There is a pattern found in Scripture as to how God goes about giving a command, followed by a test to see whether you will follow it, or circumvent it.
This methodology; this process, if found in the very beginning, and it is related to whether one will believe God, place their faith, trust, belief, solely with God, or not.
God created Adam and Eve. He gave them a test to see whether they would follow and obey Him, or compromise faith, using the tree of the knowledge of good and evil as the basis of this test.
There were two choices presented… two trees. There was the tree of life, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They were told they could partake of the fruit of any tree, with the express exception of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
So there are two specific trees mentioned; one allowed, the other not allowed, where both trees are God’s trees.
Life is found, or results, upon eating or partaking of the Tree of Life, where the narrative points out they would have lived forever upon partaking of it, and death is found by partaking of the other of God’s trees.
Enter the serpent into the narrative. He confronts Eve, and draws her attention to the second one of God’s trees, and Eve responds with what they were commanded in relation to it; eat of it, and they would die. The serpent contradicts God, and claims the opposite in a round about way; that they would become like God, knowing good and evil; that there was something of great value to be had should they partake of it; eat of its fruit. All the while, the other tree is still there, and accessible. The Tree of Life, and the option to eat of its fruit.
(John 6:53-58) Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever.
The parallels could hardly be more obvious. Life is found and acquired by partaking of Christ, where “eating His flesh” follows the pattern of eating of the Tree of Life.
Eve however, and by extension Adam, ended up partaking of the wrong tree, influenced by the serpent to do so - God’s tree - that imparted a knowledge of evil.
(Romans 7:7) What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.
That tree was not sin. It was God’s tree that served a particular function. It identified sin, and condemned the sinner.
God commanded Adam and Even not to eat of that tree. They did anyway, at the goading of the serpent; a commandment that included a specific punishment for disobedience to that verbal command.
The law, which contained commandments, is what produces the wrath; the punishment for disobedience to written commands where some of those commandments were specific to that “covenant” law God made with the Hebrews at Mt. Sinai.
That law follows a similar pattern regarding the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, found in the very first two commandments in the Decalogue.
(Exodus 20:1-3) And God spake all these words, saying, I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
God here was the One who rescued them from the slavery of Egypt, described as being their salvation. He was their Savior. No one else came to their rescue.
(Exodus 14:13) And Moses said unto the people, Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD, which he will shew to you to day: for the Egyptians whom ye have seen to day, ye shall see them again no more for ever.
We are still dealing with typology here, as was the case with the narrative in Genesis with the two trees. Their salvation from God was a physical rescue from Egypt. The ultimate salvation of God is spiritual, for the soul; the inner man composed and described as the heart, mind, and soul of mankind.
But now, following this first commandment in the Decalogue, look carefully to what comes next and compare this with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil which I remind you again was God’s tree.
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: (Exodus 20:4)
Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments. (Exodus 20:5-6)
What is not perceived by those with a veil before their eyes is that a similar test is being made just as was the case in the garden of Eden…
Listen to me; do as I say. Do not have other gods besides Me. I am the God who saved you from Egypt. No one else; no other ‘god’ did so. Do not fall into sin by serving other gods, being obedient to them; gods that are graven images of anything found in heaven above, the earth beneath, or in the water beneath the earth.
What commonly found substance is found in heaven above, upon the earth, and under the sea that can be graven into an image?
Stone.
You are not going to find wood floating around in heaven or under the sea that could be useful for much of anything except maybe kindling. So an idol made of wood, given this criteria, would not be what is being described.
Like the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, set there in the garden of Eden to test Adam and Eve, God now carves out of stone two tablets, and engraves them with commandments, set in stone, where the stone becomes a codification of commandments… a “law”.
What was to happen should anyone transgress or break any of these commandments in this law set? Moses knew and understood, and he witnessed what the Hebrews were doing upon descending from the mount, where they were practicing idolatry already, with an idol of wood overlaid with gold that they equated with the God who rescued them; provided them with their salvation from bondage. He summarily smashed the two tablets of stone; graven images that were to be set before them, where by accepting them and being obedient to them; graven images, was to actually serve and obey them and would have resulted in their condemnation.
(Exodus 32:4) And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.
Fast forward to today and examine how the Decalogue is treated by Sabbatarianism, especially Adventism, where Adventism imbues the Decalogue with many of the characteristics of God, equivocating the Decalogue with God, even as the Hebrews equivocated their idol with God, where to obey the law is equated with obedience to God.
The Decalogue is seen as eternal, like God. Unchangeable, like God. A “transcript of God’s character.” And God is given the characteristics of the law; the Decalogue so that God is seen as condemning transgressions of the law even as the law results in condemnation against those who commit sin. Yet God, in Scripture, specifically states He does not judge like a man does, according to appearance. Rather, God judges according to the heart, and He pointed out that the heart of man is a sinful heart; a “deceitful and desperately wicked heart” in Jeremiah 17:9.
Seeing as the heart is sinful, and the law condemns sinful man, man ends up condemning himself with the very law they embrace they imbue with the characteristics of God, including Savior, thinking the law, and obedience to the law, will result in or enhance their salvation. Theirs is a divided devotion between the law and God, where they cannot see this relationship as idolatrous, so much so, that the Pharisees, who kept and taught the law, and chose the law over God, using the law to judge God as a man judges, according to appearance, where they ‘saw’ Him break the Sabbath by working on the Sabbath, never mind the nature of the work and the heart of God who performed the work.
(Matthew 6:24) No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
It could not be much plainer and simpler to understand. The Pharisees embraced the law; served the law as their master, where God was the other master they threw under the proverbial bus, having a hatred of Him and the Father in heaven.
(John 15:24) If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father.
What works did He do that no other man did? Healed the blind and raised the dead, the issue being He did many of those works on the Sabbath, intentionally so.
Jesus did not sin by working on the Sabbath, doing good works He, God Incarnate, declared to be good works and therefore lawful on the Sabbath. What Sabbatarians ignore, intentionally, is that all the works of those Jews, including the Pharisees who boasted and bragged about their law keeping prowess, were committing sin by condemning Christ Jesus, judging unrighteous judgment, using the law to do so; their idols of engraved stones.
As an interesting aside, I find it fascinating that the Hebrews addressed the gilded calf in the plural, as cited above.
The law; the Decalogue, was another god; engraved in stones: A law obeyed and served, assigned the attributes of God so that they are seen as one and the same in nearly every detail.
A Sabbatarian / Adventist at this point would be bringing to mind what Paul wrote about the law being holy, just, and good as a conditioned response that blocks critical thinking. So a simple question, designed to kick start critical thinking: Was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil holy, just and good? It came from God; created by God, and all God made during those six days of Creation God called good. And you could easily argue that, having been created by God, it had intrinsic holiness. How about just? They were warned not to eat of it, and did anyway, incurring the penalty for doing so, which was justly deserved.
What happened to one under the law who sinned? They were guilty of sin before God and justly condemned, not by God, but by the law they agreed to that demanded the death of the offending party to that covenant law.
They all thought, they all believed, they would be blessed by the law, by keeping the law, with the blessings God said they would receive by keeping it, which they never did, being deceived by their own deceptive hearts. The author of the book of Hebrews points out, retrospectively, they all had evil hearts of unbelief.
Can an evil person keep the Decalogue, in the letter?
I answer by pointing out the Pharisees, who condemned Christ Jesus, did. However, I have read where Adventists claimed they were keeping the law “wrong.” So I’ll turn to Paul and what he had to say about his dedication to the law as a Pharisee.
(Philippians 3:3-9) For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh. Though I might also have confidence in the flesh. If any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more: Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee; Concerning zeal, persecuting the church; touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless. But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:
What he felt was gain for him previously, including keeping the law and the righteousness found there, was of no value to him when it came to Christ and salvation found in Him.
Keeping the law provides no spiritual benefit. It is, according to Paul here, just another issue related to the flesh, where we are to have no confidence.
So you refrain from committing those evils prohibited in the Decalogue… big fat hairy deal. You can keep the law that says not to kill (murder) while harboring hatred in your heart for another; a fruit/work of that flesh that is the SPIRIT of murder. You can refrain from committing adultery, while committing adultery in your heart; the spirit of adultery.
You know that to do these things is wrong and evil. You don’t need the law to tell you not to be doing them. But you conclude that were the law not relevant, others (not you!) would be committing these evils with wild abandon; people who have embraced Christ sans the law you embrace; “cheap grace” that you perceive as a license to sin, which is like saying that without the condemnation of the law, people would be emboldened to do evil. You believe the role of the law in Christianity is one of regulation; it controls the Christian with an ever looming threat of punishment meted out by the law; a death sentence, that results in two things worth mentioning.
1) Your stance ignores a critical aspect of the Gospel and salvation that requires a reconciliation between you and God, accomplished by God through His sacrifice for sin so that you could be justly forgiven, and:
2) Your denial of the role of the Holy Spirit in the life of those who embraced Christ Jesus, alone, believing the Gospel unaltered and pure, where the Holy Spirit is now the guiding principle in the life of a believer, and not the law.
The things addressed by the Decalogue and much of the law are in relation to the works or fruits of the flesh, which those led by the Holy Spirit eschew due to the influence of the Holy Spirit, now producing the works / fruits of the Spirit to the exclusion of the works / fruits of the flesh; works that led to death, despite being under the law and keeping the law / Decalogue.
What those under the law, whether born under the law or those who opt for the law; the moment you embraced the Decalogue, you sinned and never knew it. You were choosing the “wrong tree” like Adam and Eve, overlooking the “other tree” of Life: The Author of Life.
You chose the idols of stone; graven images that you even agree taught you; imparted to you a rudimentary knowledge of good and evil, and where the balance of the law and prophets teach you that mankind, sans God’s Holy Spirit, are all led by the flesh, motivated by the flesh wherein dwells no good thing; sinful flesh, under the condemnation of the law you so readily embraced.
The law motivates through fear; fear of the penalty of the law; a death sentence. A law of sin and death.
God’s Spirit, placed within the believer; the “law” God places in the believer, that is what leads and guides the believer where they are motivated by the Spirit of love, leading to life. One in this condition has no desire to sin and disappoint their Father in Heaven whose Son died for them, freeing them from the clutches of sin and the law of sin and death that hung over them like a dark cloud; foreboding, looming and waiting for the payment of your sins to be paid by you.
You already rejected the Gospel and the tree of life, having chosen the other “tree” whose fruit kills, even as does the letter of the law as Paul points out in 2Corinthians chapter 3.
Rejecting Christ Jesus and the faith unfeigned in Him, solely, resulted in your fate being sealed, unless God Himself decides to deal with you, personally, even as He did with Paul. Until then, and despite what I have written here, you will remain tethered to the Decalogue; your other god, and you will continue to serve and obey it, without comprehension that the Decalogue cannot hear you and cannot save you or contribute at all to your salvation. Its sole purpose and function was to condemn the faithless; those whose faith, hope and devotion was commanded by God to be solely in Him.
