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Comments on the Sabbath School Lessons Quarterly Summary: January 2 "Heaven's Means of Communication"    1. Jesus didn’t just come to reveal the Father’s personality or to vindicate the law. He came to demonstrate God’s righteousness. God had not punished the sins committed beforehand, and Jesus came to prove that God was both just and the justifier of everyone who believes in Jesus (Romans 3:25-26).    2. Jesus’ death is a sacrifice that leaves us entirely in His debt. We must give up our desire to repay, earn, or otherwise be worthy of it. Our only response can be surrender to His purposes. Our own control over our lives is over.    3. When we surrender to the great gift, we receive the very life of God in the Person of the Holy Spirit indwelling us and bringing us to life. We cross over from death to life, and our life becomes hidden with Christ in God (Colossians 3:3). January 1 "Heaven's Means of Communication"    1. Jesus perfect life was not primarily our “example” but was our “substitute”. He came to make propitiation for our sin and to create a new, living way for us to be united with God with no veil between (Hebrews 10:19-22; 2:17). Not only His death but also His perfect life substitute for our own. His righteous perfection covers us when we place our faith in Him, and this righteousness is alien to us. It is literally His righteousness that God counts to our credit (Philippians 3:8-9).    2. Jesus’ resurrection did more than promise us eventual resurrection. It is the means by which we are saved. His death reconciled us to God; His resurrection is what broke the power of death and makes it possible for us to be born again by the Spirit and to become spiritually alive, crossed over from death to life (John 5:24; 3:5-6)    3. Jesus’ ascension did more than promise He would return. It marked the last step in Jesus’ work. His ascension made it possible for the Holy Spirit to come and to give people new birth and to create the body of Christ, unifying all who believe in Jesus by His life in them. Jesus’ ascension marked the complete fulfillment of the law and the inauguration of the church against which the gates of hell would never prevail (Matthew 16:18). December 31 "Heaven's Means of Communication"    1. The creation of Adam is utterly unlike the inspiration of Scripture. The parallel with creation is our own new birth when our dead spirits are “birthed” by the Holy Spirit, thus giving us spiritual life and moving us from death into life (John 5:24).    2. The words of the Bible were directly inspired by God. He did not impress writer’s thoughts and allow them to record them imperfectly, warped by limited human understanding.    3. The Ten Commandments are not more authoritative, more directly “of God” than is the rest of Scripture. Further, Jesus’ incarnation cannot be used as a contrast for God’s direct authorship of the Ten Commandments. Jesus is God—the very God who wrote the Ten Commandments. His deity and eternal power is not limited in the slightest by his incarnation. In Him all things hold together (Colossians 1:17). Jesus is greater than the Ten Commandments. He is eternal; the Law had a beginning and an ending (Galatians 3:17). December 30 "Heaven's Means of Communication"    1. The assumption that God no longer speaks directly to humanity is false. Scripture nowhere declares this idea. In fact, it declares God spoke to many people directly, including Moses whom He “knew face to face”, Enoch Noah, Abraham, Job, and many more.    2. Moses’ reluctance to deliver God’s message to Pharaoh was not “humility”; it was a lack of trust in God which drew God’s anger (Exodus 4:14).    3. The Torah not only reveals God’s call of Moses as His prophet, it also gave instructions for recognizing false prophets. December 29 "Heaven's Means of Communication"    1. Satan did not create the thorns, thistles, or tares. God decreed them when He cursed the ground (Genesis 3:17-18). Furthermore, God bound creation to the bondage of decay by His own sovereign fiat (Romans 8:20-22). God, not Satan, is responsible for the curse of death in response to sin and for the effects of His curse on all creation—including Satan.    2. God's invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen “since the creation of the world”. The effects of sin have not obscured God’s self-revelation through His creation. Rather, people have suppressed the knowledge of God by their own wickedness. The decay present in nature is not the cause of suppressing the revelation of God. (See Romans 1:18-22).    3. Those who suppress the knowledge of God are “without excuse”. They are not guilty for “neglecting duty”, as the Teachers Comments state; rather, they are held responsible for suppressing the very knowledge of God—for refusing to see His own witness of Himself revealed through creation. It is not neglect of “duty” for which humans are guilty; they are guilty for refusing to acknowledge God as He reveals Himself to be (Romans 8:20-21). December 28 "Heaven's Means of Communication"    1. Genesis 3:23-24 does not support the notion that God ceased direct communication with mankind. Rather, it explains humanity’s banishment from the Garden of Eden and their access to the tree of life.    2. Jesus is not “separate” from the eternal, almighty God. Jesus is not an agent sent by God to communicate with mankind. Rather, Jesus is eternally God, and the eternal God—indivisible and triune—is the One who delivered the covenant at Mt. Sinai.    3. Our natural condition is “objects of wrath”. We are born dead, and we come alive by a miracle of God who brings us to life with Christ, seals us with His Spirit, and transfers us from the dominion of darkness into the kingdom of His Son. By this miracle we pass from death to life and will not come into judgment. Our relationship with God is not defined by our sins but by whether or not we are covered by the blood of Jesus through faith by God’s grace (Ephesians 2:8-9). December 27 "Heaven's Means of Communication"     1. Jesus is God, not an agent of God in the category of prophets or angels.    2. God continued to communicate with mankind directly after the fall (see Genesis 3; Genesis 4:1-16; Genesis 6:7-7:5)) without using an “agent” in His stead.    3. The concept of a time of probation is nowhere in the Bible.    4. Jesus revealed the Father’s forgiveness, justice, and mercy.