The Discussion

The following is an imaginary discussion that takes place between
Adam, a Seventh-day Adventist and Norman, an orthodox Christian who
knows a little about Seventh-day Adventism.

Adam: Well Norman, I think it would be useful if we both gave a brief
summary of our beliefs.
Norman: I agree, you may go first Adam.

A: The great controversy between Christ and Satan is about whether God's
law is just. Satan says it isn't and that nobody should be expected
to keep it, God says it is and that people should keep it. Christ
came to show that God's law may be kept and thus that Satan's charge
is unjust.
N: The Bible records a history of covenants or agreements between God
and man, the very first one of which was in Eden when God promised
to be with man and give him eternal life if he did not eat of the
tree of knowledge. Of course man broke that covenant and every other
one since, until we reach the New Testament when God becomes man to
bring in the "new" covenant which is really the final covenant promised
by God since the beginning.
A: You didn't mention the law in your summary Norman! Adventists believe
the keeping of God's law is very important especially the commandment
to remember the Sabbath day which has been forgotten by most of the
Christian church for 2000 years.
N: But Adam, haven't you read in the New Testament that Christians don't
have to keep the Sabbath? Col 2: 16-17 says "Therefore do not let anyone
judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious
festival, a new moon celebration or a Sabbath day", Gal 4:10 and Rom 14:5
make the same point.
A: Luke 4:16 says Jesus "on the Sabbath day ... went into the synagogue,
as was his custom" and Acts 13 records Paul and his companions regularly
visiting the synagogue. In any case, your texts do not refer to the Ten
Commandments, but the ceremonial law. Adventists agree that the ceremonial
Sabbaths should not be kept, but the Sabbath of the Ten Commandments is
binding on Christians.
N: Well Jesus was circumcised and kept the Passover, he was a Jew after all,
so we would not be surprised at him keeping the Sabbath. As for the
disciples, the passages in Acts clearly show them attending the synagogue
to convert the Jews. But your point about there being two types of law,
a moral and ceremonial law, is not correct.
A: In Romans 3:31 Paul says "do we, then, nullify the law by faith? Not at
all! Rather we uphold the law" and in Romans 7:12 Paul says "the law is
holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good" but in Ephesians
2:15 he speaks of Christ "abolishing in his flesh the law with its
commandments and regulations" and in Hebrews 10:1 "the law is only a
shadow of the good things that are coming- not the realities themselves".
Isn't it clear that Paul must be speaking of two laws here, one of which
is "abolished", the other which is "holy, righteous and good"?
N: Certainly sometimes it seems as if people will never finish debating about
the law, but perhaps if we continue our debate in a friendly spirit we
shall have learned something we did not know before.
A: I agree, just because something is difficult is no reason to ignore it.
Hebrews 6:1 says "let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and
go on to maturity".
N: Regarding what Paul says about the law, you don't have to leave Romans to
find some of your "bad" texts about the law, Rom 6:14 "you are not under
law but under grace" and Rom 7:6 "we have been released from the law so
that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, not in the old way of the
written code". What is interesting is that Paul never says there are two
laws, but always says these "good" and "bad" things about the same law!
A: What do you think Paul is saying then?
N: Well, by the "law" the Bible means the "Torah", or the law given by God
through Moses to Israel at Sinai. John 1:17 says "the law was given
through Moses" and it is always this mass of commandments, decrees and
laws covered in the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.
A: But isn't the Ten Commandments written on stone and the other laws written
on paper? Isn't that two laws?
N: Not really, but to understand why you have to go back to Genesis. I
mentioned that God made an agreement with Adam at the beginning of Genesis,
well the book of Genesis is sometimes called the book of the covenants
(which is just another word for agreement). In Genesis 9 God makes a
covenant with Noah, and gives him a sign of the covenant, the rainbow.
Noah has a part to play "you must not eat meat that has lifeblood in it...
and from each man... I will demand an accounting for the life of his
follow man" (verses 4 and 5) and God has a part to play "never again will
all life be cut off by the water of a flood, never again will there be a
flood to destroy the earth".
In Genesis 15 and 17 God makes a covenant with Abraham. Abraham has a part
to play "for the generations to come every male among you who is eight
days old must be circumcised" (17:12) and God makes a promise "the whole
land of Canaan... I will give as an everlasting possession to you and
your descendants after you" (17:8).
When we come to Israel at Sinai we find God making another covenant, but
a much more complex one this time. The "words of the covenant- the Ten
Commandments" (Ex 34:28) are a basic summary of a whole list of commands
to be kept by Israel in an agreement where God will "do wonders never
before done in any nation in all the world" (Ex 34:10). Like the covenant
with Noah God has a sign of his covenant with Israel "observe my Sabbaths,
this will be a sign between me and you" (Ex 31:13).
So we can see that the law is in fact a record of an agreement made between
God and Israel, where the Ten Commandments are the basic principles and
the rest of the laws fill in the details. Throughout the Old Testament and
the New this covenant, this "law", is always a whole, and is called "the
law". When an expert in the law asks Jesus "which is the greatest
commandment in the Law?" Jesus quotes not the Ten Commandments but the
"written law", clearly he saw it as a unity.
A: OK Norman, so you're saying the "law" is just some agreement God made with
Israel. How does that explain all those strange quotes about it being
"good" and "abolished" that we discussed earlier on?
N: A very good question Adam, and something that the early church was not at
all clear on. You see, God made this agreement with Israel, so the early
Christians asked themselves "do the Gentiles have to keep the law"? The
book of Acts records the debates that went on in the early church about
keeping the law, for example Acts 11:2-3 "when Peter went up to Jerusalem,
the circumcised believers criticised him and said 'you went into the house
of uncircumcised men and ate with them'" and in Acts 15 at the council of
Jerusalem a section of Jewish Christians argue "the Gentiles must be
circumcised and required to obey the law of Moses" (Acts 15:5), and later
when Paul returns to Jerusalem he is told "you see brother, how many
thousands of Jews have believed, and all of them are zealous for the law"
(Acts 21:20). So clearly a lot of Jewish Christians still kept the law.
A: So you're saying it was "good" for the Jews but "abolished" for the
Gentiles?
N: No. It is actually very clear, but we need to look at two separate issues.
Firstly why does Paul say the law is good? Because what it demanded was
good, there was nothing actually wrong with what God asked of the
Israelites. However although the Israelites agreed to keep the law, they
were unable to, and thus the law actually exposed their disobedience.
The law gave the Israelites a standard, but it didn't give them the power
to keep that standard, "the sting of death is sin, and the power of sin
is the law" (1 Cor 15:56), "sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the
commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death"
(Rom 7:11). So what do we learn from this agreement or covenant made
between God and Israel? That although man might want to do what God asks,
he is "a slave to sin" (Rom 7:14) and so cannot obtain the blessings
promised by God to those who obey him. What God did was to send his Son
to rescue us from this condition, so that he would accept us by our faith,
and not by our works.
The second problem is whether we should, having been saved by faith, still
try to keep the law. Clearly the Jewish Christians did keep the law, but
were divided over whether the Gentiles should keep it. Some Gentiles on the
other hand not only saw no point in keeping any of the Jewish law, but
also disregarded any normal moral standards, saying "everything is
permissible" (1 Cor 6:12). This massive difference in standards led to
splits in the early church. The Church in Rome was made up of both Jewish
and Gentile Christians. The Gentiles scorned the "weak" Jews who kept all
the regulations of the law: circumcision, diet, the Sabbath etc. while the
Jews on the other hand thought the Gentiles were sinning by disregarding
the law. Paul was clear that the Gentiles did not have to keep the Jewish
law, but this didn't mean they could do what they liked. The Gentiles
should practise love, which "is the fulfilment of the law" (Rom 13:10)
and should respect the Jews, who are God's people (chapters 10 and 11).
For the Jews on the other hand, if they are troubled by their conscience
in not observing the Torah, they should continue to keep it. Chapter 14
basically says respect each other, "stop passing judgement on one another"
(Rom 14:13).
A: But if the law is "holy, righteous and good" shouldn't all Christians keep
it?
N: You're mistaking "law" for "Ten Commandments". Remember in the Bible, the
"law" is that whole set of rules God set out for Israel at Sinai. Are you
saying we should keep all of those rules?
A: Some parts of God's law were fulfilled in Christ, for example the sacrifices
are no longer necessary because Christ is our sacrifice and the New
Testament says we don't have to be circumcised, but other parts of the law
such as the Sabbath and tithing are still to be kept by Christians.
N: You're forgetting that the law was a covenant or agreement God made with
Israel, and acting as if all of mankind had to keep the Torah. Some Jewish
Christians tried to get the Gentile Galatians to keep the law, and what
was Paul's response? "you foolish Galatians!" (Gal 3:1) he calls them,
and asks "did you receive the Spirit by observing the law?" (Gal 3:2),
then tells them clearly "now that faith has come we are no longer under
the supervision of the law" (Gal 3:25). This is because the covenant of
God and Israel has been finished now Christ has come and is not the
covenant between God and man. In Hebrews it quotes Jeremiah "the time is
coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant... it will
not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them
by the hand and led them out of Egypt" (Jer 31:31-34) and the writer of
Hebrews says "by calling this covenant "new" he has made the first one
obsolete; and what is obsolete and ageing will soon disappear" (Heb 8:13).
A: But the laws that disappeared with Christ were the ceremonial ones, to do
with sacrifices.
N: Lets read Deuteronomy 9: "the tables of stone, the tablets of the covenant
that the Lord had made with you" (verse 9), "the Lord gave me the two stone
tablets of the covenant" (verse 11), "the two tablets of the covenant were
in my hands" (verse 15). Now isn't it clear that the Ten Commandments are
this old covenant, that the writer of Hebrews says is "obsolete"?
A: But in 1 John 3:4 we read "everyone who sins breaks the law, in fact, sin
is lawlessness" and in Rom 7:7 it says "I would not have known what sin
was except through the law". How do we know what sin is if the law is
abolished?
N: This is very simple. Christ fulfilled the law, he is our example of God's
standard. In the Sermon on the Mount Christ shows that the standards
of the Torah only a partial revelation of God's standard. What he wants
is love, "he who loves his fellow man has fulfilled the law" (Rom 13:8).
You see the law was a "shadow" (Col 2:17,Heb 10:1) of Christ. In the
sanctuary was the consecrated bread (Heb 9:2) but Christ says "I am the
bread of life" (John 6:35), there was also the lampstand (Heb 9:2) but
Jesus is the light of the world, the law says be circumcised, but true
circumcision of "circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the
written code" (Rom 2:27), our hearts should be strengthened by grace,
not ceremonial foods (Heb 13:9), we sacrifice to please God when we share
with others (Heb 13:16) and so on. This is the way the serve God.
A: So are you saying it is ok to steal, to murder or to envy because the law
is abolished?
N: No, how can you show love towards your fellow man and do those things?
A: So what it boils down to is keep all the rest of the Ten Commandments but
don't keep the Sabbath?
N: We've already seen that the Sabbath is part of (in fact the sign of) the
old covenant God made with Israel at Sinai, and that this covenant is
obsolete. The Ten Commandments were the principles of that covenant (they
didn't contain any punishments like the other laws) but they can't be
separated from it. Do you agree that the Ten Commandments were part of
the old covenant?
A: OK they were part of it, but I don't see how Christ fulfilled them, he
only fulfilled the ceremonial part, they are the laws that are abolished.
N: Again you're talking about two laws, the eternal and the ceremonial, but
where does the Bible teach this? The Law is mentioned hundreds of times,
and always as a whole.
A: But the New Testament speaks of the Law being good, and abolished, how
can that be the same Law? it must be two different laws.
N: Suppose we think of a covenant as a marriage. Israel is often called an
unfaithful woman when she turns from God in the Old Testament and the
church is sometimes symbolised as a woman. Now suppose in this marriage
we draw up a contract with 100s of laws, telling the man that he mustn't
tell his wife he's working late when he's really going out with another
woman, or that he mustn't say he's just going for a pint when he means
4 or 5 pints etc. You get the picture, lots of different dos and don'ts.
The first thing about this contract is that it fills the mans head with
lots of bad things he can do. This is like Paul saying "I would not have
known what it was to covet if the Law had not said "Do not covet"" (Rom
7:7) and the second thing is that it is so artificial, you can't really
write down how to behave, it has to be "written on the heart" (2 Cor 3:2).
The covenant at Sinai was a bit like an arranged marriage, you can tell
one partner "how to behave" in as much detail as you like, but unless the
right spirit is in the marriage all the rules in the world won't make it
work. Paul gives another example of what the Law was like. In Galatians
3:24 he says the law was "put in charge" rather like a parent tells a
child how to behave, but we don't expect the parent to continue telling
the adult what to do, we expect them to know themselves. So even those
"moral" laws such as stealing are "fulfilled" in Christ because under the
new covenant there is NO written law at all.
A: But isn't the Sabbath good, after all it tells us to set aside time for
God.
N: Let's go back to the marriage and child examples. Its obviously good for
a marriage if the two partners spend time together, and perhaps we can
imagine in these 100s of marriage laws something to cover that. Suppose
this marriage law said, "every week you must spend one day alone together".
Clearly you can't make hard and fast rules like this, some couples might
find it better to spend a couple of evenings together rather than a whole
day, some might prefer to go on a long holiday to relax and spend time
together. You certainly couldn't judge another couple who weren't setting
aside one day a week just because you do things that way. Similarly we
might say to a child "be in bed by 9 O’clock" but to an adult, whilst the
general principle "get enough sleep" still holds we wouldn't make some
hard and fast rule.
A: But in the gospels Jesus says "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for
the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath" (Mark 2:27).
N: The gospel stories are very interesting regarding the Sabbath. The story
of the disciples picking corn on the Sabbath appears in Matthew, Mark and
Luke (Matt 12:1-8, Mark 2:23-27, Luke 6:1-5) and is followed immediately
by the healing of the man with a shrivelled hand (Matt 12:9-14, Mark 3:1-6,
Luke 6:6-11), the gospel of John also contains stories of Jesus healing on
the Sabbath (John 5:1-18, 7:14-24). In all these stories the Jews charge
Jesus with breaking the Sabbath.
A: But Jesus wasn't breaking the Sabbath commandment, he was attacking the
extra traditions the Jews had added to it.
N: In fact it is difficult to tell whether it was tradition. There is very
little in the Old Testament regarding how to keep the Sabbath, except not
to work: Exodus 16 says you aren't to gather food on the Sabbath, but put
enough by on the Friday, Exodus 35:3 says "do not light a fire in your
dwelling on the Sabbath day", Numbers 15:32-36 tells of a man gathering
wood on the Sabbath being stoned to death, Numbers 28:9-10 says what
offerings to make on the Sabbath and Jeremiah 17:19-27 says "do not carry
a load on the Sabbath day". Out of these it seems the Jews might have been
referring to Exodus 16 when the disciples picked corn. After all, shouldn't
they have prepared food the day before? And couldn't they have just gone
hungry? It clearly wasn't a matter of life or death. As to John 5:8 where
Jesus says "Get up! Pick up your mat and walk" the Jews were no doubt
referring to Jeremiah 17:21-22. Jesus could have just healed the man, did
he really need to carry his mat?
A: The problem was the Sabbath was meant to be a blessing and the Jews had
turned it into a curse with their petty restrictions.
N: If Jesus had said "look, your restrictions are stopping people being happy
on the Sabbath" we could safely say, "oh, then he was attacking the
tradition" but his answer applies specifically to the regular Sabbath
commands. Jesus answers the charge about "breaking" the Sabbath not by
saying "I didn't break it" but by saying "some things are more important
than the Sabbath". First example: David and his companions were hungry and
broke the law by eating the consecrated bread, but satisfying their hunger
was more important than keeping the law. Second example: the priests in
the temple desecrate the Sabbath, but their work is more important than
the Sabbath. Third example: a child is circumcised on the Sabbath, because
it is more important to circumcise the child on the eighth day than to
keep the Sabbath. Next Jesus makes the statement "one greater than the
temple is here", conclusion: he is "Lord, even of the Sabbath" (i.e., if the
priests can break the Sabbath to work in the temple, and Jesus is greater
than the temple, then he too takes priority over the Sabbath, he can
do what he likes on the Sabbath because his work is more important). This
"work" that Jesus is doing "my Father is always at work on this day, and I,
too, am working" (John 5:17) is the work of the gospel, which every follower
of Christ is always doing, whether they are healing, preaching, or just
getting something to eat! Hence a true follower of Christ cannot "break"
the Sabbath because, having the Spirit of Christ they are guided by one
"greater" than the Sabbath.
A: 1 John 5:2-4 says "this is how we know that we love the children of God:
by loving God and carrying out his commands. This is love for God: to
obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome", the way you
talk sounds as if you do not want to keep God's commands, but to those
who love God, his commands are a pleasure to carry out!
N: Again, you are assuming that by "commands" the Bible means the Ten
Commandments, you don't think it means "get circumcised" or "do not
wear clothes of wool and linen woven together" do you?
A: The Ten Commandments are God's commands to his people.
N: Again, the Ten Commandments are part of the law. The law was Israel's part
in their covenant with God at Sinai. The term "the law" covers all those
commands. Go through all the times "the law" appears in the Bible and try
to separate out when it means Ten Commandments and when it means the laws
written on paper (the book of the covenant), you won't be able to because
the Bible writers never made that distinction. The quote you gave came from
John. If you read the gospel of John you'll find that when he uses the
term "the law" he means the Torah, the Jewish law, the covenant Israel made
with God at Sinai, Jesus even calls it "your law" to the Jews. When Jesus
uses the term "command" or "commandment" he is distinguishing between his
"commandment" and the Jewish "law". Of course in the rest of the Bible the
two terms generally mean the Jewish law, but in John "commandment" means
Jesus "new" commandment of love, whereas "law" means the old Jewish law.
A: You keep saying that the Sabbath was part of God's law given at Sinai, but
in fact the Sabbath was instituted at creation and so is for all men.
N: You are reading more into Genesis 2:2-3 than is there. Look at all the days
of creation, on every say it says "there was evening and there was morning"
except for the seventh day. This is because what the creation story is
telling us is that after the six days of creation God stopped work. This
"seventh day" is a special day on which God (not man) rests, and it is
special for two reasons: God stops work to commune with man, to be with man.
He does so not for one day in seven, as if he will start work again on the
eighth (first) day but forever, that is why no evening and morning is
mentioned. So after creation God "rests" to be with man, but is man with
God? No, because of disobedience man has cut himself off from God. God has
not cut himself off from man, as if he was busy working at something else,
but has devoted all his time to man, God is resting, but man has not
entered that rest. Now at Sinai the Sabbath commandment has two forms:
Ex 20:8-11 when God says keep the Sabbath holy to remember creation, and
Deut 5:12-15 when God says keep the Sabbath to remember God delivered them
from Egypt. So in Genesis it is God who rests on the seventh day, when
the Sabbath is given to Israel the command is for man to rest on the
seventh day. Prior to the Exodus God had not commanded man to rest on the
seventh day, just as the rainbow was given as a sign for Noah's covenant,
so God gives Israel the Sabbath as a sign of their covenant. All this is
explained in Hebrews chapters 3 and 4. Heb 4:4 reminds us that God rested
on the seventh day, but also notes that because of Israel's rebellion he
said "they shall never enter my rest" (Heb 3:11, 18; 4:5). Now how can
anyone enter God's seventh day rest if he has said "they shall not enter
my rest"? Are we to suppose no one can enter God's rest? No! the
promise of entering God's rest still stands (Heb 4:1) but not the seventh
day. Instead God sets aside another day ("God again set a certain day"
Heb 4:7, "if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later
about another day" Heb 4:8) and that day is Today ("God again set a certain
day, calling it Today" Heb 4:7, so "we who have believed enter that rest"
Heb 4:3). This entering God's rest through faith in Christ is echoed in
Matthew 11:28-30. Just before Matthew tells us of Jesus' dispute with the
Jews concerning the Sabbath he records Jesus' words "I will give you rest".
The yoke of the Sabbath law (Acts 15:10,Matt 11:29) is lifted when we enter
Christ's rest.
A: Of course Jesus is our Sabbath rest, but that doesn't mean we should stop
keeping the Sabbath.
N: The writer of Colossians seems to think differently: "a Sabbath day [is]
... a shadow... the reality is Christ" (Col 2:16-17). Now we have
established that there are not two laws but just one we can see that
all these texts about not keeping holy days applies both to the Ten
Commandments as well as to the rest of the Law. Similarly try reading
Hebrews remembering "the Law" is the whole covenant God made with
Israel, Ten Commandments and all, and see what it really says!
A: You still haven't convinced me. In Hebrews it says the sanctuary is a
copy of what is in heaven (Heb 8:5), but in the sanctuary is the Ten
Commandments. Now if the Ten Commandments are in heaven, surely they
must be eternal and for all men?
N: Yes, "a copy and shadow of what is in heaven" (Heb 8:5, Ex 25:40) but
this is not to say an identical copy of a sanctuary in heaven. As the
writer of the Hebrews clearly shows, the earthly sanctuary is inferior to
the reality in heaven and hence we cannot argue "if it was like this in the
earthly sanctuary, it must be so in heaven". The whole point of Heb 7 is
to show that Christ is a High Priest different and indeed better than
Aaron. The covenant of Sinai, the covenant of the Ten Commandments, had
Aaron as a High Priest, but the new covenant of Jesus is superior to this
old covenant (Heb 8:6) and thus a change in the priesthood means a change
in the law (Heb 7:12). The old covenant had many priests, the new just one
(Heb 7:23-24), the old covenant priest offered sacrifices day after day,
the new sacrifices once and for all (Heb 7:27), the old covenant appoints
as priests "men who are weak" the new appoints God's son (Heb 7:28), the
old uses the blood of goats and calves, the new offers the blood of its
High Priest (Heb 9:12) and so on. It is wholly inappropriate, as some
traditional Adventists do, to suppose the old covenant provides a clear
and perfect picture of salvation, either in the priesthood, the law or
atonement. The writer of the Hebrews doesn't say there is a sanctuary in
heaven, but that the sanctuary of the old covenant was a shadow of "what is
in heaven" (Heb 8:5), the Most Holy Place stands for heaven itself, the
sacrifice stands for Christ's sacrifice and priest stands for Christ, our
High Priest and so on. All through the New Testament we get this idea that
the Law and the Prophets "witness" to Christ, that all these ceremonies,
laws and rituals symbolise Christ in different ways.
A: Revelation often refers to those who keep God's commandments: "the saints
who obey God's commandments and remain faithful to Jesus" (Rev 14:12),
"those who obey God's commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus"
(Rev 12:17)
N: We have already shown that Christ's commandments are "new" commandments,
his Law is written on the Heart. Again you are assuming that "commandments"
means Ten Commandments whereas in the New Testament there is either the
Law of Moses or the Law of Christ. The Ten Commandments, together with
the rest of the old covenant is part of the Law of Moses, also just called
"the Law", whereas Christ's commandment is "new". One of the few times the
Ten Commandments are mentioned in the New Testament is 2 Corinthians 3. It
says "the ministry that brought death... was engraved in letters of stone"
(2 Cor 3:7), but "he has made us competent as ministers of a new
covenant- not of the letter but of the Spirit, for the letter kills but
the Spirit gives life" (2 Cor 3:6). Paul calls the Corinthians a "letter
written from Christ... not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human
hearts" (2 Cor 3:3). The other time the Ten Commandments are referred to
is Revelation 12:17, 19:10) when the term "testimony" is used. In the Law
the "Testimony" was another term for the Ten Commandments: "then put in
the ark the Testimony" (Ex 25:16, 21), "put the altar in front of the
curtain that is before the ark of the Testimony- before the atonement
cover that is over the Testimony" (Ex 30:6), "when the Lord finished
speaking to Moses on Mount Sinai, he gave him the two tablets of the
Testimony, the tablets of stone inscribed by the finger of God" (Ex 31:18).
So we can see that the "Testimony of Moses" was the Ten Commandments. Now
what does Revelation say the "Testimony of Jesus" is? "The testimony of
Jesus is the spirit of prophecy" (Rev 19:10) Just the same way that the
"sign" of the old covenant, the Sabbath, was replaced in the new covenant
by the Holy Spirit, so the "testimony" of the old covenant is replaced by
those prophets who speak under the influence of the Holy Spirit. Again,
the written law is replaced by the direct inspiration of the Spirit.
A: In Revelation it says mentions the "seal" of God. The "seal" or "sign" of
God is the Sabbath (Ex 31:13)
N: The sign of God in the covenant with Israel at Sinai was the Sabbath, just
as the sign of God's covenant with Noah was the rainbow. In the new
covenant the sign or seal is the Holy Spirit (Eph 1:13). Revelation often
uses Old Testament references (as we saw with the "testimony") but gives
the New Testament meanings.
A: I still don't see how you can say Christians shouldn't keep the Ten
Commandments.
N: For many reasons. Firstly they are part of the old covenant God made with
Israel. Even in the early church it was agreed the Gentiles shouldn't have
to keep the Torah, or Jewish Law. The compromise of Acts 15:28-29 is in
fact probably a form of the covenant God made with Noah and his descendants
(i.e. the Gentiles, see Gen 9), it certainly doesn't mention the Ten
Commandments or the Sabbath. Secondly the whole idea of a written law is
against the new covenant. A written law only defines sin and indeed
encourages sin, it doesn't give anyone the power to overcome. The new
covenant writes its commands on the heart, the believer with Christ's
Spirit "is a new creation" (2 Cor 5:17), we are "made new in the attitude
of our minds" (Eph 4:23) not having any written law means we are "free"
(2 Cor 3:17, Gal 5:1). Thirdly the division between Jew and Gentile, which
consisted of the Sabbath, circumcision and diet has been "abolished"
(Eph 2:15), we are now to respect each other (Rom 14). Fourthly God's
rest of the seventh day couldn't be entered due to disobedience, so he
set aside a new day called Today (Heb 4). Fifthly the "work" of the gospel
takes priority over any Sabbath regulations, meaning believers are free to
ignore any restrictions. Sixthly Christ is our rest (Matt 11) not a day
but a person. Seventhly we are under a new covenant and a new priesthood,
and a change in priesthood means a change in the law, we are under the
law of Christ, not the law of the Torah, which is "obsolete" (Heb 7 and 8).
Eightly the Spirit replaces the Law, a believer in Christ is "led by the
Spirit" (Rom 8:14); the testimony, or Ten Commandments of the new covenant
is the Spirit. Ninthly Paul lists many sins in the New Testament, both
those practised by the "world" as well as those practised in the churches:
(Rom 1:28-32, 2 Cor 12:20-21, Gal 5:19-21, Eph 4:25-29, 5:3-18, 2 Tim 3:1-9,
2 Pet 2,3:3-7) but nowhere mentions Sabbath-breakers. Tenthly we didn't
receive the Spirit by observing the law, so why should we observe it now
we have the Spirit (Gal 3).
A: In Paul's letter to Titus he says "avoid controversies...arguments and
quarrels about the law, because these are unprofitable and useless"
(Tit 3:9). Why don't you just keep the Ten Commandments are stop looking
for excuses?
N: Paul was genuinely worried about splits in the church between Jews and
Gentiles, just after that passage he says "warn a divisive person once,
then warn him a second time, after that have nothing to do with him"
(Tit 3:10). He was writing at a time when the Jerusalem church was full
of people "zealous for the law" (Acts 21:20) and he wanted to cause as
little trouble as possible, teaching mutual tolerance, whilst insisting
the Gentiles did not have to keep the law. After 2000 years one would
rather hope this problem of Christians wanting to keep the Jewish law
wasn't still around, but since it is we should be able to debate these
things honestly and openly, while not "dividing" the church.
A: You still haven't convinced me God doesn't want Christians to keep the
Ten Commandments.
N: Perhaps we will discuss it again another day.