SEVENTH DAY ADVENTISTS AND
SABBATH KEEPING
The
James White and his wife, Ellen G.
White, became the leaders of Miller’s movement.
They added additional doctrines to those taught by Miller. The
Ellen G. White claimed to be inspired by God. She claimed God gave her visions and revelations (she suffered from hallucinations as a result of a childhood accident). In 1847, Mrs. White claimed she had a vision in which she was taken up into Heaven. She said the ten commandments were shown to her. The fourth commandment “Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy” had a bright light around it, according to her. She said this meant that keeping the sabbath (Saturday, the seventh day of the week) was required of all people.
In an effort to prove that we are to keep the sabbath today, Seventh Day Adventists say there are two laws in the Old Testament: (1) the Law of God - the ten commandments; (2) the Law of Moses - the ceremonial law. They further claim that only the Law of Moses was done away when Christ died on the cross. The Law of God (ten commandments), which includes the command to “Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy,” was not done away, Adventists say. They teach it is still binding upon all people today.
This Adventist view of the Law is a
plain contradiction of Bible teaching. The New Testament teaches that we today
are under no part of the Old Testament (Romans
7:1-7; 2 Corinthians 3:1-18; Galatians
The Bible also clearly teaches that
the “Law of God” and the “Law of Moses” refer to the same law (Nehemiah 8:1, 18; Ezra 7:6, 12; Luke
Following are seven reasons people today are not bound to keep the sabbath (Saturday):
(1) In 2 Corinthians 3, a comparison of terms is used to contrast that which is passing away ”abolished” (verse 13) and (verses 7,11,14) with that which (verse 11) “remains”:
Abolished Remains
Written with ink Written by the Spirit
Written on stone Written on the heart
The Old Covenant The New Covenant
The letter that kills The Spirit gives life
The ministry of death Ministry of the Spirit
Glorious More glorious
Ministry of condemnation Min. of righteousness
“The veil” The mirror
Bondage
Moses The Lord
The ten commandments are included in the list of those things which were abolished! done away with!
(2) The letter to the Galatians was written to warn of false teachers who were trying to take away the freedom which Christians have in Jesus Christ. They wanted to bring them into slavery to the Law of Moses (Galatians 2:4; 5:1).
The Law of Moses was given 350 years after God’s promise to
Abraham (Galatians
(3) In Romans 7, the apostle Paul says that Christians are “dead to the law” (Romans 7:4). He also says
that we have been “delivered from the
law” (verse 6). The law they were dead to said “You shall not covet”
(verse 7). Since this is one of the ten
commandments, this means the law they were dead to and discharged from
was the law which contained the ten commandments. The tenth commandment is: “You shall not covet” (Exodus
(4) Jeremiah 31:31-34 is a prophecy regarding the Law which included
the ten commandments: “Behold, the days
are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of
Israel and with the house of Judah. not
according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took
them by the hand to lead them out of the
(5) Paul wrote to the Christians in Colossae that “the handwriting of requirements (a direct reference to the ten commandments) that was against us, which was contrary to us”; He has “taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross” (Colossians 2:14).
(6) After Paul had told the
Christians in Colossae that the “handwriting
of requirements” was nailed to the cross, he instructed them: “So let no one judge you in food or in drink,
or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things
to come, but the substance is of Christ” (Colossians 2:16,17). These
passages clearly teach that the sabbath
is not binding today, nor has it ever been binding on Christians. It was only
for the people of
(7) It is wrong to go to the Old Testament to support a doctrine when we clearly live under the New Testament today. In fact, Paul said those who seek to be justified by the Old Law are “estranged from Christ, and have fallen from grace” (Galatians 5:4).
Seventh Day Adventists also forbid
the eating of certain foods. This is a
clear violation of I Timothy 4:1-5 which teaches that all
foods are good to eat if they are received with thanksgiving. Too, they teach the false doctrine called
“soul sleeping” which is contrary to the Lord’s teaching in Luke 16:19-31. In addition to these other false doctrines,
they deny eternal punishment, but the Bible clearly teaches it (Matthew
The church of the Bible was
established by Jesus Christ, not Ellen G. White (Matthew
There were many Christians long
before Ellen G. White claimed to have her revelations from God. There has never been a need for anything but
the Gospel to save us from our sins (Romans
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