I have a very short post today. Just some thoughts on a curious topic.
Sometimes I haunt a few Seventh Day Adventist outreach groups. "Battle groups" I call them. Mainstream Christians and SDA gather together there to bash each other with their side of the story and see who comes out the least bloodied. I don't necessarily recommend engaging in groups like that. It certainly isn't for everyone. It just adds to the anxiety and blood pressure while detracting from the beauty and length of life. It can turn you bitter. Why do I lurk there, you ask? Because I like to see both sides and this is the most efficient way I have found to do that. IF I can manage the self control to stay out of the fray, I tend to get a good look at arguments and motivations.
I have witnessed something in those groups that I find interesting. A strange pattern. Even though you won't see it in Armstrongist circles, a version of it certainly is there none the less. I am referring to the way Adventists say, "The law (the Ten Commandments)."
You might remember this phrase from my post "One Jot Or One Tittle". It's something that, once you see it, you will keep seeing it over and over from Adventists.
Why does that interest me? Because it seems like the ultimate retcon.
They are using the phrase "the law" but then limiting it only to the Ten, literally altering what "the law" means. How do you solve the problem of the law being eternal but ceremonial and national laws are clearly gone? Why, redefine "the law", of course. You just remove 603 laws as if they don't count. Sweep them right under that celestial rug.
Just look at the difference this makes:
The law, all 613, are eternal.
The law (the Ten Commandments) are eternal.
Did you see that? Just think about the ramifications of what I did there. Now, I can have my beloved Sabbath day and not have to worry about levirate marriage or how many turtle doves my offense warrants be sacrificed. It's a total win!
Except, I have absolutely no justification for what I just did.
If you can change what "the law" means, why not change anything you want? If you can wipe out 603 laws as if they don't exist all for the predetermined end of gaining a Sabbath day, then what's to stop you from changing anything at any time? And what help is reasoned discourse going to be if you can just alter facts and figures and definitions at will? The phrase "The law (the Ten Commandments)" represents one of the biggest departures from reality that I can think of.
And where does it come from? It isn't a phrase, or even an idea, that you get from the Bible. This means it's a learned thing. Like propaganda spread by the mainstream media. Someone had to teach this phrase to the people who parrot it. It had to be the Adventist leadership. We here know the bad habit of proof texting. What proof text do they use? One is James 2: 11:
(JAS. 2: 11) For He who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” Now if you do not commit adultery, but you do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.
"See," they say, "sometimes the phrase 'the law' is referring to the Ten Commandments."
But is James referring only to the Ten here? No. Let's go back one verse:
(JAS. 2: 10) For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all.
James did not say "the law" here but "the whole law". James is talking about how violating any point of law makes you guilty of all the whole body of law. James is not saying that if you break one of the Ten then you are guilty of all Ten. It's the whole thing. Then he gives an example. Yes, James does give an example form the Ten, but you cannot take verse 11 without verse 10. The phrase "the law" in 11 does not refer only to the Ten Commandments but to the whole law, because it is a continuation of the idea in 10. "The law" in verse 11 means the same as "the whole law" in 10 - they both refer to the whole law. What's more, neither of those two verses can be taken apart from the context of the surrounding chapter, which is primarily about showing partiality. There is no Commandment against showing partiality. You would have to seriously squint and turn your head sideways to believe that James suddenly thinks "the whole law" means only the Ten. You simply cannot reach that distant conclusion from proof texting James 2: 11.
And this says nothing about how the Adventists also observe [their own view of] tithing and meats laws. Those aren't in the Ten. Over and over we see how legalism wants to have it both ways.
This phrase conveys an understanding about how Adventists see the law. Their doctrine is designed around the Ten Commandments. They have distilled the entire Hebrew system, and [their own view of] Christianity as well, down to the Ten Commandments. Correction - the fourth Commandment. Because we all know this is really about the Sabbath day. Adventism is rooted and founded, built and layered, and their whole identity is contingent upon a day of the week. To the point that when they say "the law" they then follow that up with "(the Ten Commandments)", just so we will all be sure exactly what the phrase "the law" actually means in their system. It's right there in the name: Seventh Day.
But this blog isn't about Adventists. Why would the readers here care about them? Because Armstrongism is a branch of Adventism. Armstrong was a credentialed leader in the Church of God (Seventh Day) which split from the SDA church at the very meeting where they decided on the name Seventh Day Adventists. Armstrongism is the grandchild of the SDA church. We have many articles on this. I recommend "COG Theological Ancestry" and "Herbert W Armstrong's Doctrines and Fruit".
Much of Armstrongism comes from Adventism (and the Jehovah's Witnesses, and the Mormons, and...). Plus, what happens in Adventism has been known to infect Armstrongism. This phrase is something Armstrongists would do well to avoid.
CONCLUSION
This is a short post, because it is just about me thinking out loud about a curiosity. "The law (the Ten Commandments)" is unfamiliar and strange to me. Finding no real support for it at all, I reject it.
You will not find that idea in the Bible - that the law is just the Ten Commandments. In order to justify this, you literally have to go back to when Moses came down that mountain with tablets in hand. Forget everything after that. You will not find authorization for it. You will not find precedent for it. You cannot say the Ten are the only laws mentioned in either the New or the Old Testaments. The Ten are only ten of the 613 mitzvot recognized by the Jews. Clearly, there are more than ten laws in the Old Covenant. I don't think any proof text can justify this phrase. So, when Adventists say, "the law (the Ten Commandments)," this is entirely an Adventist idea. Insular to their community.
After the fact, they've gone backwards and retconned the law.
I think what bothers me the most about it is how it holds a mirror up to humanity. What do I mean by that? I mean it showcases to what great lengths the human heart will go to justify itself. We will distort reality into any shape so long as we think it gets us what we want. Even if we then turn immediately around and contradict ourselves. We want it both ways and neither, and we will do anything necessary to get it.
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Who can know it?
