COLLEEN TINKER
If there is any single Adventist icon that functions as an idol, it is the seventh-day Sabbath. In fact, the Adventist arguments for Sabbath-keeping are so ingrained that it takes many of us months—even years—to understand what Scripture really says and retrain our thinking.
From its inception, Life Assurance Ministries has taken the position that the Sabbath is only properly understood when we understand the biblical covenants and recognize that the seventh-day Sabbath was the sign of the Mosaic Covenant (Ex. 31:13). Furthermore, we understand that the Mosaic Covenant was a conditional covenant—it was not a unilateral covenant God made with man but was a two-way covenant between God and the nation of Israel.
Human promises, of course, are never perfect; and Israel could not keep the terms of the law. Hebrews 8 even spells out this problem, quoting from Jeremiah 31:31 and 32 to makes its point:
For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion sought for a second. For finding fault with them, He says, “BEHOLD, DAYS ARE COMING, SAYS THE LORD, WHEN I WILL EFFECT A NEW COVENANT WITH THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL AND WITH THE HOUSE OF JUDAH; NOT LIKE THE COVENANT WHICH I MADE WITH THEIR FATHERS ON THE DAY WHEN I TOOK THEM BY THE HAND TO LEAD THEM OUT OF THE LAND OF EGYPT; FOR THEY DID NOT CONTINUE IN MY COVENANT, AND I DID NOT CARE FOR THEM, SAYS THE LORD (Heb. 8:7-9).
In fact, Hebrews 8:13 drives the point home clearly:
When He said, “A new covenant,” He has made the first obsolete. But whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear (Heb. 8:13).
In other words, the Mosaic (old) Covenant was made on the basis of both divine and human promises. Those human promises were flawed; no Israelite born into sin could ever keep his promises perfectly, and the old covenant was never intended to be eternal.
In fact, Hebrews 8:6 tells us this:
But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, by as much as He is also the mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted on better promises (Heb. 8:6).
The Lord Jesus gave us a new covenant established in His shed blood, and this new covenant, promised first in Jeremiah 31:31–33, is unconditional. Those who have faith in Jesus’ finished work are are ushered into the new covenant and are not bound to the terms of the old covenant. The new covenant is based entirely on Jesus’ promises established in His blood and on His fulfillment of the law’s death sentence. His resurrection is the proof that His sacrifice was sufficient to atone for all the world’s sin!
The new covenant is established on better promises—those of God the Son—and instead of the sign of the covenant being a Sabbath day to be remembered, it has a new “remember”. New covenant believers take the Lord’s Supper to remember their Lord Jesus and His atoning work for sin.
…the Sabbath was never changed or replaced. It was fulfilled.
Furthermore, the Sabbath was never changed or replaced. It was fulfilled.
Jesus said in Matthew 5:17 that He did not come to destroy the law but to fulfill it. Colossians 2:16, 17 further confirms that Jesus’ finished atonement fulfilled all the Sabbath shadows of the law:
Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day–things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ (Col. 2:16-17).
Christ, then, is our Sabbath rest. Never does the New Testament teach that the title “Sabbath” was transferred to any other day, nor did any other day become a “Christian Sabbath”. People may try to convince us that the Bible teaches that there is a new Sabbath day for Christians, but if we read the Bible consistently, we find no support for this idea.
How Do We Read the Bible?
We use the grammatical-historical-literary hermeneutic. Lately this method of understanding Scripture has been mentioned often by Seventh-day Adventist president Ted Wilson who has told his worldwide organization that Adventism uses the “grammatical-historical method”.
In fact, however, his claim is false. Whatever Wilson may call the approved Adventist method of interpretation, it is not the classic grammatical-historical method because their reading of the text depends first upon Ellen White’s interpretation of it.
Whatever Wilson may call the approved Adventist method of interpretation, it is not the classic grammatical-historical method because their reading of the text depends first upon Ellen White’s interpretation of it.
So what is the grammatical-historical method of Bible interpretation?
This definition summarizes this hermeneutical method:
Grammatical Historical interpretation seeks to understand the Scriptures according to the common rules of grammar, and to see the Scriptures’ meaning in their original Historical context.
https://www.biblestudymethods.org/interpretation/grammatical-historical
Some people call this the “literal”, or “grammatical-historical-literal” method, but in fact, this interpretive method is not called “literal”. If any additional word is attached to “grammatical-historical”, it is “literary”.
In a nutshell, this method of Bible interpretation simply means the following:
- We read the Bible the same way that we read any other book, using the normal rules of context, grammar, and vocabulary.
- Normal books of literature and poetry often use figures of speech: metaphor, simile, allegory, and so forth. When the Bible uses figures of speech, we understand that they are not to be read literally but as descriptive passages intended to describe things so we understand them better. (This understanding of figurative speech is one reason the word “literary” is sometimes attached to “grammatical-historical”.)
- We read the Bible understanding its original audience and its placement in history. In other words, we have to understand what a passage meant to the first audience before we apply it to ourselves. A passage cannot mean something different to us today than it meant to the first audience. It may be applied differently, but the meaning cannot change, and we cannot appropriate a passage specifically intended for the Jews, for example, and make it for us. Its application to us will be different from its application to the Jews, for example, although the underlying meaning will not change.
- Genre matters. In the world of literature, we read poetry differently from history, biographies differently from personal letters, and legal documents differently from science textbooks. The same principle applies to the Bible. We read the Genesis accounts, for example, differently from the way we read Paul’s epistles, and we read the Wisdom Literature differently from the way we read the book of Acts. This matter of genre is another reason the word “literary” is sometimes attached to “grammatical-historical”. In other words, we can’t understand Ephesians as a collection of wise sayings as we would understand Proverbs.
- There are two basic types of passages in the Bible: descriptive and prescriptive. Descriptive passages tell us what happened and are not intended to be commands for us to obey. Prescriptive passages give instructions to the reader. Here again, we have to understand the historical context and the first audience before we assume a command is for us. The commands for Israel were not the same as the commands are for the church. On this side of the cross, for example, we do not need to obey the commands against mixed fabrics and ritual cleansing that the Mosaic Law required of Israel. Neither are we bound to the commands of circumcision and submission to the Law. Instead, today our command is to believe in the Lord Jesus, and we receive the circumcision made without hands (Col 2:11) and are indwelled by the Author of the Law (Ephesians 1:13,14).
- Finally, the whole Bible is God-breathed and is useful for “teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness” (2 Tim 3:16). It is inerrant in its original manuscripts and is God’s living word which exposes us to ourselves and reveals God and His will and His justice and mercy (Heb. 4:12,13). The Bible is the only Source of reality that tells us the truth about humanity, about God, and about His provision for us in His Son.
How Does This Work?
Let’s use one of Adventism’s (and some Christians’) arguments about the Sabbath as an example to discover what the Bible actually says. This particular argument claims that the Sabbath was a “creation ordinance”, and by assuming this claim to be true, elaborate interpretations are developed to say that the Sabbath is a continuing ordinance today. Adventists use this argument to justify their seventh-day sabbatarianism, and some Christians use this argument to develop a rationale for a first-day sabbatarianism.
We will look at Genesis 1:26–2:3 to see the passage which is assumed to establish Sabbath as a creation ordinance:
Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
Then God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life, [I have given] every green plant for food”; and it was so.
God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their hosts. By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made (Gen. 1:26–2:3).
The first thing we do when we read a passage inductively, seeking to understand it, is to observe it. We do not interpret; we simply observe. We notice if there are any commands or warnings or judgments, and we observe who is speaking, who is being spoken to, and what the historical setting is.
In this passage we observe our triune God saying He will make man in His image. We see that God says man will rule over all the rest of creation: the fish and the birds, the cattle, and indeed over the whole earth including everything that creeps on the earth. God does not give a condition or command here; He simply states what He is doing.
We next read that God “created man in His own image”, and this new creation included both male and female. Together they were in His image.
Then God blesses them and gives them a command: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” There are no conditions or warnings in this passage; merely His command for them in this new existence into which He has created them.
In the next passage God reiterates to them what He has done: He has given them every seed-producing plant and every fruit-with-seeds-producing-tree for food. (Notice that in this passage He does not state His prohibition of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. He merely tells them what their food will be.)
Further, God states that He has given “every green plant for food” to all the animals and birds. Notice that He gave Man the plants that produced seed and the trees that produced fruit with seeds, and to the animals he gave every green plant. It is not until Genesis 9 when Noah and his family exit the ark that God gives them every green plant as He previously gave the animals, and at that time He also gives man meat to eat.
In other words, we see that this paragraph reveals what God gave to man to eat and what He gave the animals and birds.
Next we see that God “saw” all He had made, “and behold, it was very good.” God was pleased with His creation and His provision for them—and then we see something important: we learn that God’s creation of man and His designations for their food occurred on the sixth day. Very significantly, this day—just as was the case with the preceding five days—was marked and bounded by “evening” and “morning”.
…looking back at Genesis 1, each creation day had a fixed and limited time marked by a dark-light cycle of an evening and a morning.
This sixth day, like the preceding five, had a fixed and limited time; it was marked by a dark-light cycle, an evening and a morning. In fact, looking back at Genesis 1, each creation day had a fixed and limited time marked by a dark-light cycle of an evening and a morning.
So, we see that God was pleased with His sixth day creation and with His provision for the sustenance of His creatures. We see that the only commands He gave His new human beings were that they should be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it, and rule over all the other creatures on the earth. They were put in charge of the earthly creation, and they were to fill the earth and rule over it.
What About the Seventh Day?
And now we come to the first three verses of Genesis 2. First we read the summary statement, “Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their hosts.”
This sentence is revealing and important, especially for us former Adventists. This one verse reveals the truth: creation included not only earth but the heavens “and all their hosts”.
The angels are created beings, just like humans are, and they were part of God’s work of creation. There was no “pre-history” in which Lucifer rebelled and Jesus was “exalted”. No! Jesus was the One who created all things! (See John 1:1–4; Colossians 1:16, 17.)
Next we read the verses that so many people have interpreted according to their pre-suppositions. First we read that “by the seventh day God completed His work which He had done…”. Importantly, this clause begins with the word “By”, not “On”. God didn’t complete His work ON the seventh day; rather, by the time the sixth day ended and the seventh day came, He had already completed His work. Importantly, all of God’s creation of the cosmos, including all the angels, was completed by the sixth day. His work of creation was done.
Adventists have historically claimed that God’s final creation came on the seventh day when He supposedly “created” the Sabbath. Yet this idea is simply nowhere in the text. God’s work was completed BY the seventh day; there was no creation of a day called Sabbath.
It is also important to notice that the word “Sabbath” does not occur in either verse two or verse three. It only says “on the seventh day”.
It is also important to notice that the word “Sabbath” does not occur in either verse two or verse three. It only says “on the seventh day”.
The next thing we observe is that God “rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.” Importantly, the Hebrew word underlying “rested” means simply “to cease, desist, rest” (Strong’s H7673). It is not a word denoting worship or holiness or sacredness. It simply means that God ceased from His work. Period. By the seventh day His work was done—and He CEASED!
In verse three we read that “God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.”
Here there are several things to notice. First, the seventh day is the first time in the creation account when the number of the day is not bound and marked by a darkness-light cycle of an evening and a morning. In other words, this seventh day is not said to have a beginning and an end. This day marks the full reality of God’s finished work of creation—and that finished work did not stop and start again every seventh day. It was perfect and permanent, interrupted only when Adam and Eve sinned. God didn’t pick up His work of creating on the day after the seventh; His rest wasn’t temporary. His ceasing was complete.
The seventh day was unique; it was unbounded and complete, and God was pleased with His finished work.
Second, God blessed and sanctified this unique, unbounded seventh day. In other words, He blessed and sanctified His own finished work! His finished creation, complete with all the creatures and life forms He had made, was perfect, and He ceased from His work. God blessed this finished work and set it apart for His glory and His use. As Colossians 1:16 says, “[A]ll things have been created through Him and for Him.” The finished work that was first completed by the seventh day was for God’s purposes and glory, and He set it apart for Himself.
…there is no command in these first three verses of Genesis 2. This is a purely descriptive passage; there is no prescription here.
Importantly, there is no command in these first three verses of Genesis 2. This is a purely descriptive passage; there is no prescription here. We simply learn that God ceased from His work by the seventh day, and this day had no boundaries of dark and light. Furthermore, we learn that God blessed and sanctified this finished work.
According to the words of this passage, the seventh day God blessed was not a literal 24-hour period but the unique day of His ceasing. His finished work was in place, and God declared it set apart for His glory.
Implications
There is nothing in the words of Genesis 1:26–2:3 that suggest that the Sabbath is a “creation ordinance”. Adam and Eve were created on the sixth day, and the unbounded seventh day of God’s finished work was the reality into which Adam and Eve were placed. They knew nothing except their existence within God’s rest, and they participated in His rest and benefited from His finished work.
Until they sinned, they lived in God’s rest. There was no command for them to observe or keep every seventh day. They existed in God’s rest.
We can see from this descriptive account of creation that the Sabbath God gave Israel as the sign of their covenant with Him was a shadow, a reminder of God’s rest on that unique seventh day. We also learn from Colossians 2:16, 17 that the Sabbath was a mere shadow of the reality of the Lord Jesus. By resting every seventh day, Israel was given a reminder of the rest of God’s finished work that Adam and Eve first enjoyed when they were created, and it pointed forward to the finished work of the Lord Jesus which He declared just before He died: “It is finished!” (Jn. 19:30).
Further, the elaborate reasoning of saying God’s rest on the seventh day was actually Adam and Eve’s first day and thus a Sabbath that they observed before the fall, and that this pointed forward to a “Christian Sabbath” on the first day of the week is simply not in Scripture.
Again, there was no command for Adam and Eve in Genesis to observe a day. The seventh day after creation was not bounded by a dark-light cycle, and we cannot infer that God was giving a Sabbath day to mankind. Moreover, the fact that Jesus rose on the first day of the week and that the church was born on the first day of the week does not establish a weekly “Sabbath” for the church.
Of COURSE we celebrate Jesus’ resurrection every first day as believers in Jesus gather to worship Him! Yet nowhere in Scripture is there a command to consider the first day “holy”.
Now that He has come, we enter our rest in Him TODAY, as Hebrews 4:1–9 explains. Created days are not holy days, and in Christ, we leave behind the shadows…
The Mosaic covenant was a covenant of shadows (Heb. 10:1) that pointed to the Lord Jesus who fulfilled it. Now that He has come, we enter our rest in Him TODAY, as Hebrews 4:1–9 explains. Created days are not holy days, and in Christ, we leave behind the shadows of “holy time” and live united with our holy God. We meet on the first day because we love the Lord who purchased our salvation and broke death on that day—but the day is not sanctified. Jesus is holy, and when we are in Him, we become part of the holy priesthood of believers (1 Peter 2:5).
So, our grammatical-historical hermeneutic takes every word of Scripture seriously. We pay attention to verb tenses, to prepositions, to what is said as well as what is not said. We observe the text and resist the temptation to interpret the verses according to our understanding on the basis of tradition or a theological system. We cannot assume that the verses say more than they say nor assign meanings to the words which do not exist. Reading the Bible in context, using the normal rules of grammar and vocabulary, observing the words and taking them seriously—placing ourselves UNDER the word instead of over it—these practices reveal what God actually said to mankind as He inspired the Bible writers to tell us His truth.
God does not trick us, and He does not hide what we need to know. The Lord Jesus has completed everything necessary for our salvation and sanctification. We can trust Him and submit to His word.
He is faithful, and He Himself keeps us safe in Him. †
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One question, are you saying Satan was created and God said it was good?
Beautifully written! Thank you.