COLLEEN TINKER
Research by Beverly Bessada
“But what about the Sabbath?” people ask us when we leave Adventism. “The Ten Commandments are the Law of God, not the law of Moses,” they insist. “So are you saying you don’t have to obey anymore?”
I was surprised as I discovered how many times the Old Testament clarified that the law really was for Israel. The Ten Commandments were the actual words of the Mosaic covenant, and it (see Gal. 3:17–21) had a beginning and an ending. The Decalogue is not eternal, and God made it clear that the Law was only for Israel and has been fulfilled in Christ.
Exodus, the book in which we read of God making the covenant with Israel, is the first place where we find the clarification about the law’s recipients and identity:
“You shall put the mercy seat on top of the ark, and in the ark you shall put the testimony which I will give to you.
“There I will meet with you; and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim which are upon the ark of the testimony, I will speak to you about all that I will give you in commandment for the sons of Israel” (Ex. 25:21–22).
We see in this quote that God told Moses He would meet him and speak to him, giving him commandments for the sons of Israel. People may argue that this declaration doesn’t exclude the possibility God intended these commandments to be for all people. Yet the words mean what they say, and God declared that the mercy seat was to rest on top of the ark where the testimony—the Decalogue—was to be kept. Furthermore, God said He would speak from the mercy seat and give His commandments for the Israelites.
Moreover, just to clarify that the Ten Commandments were not a separate document from the rest of the commands God gave to Moses for Israel but were the core of the covenant, here we learn that the Ten Commandments were the actual words of the covenant:
Then the LORD said to Moses, “Write down these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.”
So he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he did not eat bread or drink water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments (Ex. 34:27, 28).
So we see that the Ten Commandments were the actual words of the Mosaic covenant, a fact which makes the fourth commandment the heart of that covenant. In fact, the Sabbath was not an eternal command but was given to Israel as a sign that they were honoring their covenant with God. In fact, God explained this role of the Sabbath in Israel in Exodus 31:
The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “But as for you, speak to the sons of Israel, saying, ‘You shall surely observe My sabbaths; for this is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I am the LORD who sanctifies you.
“‘Therefore you are to observe the sabbath, for it is holy to you. Everyone who profanes it shall surely be put to death; for whoever does any work on it, that person shall be cut off from among his people.
‘For six days work may be done, but on the seventh day there is a sabbath of complete rest, holy to the LORD; whoever does any work on the sabbath day shall surely be put to death.
‘So the sons of Israel shall observe the sabbath, to celebrate the sabbath throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant.’
“It is a sign between Me and the sons of Israel forever; for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, but on the seventh day He ceased from labor, and was refreshed” (Ex. 31:12-17).
Many Adventists would argue that they are qualified to take up Sabbath-keeping themselves because they are “spiritual Israel”, the people who keep God’s commandments today. This argument, however, is found nowhere in Scripture. It is a rationalization based on their great controversy worldview. Instead, the New Testament teaches that the law is obsolete now that the Lord Jesus has fulfilled all its shadows and has inaugurated the New Covenant.
Blessings and Cursings
At the heart of the Mosaic covenant were God’s declarations that He would bless the nation if they keep His statutes and laws, but if they did not keep His laws, or if they repented when they broke them, He would bless them. This transactional agreement was established first with the people who were present at Sinai. Later, after God disciplined Israel by making them wander in the wilderness for 40 years before Joshua finally took them into the land, Moses reiterated the blessings and cursing for the wilderness generation before they went into Canaan.
These blessings and cursings were specifically for Israel, and they were specially related to keeping their side of the two-way Mosaic covenant. Here are some excerpts from Leviticus 26 where Moses spelled out some of the conditions with the Sinai generation:
Yet if in spite of this you do not obey Me, but act with hostility against Me, then I will act with wrathful hostility against you, and I, even I, will punish you seven times for your sins…
I will lay waste your cities as well and will make your sanctuaries desolate, and I will not smell your soothing aromas.I will make the land desolate so that your enemies who settle in it will be appalled over it. You, however, I will scatter among the nations and will draw out a sword after you, as your land becomes desolate and your cities become waste (Lev. 26:27, 28; 31–33).
If they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their forefathers, in their unfaithfulness which they committed against Me, and also in their acting with hostility against Me—I also was acting with hostility against them, to bring them into the land of their enemies—or if their uncircumcised heart becomes humbled so that they then make amends for their iniquity, then I will remember My covenant with Jacob, and I will remember also My covenant with Isaac and My covenant with Abraham as well, and I will remember the land…
Yet in spite of this, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, nor will I so abhor them as to destroy them, breaking my covenant with them; for I am the LORD their God…
These are the statutes and ordinances and laws which the LORD established between Himself and the sons of Israel through Moses at Mount Sinai (Lev. 26:40–42; 44, 46).
Importantly, God promised that even when Israel would be exiled, He would not reject them or destroy them. They were His people, and His promises to the patriarchs were eternal. Even when Israel would apostatize, God’s faithfulness to Abraham’s promised descendants would remain.
Especially important to notice is that these conditions were established between God and the sons of Israel, mediated by Moses on Mount Sinai. These blessings and curses were not promised to any other people, nor were these laws given to any others.
When Moses renewed the Mosaic covenant with the wilderness generation prior to their going into the Promised Land, he explained how the nation would participate in agreeing to the cursings and the blessings. This generation had largely been born during the wilderness wandering and had not seen God deliver His covenant from Mt. Sinai. Their promises to accept God’s declarations for His curses and blessings were the weak promises which were doomed to fail, as we learn in Hebrews 8.
Again, these curses and blessings were for Israel alone:
“Cursed is he who does not confirm the words of this law by doing them.” And all the people shall say, “Amen” (Deut. 27:26).
“Now it shall be, if you diligently obey the LORD your God, being careful to do all His commandments which I command you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth.…
“But it shall come about, if you do not obey the LORD your God, to observe to do all His commandments and His statutes with which I charge you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you….”
These are the words of the covenant which the LORD commanded Moses to make with the sons of Israel in the land of Moab, besides the covenant which He had made with them at Horeb (Deut. 28:1, 15; 29:1).
The rest of the Old Testament reveals how God was faithful to His declarations in the Mosaic covenant, blessing Israel and also severely disciplining them when they apostatized. These promises of blessings and cursings were related specifically to Israel’s being faithful to their promises that they made to God in accepting His covenant with them.
We cannot transfer either the laws or God’s conditional reactions to other people or nations. The Mosaic covenant was made with Israel alone, and His dealing with them was always according to the terms of that covenant.
We also see that even though the Mosaic covenant directly governed God’s responses to Israel’s obedience and disobedience, He remained faithful to His unconditional promises given to the patriarchs. Even though Israel should be driven into the nations and their cities destroyed, He would not reject them or destroy them ultimately.
Not Just in Exodus
We find passages throughout the Old Testament written by different men that clarify the fact that the commands God gave at Sinai were part of the covenant He made with Israel—and only with Israel. Look at these, for example:
These are the statutes and ordinances and laws which the LORD established between Himself and the sons of Israel through Moses at Mount Sinai (Lev. 26:46).
These are the words of the covenant which the LORD commanded Moses to make with the sons of Israel in the land of Moab, besides the covenant which He had made with them at Horeb (Deuteronomy 29:1).
There was nothing in the ark except the two tablets of stone which Moses put there at Horeb, where the LORD made a covenant with the sons of Israel, when they came out of the land of Egypt (1 Kings 8:9).
There was nothing in the ark except the two tablets which Moses put there at Horeb, where the LORD made a covenant with the sons of Israel, when they came out of Egypt (2 Chron. 5:10).
“Now the LORD has fulfilled His word which He spoke; for I have risen in the place of my father David and sit on the throne of Israel, as the LORD promised, and have built the house for the name of the LORD, the God of Israel.
“There I have set the ark in which is the covenant of the LORD, which He made with the sons of Israel” (2 Chron. 6:10-11).
He declares His words to Jacob, His statutes and His ordinances to Israel.
He has not dealt thus with any nation; And as for His ordinances, they have not known them. Praise the LORD (Psalms 147:19-20)!
We see that the covenant made at Mt. Sinai was a unique covenant which God made with Israel—and only with Israel. He did not give His statues and ordinances to any other nation. The Ten Commandments were the essence of that covenant, and the Sabbath was God’s sign for Israel that they were His covenant people.
When Jesus came He declared that He was inaugurating the new covenant in His blood (Luke 22:20). The temple curtain tore when He died, and all the laws and rituals of the old covenant became obsolete because the way to God was opened for all people by Jesus’ blood.
Now we live by faith in the Lord Jesus, not by the law of the old covenant.
It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery. Behold I, Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no benefit to you. And I testify again to every man who receives circumcision, that he is under obligation to keep the whole Law.
You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by Law; you have fallen from grace. For we through the Spirit, by faith, are waiting for the hope of righteousness (Gal. 5:1–5).
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