Can You Answer the Critics?
Dear Colleen and Nikki, I just listened to a few of your podcasts. You seem very genuine and sincere. I was curious if you saw that there is a group of Adventists refuting your arguments? Are you able to explain and address these things they are saying ??? I hope to hear back soon from you. Here is a link to their recent podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCFPdkvUOAM
—VIA EMAIL
Response: Thank you for writing. Yes, we are aware of the Adventist Defense League’s responses to our Sabbath Questions podcast. Yes, we absolutely can answer these things and actually have answered them over the past five years of our podcast.
The ADL is taking phrases that we say, isolating them, and then applying out-of-context proof-texts to try to answer them according to the Adventist worldview. Their underlying problem is that they interpret everything through the lens of the great controversy worldview instead of reading the Bible contextually, not taking verses in context and reading them using the normal rules of grammar, context, and vocabulary.
For example, in their latest video they try to show that we are wrong to say that Jesus is not our example. What we said was that He was not our example but our Savior in response to the Adventist claims that we should keep the Sabbath because Jesus kept the Sabbath.
In fact, Jesus was a Jew, born under the law (Gal. 4:4), and He came, according to His own words, to fulfill the law (Mt. 5:16–18). His attendance at the synagogues on the Sabbath was according to Jewish tradition—and the synagogues were never part of the law. The law mandated the temple worship of sacrifices and holy days, but never the synagogue. The synagogue was a development during the exile when the Jews had no temple in Babylon: no means of offering sacrifices or performing their mandated worship according to the law.
During the intertestamental period, the synagogue services flourished, and then rabbinic tradition came out of that period of Jewish history, with the writing of the Babylonian and the Palestinian Talmuds and the collections of rabbinic midrash that explained the law according to their traditions.
Jesus’ synagogue attendance was not according to the law and was not a fulfillment of the fourth commandment. The fourth commandment included the demand that Israelites stay in their tents every seventh day and do no work. During His ministry, Jesus attended the synagogue but did what the law and the prophets said the Messiah would do. He had authority OVER the Sabbath because He came to fulfill it along with the rest of the law. He was demonstrating, every single time, that He was the promised Messiah. No other person could heal or restore wholeness to people, and He did those things on the Sabbath to show that the Sabbath was always God’s shadow (as Col 1:16, 17 says) of the completed rest that is a believer’s inheritance in Christ. He FULFILLED the Sabbath, doing what none of them could do: the work of God, healing and forgiving sins, and restoring the suffering on the day that was the symbol of Israel’s trust in God.
They were instructed to rest one day in seven, and their God would work for them, making them more successful and prosperous than any other nation—and none of them nor any of the surrounding nations could ever say Israel’s success was because of their hard work. It would always be evident that their GOD was the sovereign, true God.
The ADL (and indeed, Adventism) does not understand nor teach the biblical covenants. If you study the biblical covenants, you will see that the Mosaic covenant had a beginning and an ending: (Gal. 3:17–19). No one before Israel had the law—and indeed, the law was not the source of mankind’s knowledge of God nor of morality. Righteousness is an attribute of God Himself, and none who has ever lived, has been able to be moral or righteous because they had the law and its tenets. The law, according to Romans and Galatians, Colossians and Ephesians, was given to define and to increase sin. Romans 5:12–14 says that death reigned (and death is the consequence of sin) from Adam until Moses—BEFORE there was a law. Then Paul says that where there is no law, no sin is imputed. In other words, people were under the curse of sin and were dying long before there was the law—but they weren’t specifically condemned for specific sins because, before the law, the specifics of sin were not named nor imputed to the people. They were guilty, but they did not consciously know their transgressions.
The law identified their sins, and it revealed that they were hopeless. They were, by nature, DEAD IN SIN and unable to please, seek, or know God (Romans 3:9–18). The law spelled out their death sentence: if anyone breaks one law, he’s guilty of the whole law and worthy of death.
Jesus came to take that death sentence. He took our sin by imputation, and He fulfilled the law by dying a sufficient death to offer a sufficient sacrifice to atone for all human sin. Now, those who believe and trust His FINISHED work pass from death to life (Jn. 5:24). Jesus inaugurated a NEW COVENANT in His blood. He is a priest of a different order, and of necessity with a new priesthood comes a CHANGE OF THE LAW (Heb. 7:12).
On the bottom line, the arguments of the ADL are not honest. They are not reading Scripture IN CONTEXT. They are proof-texting to make a point that they hold already. Furthermore, they are refusing to listen to what we say or to read the Bible in context.
The way that Jesus is our example, according to the 1 Peter passage the ADL referred to, is for those who have ALREADY believed and have been born again through faith and trust in His finished atonement. When we are born again, we pass from death to life and are transferred out of the domain of darkness into the kingdom of the Beloved Son (Col 1:13). When this change happens, then Jesus is our example—not for salvation nor for how we “please” God and become righteous, but He is our example of how to suffer for His sake. And when Jesus said He kept all the Father’s commands, he was not referring to the Ten. He was referring to the Father’s specific command to Him to take a human body, to fulfill prophecy, and to fulfill the law by taking our death for sin. The Father’s commands to Jesus were unique. They were not for us.
If we were really supposed to follow Jesus as our example, we would have to go to synagogues and heal diseases and give ourselves to die and bleed on a cross! Nonsense. But as believers who are born again, we follow Jesus’ example for suffering for His sake by trusting God. We walk just as we came to faith: by faith alone. Period.
I challenge you to do two things: first, read the book of Galatians every day for one month, asking the Lord to teach you what He wants you to know. Second, listen to our podcast series on the covenants:
Please feel free to email anytime. the Bible really is clear, and it tells us a completely different story than Adventism tells us. If we approach Scripture by asking the Lord to show us what it really says, in context, and ask Him to remove our EGW veil, He will show us a sovereign, mighty God who chose to redeem us—by taking our sin and dying our death and rising on the third day, breaking our curse of death.
Isn’t Sabbath Important Because It’s In the Ten?
I just watched your video entitled, “Adventist’s Sabbath Questions Answered”.
I understand the position of the covenants; however, because it’s one of the Ten Commandments, in my opinion, that position elevates it’s importance to keep.
I am not a Seventh-day Adventist; however, this topic has been on my mind for quite some time. So finding your video, was a godsend. 🙂
Thank you so much; I eagerly await your response!
—VIA EMAIL
Response: Thank you for writing!
The Ten Commandments were “the words of The Covenant” — the Old Covenant (Exodus 34:27, 28).
Hebrews 7 explains that the old covenant was built on the foundation of the levitical priesthood, and when there is a change of the priesthood, there must, of necessity, be a change of the law (7:12).
The law of Christ is everything the Lord Jesus commanded His disciples to, such as loving one another as He loved us—sacrificially. It also includes all the moral commands of the New Testament. Morality does not come to us from the Law. The Law was not given until 430 years AFTER Abraham and it lasted until the Seed came (Galatians 3:17–19).
The Sabbath was a shadow of Christ (Col 2:16 17). It prefigured the rest we would have in Christ’s finished work when we no longer work to recommend ourselves to God, but we rest in His finished atonement. Now our good deeds are driven by the indwelling Holy Spirit, not by our efforts to be good.
Our good deeds and all morality originate in God, not in the Law. He wrote the law for Israel; no one had the Ten Commandments before Mt. Sinai. Yet God is eternal.
A non-eternal law cannot be the transcript of God’s character; He is eternal and sovereign; the law cannot transcribe the non-communicable attributes of God.
Now, if we cling to a day, we are holding onto a covenant that was made obsolete in the finished work of Christ. Hebrews 4 explains that the sabbath-like rest that remains for believers is the one we enter TODAY when we cease from our work and trust in Him.
Here is a link to our podcast series on the biblical covenant. I hope you can listen to these! Please feel free to email anytime!
- Resurrection: The Singularity That Changed Nature - April 17, 2025
- April 19–25, 2025 - April 17, 2025
- We Got Mail - April 17, 2025