Critiquing the Seventh Day Adventist view of the Sabbath

This text is from a letter written by David Gooding in 1990.

The argument from silence, though normally very risky, is, in this context, overwhelming. Greeks, and especially Greek slaves, did not follow a seven-day week in the cities in which they lived and, therefore, when Greeks became Christians, if it was necessary for them to keep the Sabbath, they would have had to be told explicitly that from now on they must start to keep the Sabbath. They would not have done so automatically. The fact, therefore, that nowhere in all the epistles are Gentile believers instructed to keep the Sabbath is very significant. Moreover, Greek Christian slaves would not normally be free to keep the Sabbath; the slave-owners would require them to work on the Sabbath. If, therefore, the Sabbath was a moral commitment, Greek Christian slaves would have had to be told that they must keep it, and if necessary disobey their masters and suffer the consequences of refusing to work. But, of course, there is no hint of any such thing in the New Testament epistles. Here, I repeat, the argument from silence seems to me to be overwhelming.

I come now to the second part of your letter, where you list several SDA contentions for which you do not have complete answers. I comment on them as follows:

The decalogue was a set of moral laws

The SDA contention is that the moral law—the Decalogue—was written on tablets of stone (see Deuteronomy 4:13) by the finger of God; while the ceremonial law, consisting of statutes and ordinances (Deuteronomy 4:14) was written in a book by Moses. The claim that some laws were written on the stone tables and others were written in a book is perfectly true; but the claim that all those which were written on the tables of stone were moral laws, whereas none of those which were written in the book were moral laws, is exceedingly arbitrary. The greatest of all the commandments, according to the Lord Jesus, 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, mind, soul, and strength', and the second greatest commandment, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself'—neither of them was written on the two tables of stone. Are we to believe that the two greatest commandments of all were not moral commandments? The claim is completely arbitrary, and utterly false.

The fact that the law of Sabbath was not a moral commandment is plainly seen from our Lord's remarks in Matthew 12:5: 'Have you not read in the law, how that on the sabbath days the priests in the temple profane the sabbath, and are guiltless?' It would be impossible to say the same about any of the other nine commandments on the two tables of stone. How would it sound, for instance, if we said, 'on the sabbath days the priests in the temple commit adultery, and are guiltless; or bear false witness, and are guiltless; or murder, and are guiltless'? Substitute any one of the nine in this formula, and the result is moral nonsense, or worse. Whereas our Lord's statement, that on the Sabbath day the priests in the temple break the Sabbath and are guiltless, does not involve moral nonsense. And the reason for this difficulty is plain: the other nine commandments are moral laws; the law of Sabbath is not a moral law. If it were a moral law, there could be no circumstances whatsoever in which it was perfectly all right to break it.

You next observe that SDA doctrine declares that the decalogue in its entirety is still in force, and is the yardstick of righteousness. In support of this they quote our Lord's words from Matthew 5:17–18:

Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.

Well, to start with, what now becomes of their distinction between what was written on the tables of stone (moral), and what was written in the book (ceremonial)? The term, the law and the prophets, referred among the Jews to the Pentateuch—which was the law—and the former and the later prophets—that is, the historical books, Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, the major prophets and the minor prophets, with the exception of Daniel. For instance, in Luke 16:16, our Lord says 'The law and the prophets were until John'; and in Luke 24:44, he adds the third division of the Old Testament: 'the law of Moses, and the prophets, and the psalms'.

Does SDA doctrine tell us that the whole of the Pentateuch and all its sundry laws are still in force? They do not, of course. They make a distinction themselves between the moral law and the ceremonial law, and they say that the ceremonial law has been abrogated. And so they arbitrarily reduce the standard phrase, 'the law and the prophets', in this verse to mean not what it means everywhere else, but only the Decalogue and the prophets. That is unfair exegesis.

Moreover, it is important to observe that it is utterly inadequate to divide the Pentateuch into two groups of laws, the one moral and the other ceremonial. Outside the Decalogue there were many laws that we should call civil. They regulated not only rituals in the temple, nor strictly moral matters like adultery and theft, but also such questions as not muzzling the ox that drew out the corn, or leaving the gleanings of your field for widows and orphans to collect for themselves, or permitting people who walk through your orchard to gather and eat fruit but not to put any in a basket and take it away.

Similarly, there were political laws—for instance the directions in Deuteronomy 17 for the appointment of a king and the qualifications he must have. Now, a lot of these civil and political laws are founded on basic moral principles. To dismiss them all as ceremonial, because they are not in the Decalogue, is nonsense. Are we to think then, that all these civil and political laws are still in force, because our Lord said that not one jot or tittle of the law should pass away? Moreover, the law in the sense of the Pentateuch lays down how a Sabbath was to be fulfilled: no one was to light any fire in their houses on the Sabbath. In the sense that the law of Moses defined the Sabbath, the SDAs themselves do not keep the Sabbath, but break it every week. They excuse themselves by their notion that by the law our Lord simply referred to the Ten Commandments; but the evidence of the whole of the Gospels goes against them. When our Lord talked of the law and the prophets, he did not restrict himself simply to the Ten Commandments.

Jesus upheld the Sabbath

Another contention of the SDA's is that Jesus upheld the Sabbath; referred to himself as lord of it (see Matthew 12:8); and declared it was for man, not just Israel (see Mark 2:27). As usual, the only safe way to expound a passage of the New Testament is to expound it in its context.

In the context in Mark, our Lord was not intending to make a distinction between Israel and the Gentiles. The Gentiles are nowhere mentioned in the context. The distinction our Lord was making was that this commandment from God was made for man's benefit. Therefore, to interpret the commandment in such a way that the keeping of it would injure a man, would be a misinterpretation of the commandment. Man was not created so that there may be somebody around to keep the Sabbath law: the Sabbath law was invented to help man.

Secondly, the Greek adjective kuriakos is never used along with the word 'day' in the Old Testament to indicate a Sabbath day. Indeed, the adjective kuriakos is not used at all in the canonical Old Testament. In the Septuagint, it occurs only once, and that is at 2 Maccabees 15:36. On the other hand, it is used only twice in the New Testament: once in 1 Corinthians 11:20 for the Lord's Supper, and once in Revelation 1:10 for the Lord's Day. There is no doubt whatsoever on what day the early Christians were accustomed to meet together to celebrate the Lord's Supper. Acts 20:7 explicitly tells us that the disciples at Troas came together on the first day of the week to break bread. We gather from that passage that they assembled in the evening. So, even if they gathered on Saturday evening, as they may have done, according to Jewish reckoning, that would be the beginning of the first day of the week, since the Sabbath ends at sundown on Saturday.

'Pray that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day' (Matthew 24:20)

When our Lord says in Matthew 24:20, 'Pray that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day', he is talking of the abomination of desolation that is to be set up in the temple at Jerusalem. Whatever view of prophecy you take, it is certain that at that time there will be God-fearing Jews in Jerusalem who may well not be Christians, but who will still keep the Sabbath and, because they keep the Sabbath, some of them would not feel free to break the Sabbath, even for the purpose of fleeing. Though, of course, since the time of the Maccabees, the majority of Jews have been taught that in war time, or in any other difficult situation, it is all right to break one Sabbath—in order to escape with your life—so as to be able to keep all the remaining Sabbaths. Moreover, even if those Jews in Jerusalem are Christians, they may well have a conscience about keeping the Sabbath, like the Messianic Jews in Jerusalem have to this day. Scripture leaves it to the conscience of each individual believer as to whether they observe one day above another, or all days alike.

'The Catholic Church introduced Sunday observance'

The idea that it was the Catholic church that introduced Sunday observance is simply false. The passage we have already quoted from in Acts shows the believers meeting on the first day of the week to break bread. And indeed, it was on two consecutive first days of the week that the risen Lord appeared to his apostles in the Upper Room. And it was doubtless those appearances on the first day of the week that led the early believers to continue meeting on the first day of the week to celebrate, not only the Lord's death, but his resurrection. It is indeed a very powerful piece of historical evidence for the resurrection, that these early Jews, who were not brought up to meet on the first day of the week for religious purposes, suddenly began to meet on the first day of the week. One naturally asks, 'Why the change?', and the Gospel indicates that this habit of meeting on the first day of the week (see John 20:19, 26) was because the Lord rose on the first day of the week and appeared to his disciples on the first day of the week. Incidentally, when John 20:26 says that our Lord appeared on the second occasion 'after eight days', John is following the Greek inclusive method of counting. In modern English, we should say after seven days.

'The New Testament passages which seem to nullify the Sabbath refer to feast days, not the seventh day Sabbath'

But who said so? Colossians 2:16 reads, 'Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days'—and in that context, the Sabbath day is something different from a feast day or a new moon. Moreover, that same verse indicates that the spiritual lessons inculcated by the Sabbath day find their full reality in Christ. The outward observance of the Sabbath is a shadow: the body, that is to say, the real spiritual reality, is Christ and the rest he gives to those who trust him (see Hebrew 3 and 4).

'Seven is the number of perfection or totality'

Yes, certainly. Seven is generally recognized by all Bible students to be the number of perfection or totality: the seventh in a series is the completion and end of the series. Our Lord rose from the dead on the first day of the week. Here was a new beginning. It is that new beginning that we celebrate on the first day of the week. The theory that the millennium will be the seventh period of one-thousand years in earth's history is a very ancient theory. It could, I suppose, be right. But one would first have to establish beyond doubt the vexed question of the chronology of the Old Testament. Many people hold that the Old Testament covers four thousand years, plus an extra four years. But that is not necessarily so. Moreover, the Septuagint has quite a different chronology.

Finally, it is the fact that Christians are in some sense governed by laws. We are not justified by the works of the law; but, on the other hand, Paul points out that the righteous requirement of the law is to be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit (see Romans 8:4). But here we must consider the special meaning that attaches to law—not the Law—as a principle. For instance, when Paul says in Romans 6:14, 'For sin shall not have dominion over you: for you are not under law, but under grace', it is important to notice that he does not say you are not under the law, but simply you are not under law. The Old Testament law was not merely instruction—though that is what the Hebrew word Torah means; it was not merely advice: i.e., you would be well advised not to tell lies, and not to murder. The Old Testament law was command and prohibition plus penalty. It commanded you to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength, and the moment you fell a hairbreadth short, it cursed you. It is the penalty that Christ has removed by his death for us. That means that, while as believers we should so live that the righteous standards of the law should be fulfilled in us, we are no longer under law as a principle. We do not have to keep the commandments under pain of eternal death if we should break them. 'There is,' as Romans 8:1 says, 'no condemnation', no penalty, for them that are in Christ Jesus.' The motive power in a believer's life is not the fear of suffering the penalty of the law, but the positive power of the Holy Spirit within (see Galatians 5:18).

Incidentally, don't forget about the very serious error of the SDAs' doctrine of the cleansing of the sanctuary in 1844. To teach, as they do, that Christ did not enter the holiest of all immediately upon his ascension, but had to wait until 1844, borders on the blasphemous. I am sure that if an SDA grasped this, it would do more than any argument about the Sabbath to release them from the grip of the SDAs.

I hope, then, that these remarks have been of some help to you. If I can help you further in any way, do please let me know.

Yours very sincerely in Christ,