FAP Commentary on SDA Sabbath School Lesson (October 25–31, 2025) Title: “God Fights for You”

Text: Joshua 10:42

“And Joshua captured all these kings and their land at one time, because the LORD God of Israel fought for Israel.”

Overview:

This week’s SDA Sabbath School lesson explores “holy war” in Joshua and how “God fights for His people.” The tone attempts to defend divine warfare, present God as Judge, and end with the so-called “Prince of Peace” motif. However, beneath the devotional surface lies a consistent legalistic and theocratic framing that subtly promotes the Investigative Judgment worldview where God’s justice is seen as conditional and covenantal only for those who “pass the test.”

FAP Response:

1. A Misplaced Emphasis: God as “Warrior-Judge” Without the Cross

The SDA lesson speaks lengthily about divine warfare, Yahweh’s justice, and judgment, but almost no Christ-centered gospel hermeneutic. The key verse, Joshua 10:42, is interpreted through the lens of God’s conditional favor toward Israel, rather than through typology fulfilled in Christ, who is the true “Captain of the Lord’s army” (Josh. 5:14–15; cf. Heb. 2:10).

The lesson treats the conquest narratives as moral justification for judgment on sin, but misses the Covenantal fulfillment motif, that Israel’s wars were temporary types pointing to Christ’s victory over sin and Satan (Col. 2:15). Instead of leading to the gospel, it defaults to a moralistic framework: “Obey like Israel or suffer like Canaan.”

Hermeneutical Correction:

Using the historico-grammatical method, the warfare passages in Joshua are redemptive-historical shadows, not prescriptive blueprints. The Hebrew term ḥerem (“devoted to destruction”) prefigures Christ’s substitutionary atonement, where the curse of destruction fell on Him instead of us (Gal. 3:13). The lesson never makes this connection.

2. The Canaanite Conquest and Misapplied Morality

The SDA commentary explains that the Canaanites’ annihilation was a moral act of justice, justified by their sins. While that’s partly true, it fails to apply progressive revelation that divine justice in the Old Covenant was temporal, while under Christ, it became spiritual and universal (John 18:36).

Instead of showing how God’s justice was satisfied at the Cross, the SDA lesson portrays God’s judgment as ongoing, reflecting their Investigative Judgment theology, a doctrine that implies Christ’s atonement remains incomplete until examined in heaven.

Problem: If “God is still judging to decide who’s worthy,” then Christ’s cry, “It is finished” (John 19:30), becomes meaningless.

3. “Dispossession or Annihilation” – Misreading the Theocracy

The lesson tries to soften divine warfare by distinguishing “dispossession” from “annihilation,” but this reveals its inconsistent hermeneutic. It moralizes a historical judgment rather than reading it through Christ’s fulfillment.

📖 Hebrew Insight:

The word “yarash” (יָרַשׁ), meaning to possess or inherit, is covenantal—not ethnic or military. It points forward to Christ giving His people a new inheritance—not by war, but by grace (Eph. 1:11; Heb. 9:15).

The SDA narrative misses this because it still views divine conquest as a pattern for remnant victory through obedience, not redemption through Christ.

4. The “Prince of Peace” – Inconsistent Application

By the end of the lesson (Isa. 9:6; Mic. 4:3), the authors pivot to peace but fail to integrate it theologically. It becomes a sentimental contrast “from war to peace" instead of a gospel proclamation. The biblical logic is this: Christ, the Prince of Peace, conquered not by sword but by sacrifice (Phil. 2:8–10). His kingdom is not “holy war,” but “holy rest” (Heb. 4:9–10).

SDA theology, however, blurs this peace by teaching an unfinished heavenly war in the Investigative Judgment, where Jesus still “fights” in a celestial sanctuary. Thus, they replace gospel peace with apocalyptic anxiety.

5. Ellen White’s Commentary – The Problem of Probationary Justice

The Ellen White quote from Patriarchs and Prophets (pp. 491–493) reinforces this conditional theme: that nations “fill up their cup of iniquity” before God’s vengeance falls. While biblically echoing Genesis 15:16, her interpretation universalizes this into every era, suggesting a probationary system even for believers.

But in the New Covenant, probation ended at the Cross, where the final judgment of sin was executed once for all (Rom. 8:1; Heb. 9:26–28). To keep believers under “probation” contradicts the finished work of Christ.

FAP Theological Conclusion:

1. Divine warfare in Joshua points not to Israel’s moral superiority, but to Christ’s redemptive supremacy.

2. The “Judge” of Israel became the Savior of the world; judgment fell on Him (John 5:22–24).

3. Canaan’s destruction prefigured sin’s destruction in Christ, not human destruction through moral law-keeping.

4. Peace is not achieved through “obedience to the commandments,” but through faith in the finished work of Jesus (Eph. 2:14–16).

Reflection for Former Adventists:

When the lesson says, “God fights for you,” ask: Which God is fighting for me, the one who already finished the battle at the Cross, or the one still investigating my sins in heaven? If the battle is finished, then you are at peace. If not, you’re still at war with your conscience.

Christ’s words settle it:

“It is finished.” (John 19:30)

“Having disarmed the powers and authorities, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.” (Col. 2:15)

That’s the true “holy war” not in Canaan, but at Calvary.

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Former Adventists Philippines

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