This weekly feature is dedicated to Adventists who are looking for biblical insights into the topics discussed in the Sabbath School lesson quarterly. We post articles which address each lesson as presented in the Sabbath School Bible Study Guide, including biblical commentary on them. We hope you find this material helpful and that you will come to know Jesus and His revelation of Himself in His word in profound biblical ways.
Lesson 10: “Sabbath Rest”
This week’s lesson exposes the false foundation and Ellen White hermeneutic upon which Adventism builds its doctrines. I confess that this lesson is hard for me to read because it develops arguments that are based upon false definitions and assumptions. It sounds good and convincing because the way the author weaves his reasoning together appears to hang together—but the foundation, the unstated assumptions upon which those arguments are based, are falsehoods.
If the foundation of a building is flawed and cracked, lacking in rebar and filled with the wrong formulation of concrete, the building constructed on top of that foundation—even if it flawlessly constructed—will eventually fail. It will crumble unexpectedly, as did the apartment building in Florida recently, and great will be the fall of it.
This lesson is like a lovely building constructed upon a doomed foundation. If you look closely, the arguments developed are false and deceptive, and they weave a gossamer web that tightens until its victims suffocate and ultimately die.
Remember
First I address the transparent argument of “Remember”. Right out of the gate, the author begins the week’s agenda by making one of Adventism’s most dishonest claims. The lesson states:
Of all the Ten Commandments, only the fourth begins with the verb “remember.” It’s not “Remember, you shall not steal,” or “Remember, you shall not covet.” There is only “Remember the Sabbath day . . .”
The idea of “remembering” presupposes history, presupposes that something happened in the past that we need to, well, remember. When we remember, we make connections with the past, and “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy” marks a straight line back to the Creation week itself.
The word “remember” does NOT necessarily presuppose history or a past event. It often simply instructs one to keep something in mind that they must do. The online dictionary.com gives this as the second definition for the word “remember”:
to retain in the memory; keep in mind; remain aware of:
Remember your appointment with the dentist.
If I remind my son on the first day of school, for example, to “Remember that you have to leave a half hour earlier this year than last,” that command to “remember” does NOT mean that the earlier departure time has occurred before. In fact, the command to “remember” to leave a half hour earlier is precisely because it is a NEW requirement!
The Adventist “Remember” argument is disingenuous and deceptive. All the rest of the commands in the Ten Commandments were moral realities that had always been true because they flowed from God’s righteousness. Seventh-day Sabbath keeping, however, was a NEW command for Israel which was first given in Exodus 16, one month before Sinai. It was the sign of the Mosaic covenant (Exodus 31), and it was only for Israel, the recipients of the Mosaic covenant.
Moreover, God did not make an eternal covenant with Israel. The covenant He delivered to Moses for Israel at Sinai was only for that nation. It was given 430 years AFTER Abraham, and it was to last until the Seed would come (Gal. 3:17–21). The Mosaic covenant was conditional and temporary, lasting until the Messiah would come and fulfill every single one of its shadows and thus render it obsolete (Heb. 8:13).
Appropriated Commandment
In other lessons we have addressed Adventism’s arguments that Sabbath was given at creation, that the Sabbath is for doing good to people, and d that Jesus never broke the Sabbath in spite of John’s clear declaration that He did (see Jn. 5:18).
In fact, the Sabbath—as was true for the whole law—was a WITNESS of the righteousness of God that was apart from the law (Rom. 3:20–21). It was a shadow of the reality which is found in Christ (Col. 2:16-17), and it is merely one commandment in the entire law which, as a whole, was a shadow of Christ (Heb. 10:1).
Adventists have, on the authority of Ellen White, appropriated the Sabbath and created man-made arguments to “prove” that God demands every human to keep the seventh-day Sabbath.
In the Old Testament where the Sabbath law originates, it was given with its conditions and demands. Those conditions and demands (which included death for breaking the Sabbath) are inseparable from the fourth commandment. The sign of Israel’s covenant could not be separated from the conditions for its observance and from the consequences for breaking it.
Adventists cannot justly extract the Sabbath from the rest of the Torah and apply it with new meanings and methods for observance. If they do that, they literally BREAK the Sabbath. It is not a requirement that stands alone; its meaning came only with the terms of the covenant.
The reason Jesus broke the Sabbath in John 5, commanding the paralytic to take up his mat (the man’s only “home” for over 30 years) and to walk was that Jesus WAS THE MESSIAH. The Sabbath was a shadow of Jesus, and when He came, He filled that commandment full of meaning and revealed Himself.
In fact, Jesus systematically “broke” other ritual laws as well. He touched lepers without becoming unclean and needing to go through ritual cleansing. He touched a bleeding woman without becoming unclean. He touched dead people and raised them to life without going through the ritual cleansing the law required.
Jesus broke these laws because He fulfilled them! Instead of becoming unclean, Jesus imparted life, healing, and forgiveness when he touched the forbidden, unclean people. He was GOD, and only He could break those laws while revealing their true meanings—fulfilling them. They were shadows of Him—and the Sabbath was only one of many sabbaths and rituals that found its meaning and fulfillment when the Lord Jesus revealed Himself by doing what only He could do. The Sabbath, like the rest of the ritual laws, was made to reveal the Messiah when He came.
Now, on this side of the cross, when we hear the gospel of our salvation and believe, we enter God’s rest—our true Sabbath rest—and cease working for our salvation. We rest in Jesus’ completed atonement, and we are made spiritually alive. The shadow of the Sabbath is fulfilled in Jesus. We now have HIM, and we live in Him instead of in His shadow as Israel did as they waited for the Promised One.
For further study, please watch the linked videos from previous FAF Conferences below:
- Why Is Jesus Lord of the Sabbath?
- Sabbath Arguments and Answers
- Does The Sabbath Continue In The New Covenant?
- April 27–May 3, 2024 - April 25, 2024
- We Got Mail - April 25, 2024
- April 20–26, 2024 - April 18, 2024
Hi Colleen
Thank you for your excellent analysis of the Lesson Guide , last week and this week .
In Tom Wright’s translation of the Bible ” The Bible for Everyone “, his introduction to the book of John , he says on page 1029 :
Certainly John’s first paragraph [ 1.1-18 ] is one of the most visionary short pieces in the whole history of Christian writing . ” IN THE BEGINNING was the Word…and the Word became flesh “. What does John think he is doing ?
He is writing a NEW GENESIS . His whole book is about how the world’s creator has come at last to remake that world : chapter 20 is about Jesus’ resurrection , but every sentence breathes the life of
” the first day of the week “, the start of new creation . But if John’s Prologue is a NEW Genesis 1 , then the equivalent of the climax of that great chapter , the creation of humans in the divine image , is precisely the Word becoming flesh . John 1.14 corresponds to Genesis 1.26-28 : the one through whom the world was made now becoming the one through whom the world is rescued and remade . This theme runs throughout the gospel , reaching its own climax in 19.5 when Pilate declares ” Here’s the man!”.
But John is also writing a NEW EXODUS – and this provides the other major clue to his book . Moses led the people out of Egypt and gave them the Torah , to prepare them for God coming in person to dwell
with them , in the tabernacle , and lead them to their inheritance . Now “the Word became flesh and
[ literally ] tabernacled in our midst ” [ 1.14 ]. Jesus is the place where the one God has come to dwell among us to reveal his true glory . The whole gospel resonates with this Temple-theme , reaching a climax in the Farewell Discourses’ [ chapters 13-17 ] when Jesus’ followers , too , become Temple-people by the promise of the indwelling spirit .
… Jesus’ last words , ” It’s all done ” [ 19.30 ] , echo the ” finished “of Genesis 2.1-2. Creation has been rescued . NEW CREATION can now begin .
[ Emphasis mine ]