Editorial

Why the seventh day? Part 2

The continuity of the seventh-day in the light of Christ (Part 2)

Willmore D. Eva, D.Min., is the editor of Ministry and an associate in the Ministerial Association of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.

The first of this two-part series began by asking the question, Why continue to hold the seventh-day Sabbath sacred as a day of worship, if a new order has been established with the advent of Jesus Christ Himself. If Jesus brought with Him the ultimate rest of the gospel, why is there need to observe any particular day of rest and worship? Wasn't the seventh day simply an old-covenant institution prefiguring the arrival of the ultimate rest of faith inaugurated in Messiah? Why concentrate on the shadow when the Reality has appeared?

We did not answer the thrust of these questions in part 1, but instead we purposely went back to lay an Old Testament foundation and to review the cosmic or universal nature and significance of the Sabbath, thus preparing the way for the more critical issues that will be taken up in this final part of the study. We showed that the seventh-day Sabbath, based on its Creation origin, its pre-Hebrew, pre-law, pre-sin, and divine infra structure was invested with qualities clearly transcendent of anything limited to Hebrew or "Jewish" covenantal constructs, such as what is often called "the old covenant."

We will now go on to review how Jesus' Messianic arrival actually affected or impacted the role of law, an elemental part of the so-called old covenant. Here, though we will glance at the role of all law in the biblical framework, we will especially be concentrating on the Ten Commandments, the fourth of which deals with the sacredness of the seventh day. This article represents the more significant part of our study.

There are, of course, numbers of New Testament passages that could be chosen as fundamental to our discussion. For the sake of appropriate limitation and brevity, we will touch especially on relevant aspects of Galatians 3:19-25. In working with that passage, we will also refer to passages such as Romans 7:4-14, John 1:1-18 and Hebrews 1:1-4, along with allusions and references to other relevant biblical material.

The thrust of Paul's Galatian letter

Paul's letter to the Galatian churches deals frontally with the heart of the question of the impact of Jesus' first advent on the role of law in relation to that of Christ in the life of the New Testament believer, especially as this related to the many Gentiles who were coming into what was at the time a largely Jewish church. The tension in this letter, and in much of Paul's other writing, is between law and Christ as the way of faith, more than it is between law and grace. (The traditionally identified law-grace tension is not as comprehensively reflective of Paul's thinking in passages such as Galatians 3, as is the law-Christ tension.) This is not an insignificant or contrived distinction to make, as will be seen later. Further, in pointing out this distinction there is absolutely no desire to compromise in the slightest the magnificent grace of God and its operation in the gospel and the lives of human beings, or its outstanding prominence in Paul's writing.

At the heart of the Galatian "heresy" were the "Judaizers," or "believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees"1 (Acts 15:5). They were influential in their belief that the burgeoning Christian community should be held to Jewish or Mosaic ceremonial obligations such as circumcision and the observance of holy days. They held that the Gentile Christian was obligated to continue keeping the whole law (as Paul identifies in Gal. 5:1-6) in order to achieve standing with God. Although their perceived obligations involved observances such as circumcision, behind that the whole Mosaic system was involved, which by all means included the Sinai decalogue. It is with these influences in mind that Paul wrote to the Galatian churches, seeking to disabuse their minds of such teaching. In all of this the question is, of course, not only what Paul was against in the teaching of the Judaizers, but what his teaching actually was. What was his gospel and how did it relate to law?

In his Galatian letter Paul passionately reminded the believers of the gospel he brought to them the gospel of Christ, which essentially proclaimed that the law had come to maturity and complete fulfillment in Jesus the Christ. He did this by showing how Christ, through "faith" had released them from their "custody under the law" (3:23, NASB) in order that they may be "baptized into Christ" (verse 27, NASB), be "clothed... with Christ" (verse 27, NASB) and "belong to Christ" (verse 29, NASB). (Note the law-Christ tension rather than the more limited law-grace tension.)

What does Paul mean by "the law"?

But what significance does this have, especially in relation to our view of law, faith, Christ and the seventh day? What law was Paul referring to when he told the Galatians that "the law was our custodian ['schoolmaster,' KJV] until Christ came"? What was the "custodian" which since the arrival of Christ (or faith) they were "no longer under" (verses 23-26, RSV)? In answering this crucial question it may be helpful to refer to an important chapter in Seventh-day Adventist history.

Galatians 3:19-25 was the biblical focal point of a renowned controversy that rocked the Seventh-day Adventist Church in 1888 at a General Conference session held in Minneapolis, Minnesota. At that time many said that the law Paul referred to in Galatians 3 was merely the "ceremonial" or law of Moses essentially the corpus of statutes which governed the cultic life of Israel as we have it today in the books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. For example, they correctly believed that the whole sacrificial system had found its fulfilment in the sacrifice of Christ on the cross, and because of this fulfillment Christians were no longer obligated to observe the ceremonial aspects of Hebrew law. But as I will attempt to show, they erroneously believed that the Ten Commandments were excluded from Paul's use of the word "law" in this passage. In other words, Paul encompasses the Ten Commandments when he talks of the law in Galatians 3.

Minneapolis Adventists were committed to maintaining the full authority and intent of all ten of the commandments. In this they were correct, even though they did not see crucial aspects of Paul's teaching which, if seen, would have thrown important light on their interpretations. They were used to debating "the perpetuity of the law" with other Protestants, by which they meant the Decalogue, or "moral law." Nestled securely in their motivation to maintain the authority of the Ten Commandments was their worthy desire to maintain the validity of the seventh day as the day of worship.

The 1888 controversy continued beyond its beginnings in Minneapolis. In 1900 a highly significant though seldom recognized interpretation of Galatians 3:19-25 was published. In essence this position was expressed as follows: "I am asked concerning the law in Galatians. What law is the schoolmaster to bring us to Christ? I answer: Both the ceremonial and the moral code often commandments."2 A few years later the same interpretation was repeated, with more emphasis: " 'The law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith' (Gal. 3:24). In this scripture, the Holy Spirit through the apostle is speaking especially of the moral law."3

The implications of this for the interpretation of the Galatian message and particularly Galatians 3:19-25 are far-reaching and pro found. It has pivotal importance for both Seventh-day Adventists, who still tend to hold to an array of post- Minneapolis interpretations, and for other Christians, who may also have some uncertainty about what Paul was articulating in this passage.

To see that Paul includes the Ten Commandments in his teaching in Galatians 3, it is helpful to go to Galatians 4 and notice the illustration of Sarah and Hagar that Paul uses. Verse 24 points out clearly that Hagar represents one covenant (the old covenant) which, Paul says proceeded from "Mount Sinai, bearing children who are to be slaves" (emphasis supplied). The reference to Mount Sinai shows unequivocally that Paul has the moral law or the Sinai decalogue (the Ten Commandments) in mind in his Galatian teaching, and not just the "ceremonial law" as many Adventists have maintained.

This is more clearly expressed in Romans 7. In verse 4 Paul tells the Roman believers that through the death of Jesus they died to the law. Which law? In Romans 7:7 Paul definitely includes the decalogue (and thus the fourth commandment) in his thinking. In this verse he quotes the tenth commandment as illustrative of his arguments about the role of law and Christ: "For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, 'Do not covet.'"

The pivotal issue: Living by Christ

In terms of our topic, however, it is even more critical to note the pivotal effect that this dying to the law has on the nature of Christian living or behavior. Through Christ we died to the law (including every one of the Ten Commandments) "that you [we] might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God" (Romans 7:4, emphasis supplied). This is consistent with what Paul says in Galatians:" [the law] was added because of transgressions ... until the Seed ...had come' (Gal. 3:19, emphasis added).

The decisive message in both Galatians 3 and Romans 7 is not merely that the role of the law, including the Ten Commandments, has been altered by the coming of Christ the Seed, but that a fresh center of moral or ethical definition has been introduced not now a written code, but the living Word Himself. Paul's point is not the actual setting aside of the moral law or any part of it, but through the Christ event, afar more complete, definitive and effective rendering of all that is true and right (gospel and law) in the person of Jesus Christ Himself.

It seems to me that historically, Adventists have not grasped this watershed reality. Thus they have suffered from the permeating fear that if the Ten Commandments are "removed," then nothing will be left to govern human behavior, including the matter of worshiping on the seventh day. Meanwhile, what Paul is saying is that since Messiah's arrival, discipline and guidance have been established on a front better than that of even the Ten Commandments, and that front is nothing less than the definitive person of the Lawgiver Himself, Jesus Christ. (This, is in fact expresses the theme of the book of Hebrews quite well.)

On the other hand many Sunday-keeping evangelicals have also tended to be unaware of this reality, as a pivotal theological and practical principle. In their highly admirable desire to deny the law any salvific virtue, they have perhaps not fully recognized or applied the definitive nature of the person of Christ Himself as the personification of all that is true and holy, including His magnificent expressions in both life and teaching when it comes to the seventh day. Thus they have tended to rather vaguely single out the seventh day as the one aspect of the decalogue which should be revoked or invalidated in the light of Christ's Messianic arrival.

The point is that under the "old covenant" the ethical or moral emphasis was on the validity of the written code, the law. Since the arrival of Jesus the emphasis has shifted to the divine, definitive person of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, the giver of the law in the first place. There is a significant difference in theological orientation and practical result between obedience that comes by merely observing the written code, and the loving discipleship that develops when, having found forgiveness, new birth and having experienced the power of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, one simply follows the living Christ, the One who is the believer's righteousness to begin with. Of course, Christians talk extensively about discipleship, and about Romans and Galatians, but it is not easy to find a general understanding of how this matter of belonging to Another rather than merely to law, fits into Paul's stupendous overall teaching in passages such as Romans 7 and Galatians 3.

In Romans 3 Paul talks of "a righteousness from God, apart from law" (verse 21), one in fact that conies through faith in Christ (verse 22).

Consistent with this, in Romans 7 Paul not only talks of dying to the law in order that we may belong to another, but of dying in or with Christ and doing it "so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code" (Rom. 7:6, emphasis supplied). Again, many have been so afraid of the perceived negative implications that dying to the law would produce, that they have been unable to see the three fabulous resultant principles which are by all means worth repeating:

  • When we die to the law, the way is opened for us to belong to Another Who is far more capable than is the law of bringing forth "fruit to God" (Rom. 7:4).
  • And companion to that: By dying to what bound us (the law), we are released for the specific purpose of serving "in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code" (Rom. 7:6).
  • The law, specifically the Ten Commandments, was perfectly fulfilled, spelled out and re-constituted with consummate and ultimate beauty and definitude in the person of Jesus Christ, so that the believer could, by the Holy Spirit, come to "walk, even as he walked" (1 John 2:6, KJV), and that not in order to do away with or compromise the Decalogue, but rather to establish it more firmly than ever (see Rom. 3:31, 7:12 and Matt. 5:17-48).

Of course this dying to the law includes all ten of the commandments as they were originally given. There really is no supportable reason to single out the fourth commandment as an exception to the other nine, especially in the light of the realities presented in part 1 of our study. No serious Christian questions the validity of any of the other nine commandments as being part and parcel of an abiding, continuing core of human morality residing not merely in some legal expression, but in the very person of God Himself, and in what is by its nature crucial to any quality of life on this planet. There is no reason to exclude the fourth commandment from this core, especially as we interpret Paul as we do in this article.

We must say unequivocally that just as Jesus' living out or personification of any of the commandments does not decrease a "jot or tittle" of their natural and divine thrust, neither does Jesus' approach to the seventh day interfere with the validity of the commandment concerning the seventh day.

The Word became flesh ... the law became flesh

In words of watershed significance and profound beauty John says, as he introduces his gospel, "In the beginning was the Word and ... the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth" (1:1, 14). Though much more is encompassed in this, we can say that what had only been expressed as "Word" or in words for example, the Ten Commandments, including the commandment concerning the sacredness of the seventh day became flesh in Jesus of Nazareth, and was lived out by Him as it was ideally meant to be lived and in terms of its original intent and ultimate meaning. In the living Christ "the word" was incarnated, law was incarnated, the seventh day was incarnated, and in the incarnation of what had so far only been spoken and written, came the fullest expression of truth.

Jesus Christ is Himself that truth. He is the way and the life (John 14:6). Once again, in Christ the written code conies to life in the being of the Writer Himself. The Author of the law comes to his world and to his creation and lives out among us all that the written code was ever meant to convey. This Picture is indeed worth a thousand words!

The magnification of law in Christ

Jesus did not negate law. In his life and person, He simply gave the written code its fullest expression, thus confirming it and affirming it, while at the same time He placed its principles on a higher plane than they had been placed at Sinai. In this every aspect of the Sinai Sabbath must be included. Jesus is a much greater or better revelation than even his own finger could depict in words on tables of stone at Mount Sinai. And this Messianic expression is just as valid for one commandment as it is for another, including the fourth.

Until Jesus came we only had, as it were, a book to read. We could see truth, whether gospel or law, only in shadowy types and prophetic proclamations. Good as these were, they could give only a limited picture of what the Author wished to convey. When Jesus came we saw and heard the Writer and in Him the full reality. We could then look at His living being and hear His teaching from His own lips. Through the gift of the Holy Spirit this is continued (John 14,15 and 16). This definitive Messianic role is profoundly stated in passages such as Hebrews 1:1-4. This is also crucial to Jesus' Magna Carta message in the Sermon on the Mount, most clearly seen in Matthew 5.

The seventh day re-created and maintained in Christ

There are those who say that although all of the other nine commandments were confirmed or re-affirmed in the New Testament, or under the new covenant, the fourth is the only one that is not. This simply is not so. For example, if one accepts the highly and rather universally respected assumption that the gospel records are not merely primitive, anecdotal expressions of early Christian memory, but instead mature elucidations of theological thought or truth, then all of the recorded actions of Jesus in the four gospels take on a potent significance. The gospel writers are then seen to have carefully selected, under inspiration, certain illustrative occurrences from the life of Jesus in order to exhibit or expose what it was that Jesus' life and teaching was all about.

This being a sound principle, there is lavish New Testament verification of the Sabbath just in the accounts of the miracles Jesus performed on that day. Some of His most sublime teaching or thinking on the issue of the seventh day comes out in the way he performed these miracles.

For example, in the story of the man with the withered hand who was in the synagogue one Sabbath (Luke 6:6-10), nothing is said or even alluded to concerning any abolishing of the seventh day. Rather, Jesus' words and actions that day definitively expose the true and ultimate meaning of the Sabbath. In Luke 6 and elsewhere, Jesus acted to frontally uncover or display the Christian, or new covenant meaning of the seventh day. By His words and actions in the synagogue Jesus invested the seventh day with associations of restoration, healing, re-creation and liberation essential universal characteristics of the Messiah and the gospel of His kingdom.

Jesus' intention, it seems, was to reveal the new covenant, gospel meaning of the seventh day, including an all-encompassing significance that embraced not only its Creation connections, but its re-creation associations also. By modeling this kind of Sabbath Jesus eliminated from it the encrustations and oppressive legalisms that some of the tradition-bound religious leaders of His day had placed in and around the Sabbath. A careful re-reading of all of the gospel stories of Sabbath miracles and other Sabbath occurrences reveals the same kind of treatment of the seventh day in each case.

It is difficult to see how Jesus' arrival could have been calculated to remove the Seventh day when its significance or meaning had been declared in the Old Testament to be strongly associated with the unchangeable creation event itself (Genesis 2:1,2 and Exodus 20:8-11). In other words, one cannot name any aspect of the arrival of Jesus that would logically justify or encourage a negation of the creation event and thus the meaning and role of the Seventh day, established at the creation and again at Sinai. It is true that in many ways type met antitype in Jesus, but one cannot say that the creation of the world was a type of any kind, whose meaning and celebration should cease when a reality arrived. The fact is, (and I am aware, of course, that many do not see it to be a fact) that the creation is not a symbolic, cultic or ceremonial event. The Bible and common sense see it to be a fact, a happening. The wording of the fourth commandment also sees it to be a fact which does not change, even as the sacredness of the Seventh day therefore does not change.

Much more could be said as we recognize the new-covenant nature of the seventh day. For example, it is significant that once Jesus had completed his incarnational work, dying with the words "It is finished" on his lips, he rested in the tomb over the seventh day, apparently confirming by this the significance and the connections this day was designed to have in the light of His arrival. In this He connected Seventh day rest not only to Creation, but also to redemption.

Another question that could stand some development is the question of the "holy days" found in passages such as Romans 14 and Colossians 2. Suffice it to say that if Paul, in these passages has in mind the cosmic, Creation-sourced, weekly Sabbath of the decalogue, we have some difficult matters to explain. This is so because when one considers, for example, the serious, significant, often mentioned, contention that the first-century Church experienced over matters such as circumcision and clean versus unclean food, one can only begin to imagine the atomic explosion that might have ensued had the issue of the weekly Sabbath been questioned by people such as Paul. There is no evidence at all of such a velocity of conflict in connection with the seventh day. This by all means suggests that the "holy days" mentioned in Paul's letters were not understood by early Christian communities to be the weekly seventh day of the Decalogue, but instead, as the Pauline language itself suggests, particular, ceremonially significant sabbaths or feast days.

Conclusion

As we consider the seventh day and its enduring nature, it is vital that we embrace in our thinking all of the realities expressed in Part 1 of this study (see the July 1999 issue of Ministry), integrating them carefully into the crucial matters exposed in this second part. When this holistic approach is employed in our study of the Bible's overall treatment of the matter of law, Christ, and the seventh day, a magnificent Christ-sourced and centered Sabbath emerges, entirely consistent and indeed integral to new covenant realities, including the wonder of the verity that Jesus Himself is the rest of the believer and indeed the ultimate personification and terminus of all truth.

This article is the last of a two-part
article on the Sabbath. Part 1 appeared in
the July 1999 issue of Ministry.

1 All quotes from the Bible follow the
New International Version, unless
otherwise specified.

2 Ellen G. White, Selected Messages
(Hagerstown, Md.: Review and Herald
Pub. Assn., 1958), 1:233.

3 Ibid., 234.


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Willmore D. Eva, D.Min., is the editor of Ministry and an associate in the Ministerial Association of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.

September 1999

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