Stephen
Terry, Director
The
Jerusalem Council
Commentary
for the August 25, 2018 Sabbath School Lesson
“So
too, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace. And if by grace,
then it cannot be based on works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace.”
Romans 11:5-6, NIV
Several years ago, I was attending a Sabbath potluck
dinner at a different church from the one I now attend. As I usually did, I
sought out the visitors to enjoy the meal with. While this made them feel
welcome, it also was a blessing to me as I could learn about other parts of the
country and enjoy the experience of listening to these visitors as they shared
about their travels, their experiences and their families. On this particular Sabbath,
I noticed a man in his fifties sitting alone. He was slender and seemed to be
seeking companionship as his eyes roamed the room. When our eyes met, I nodded
a greeting and went to sit with him at his table. After exchanging
pleasantries, he pointed to my plate and said “You shouldn’t be eating that.”
I asked “Why do you say that?”
“It has cheese in it, and you shouldn’t be eating
cheese.”
Now anyone who has ever attended an Adventist potluck,
and even potlucks in general, knows that cheese is a staple for potluck
casseroles. So I asked him, “Why do you say that?”
“Ellen White makes it clear that cheese is not fit for
human consumption.”[i]
“Yes, that is true. But as you can see from the fare
offered here at potluck, it is not a test of faith within Adventism as to
whether you eat cheese or not.”
“But it is a test of faith as to whether or not you believe
Ellen White for it is number 18 in the list of fundamental beliefs of the
Seventh-day Adventist Church originally voted into place by the General
Conference in 1980. Don’t you believe in Ellen White?”
Sensing one of those “Do I look fat in this dress?” kind
of entrapments, I demurred to answer. I could see that he had already determined
that I did not by the cheese in the casserole on my plate. I thought to change
the subject by asking him how he came to be in Spokane.
“I have been called by the Lord to go from church to
church presenting this message. I guess you could say I am on a cheese crusade.
The problem seems to be pretty wide spread, so it needs to be addressed.”
I was beginning to understand why he had been sitting
alone. I found out later he had already spoken to others and the warning had
been circulated widely over the “grapevine” throughout the church to avoid him
and his “mission.” Adventists have become somewhat inured to this sort of
thing, for there is an active subculture within the denomination that delves
into the writings of Ellen White, not for their own edification, but in order
to expose what they consider to be the sins of the church. Finding something
they think will give them leverage, they proclaim it
far and wide in order to exercise power and control over others that the institutional
church has denied them in any official way, often for those very same
eccentricities. But lest we think this is a Seventh-day Adventist problem, we
should understand that there have always been those who use sacred writings,
not for purposes of salvation, but rather as a means for controlling others.
Even those with no religious affiliation do it when they make statements like “If
you really were a Christian, you (would or wouldn’t) do that!” Often the
statement is made in the context of something they want the person they are
addressing to do for their benefit. Some may feel that using the scriptures or
Ellen White makes it OK to do what they are doing in manipulating others like
this, but the gospels reveal that the true source of such arguments might not
be godly at all.
Jesus, after he was baptized by John the Baptist, went
into the wilderness and fasted for 40 days.[ii] There the Devil tempted
him, and with the first two temptations, the Devil began, with the phrase, “If
you are the Son of God…” Perhaps you can see the parallel: “If you are a
Christian…,” “If you believe in Ellen White…,” etc. The point is to cast doubt
on the validity of one’s relationship to Jesus and thereby to undermine the
idea that one is saved through that relationship. Then the most insidious
aspect of the temptations may come to fruition. For if we grant any validity to
their argument, it is a de facto
submission to that person’s opinion on whether or not we are in a saving relationship.
By default, we are submitting to their interpretation of how to be saved, which
may be wholly or in part erroneous. This is very similar to the Devil’s third temptation
where he told Jesus, “You are doing it all wrong. Let me guide you, and you
will win it all.”
What does this have to do with our lesson this week? It
is this same spirit that may have motivated the Pharisees to push for
circumcision for the Gentiles who wished to commit their lives to Jesus. Over
many, many centuries they had turned the rules of their faith into a very
complex system of obedient observances that defined who was a faithful Jew and
who was not. They became such rules lawyers that their name has become
synonymous with that type of rules based judgmentalism. They did not need Ellen
White, or even the New Testament to become like this, which clues us in that it
is not a problem with religion so much as it is a problem with human nature. As
human beings, we too often manipulate others for our benefit, even when we don’t
need to. This is much of the foundation for what we call politics, both within
and outside of religion. This was likely the reason that the issue of
circumcision came up at all within the early church. Those in control in the
synagogues wanted to remain in control.
We assume that the popularly-called First Jerusalem
Council resolved the problem, but it did not. In some respects it may have
exacerbated the problem, for it set up a church within the church. The letter
sent to Antioch was addressed to the Gentiles. It was not addressed to the
Jews. It set up a different standard for the Gentiles, forever setting in place
a jealousy between the two factions. Evidence of this can be seen when, later,
others came from Jerusalem and convinced the Jewish converts that they should
still be acting like the Jews and not like the Gentiles.[iii] According to Paul’s
account in Galatians, their argument that the earlier letter from James was not
applicable to the Jewish converts was apparently so effective that all the Jews
separated from the Gentiles. Paul then, confronting even Peter, challenged such
an interpretation of the letter. Perhaps it was the dramatic nature of this
confrontation that was foundational for his Epistle to the Galatians and even
the one to Rome. In any event, these Jews saw a salvific import in being “chosen”
that automatically granted them superior status to the Gentiles. This may even
be reflected in John’s granting special status to the enumerated 144,000 in the
Book of Revelation.[iv]
Even today, those who are Gentile Christians, which would be most of us, recognize
it as granting special status and even seek to find ways of defining their
denominational or personal belief that would admit them to the 144,000 rather
than merely being a part of the vast, un-numbered multitude.[v]
Lest we forget, we should remember that Paul was a
Jewish Pharisee, too, but his encounter with Jesus outside Damascus caused him
to question everything he believed. He went from someone having all the answers
and who would impose those answers on anyone he could to being a learner, and
God had much to teach him. He not only spent those many months of
self-examination in Arabia, but every step of his missionary journeys carried with
it a lesson in humility. He eventually became an empty vessel capable of
holding none of himself and only the Holy Spirit. And God spoke through him because
of his willingness to set his own aspirations aside and introduced through him a
radical faith that “turned the world upside down,”[vi] both within the Jewish
community and then extending to the Gentile world as well.
That faith, far from being subjected to the power and
control of human institutions, tends to burst the bonds that those rule-bound
entities would use them to restrict the moving of the Holy Spirit. God
tolerates our eccentricities, whether they are those of the itinerant cheese
evangelist or evangelism over some other rule we wish to focus on to the
exclusion of the thousands of other obligations to obey that we also focus on,
whatever personal hobby-horse we might choose to ride. But we must not allow
ourselves to fall prey to the delusion that God is looking for excuses to keep
people from salvation. If we think that God is willing to keep people from
heaven based on the status of their foreskins as the Jews thought or on the basis
of whether or not they have been eating amiss, we may find ourselves on the
wrong side of the apocalypse, even if we are convinced that we are acting in
God’s will. Many have been put to death by those who believed they were acting
on God’s demand for obedience to rules.[vii] Perhaps it is time to be
free of such shackles and accept that salvation is a free gift of grace and no
amount of obedience can provide it.[viii] Any real good we do
does not arise from being compelled by a list of rules but rather arises naturally
from the love we have for others as a result of the presence of God in our hearts,
for “God is love.”[ix]
