraham. Abraham received the righteousness of the law by faith in Christ. His genuine faith manifested itself in obedience to all the commandments of God (Gen. 26:5). When Abraham had Christ he had the living law, but without Christ the law is powerless and cannot convey any life whatsoever to the sinner. All the law can bring is condemnation and death. The law describes what righteousness, love and acceptable behavior is, but it cannot produce it. Thank God the law is given to us "in the hand of a Mediator" (Gal. 3:19).
--Paul E. Penno
Endnotes:
[1] On Abraham's inheritance of "the world" and a "better country" see Romans 4:13 and Hebrews 11:10, 16.
[2] "Obey" in the Hebrew is shamea meaning "to listen." "Keep" in the Hebrew is shamar meaning to "cherish."
[3] See Ellen White's characterization of Israel's self-centered motivation in her words, "feeling that they were able to establish their own righteousness." Then she writes, "they broke their covenant with God" (Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 372).
[4] Her definition of "faith" is the God-given power of choice to believe God's covenant and cease from making our old covenant promises to obey (Steps to Christ, p. 47).
[5] The word "added" is the Greek word prostithemi, which means "spoken" as in Hebrews 12:19.
[6] Selected Messages, vol. 1, p. 235. The law here is not exclusive of the ceremonial law.
Notes:
Pastor Paul Penno's video of this lesson is on the Internet at: https://youtu.be/yxbQj3vftsk
"Sabbath School Today" is on the Internet at: 1888message.org/sst.htm
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