Stephen
Terry, Director
The New Covenant
Commentary
for the June 5, 2021, Sabbath School Lesson
"For I tell you that
unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of
the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 5:20 NIV
High school was a
challenging time for me. It had been less than a year since I gave my heart to
Christ, and I was still trying to understand what that meant. Fifty years later
I am still learning what that means. Teenage, high-school boys are generally all
muscle, testosterone, and little ability to think through a situation maturely.
I was no exception to that rule.
I lived in a small
town on the shores of an inlet from the Puget Sound. Each year, before the end
of the school year we celebrated a street festival on the waterfront where the
whole town came out to celebrate together. The high school, being the largest
local industry at that time, played a major role in the festivities. During my
senior year, I was chosen with another boy to row out to some pilings offshore
and put up a floral display honoring our graduating class for the ongoing celebration.
While we were on our way out to the pilings, another senior classmate on shore
began picking up gravel from the shore and throwing stones at us. Despite the
hail of stones, we got the display to the pilings and attached it. However,
even as we were rowing back to shore, the boy kept pelting us with stones.
Once ashore, I went
over to the boy and confronted him. His response was to try to kick me. I do
not know if he thought he was some sort of Kung Fu master or what motivated
him, but the fight was on. Eventually some of the lettermen from the school
stepped in and separated us. I was surprised to discover that despite his
attempts to land several kicks and punches, he had never touched me, but his
blood was all over his face and my hands. It was a week before he felt healed
enough to return to school.
I was disgusted with
myself for letting someone provoke me like that and went home rather than
remain for the evening party. I knew I had failed God and had done so soon
after promising to be his. I prayed for forgiveness and promised not to let
myself be provoked like that again. It was a hard promise to keep because the
boy I had bloodied gathered his friends and tried several times during the remaining
weeks of the school year to provoke me into another fight. Teenage boys are not
normally humble people, and it was hard to swallow my pride and walk away from
the provocations. Only God's grace kept me from lashing out again. The school
year was soon over, and I left for the Army and Vietnam where God had more
lessons to teach me.
One thing that made it
hard for me as a young Christian was my understanding of what it meant to be a
follower of Christ. I surrendered to Christ through a local community church,
and they gave me a booklet that explained what that meant in terms of behavior.
Dancing and card playing were now forbidden. I did not know why, but if that
was what Jesus needed, I would try hard to be obedient. The Scout troop I
belonged to organized a dance and I had to attend, but I refused to dance "because
of my religion." This marked me out as an odd duck and for ridicule from the other
Scouts. But I wanted to get this religion thing right. Strangely, as I learned
more and more from the Bible about proper behavior and asked about what I was
learning in Sunday School class, the teachers felt I was deviating from the lesson
plan, and they were not prepared to deal with those kinds of questions. This
took me deeper into the Bible to try to find answers, but no one in the church
I had joined was willing to study these things with me. Even the pastor, who
always promised to do so, never found the time.
I did not understand why we had the rules we did if no one knew the reasons for
them. It seemed that the rules for their own sake were all I was being left
with. As a result, I found much in the Old Testament that spoke to that
mindset. Eventually, I found my way to Seventh-day Adventists who appeared to
be all about rules. The Ten Commandments, dietary rules, and lots of little,
red books, written by Ellen G. White, with myriad rules about how to believe and
behave. It seemed that the church with the most rules might have the best
understanding of why those rules are necessary. Over time, however, I found that
within Adventism is an ongoing conflict between obedience to those many rules
as a pathway to heaven and something called a new covenant relationship with
God. I eventually discovered that these conflicts exist in other denominations
as well, although often not well understood beyond the ranks of the clergy.
Even then sometimes, there are more clouds and confusion than blue skies and
light.
Within Adventism rules
and obedience have a long and strong tradition, even to the extent that the
denomination continues to add more rules, expanding 27 fundamental rules defining
Adventism to 28 fairly recently. Like many who join with the Adventists and are
faced with all those rules, I decided to be the best Adventist I could be and
even outdo the older Adventists in obeying those rules. Of course, this
naturally led to judgmentalism. I began to question why, if I, as a new
Adventist, could be obedient to a particular rule, why couldn't those who had
been Adventists for generations. Of course, many quotes from those little red
books backed up that attitude. Ellen White had pointed out repeatedly how few
were obedient servants of Christ and how few would find their way to heaven as
a result. Perhaps because of my zealousness for the rules, others told me I
should become a pastor. Since this seemed to be a natural path for someone like
me, both to myself and others, not long after I was married, I had the
opportunity to enroll in the theology program at Walla Walla College. While
there, things went along well until I discovered the 1888 General Conference
and Alonzo T. Jones and E. J. Waggoner, presenters at that meeting. They had
discovered the message of righteousness by faith as found in Paul's letter to
the Galatians and elsewhere in the Bible. Reading their message, I was
astonished at how opposite that was to what I had learned so far and yet how
liberating it was.
The conflict, now
discovered by me, has become apparent through every aspect of Adventism. Much
of the reason the conflict continues is that despite Ellen White's endorsement
of that message, much of her body of published works continues to focus on
obedience as opposed to grace to be ready for the Parousia. One might wonder
why the church would continue to support that emphasis until it becomes apparent that God's intent is for everyone to be priests.[i] This means that everyone can
minister directly for themselves according to God's calling. The many layers of
hierarchy that lay like a heavy stone upon the laity, keeping them under
control and hindering the Holy Spirit's ability to minister through them are
not necessary when God writes his will upon each man, woman, and child's heart.
That threatens the careers of many and the denominational control over what is
and is not orthodoxy. Too often, instead of letting God do the sorting, our many
layers of control are constantly engaged in sorting and weeding despite
instructions to leave that to God.[ii] We weed by diet, by dogma,
by gender, by race, by social status, and by many other factors felt to be "biblical."
We act as though God is so lucky to have us to sort everything out before he
gets here. When we act like that, we distort the characterization of God. Many
begin to assume that he is altogether as harsh and demanding as we are. This is
a hard image to harmonize with John's simple statement that "God is love."[iii] The essence of the new
covenant is that simple three-word sentence.
When God loves us, we
are drawn to him. Eventually love for him awakens in our hearts and the layers
of stone toward him and others begin to peel away Once they are gone, we
discover we have a new heart of love that sprouted and grew in the sunshine of
God's presence, watered by the Holy Spirit, and nourished by God's word. When
we fall in love with someone, we learn their likes and naturally do those things
that will increase the harmony and love we enjoy with that person. It is the
same with God. When we feel his love, we are drawn more deeply into that
relationship and there is no need for a master's whip to push us into line. Our
hearts are already there through love, and where our hearts are, our bodies
will surely follow. Despite all the rules written on all the media of present
and past centuries all over the world, only the heart can hold God's love. As
God's love endures, so does our changed heart.