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I had a recent epiphany that I want to share. It may not be profound for you or it may even seem ridiculous but I’m going to share it anyway. I am a Seventh-day Adventist. Some may not know what that entails so I want to give a brief explanation of the meaning of the name.
First of all, Seventh-day refers to Genesis 2 where God blessed the seventh day and made it holy in the Garden of Eden. He not only designated this day as holy for unfallen man, but God allowed man to take this gift out of the garden and into a world of sin. The day was to be a day of relationship with God. Mankind would need that reconnecting day of relationship in a sinful world. There is another reason that man needed this day. It was to be an eternal reminder that God is the creator and man is the creature. It is a day that was intended to center man in his creatureness. Seventh-day then refers to the beginning of scripture and to a perfect world that became marred by sin, but through God’s plan of salvation would one day be restored. In fact, the rest of scripture would document the process that God uses to bring about that restoration.
Adventist means someone who is awaiting the advent or appearance of the Messiah. In this case since we believe as most Christians; Jesus has already come once. He became incarnate through the womb of a human and took on human nature to live with us and become the second Adam to pay the price we couldn’t pay. The Advent I’m talking about here is His re-appearing or what the Bible refers to as the second coming. Many mainline churches that celebrate the liturgical calendar know of the season of Advent. This season refers to the first coming of Jesus as a babe in Bethlehem. But the term Adventist in the name of our movement refers to Revelation when Jesus comes in glory to claim as His own what He won at Calvary.
So, the name Seventh-day Adventist has reference to Genesis and Revelation and therefore implies that we teach and believe in all that goes between the two. We are a people of the book. We believe God has revealed His character and His plan in the whole of Scripture and He is a God who does not change. He is the same today, yesterday and tomorrow. That’s why we take serious the prescriptions of the Bible.
As I was thinking about this my epiphany came. There is another group in scripture that could accurately be called Seventh-day Adventists. That is the people of Israel. They took their scriptures (what we call the Old Testament) very seriously. They were Sabbatarians and they looked forward to the advent of the Messiah.
This led me to all sorts of comparisons and contrasts. Israel is still waiting for the first Advent, while modern Adventists are still waiting for the second. Israel become steeped in their traditions as most religious movements do, this is also true for modern Adventists. Israel became so legalistic in their approach to God that they missed the Messiah; it is possible that modern Adventism is heading in the same direction.
The problem doesn’t lie in the revelation of Scripture nor in the God we worship. The problem isn’t inherent in religion per se, the problem lies with people. People tend to put God in a box and limit Him. It is an effort to control our environment. Humans don’t want a God that is too big because then we are not in control. All religious worship seems to boil down to controlling the deity. We attempt to do it through our prayers, our offering and our worship services.
I don’t have a solution to the problem, just questions. What if we let God be as big as He really is? What would that do to our response to Him? What would our religion look like if we stopped trying to control Him and let Him be in control? What if?
First of all, Seventh-day refers to Genesis 2 where God blessed the seventh day and made it holy in the Garden of Eden. He not only designated this day as holy for unfallen man, but God allowed man to take this gift out of the garden and into a world of sin. The day was to be a day of relationship with God. Mankind would need that reconnecting day of relationship in a sinful world. There is another reason that man needed this day. It was to be an eternal reminder that God is the creator and man is the creature. It is a day that was intended to center man in his creatureness. Seventh-day then refers to the beginning of scripture and to a perfect world that became marred by sin, but through God’s plan of salvation would one day be restored. In fact, the rest of scripture would document the process that God uses to bring about that restoration.
Adventist means someone who is awaiting the advent or appearance of the Messiah. In this case since we believe as most Christians; Jesus has already come once. He became incarnate through the womb of a human and took on human nature to live with us and become the second Adam to pay the price we couldn’t pay. The Advent I’m talking about here is His re-appearing or what the Bible refers to as the second coming. Many mainline churches that celebrate the liturgical calendar know of the season of Advent. This season refers to the first coming of Jesus as a babe in Bethlehem. But the term Adventist in the name of our movement refers to Revelation when Jesus comes in glory to claim as His own what He won at Calvary.
So, the name Seventh-day Adventist has reference to Genesis and Revelation and therefore implies that we teach and believe in all that goes between the two. We are a people of the book. We believe God has revealed His character and His plan in the whole of Scripture and He is a God who does not change. He is the same today, yesterday and tomorrow. That’s why we take serious the prescriptions of the Bible.
As I was thinking about this my epiphany came. There is another group in scripture that could accurately be called Seventh-day Adventists. That is the people of Israel. They took their scriptures (what we call the Old Testament) very seriously. They were Sabbatarians and they looked forward to the advent of the Messiah.
This led me to all sorts of comparisons and contrasts. Israel is still waiting for the first Advent, while modern Adventists are still waiting for the second. Israel become steeped in their traditions as most religious movements do, this is also true for modern Adventists. Israel became so legalistic in their approach to God that they missed the Messiah; it is possible that modern Adventism is heading in the same direction.
The problem doesn’t lie in the revelation of Scripture nor in the God we worship. The problem isn’t inherent in religion per se, the problem lies with people. People tend to put God in a box and limit Him. It is an effort to control our environment. Humans don’t want a God that is too big because then we are not in control. All religious worship seems to boil down to controlling the deity. We attempt to do it through our prayers, our offering and our worship services.
I don’t have a solution to the problem, just questions. What if we let God be as big as He really is? What would that do to our response to Him? What would our religion look like if we stopped trying to control Him and let Him be in control? What if?
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