A TRANSCRIPT OF GOD’S CHARACTER?
By Nicole Stevenson
“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.
And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Mat. 28:18-20).
The “Chore Chart”
The time had finally come when both Josh and Abbie were able to read. I loved leaving them notes of love and encouragement in their lunchboxes, but I also loved that I could finally rely on lists to help them remember things! We were finally able to post a chore chart on the fridge! Hurray!
To my surprise they were happy about this development, too. Up until then the element of surprise about what was expected of them was discouraging. So, with the arrival of the brightly colored chore chart with fun erasable markers and colorful magnets, we all rejoiced in the freedom that came from not needing to depend on my busy mind for the next steps in their day.
It’s funny what happens when we agree to be responsible for lists. In the process of making them ours, we tend to laminate them with loyalty and guard their contents from others’ meddling.
“This is my list and nothing can be added or taken away,” we say in effect.
My kids were no exception. If the chart said it was Abbie’s day to feed the dogs and I accidentally asked Josh, he would immediately protest.
As much as possible, I honored the chart so my kids could trust our agreement. In fact, that list was a source of stability in the chaos of trying to run a home, and we came to rely on it to govern certain aspects of our day. It was a blessing and a help to us. Except when it wasn’t.
I remember well the moment I asked my son to do a chore on a day that wasn’t his. “But Mom, it’s not my day,” I heard.
“I realize that, but your sister is sick. I need you to do it,” I said.
“But it’s not on the chore chart!” The protest loud and filled with the outrage of injustice.
“I am the boss of the chore chart,” I said without thinking; “it’s not the boss of me. I’m the one who wrote those words. If I need to ask something of you that isn’t on it, you still have to obey me on the basis of who I am to you. The only reason this chore chart has any authority to begin with is because I wrote it.”
God in Submission to the Decalogue?
While it isn’t a perfect example, that conversation reminded me of how my view of God’s relationship to the Ten Commandments has changed, and how I have come to understand what it means that God is Lord over all. It also reminded me of conversations I’ve had with people who believe that God is subject to the Decalogue of the Mosaic Covenant.
If you’re not familiar with the Seventh-day Adventist worldview, the following Adventist arguments may be confusing. I’d encourage you to read What is Seventh-day Adventism?, by Colleen Tinker for more on their Great Controversy worldview.
If you are familiar with Adventism, you may recognize these statements which were taught to us as truth:
“The Ten Commandments are the transcript of God’s character, and God cannot change, so the Ten Commandments cannot be obsolete for Christians.”
“It is antichrist to say we are not under the Ten Commandments or that we don’t have to keep the seventh-day Sabbath.”
“Jesus came to show us how to keep the Ten Commandments perfectly. He had no advantage we don’t have; He’s our example.”
“If you say Christians are not under the eternal Ten Commandments, then you are antinomian.”
“God wrote the Ten Commandments on stone with His own finger. They are unchangeable, and they are the perfect revelation of God’s will for us.”
“Even God has to keep His own law. Jesus kept the Sabbath even in His death by not rising until the next day!”
“God doesn’t change.”
These are just some of the arguments with which I wrestled while studying out of Adventism, and they’re arguments I continue to hear from Adventists. They find their roots inextricably bound to the Great Controversy worldview and are deeply ingrained in the Adventist DNA. Among countless other rebuttals to Christian orthodoxy, these have been taught through the Adventist education systems, pulpits, Sabbath School lessons, publications, broadcasting, pathfinder clubs, and various evangelistic seminars. Further, they are socially supported through Adventism’s music, art, online forums, and conversations often shared around the dinner table during the Sabbath hours.
These rebuttals are also the logical responses of those who faithfully read the Adventist prophetess, Ellen G. White (EGW). When it comes to circling the wagons around doctrine, the Adventists are well trained (which is why those who leave have so much “unpacking” to do). They feel confident in their position simply based on the premise that it can’t be wrong if so many other people believe it, too.
A quick response to these arguments. When God rendered the first covenant obsolete by the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and when He inaugurated a new covenant ratified by better blood and based on better promises and a better priesthood, it did not destroy His attribute of immutability. Immutability [the attribute of being unchanging] cannot, however, be ascribed to His ways of interacting in human history or to His various commands. Immutability is an attribute only given to God Himself. We obey Him on the basis of who He is, not on the basis of a supreme law that governs even Him.
Furthermore, His character, who He is, can be seen in all of the Scriptures as His attributes are revealed throughout all 66 books, climaxing in the person, teachings, and work of the Lord Jesus. The Decalogue is an insufficient picture of the character of God. It is the Lord Jesus who has most fully revealed God to us.
The Adventist worldview has placed the God of the Bible in submission to the commandments written on stone for the people of Israel. Adventists profess, by the authority of their prophetess, that the Decalogue is eternal. The logic goes that if the law (a word they use synonymously with the Decalogue) is eternal, and if sin is defined by the transgression of the law, and if God cannot sin, then God is necessarily in submission to the Ten Commandments of the Mosaic Covenant. A clear Biblical study of the covenants is one of the greatest needs for those in Adventism!
Ascribing Incommunicable Attributes of God to the Decalogue
As a Christian it took me many hours of Bible study to understand the depths of my idolatry as an Adventist. The Decalogue of the Mosaic Covenant had been my graven image which I had made equal with God by attaching to it attributes that belong only to God. This idol was carried on the “golden calf” of Sabbath-keeping (as Colleen Tinker has put it), which was the evidence that I venerated the Ten Commandments, thereby pleasing God. I believed that God’s greatest concern was that we showed the world the glory of His law so as to vindicate Him before the universe and all created worlds.
EGW taught that the law of God (the Decalogue of the Mosaic covenant) is eternal (which would make it self-existent), immutable (even by the Father), and the transcript of God’s character (which the Bible says is the man Christ Jesus! [Heb. 1:1-3]). She taught that the seal of God was the fourth commandment which required keeping the Jewish Sabbath (the Bible says the seal of God is the Holy Spirit [Eph. 1:13-14; 4:30]). According to EGW, the Decalogue either replaces or stands above each of the three persons of the Trinity! Let that sink in.
Before reading some of her quotes below which will support the claims made above, it’s important to have a picture in your mind of the Adventist “good news” and worldview for context. I will attempt to summarize it for those who are not familiar with it, but again, I recommend that you read Colleen Tinker’s article linked above detailing this more clearly.
The Adventist “good news” is rooted in pre-creation history as shown to EGW in vision. She taught that the Ten Commandments existed in Heaven before the creation of the earth, that they will exist forever into eternity, and that perfect loyalty to them is the mark of the saved. She taught that apostate Protestantism is destined for destruction because it gave up the Jewish Sabbath, but there is hope for change if they learn the truth of the Sabbath. She taught that it’s the remnant work of the Adventists to bring that revelation to the world, and that God gave the Adventists visions of health reform as a ministry tool and a means of attracting an audience for their message. While it is true that she teaches that Jesus died for us, the purpose behind that work is entirely different in her gospel (where his death only offers us probation) than in the gospel of Scripture (where His death is our once for all propitiation).
According to EGW, the Seventh-day Adventist church was created by God as His last day remnant people of Revelation who’ve been told the secrets of eternity past so they can vindicate God’s character by proving to watching worlds that God’s eternal law is holy, fair, and can be kept. In doing so Adventists will disprove Satan’s accusations that God’s eternal law is unjust and meant to control others.
All of these beliefs must be kept in mind as you read the quotes below revealing EGW’s deification of the Decalogue. First, I must share a couple examples of her using “law” synonymously with the Decalogue. This usage is important to notice since Christians don’t assume the word “law” in Scripture always refers to the Decalogue. In Biblical hermeneutics context determines meaning. However, EGW nearly always meant the Decalogue when writing about the law of God.
“The law of Ten Commandments has been lightly regarded by man; yet the Lord will not come to punish the transgressors of that law without first sending them a message of warning…Therefore he has permitted the light of health reform to shine upon us…” (Christian Temperance and Bible Hygiene)
“The Protestant churches have accepted the spurious Sabbath, the child of the Papacy, and have exalted it above God’s holy, sanctified day. It is our work to make plain to our children that the first day of the week is not the true Sabbath, and that its observance, after light has come to us as to what is the true Sabbath, is a plain contradiction of the law of God” (Child Guidance, 312.4).
The Decalogue is the Transcript of God’s Character
“By His life and death Christ taught that only in obedience to God’s commandments can man find safety and true greatness…. God’s law is a transcript of His character. It was given to man in the beginning as the standard of obedience. In succeeding ages this law was lost sight of. Hundreds of years after the Flood Abraham was called, and to him was given the promise that his descendants should exalt God’s law. At Sinai the law was given a second time. In awful grandeur the Lord spoke His precepts and with His own finger engraved the Decalogue upon tables of stone. (8T 207.2) Passing down through the centuries, we find that there came a time when God’s law must once more be unmistakably revealed as the standard of obedience. Christ came to vindicate the sacred claims of the law” (Testimonies for the Church, v. 8).
The Decalogue is Immutable
“Everyone that follows in the footsteps of Jesus keeps the commandments of God. Those who flatter themselves that God has told them that they need not keep his commandments because it interferes with their circumstances, make a sad mistake. It is another leader that such are following, and not Jesus. We are to inquire what saith the Scriptures. We must have the law of God before us. Jesus suffered the severest temptation, and finally died upon Calvary’s cross, thus demonstrating to the human family that the law of God is immutable, not one jot or one tittle can be changed; but Satan has deceived the Christian world with the story that Christ died to abolish the law. It was the cross of Calvary that exalted the law of God and made it honorable, and showed its immutable character, and thus it is demonstrated before all the worlds God has created, and before the heavenly angels, that the law is changeless. If God could have changed one iota of his law, Jesus need not have come to our world and died. But our Saviour, who was equal with God himself, came into our world and suffered the death upon the cross, to give man another probation” (Review and Herald, June 10, 1890, par. 10).
“God’s unchangeable law of Ten Commandments, however, Paul still kept in spirit as well as in letter” (Acts of the Apostles, 190.1).
Notice that in the first quote above Jesus came and died in submission to the law, not to the Father. She claims that God was unable to change the law. She also claims that it was the law that was glorified at the cross of Calvary. However, Scripture tells us that it was God who was exalted and glorified at the cross.
The Decalogue is Eternal
“’Till heaven and earth pass,’ said Jesus, ‘one jot or one tittle shall in nowise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.’ The sun shining in the heavens, the solid earth upon which you dwell, are God’s witnesses that his law is changeless and eternal. Though they may pass away, the divine precepts shall endure. ‘It is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail.’ The system of types that pointed to Jesus as the Lamb of God was to be abolished at His death; but the precepts of the Decalogue are as immutable as the throne of God” (The Desire of Ages, 308).
“I was shown that the law of God would stand fast forever, and exist in the new earth to all eternity. … The Sabbath was instituted in Eden before the fall, and was observed by Adam and Eve, and all the heavenly host. God rested on the seventh day, and blessed and hallowed it. I saw that the Sabbath never will be done away; but that the redeemed saints, and all the angelic host, will observe it in honor of the great Creator to all eternity” (Early Writings, 217.2).
The Sabbath of the Decalogue is the Seal of God
“Too late they see that the Sabbath of the fourth commandment is the seal of the living God. Too late they see the true nature of their spurious Sabbath and the sandy foundation upon which they have been building. They find that they have been fighting against God. Religious teachers have led souls to perdition while professing to guide them to the gates of Paradise. Not until the day of final accounts will it be known how great is the responsibility of men in holy office and how terrible are the results of their unfaithfulness. Only in eternity can we rightly estimate the loss of a single soul. Fearful will be the doom of him to whom God shall say: Depart, thou wicked servant.” (The Great Controversy, p. 640).
Idolatry of the Decalogue
By understanding the Decalogue, primarily the Sabbath, to be the central object of my commitment and loyalty to God, I was blinded to the glorious purpose of the life, death, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and to the blessed reality of the new covenant. I completely missed the reality of the righteous purpose of God’s law, which was to point me to the Lord of the law!
Jesus said to the Pharisees in John 5:39-47:
“You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. I do not receive glory from people. But I know that you do not have the love of God within you. I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not receive me. If another comes in his own name, you will receive him. How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God? Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one who accuses you: Moses, on whom you have set your hope. For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?”
It wasn’t until I was a Christian that I read these words and saw myself in them. As an Adventist I sought the Scriptures for clues about how to please God and attain eternal life. Adventism pointed me to verse after verse, “here a little, there a little”, to prove to me that my loyalty to the Jewish Sabbath, to the law of Moses, would vindicate God and that vindication is what He expected of His remnant people. I knew that right beliefs and practices all were supposed to point to Jesus, but I wasn’t even sure what that idea meant because my understanding was that Jesus was pointing us back to the law—a teaching endorsed by their art.
Jesus said in the passage above that He does not receive glory from people, and yet I believed that by glorifying the righteousness of the law I was giving Him glory and pleasing Him. Jesus says in that passage that the Pharisees did not have the love of God within them. I desperately wanted to love God, but the best I could muster was a commitment to decisional love expressed through keeping the Ten Commandments.
Furthermore, I realized that as an Adventist I didn’t trust Jesus on the basis of the Father’s testimony about Him, but on the basis of what EGW had taught about Him. This woman, who came in her own name, was my authority on Jesus, surpassing the testimony of Jesus who came in the name of God Himself! The Jesus of EGWs Great Controversy vision, whom the Adventists have poorly melded with Scripture, was the Jesus I understood and sought to please.
Jesus went on in that passage to say that Moses, the very one who was the object of those Pharisees hope, would be the one to accuse them for their unbelief because Moses wrote of Jesus and trusted Jesus, and the Pharisees had used the words of Moses to reject Him. I saw that I had done the same thing!
Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 3:7-11, 14-18:
Now if the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses’ face because of its glory, which was being brought to an end, will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more glory? For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness must far exceed it in glory. Indeed, in this case, what once had glory has come to have no glory at all, because of the glory that surpasses it. For if what was being brought to an end came with glory, much more will what is permanent have glory.
But their minds were hardened. For to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away. Yes, to this day whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their hearts. But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
Jesus did not come and die on the cross to exalt the Ten Commandments. While they once had glory, their glory was brought to an end by the surpassing glory of God the Son. When Jesus unveils our hearts, we are finally able to behold that surpassing glory and in it’s light we’re transformed into the image of Christ by the work of the true seal of God, the Holy Spirit.
The Adventist interpretation of Sabbath-keeping is false, it is the fictional seal of “another Jesus” who is eternally bound to obey what is called the ministry of death carved in stone. As Catholic doctrine keeps Jesus on the cross, Adventist doctrine keeps Him under the law.
Sabbath-keeping will not sanctify us; it will only carry the idolatry of Adventism high and lifted up on the prideful throne of one’s own heart. I say this not in abject disgust, but sympathetically as one who once lived the same way, in slavery to false doctrines, and who longs to see others freed from this great deception.
If You Love Me Keep My Commandments
It’s true that we are to keep the commandments given to us by God. It’s also true that Jesus is God. In the great commission Jesus told His disciples that He was Lord of all, that all authority in Heaven and on earth had been given to Him, and that they were to teach believers to observe all that He had commanded them. Those commands of God extend far beyond the ten written on stone.
I’ve shared this list before but a few examples of these unique commands of Christ are to believe in Him, repent, be baptized, abide in Him, take up your cross and follow Him, worship God in spirit and truth, “do this in remembrance of me”, let your light shine before others, always be ready to give a reason for the hope you have… on and on they go. The commandments of Jesus (God the Son who has been given all authority) are greater in number and depth than I ever understood as an Adventist, and interestingly, there’s never a command given to the church to keep the seventh-day Sabbath. The command for you to believe is the call to obedience made by Hebrews 3-4; upon belief we are then ushered into God’s eternal Sabbath rest!
Hebrews 1 tells us that Jesus is the final revelation of God, and we no longer need new prophets to know God’s word to us. It’s my prayer that you will both know and worship the Lord of all, and that you will trust Him to lead you into truth as you set aside the idols disguised as faithfulness, and the extra biblical writings of the Adventist prophetess, and simply trust the sufficiency of the Scriptures.
The God of the Bible is the Lord of the Decalogue
Many people are uncomfortable with the topic of God as Lord, but “Lord” is more than a name, it’s a role. Over and over Scripture reveals God as the Sovereign Lord of all things. He transcends all creation, He created all things, owns all things, sustains all things, knows all things, He can do all things, and His purposes cannot be thwarted. This doesn’t mean that all obey Him, but human disobedience does not change His role as Lord, and one day they will be held accountable for how they responded to Him.
In Mark 2:28 Jesus said, “So the Son of man is lord even of the Sabbath.” In that statement He’s telling them that He has authority over the Sabbath. He has supreme power over the very law in which they were seeking to bind Him. God cannot be bound by humans seeking to misuse His own words. While it’s true that the Lord Jesus was born under the law, it was for a specific purpose, for a specific period of time, and in submission to the Father, not the law.
God is not submissive to anything that He creates—including the law. Furthermore, He demands that we worship Him and not what He has created (Rom. 1)! God is Lord of all, and that includes the Ten Commandments. If you are an Adventist, I urge you to do a study of all the covenants in Scripture. You can begin a wonderful study by clicking here: The Covenants, by Chris Lee.
By beginning to understand the right place of the Mosaic Covenant, you will see a beautiful picture unfold of the work of God in human history to bring about our once-for-all salvation through the obedience of God the Son (1 Cor. 15:1-5). You will finally see the true glory of the life and work of Moses and how that glory came to an end when the glory of Christ surpassed it in His final work of Salvation on our behalf by His own sovereign will.
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For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. For they could not endure the order that was given, “If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.” Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I tremble with fear.”
But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.
See that you do not refuse him who is speaking.
For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven (Heb, 12:18-25).
Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as head above all (1 Cron. 29:11).
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